Juno News - February 24, 2023
Legacy media pushed fake news about Freedom Convoy
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Summary
In this episode of Fake News Friday, we discuss the Public Order Emergency Commission's report on the Freedom Convoy, the Emergency Act, and the use of fake news by the legacy media to demonize and delegitimize anti-protest protesters, and how the fake news was used to justify the government's decision to invoke the emergency act.
Transcript
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hello and welcome to you all this is another edition of fake news friday here on true north
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it is friday february 24th and it is that opportunity in the week for us to wade through
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the whirlpool of lies and deception to make sense of it all debunk the fakery and treachery that
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lurks among us on the airwaves in print online on social media everywhere else enough of a preamble
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let me introduce my colleague harrison faulkner host of ratioed on true north i'm andrew lotten
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harrison big week last week that ended up preempting this program with the release of the public order
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emergency commissions report so it's been a couple of weeks since we've chatted in this milieu but how
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has the week been for you well the week was good you mentioned the freedom convoy the emergencies
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act report of course that kind of took the shine out of a lot of the other important stories
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but you know i was reading the cbc and i came across an article which shook my entire my entire
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outlook on the country under you know i was thinking about these important issues or i thought were
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important issues but i realized that actually none of that matters the most important thing is that
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there aren't enough black owned wineries in canada so again this is all part of the the cbc mandate to
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to put the news in front of us that canadians aren't seeing to give us the important hard-hitting
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facts and these these stories are so critical so you know if we're going to go into the freedom
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convoy the emergencies act report but again without the cbc we would never know about these other very
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important issues but let's first start off with one of the big takeaways from the public order
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emergency commission's report which was obviously a report that generally speaking sided with the
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government both in the decision to invoke the act as well as the specific measures that justin
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trudeau and christia freeland and company used under the emergencies act but one interesting
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takeaway was the commissioner's finding that there was quite literally fake news from the legacy media
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about the freedom convoy he was talking about misinformation and he said yes you know there was
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some misinformation from people in the convoy protest but he said i'm also satisfied that there
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was misinformation about the freedom convoy which was used as a basis to unfairly discredit all protesters
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in one example protesters were blamed for an act of arson in an apartment building which the police
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later confirmed had no links to the protest and this was a claim that i'll just give you like a 15
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second primer on was repeated by some very senior politicians including the leader of the ndp
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jagmeet singh violence is commonplace we saw an example of this violence an attempted arson downtown
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of an apartment building where people started a fire when they exited they taped the door
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there were many more i think my colleague cosmon gerges editing there found like two minutes of that
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and i have not seen any apologies from the people doing that and as commissioner rillow mentions
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one of several examples of misinformation being propagated and promulgated about the convoy so
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it doesn't change the overarching uh tenor and tone and conclusion of the report but i think it is a
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big takeaway that now we have it's just a matter of what has been adjudicated in this country of
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finding that yeah the media was passing nonsense about the convoy a year ago everyone watching the
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freedom convoy knew that that was going on andrew it it didn't take uh it didn't take a judge to
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uncover this reality we all knew this was going on um but you know it's it's interesting even in the
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emergencies act inquiry hearings we had the opp officer pat morris i believe his name was
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he basically said that the the media he he called this out in the in the inquiry itself so everyone
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watching that knew that surely if this report was going to be accurate if this report was going to
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have anything that canadians could look at and take at and take at face value not just assume well
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it's a government inquiry of course they're going to clear the government but if there's anything in
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it they had to put this in there because we all saw it it was the it wasn't just the arson hoax which
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of course did take up a lot of time on the airwaves it was of course also the cbc anchor saying that
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there was russian influence that there was perhaps a russian influence in the convoy again
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completely unfounded and on top of that there's now reporting that the government relied on fake
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cbc coverage to justify invoking the emergencies act so the the basis that the government used to
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invoke the emergencies act was was on cbc coverage which was uh dodgy at uh dodgy at best fake at worst
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uh so again this is all we all knew this was the case it's good to see it in paper but the reality is
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i don't think canadians can take much away from this report the government got away with it uh and
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we all knew that that was going to happen yeah and when you mentioned superintendent pat morris i
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should tell people that haven't followed this as closely he wasn't just some random opp beat cop not
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that that would undermine his uh comments he was actually the opp intelligence officer that was
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responsible for intelligence and data collection about the convoy for the ontario provincial police and
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superintendent morris uh had one line here that what was he was seeing in the media did not reflect
