Juno News - March 01, 2023


LAWTON： China has backed Trudeau since 2013


Episode Stats

Length

6 minutes

Words per Minute

166.40964

Word Count

1,151

Sentence Count

70

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I want to say first and foremost what I said last week, which is that China's election interference is not something that we should view in isolation.
00:00:08.360 China is meddling in pretty much every Western institution imaginable.
00:00:12.880 You see China's hands all over scientific research, all over the academic world, politics, of course, and certainly the media.
00:00:21.600 So the fact that China is also trying to interfere in and sway the results of elections should not surprise us.
00:00:29.360 But we have obviously a sentimentalism that exists around democracy because elections are very important.
00:00:35.300 Democracy is important.
00:00:36.440 There should be sentimentalism there, which means that we should also be mightily offended when we find out in tangible, concrete ways, not only that China is trying to meddle in our elections, but they've done so in rather sophisticated ways.
00:00:50.680 And the intelligence eyes in Canada told the government about this, who basically just looked at it and said, OK, whatever.
00:00:57.180 So what's happened now is the Liberals have been backed into a bit of a corner.
00:01:02.200 As we've seen, Justin Trudeau has been faced with what is fairly concrete proof from a CSIS person or people who are leaking to the Globe and Mail that there was a pretty long runway in which CSIS was raising its concerns with the government.
00:01:18.180 At one point, as we've learned in the past week, CSIS said to the Liberals, you know, this candidate of yours in Toronto, Han Dong, you really, really, really should drop him as a candidate.
00:01:30.540 The Liberals apparently said no.
00:01:32.740 He was a candidate.
00:01:34.280 He won a seat.
00:01:35.200 He's now a member of parliament and has been oddly nonspecific when it comes to the questions that he's been asked about whether he was the beneficiary of significant support from China's consulate in Toronto.
00:01:49.560 In fact, he issued a statement in which he said, no, no, no, this is all false.
00:01:54.060 Nothing's nothing to see there.
00:01:55.260 And managed to not even use the word China in his statement.
00:01:59.260 He didn't say, I take China's interference seriously.
00:02:02.100 He didn't mention them at all, but claimed that he had nothing to do with whatever it is he's being accused of.
00:02:07.960 Justin Trudeau, for his part, has said that anyone raising these questions is a big old dirty racist.
00:02:13.660 Take a look.
00:02:14.440 Just a follow up on that question on CSIS and Han Dong.
00:02:18.880 Are you saying that they didn't warn you or were you warned and you chose to dismiss it for those reasons?
00:02:27.320 I just wanted some clarification.
00:02:30.160 Once again, one of the things we've seen, unfortunately, over the past years is a rise in anti-Asian racism linked to the pandemic
00:02:41.820 and concerns being raised or arisen around people's loyalties.
00:02:48.980 I want to make everyone understand fully that Han Dong is an outstanding member of our team
00:02:57.320 and suggestions that he is somehow not loyal to Canada should not be entertained.
00:03:06.740 So the insinuation is that Mr. Dong, like several other members of parliament or candidates,
00:03:14.120 was the recipient of support from the Chinese regime,
00:03:19.260 either directly or indirectly through the consulate, through other people.
00:03:22.720 And this is a pretty significant allegation.
00:03:24.960 No one is saying that Han Dong is not a loyal Canadian or a patriotic Canadian.
00:03:28.700 People are saying that, you know, clearly China was seeing in him something of value to them.
00:03:33.480 And we have to wonder what that is.
00:03:35.580 And one interesting observation that comes out, there was a day, and I can't remember when it was,
00:03:40.880 when parliamentarians were voting on a motion to do with the Uyghurs.
00:03:45.360 And Mr. Dong had been in parliament all day.
00:03:47.820 He had been voting in favor of this motion and that motion and on it went.
00:03:51.920 And when it came time for the motion on Uyghurs, he conveniently wasn't in the chamber.
00:03:57.100 He had actually left for what ended up becoming a unanimous motion.
00:04:01.180 Now, you might ask, why would someone, maybe he had to go to the bathroom, maybe he had
00:04:06.480 to take a call, who knows what happened.
00:04:08.980 Maybe he got his wires crossed and there was a scheduling error.
00:04:11.620 But why would a guy who had been in the House of Commons conspicuously be absent when it came
00:04:16.520 time to vote on something when the vote did not go the way that the Chinese wanted?
00:04:21.800 So this is a legitimate question that we should be able to ask.
00:04:25.140 But to Justin Trudeau, if you want to have this discussion, you are a racist.
00:04:29.120 And it's almost as though this is a strategy by the Chinese regime to neutralize itself
00:04:34.620 from criticism, which is very much important and very substantive criticism.
00:04:40.280 What you need to remember is that China has been backing Justin Trudeau since at least 2013.
00:04:48.020 And this was an important development of this that just came out today, where a Chinese businessman
00:04:52.240 wanted to give $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation conveniently right after Justin Trudeau became
00:05:00.000 leader of the Liberal Party.
00:05:01.640 Now, you could obviously donate to the Trudeau Foundation at any time.
00:05:05.360 Personally, I would rather light my money on fire and then light myself on fire just in
00:05:10.620 case.
00:05:10.980 But you could donate, if that's your bag, to Justin Trudeau's foundation.
00:05:15.000 Sorry, Pierre Trudeau's foundation.
00:05:16.700 Totally different, totally independent, arm's length, etc.
00:05:20.500 But if that's what you want to do, go for it.
00:05:22.300 But it does strike you as a bit odd, I hope.
00:05:25.040 If you want to donate, having never donated to the foundation before, immediately after,
00:05:30.100 the guy who shares a name with the foundation becomes the presumptive next prime minister
00:05:34.880 of Canada.
00:05:35.580 That was what a businessman connected to the Chinese regime and the Chinese consulate did.
00:05:41.760 He gave them $200,000.
00:05:43.220 Oh, the guy at the Trudeau Foundation who received that donation is now the guy that's overseeing
00:05:49.460 the report into China's interference in the election.
00:05:52.340 So remember that if you remember nothing else.
00:05:54.580 And I would also say beyond that, remember that first Justin Trudeau said this never happened.
00:05:59.180 He was never warned.
00:06:00.100 He didn't have all this information from CSIF.
00:06:02.440 And now he's saying, well, it's all a load of crap.
00:06:04.980 The information's not real.
00:06:06.700 You've got Gerald Butts on there doing the Globe and Mail as fake news schtick, which is
00:06:11.380 as Trumpian as it gets.
00:06:13.800 And this is what we're now seeing from Justin Trudeau.
00:06:16.540 So whether it will spell the end of Justin Trudeau, I think people should always remain
00:06:20.700 realistic about this because no other scandal has.
00:06:24.300 But at the same time, we also need to realize this is big.
00:06:27.920 And you have people that have never said an unkind word about Justin Trudeau now that are
00:06:32.160 getting very uncomfortable with how this story is unfolding.
00:06:41.380 So what do you want to do so?
00:06:46.860 And, you know, keep going.
00:06:50.080 I think it's open.
00:06:54.220 All right?