Juno News - October 07, 2021


Justin Trudeau offers a FAKE apology for going to Tofino


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

197.93428

Word count

3,277

Sentence count

187

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Justin Trudeau's ill-advised Tofino vacation is starting to look eerily similar to his illegal vacation on the Aga Khan's private islands. We ve got all the details on the show today with Candice Malan ( )!

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.200 Justin Trudeau's ill-advised Tofino vacation is starting to look eerily similar to his illegal 2016 vacation on the Aga Khan's private islands.
00:00:09.440 We've got all the details on the show today. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:17.820 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program. Thank you for continuing to watch and support The Candice Malcolm Show.
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00:01:11.440 Okay, let's get into the big news today.
00:01:13.700 So there have been some pretty major revelations about this trip that Justin Trudeau took to Tofino on Truth and Reconciliation Day last Thursday.
00:01:23.000 Now, let me just start by saying when this story first broke, I thought that it was outrageous.
00:01:27.660 That to me, the biggest component of it was the fact that Justin Trudeau lied,
00:01:31.340 the fact that his itinerary said that he was in Ottawa in private meetings,
00:01:34.720 when the reality was that his office knew damn well that he was not in Ottawa.
00:01:39.440 He was out in Tofino, or at least he was on his way out to the west coast of British Columbia,
00:01:44.180 as far west as you can get, the west coast of Vancouver Island in Tofino.
00:01:48.780 And so to me, it was the duplicity, the lies, the trying to cover up where the prime minister is and what he is actually doing.
00:01:55.580 The fact that he decided to go and take a little bit of R&R with his family in a quiet, serene location out in British Columbia,
00:02:03.040 to me, that's not that big of a deal. He just, after all, fought a grueling campaign and, you know, he's only human.
00:02:08.880 We all need some time, downtime with our families. I don't think it's a big deal that he went to British Columbia.
00:02:14.400 He's sort of from British Columbia. I know he, you know, grew up in Ottawa and he's from a Montreal family,
00:02:19.760 but his mother is from British Columbia. His mother's entire side of the family is from British Columbia.
00:02:23.640 He spent quite a bit of time growing up and in his, as a young adult in British Columbia.
00:02:28.880 So BC is sort of like a second or third home to him. And I don't think that it's scandalous in and of itself that he was there.
00:02:36.280 But now as more details are coming out, it's pretty clear that it wasn't just a lapse in judgment.
00:02:40.300 It wasn't just the fact that his office lied about where he was and what he was doing.
00:02:44.380 There seems to be something else here. And the entire legacy media, every journalist in Canada is now looking into it.
00:02:51.280 And boy, are they finding things. And again, this is looking really, really, really bad for Justin Trudeau.
00:02:57.060 So I'm going to start by talking about two explosive reports that came out of the Journals in Montreal today,
00:03:03.180 looking into the background and the history of the owner of the house.
00:03:07.780 And so I'll explain to you what I mean when I say that this is looking eerily similar to the Aga Khan scandal 0.86
00:03:13.560 that the ethics commissioner found that he was guilty of violating the ethics rules.
00:03:18.760 So let's start with Norm Spector's tweet this morning.
00:03:21.980 Norm is a former chief of staff in the prime minister's office, I believe.
00:03:25.120 He was chief of staff in the Mulrooney years. He's also a publisher, a longtime journalist.
00:03:30.840 He's an academic with a PhD. And he just spends a lot of time on Twitter posting really interesting things.
00:03:38.260 And so here he posts today, he says,
00:03:40.120 The owner of Trudeau's Tofino Beach House has links to a company in a tax haven and another that lobbied PMO to legalize cannabis.
00:03:48.700 PMO confirmed that Justin Trudeau paid for the rental but would not say how much.
00:03:53.220 So the first story that comes out about this owner, the owner of this house,
00:03:58.600 is basically that the guy has links to some things that are pretty sketchy, some pretty sketchy business dealings.