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what police intelligence was showing now some people might be perhaps inclined to make a joke
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about police intelligence but his reports were very detailed and quite frankly he was seeing that
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the media was talking about this big violent insurrection-y white supremacist vibe and opp intelligence
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reports which some of them were tabled in the course of the public order emergency commission hearings
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were saying yeah bouncy castles people having a good time it's peaceful there isn't this violence so
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the media was trying to pursue this narrative about the convoy and as a result when misinformation did
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come up what's now been found is that they deliberately amplified this data either out of laziness or out
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of malice and what pat morris said there is exactly what so many canadians on the ground in ottawa at the
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time of the freedom convoy were telling me and other independent journalists like yourself how many times
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did we go up to people and they said you know i saw these reports coming from the cbc that this was
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a group of angry people they were racist perhaps they were waving these nasty flags and then they
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said well i wanted to go down and check it out for myself because i don't really believe what the cbc says
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which is a good rule of thumb and then that's exactly what happened they came down to the ottawa grounds
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and realized that what they were getting from the media was complete crap it had no it was not even
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accurate at all and there was there was clearly there was clearly an agenda on the part of the of the
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legacy media to demonize the freedom convoy to try and make it to be something that it wasn't and it
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never will be and that was their that was their attempt turns out that i guess they got away with
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it i mean if the government's getting away with the legacy media is probably going to get away with
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it too but at least canadians can can it can take away that the justice uh the justice overseeing the
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process rouleau called him out on it so that itself is good but like i said before there's nothing
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really much that we can take away and celebrate from this it's a dark day for canada it's a bad
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moment for us and i think this report will probably backfire on canadians going forward when another
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government does the exact same thing yeah arson russian actors you get to take your pick of the
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misinformation but there was a lot of it going around far more than there was of white supremacy
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and homelessness food shelter theft and statute desecration all of this other stuff that was
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amplified without factual basis time and time again and interestingly enough i know i mentioned
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this on my show but it's related to this so i should i should include it here cbc ran this feature
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on the national about the freedom convoy loosely on the one-year anniversary and they failed to include
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a single person connected to the convoy or even supportive of slash sympathetic of the convoy
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when they were talking so they talked to quote-unquote experts they talked to critics they were
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talking about where is the freedom convoy movement now but they curiously didn't ask anyone who was
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in that movement to weigh in or even perhaps an author who might have written a best-selling book
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that cbc has thus far ignored about the freedom convoy not sure who that could have been there's
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surely someone out there uh but this is time and time again an example of how cbc has only wanted
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to highlight very specific perspectives about the convoy uh what else is going on harrison
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so andrew this very important story from the globe and mail well they dropped two important
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stories the first one on friday was about cesus election interference this one equally as important
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is about gender neutral acting categories for canadian screen awards of course this is an opinion
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article from matthew chantalwa who thinks that acting categories for canadian screen awards you know
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the awards shows that you never watch they're too uh they're too biased they're they're not they're not
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gender neutral enough having a male acting category and a female acting category that's old world stuff
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andrew we need to move to the new world where everyone gets lumped in together and we can just
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become this one lifeless homogenous pot of actors yeah i mean i think you're burying the lead here
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harrison i think the real uh breaking news takeaway here is that there's something called the canadian
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screen awards which i don't think canadians knew about and i think i might have vaguely seen
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something on like a poster in the subway uh several years ago and had forgotten about until now so
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i guess in terms of ginning up some publicity for the canadian screen awards he's done something
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uh very useful here but yeah the issue is that it's too binary so he thinks the oscars should also do
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away with uh best actor and best actress the grammy should the grammy should do away with best
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male singer best female singer and it's an odd thing because when you break out the categories into
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that binary you actually have twice as many awards and you're ensuring that uh there's always going to
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be female talent recognized each year which we have been told is a very important thing to do
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so the idea that we need to just throw them all in one giant non-binary gender neutral mess
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uh to just seems to be a solution in search of a problem here well there's a couple points to make
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on this andrew first being that the canadian screen awards again i did a little bit of research before we
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did the show today on this canadian screen screen awards and it's basically because none of us watch it
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what it is it's like the participation prize for canadian uh movie uh i hesitate to call them stars
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because we don't really know who they are but canadian movies television it's like the participation