00:04:05.040 So here is the Journal de Montreal headline.
00:04:07.280 Controversial stay, Trudeau on vacation with man linked to Paradise Papers.
00:04:11.400 The husband of the owner of the villa where Trudeau stayed in Tofino has been associated with firms in the Paradise Papers.
00:04:16.840 So here we go. I'll read from the story.
00:04:18.820 And my apologies if the translations are a little bit rough. I'll do my best here.
00:04:23.020 But it says that the luxurious home that Justin Trudeau and his family occupied last week in British Columbia
00:04:27.520 is owned by a Calgary woman married to a businessman who has been linked to companies
00:04:31.860 that were established in a tax haven, according to our investigation.
00:04:35.680 The businessman, James McRoberts, also founded a company which registered in 2017
00:04:40.320 to lobby for pro-cannabis, in particular with the cabinet of Justin Trudeau.
00:04:46.680 The name of James McRoberts, the husband of Maren McRoberts, the owner of the Tofino House,
00:04:51.640 appears in the Paradise Paper list disclosed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2017.
00:04:58.300 We learned that he was a shareholder in two companies,
00:05:01.440 Pagia Limited and Rx Payments Limited, incorporated in Malta in 2005,
00:05:05.540 a tax haven in the Mediterranean. The firms specialize in internet payment systems.
00:05:10.940 The man who ran Rx Payments, Nathan Jacobson, was convicted in 2008 in the United States
00:05:16.040 for conspiracy to launder money.
00:05:19.180 It says, note that the Paradise Paper should not be confused with the Pandora Papers,
00:05:23.060 which were disclosed this week by the consortium,
00:05:25.640 and which also revealed a list of individuals and companies involved in tax evasion activities.
00:05:30.440 So there have been a series of these papers.
00:05:32.120 The first one, the big one, was the Panama Papers,
00:05:34.280 and then these other ones were the Paradise Papers, and now the Pandora Papers.
00:05:38.340 So these are just a series of investigative reports looking at sort of the world's rich and famous people
00:05:43.380 and where they keep their money, how they have these really complicated schemes.
00:05:47.240 Some of them are legal, some of them are illegal,
00:05:49.140 and they're all designed to avoid punitive heavy taxes in North American and Western European jurisdictions.
00:05:56.380 But anyway, so the individual who owned the house may have been involved in some sketchy business dealings himself,
00:06:01.980 or at least one degree removed from sketchy business deals.
00:06:05.260 And more concerning for this story and in relation to Justin Trudeau going and staying at this house
00:06:10.040 is the news that the owner of the house, or the owner of the house husband,
00:06:14.100 was registered, his company was registered to lobby the federal government,
00:06:18.500 not just the federal government, but the prime minister's office.
00:06:21.360 And this takes us to the second story that was in the Journal de Montréal today,
00:06:25.140 and this one is more information on James McRoberts.
00:06:28.080 It says that he was selling pot online.
00:06:31.200 In the months leading up to cannabis legalization in Canada,
00:06:34.160 businessman James McRoberts and his company Merco lobbied across Canada
00:06:37.980 to promote and oversee the sale of pot online through their online transaction platform.
00:06:42.940 The company, founded in 2016 in Calgary,
00:06:45.580 was listed in the Canadian Lobbyist Registry in 2017.
00:06:48.900 According to the listing, Merco payments intended to lobby directly
00:06:52.680 to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office, the Privy Council office,
00:06:56.540 Health Canada, and the Departments of Justice and Public Safety in particular,
00:07:00.520 so that the online sale of cannabis could be allowed.
00:07:03.420 So of course, Ottawa already legalized cannabis.
00:07:05.780 So it says here, Ottawa legalized the use of cannabis in October 2018,
00:07:09.260 but its online sales is still regulated by the provinces.
00:07:12.260 Merco has notably lobbied Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia too.
00:07:16.640 And this is where you get into some really dicey territory.
00:07:18.680 This is where the Prime Minister is really in hot water,
00:07:21.180 really foolish thing that he did.
00:07:23.100 So as the arm inspector pointed out,
00:07:24.440 it says that Justin Trudeau paid for the rental himself,
00:07:27.040 but he would not say how much he paid for it.
00:07:29.920 And so we can look at the listing of this house.
00:07:31.840 It happens to be up for sale right now.
00:07:34.700 Hilariously, the name of the house is called Surfer's Paradise,
00:07:37.900 which again, doesn't really help the optics of this story.
00:07:40.400 It's listed for a whopping $18.75 million, six bedroom, seven bathroom home,
00:07:47.740 6,000 square feet, and it is right on the beach.
00:07:50.280 It is an absolutely spectacular, beautiful home set on 1.2 acres.
00:07:55.960 Absolutely stunning, stunning home.
00:07:58.840 And so the idea that this home is selling for nearly $20 million,
00:08:04.140 it's hard to imagine what the nightly rate on a place like this.
00:08:07.140 My guess is that it would probably go for about $50,000 a night.
00:08:11.720 $50,000 a night, Trudeau was there for what, five nights.
00:08:14.260 So we're talking about potentially up to what,
00:08:17.040 a quarter of a million dollars to rent this house for a long weekend,
00:08:20.200 possibly even more.
00:08:21.440 I'm just speculating on the price there,
00:08:23.160 but really a house like this would go for a huge, huge premium.
00:08:27.620 And at this point, we don't know how much Justin Trudeau paid for it.
00:08:30.660 And again, this is where we get into dicey, dicey territory for the Prime Minister,
00:08:33.840 because he is staying at the home of a person who once lobbied him
00:08:37.780 for a decision that the government ultimately did, right?
00:08:40.740 This guy runs marijuana businesses.
00:08:42.840 He runs the payment platforms for selling marijuana.
00:08:46.440 And he was lobbying the government back in 2017,
00:08:48.940 likely lobbying them in favor of legalizing pot.
00:08:51.520 That's what Justin Trudeau ran on in his campaign.
00:08:53.880 And then he did.
00:08:54.840 So potentially, Justin Trudeau's decision to legalize marijuana
00:08:57.460 could have made this individual a lot of money.
00:08:59.840 And then now we have this individual renting his luxury home to the Prime Minister.
00:09:05.180 Did the Prime Minister pay the full rate?
00:09:07.280 Was it a discounted rate?
00:09:08.620 Was there some kind of a quid pro quo going on here?
00:09:11.680 It's possible that that's not the case at all,
00:09:13.240 that Trudeau paid the full retail price,
00:09:14.900 that he didn't know this individual at all.
00:09:16.840 But again, the optics of this are just so bad for the Prime Minister
00:09:19.880 because we don't know if there's a quid pro quo.
00:09:22.260 And of course, Justin Trudeau has a long history of doing these kind of things.
00:09:25.940 It's starting to sound like the Aga Khan vacation where he went 0.87
00:09:30.180 and had this beautiful, luxurious vacation at the Aga Khan's private compound,
00:09:35.040 private island in the Bahamas.
00:09:37.260 Justin Trudeau, of course, was found guilty by the ethics commissioner
00:09:39.920 of taking an illegal aircraft ride.
00:09:42.440 So out of the whole part of that illegal vacation,
00:09:46.120 the thing that the ethics commissioner dinged him on was sort of a technicality.
00:09:49.240 He's not allowed to ride in a private aircraft.
00:09:51.020 And he had to get to this private island.
00:09:52.860 And he had to take the Aga Khan's helicopter.
00:09:55.180 Of course, to the Canadian public, the bigger, bigger concern
00:09:57.580 was that the Aga Khan lobbies the Prime Minister.
00:10:00.560 The federal government gives huge grants to the Aga Khan Foundation.
00:10:04.180 And so you have all of this money being passed back and forth.
00:10:06.780 And in return, Trudeau is on this luxury vacation.
00:10:10.400 And that was at the very beginning of his tenure as Prime Minister.
00:10:13.860 Here we are, what, five years later,
00:10:15.460 and he's still doing the same kind of things.
00:10:17.380 He hasn't learned his lesson.
00:10:18.620 He's still taking luxurious vacations from people who are lobbying his office,
00:10:23.560 from people who potentially could be in a conflict of interest.
00:10:26.400 It's also sort of like the We Charity scandal,
00:10:28.400 where he refused to recuse himself from meetings in Cabinet,
00:10:32.140 where the Cabinet was making decisions on whether to give the We Charity
00:10:35.040 this huge, huge hundreds of millions of dollars,
00:10:37.800 nearly a billion dollar contract,
00:10:39.860 from a charity that has also paid the Trudeau family privately for speaker's fees.
00:10:44.980 It's just such a bad judgment.
00:10:46.640 The fact that Justin Trudeau thinks that he is above the rules,
00:10:49.120 that the rules don't apply to him,
00:10:50.520 really, really bad stuff from the Prime Minister.
00:10:53.940 And so, like I said, the media is all over the story.
00:10:56.920 The legacy media is really unrelenting
00:10:58.980 because they know something fishy is going on,
00:11:01.860 that the more that we dig into the story,
00:11:03.740 the more it unravels.
00:11:05.180 And the worse it looks for Justin Trudeau.
00:11:07.680 This is starting to look perhaps like his worst offense
00:11:10.340 in terms of these really, really silly lapses in judgment
00:11:13.340 and potential ethics violations.
00:11:15.620 So, the media was hounding Trudeau about this.
00:11:18.380 They asked him about it yesterday.
00:11:20.200 And this is what that looked like.
00:11:23.000 Hi, Prime Minister.
00:11:23.880 Ashley Burke, CBC News.
00:11:25.700 What made you decide to take a personal trip to Dofino
00:11:28.120 on a day that your government set aside
00:11:29.820 to honor the victims and survivors of residential schools?
00:11:32.400 Like I said, it was a mistake to travel on that day.
00:11:38.080 This is an important moment for Canada
00:11:40.580 and for Canadians to reflect not just on the past,
00:11:43.200 but on the present.
00:11:44.680 I was in error to choose to travel on that day.
00:11:49.660 And I apologize directly to Chief Casimir
00:11:52.140 for not having attended the event that she invited me to,
00:11:56.040 which is why I'm looking forward to going to the community
00:11:58.840 and sitting down with them in the coming weeks.
00:12:01.000 So, I want to break apart that apology,
00:12:03.560 that fake apology that Justin Trudeau gave,
00:12:06.220 because he always does this.
00:12:07.600 So, first of all, he apologized for traveling
00:12:10.140 on Truth and Reconciliation Day,
00:12:11.640 which the fact that he traveled on that day
00:12:13.840 is not that big of a deal.
00:12:15.320 He's the Prime Minister.
00:12:16.160 If he had to travel to multiple cities
00:12:18.120 to attend multiple ceremonies,
00:12:19.560 that would be completely fine.
00:12:21.380 No one would have any issue with it
00:12:22.840 and we wouldn't be in the situation we were in.
00:12:24.680 So, the way that he apologizes for traveling,
00:12:27.780 which isn't the misdeed.
00:12:29.060 The misdeed is the fact that he,
00:12:30.760 well, there's so many, right?
00:12:31.840 It's like he is the one that created this holiday,
00:12:34.660 supposedly a solemn day,
00:12:36.100 not a holiday to go and have a beach vacation,
00:12:39.120 but a holiday to have a solemn remembrance
00:12:41.540 and reminder of some of the awful things
00:12:43.600 that happened in Canada's history
00:12:45.080 in regards to our First Nations people
00:12:47.340 and particularly residential schools.
00:12:49.660 So, Trudeau is all about virtue signaling
00:12:52.220 and he was doing a heck of a job virtue signaling
00:12:54.480 about this day.
00:12:55.660 And then when it actually came,
00:12:57.040 he selfishly just took the day to himself
00:12:59.000 with his family.
00:12:59.960 So, he didn't attend any events
00:13:01.120 despite being invited.
00:13:03.200 And he just, he really didn't do anything
00:13:05.820 to acknowledge the day
00:13:07.140 other than lie to Canadian public
00:13:08.820 and go on a beach vacation with his family.
00:13:12.200 So, no, he's not apologizing
00:13:13.920 for the right aspect of things here.
00:13:16.440 And then he goes back to this familiar line
00:13:18.300 that this is like a learning opportunity
00:13:19.720 for the whole country.
00:13:20.540 So, he doesn't really take personal responsibility.
00:13:22.860 He steps back and says, you know,
00:13:24.600 this is a time for us to all reflect
00:13:26.560 on, you know, how we can do better in the future,
00:13:29.480 which, again, is sidestepping the issue.
00:13:31.660 We're not worried about the country doing better.
00:13:33.740 The country did a pretty good job
00:13:34.960 of acknowledging this holiday
00:13:36.260 and recognizing much of the mistakes
00:13:39.180 that we made in the past.
00:13:40.780 It's the prime minister who didn't.
00:13:42.280 So, it's not about traveling.
00:13:44.040 It's about not recognizing it.
00:13:45.580 And second, like I mentioned earlier on the show,
00:13:47.260 it's about lying.
00:13:48.160 It's the fact that the prime minister's office
00:13:49.660 put out his official itinerary
00:13:51.580 that said he was in Ottawa,
00:13:53.380 knowing damn well that he was not in Ottawa.
00:13:55.120 The prime minister's office,
00:13:56.180 whoever put out that personal itinerary,
00:13:59.060 knew that he was going to Tofino.
00:14:01.560 It's not like you can just sort of
00:14:02.920 spontaneously decide to go.
00:14:04.740 It's not like something that could just
00:14:06.020 sort of spur of the moment,
00:14:07.360 you know, we don't have anything going on
00:14:08.480 or our meeting fell through.
00:14:09.500 Let's jump on a plane and go to Tofino.
00:14:12.300 No, it requires a lot of work,
00:14:14.200 a lot of planning,
00:14:14.860 a lot of things in advance,
00:14:16.560 including renting this house
00:14:17.560 and setting up that deal,
00:14:19.560 getting his whole family,
00:14:20.920 getting the plane loaded,
00:14:22.100 everything like that.
00:14:22.840 This is a premeditated act.
00:14:24.300 It wasn't a spontaneous act.
00:14:25.600 So, yes, it was an intentional lie
00:14:27.420 on behalf of whoever put out that itinerary,
00:14:30.220 which ultimately the prime minister
00:14:31.540 is responsible for.
00:14:32.720 So, this is really a mealy-mouthed apology.
00:14:35.380 It's a non-apology.
00:14:36.140 It's a fake apology.
00:14:37.480 And I am not the only one who said that.
00:14:39.920 This is from Black Lock's reporter.
00:14:42.280 And it says,
00:14:42.960 PM's apology not accepted.
00:14:45.380 So, here I'm going to read a little bit
00:14:46.560 from this Black Lock's report today.
00:14:48.000 It says,
00:14:48.580 the Native Women's Association yesterday
00:14:50.200 questioned if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
00:14:52.100 had suddenly seen the light
00:14:53.440 after he apologized for observing
00:14:55.160 Truth and Reconciliation Day
00:14:56.280 with a beach holiday.
00:14:57.360 Do better, said the group's CEO.
00:14:59.680 Sadly, we recognize this moment
00:15:01.060 of contrition comes after much public pressure,
00:15:03.380 not necessarily because
00:15:04.560 you have suddenly seen the light.
00:15:06.540 She said in a statement,
00:15:07.240 it will now be up to you
00:15:08.460 to rebuild trust in our communities.
00:15:11.040 The prime minister yesterday
00:15:11.940 said he was sorry
00:15:12.700 after photographers caught him
00:15:13.920 strolling by the sea
00:15:14.880 at Tofino, BC
00:15:15.960 and enjoying a glass of beer
00:15:17.280 on the patio
00:15:17.840 on the beachfront resort property.
00:15:19.800 Trudeau holidayed on September 30th,
00:15:21.560 the first ever federal observance
00:15:23.040 of Truth and Reconciliation Day
00:15:24.420 to commemorate the deaths
00:15:25.700 of Indian residential school children.
00:15:28.640 Traveling on September 30th
00:15:29.880 was a mistake
00:15:30.520 and I regret it.
00:15:31.500 Trudeau told reporters
00:15:32.480 and the story goes on
00:15:34.340 to remind Canadians
00:15:35.360 that the prime minister's office
00:15:36.420 was not truthful,
00:15:37.380 was not honest about where he was.
00:15:38.900 It says the prime minister's office
00:15:40.340 at the time
00:15:41.000 flew an Indian residential school
00:15:42.720 survivor's flag
00:15:43.540 outside his vacant office,
00:15:45.500 falsely issued a statement
00:15:46.660 claiming Trudeau
00:15:47.360 was in private meetings in Ottawa
00:15:48.660 and told reporters
00:15:49.820 he wasn't on a beach.
00:15:51.620 So again, they distinctly lied,
00:15:53.700 which is what Trudeau
00:15:54.840 should be apologizing for,
00:15:56.320 not the fact that he traveled.
00:15:57.740 But again, Trudeau is the master
00:15:59.140 at side swiping the issue,
00:16:01.540 downplaying his misdeeds
00:16:02.960 and just kind of pretending
00:16:04.320 that nothing happened.
00:16:05.100 Usually the media is all too happy
00:16:06.820 to go along with it.
00:16:07.840 But in this case,
00:16:08.760 let me just say
00:16:09.360 the legacy media are angry.
00:16:10.600 They're out for blood
00:16:11.280 and this is not going to end well
00:16:13.100 for Justin Trudeau.
00:16:14.620 I'm Candace Malcolm
00:16:15.140 and this is
00:16:15.800 The Candace Malcolm Show.
00:16:17.100 I'm Candace Malcolm