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prize before they get to the real award the oscars now again if they do this gender neutral thing
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andrew i did realize this it will help clean up the uh the historical uh the historical record here
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because you never know we're moving to a part now where an actor could be a man one day they could play
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a man's role in a movie and then they could transition to becoming a female or vice versa
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in the uh in the case of ellen elliott page you know this way actually if we look back we can say
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well it makes more sense that it's gender neutral because that way they're not switching back and
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forth you know you don't have one person winning male prize and then one per the same person winning
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the female prize this way we're moving into the new world andrew the the brave new world of of one big
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gender neutral uh gender neutral mixing pot of actors and actresses well i guess we'll have to
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get rid of those words too now i guess what it'll be actors yeah just actors we default to uh to actors
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or or act x's maybe act x that's more like a new one but that's more like how this all started was
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there's this uh cbc show that we have mocked on fake news friday before so we're familiar with it not
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as viewers uh in the sense of enjoying it but as viewers in the sense of fake news friday producers
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uh it's uh i don't can't remember the name of it but oh it's sort of it's called uh as in like
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sort of relevant except not really uh sort of is a cbc comedy in the the broadest sense of the word
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uh about a non-binary pakistani canadian nanny i mean what show isn't these days but uh the show stars
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bilal beg who is a canadian writer and actor who uh themself is non-binary i i always want to make
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sure i'm being uh respectful here uh but bilal beg did not apply in either category because of a
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discomfort with the male female binary now i think this is a missed opportunity bilal should have
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applied in both categories uh and that way you double your chances of winning problem solved well
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that's uh that that's that's some thinking strategy here but it's you you're downplaying
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this sort of show andrew you're not giving it enough credit you see it is the award winner
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it is the winner of the cbc gem peabody award so come on now you say sort of relevant geez it's the
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cbc gem peabody award winning show featuring the pakistani non-binary nanny i mean this is some serious
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stuff let's not downplay it at all for our audience no they should redo that old uh fran drescher show
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the nanny and make that make it about uh pakistani non-binary nanny that's the way you can uh ensure
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that you get the peabody award uh and also win a uh gender non-neutral uh wait no gender no neutral
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not non-neutral a gender neutral see it gets so complicated when you do this actor and actress
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is easy i've remembered this hollywood's been structured around this uh you know i i might just
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watch this for the sole purpose of seeing like some old-timey actor invariably slip up and then
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be heading right towards the uh cancel mill on this so i couldn't even tell you after all this story
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when or where the cbc screen awards are the canadian screen awards but if you watch them
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uh be mindful that they might be getting less binary by the day uh this is one you teased at the
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very beginning of this program here now i don't know if you're a a wine connoisseur i certainly enjoy
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wine and and well i think it's easy to poo poo canadian wines there are some good ones uh and some
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good wineries and when i uh go for a wine i uh say oh yes you know it's a little bit uh oaky or you know
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oh the tannins are a little bit nicer oh look at the legs and the the glass and uh it's a full
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bodied i i don't think you know to get we need to get some wine content on the show andrew from you
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we need to get no i'm all for the true north wine hour they keep telling me not to do it but i'm i
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should do maybe fake news friday will be fake news wine day uh before long but i i never sip a wine and
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think i don't think there was enough black representation in this well andrew because that's
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because you're not you're not thinking about the progress we need to make as a society in this
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country i'm not i'm not a wine woker no no you're not you've got to be thinking about the the color
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of the skin of the person who picked the grapes to make the wine you have to think about the color of
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the uh the skin color of the person who was involved and in the whole process you know over
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the uh what was it over over april i mean i was able to go tour a french winery and it was a great
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experience i got to see all these things again like you though i didn't stop to think about the
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the skin color of the workers at that winery that just i think shows my inherent bias shows the fact
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that i'm not really living in in the canada the cbc wants us to live in which as they say you know
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we need to think about this i love how it starts black people in canada's wine industry say they are
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underrepresented and it's time to examine the culture and break down barriers that hold others back
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again this is the kind of hard-hitting journalism that all canadians really want to see it's why we pay them
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so much money yeah they quote in this story uh trina plamondon who is a bipoc wine consultant
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again i didn't know this was a job title like to be a wine consultant in and of itself i think is a
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pretty uh niche position to be a bipoc consultant seems to be an increasingly relevant position but
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a bipoc wine consultant i don't know if she's a consultant on bipoc wines if she's a wine consultant
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who happens to be bipoc or if she consults on bipoc winery i so there are different
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strains that you could take from this job title but what trina plamondon says is that the biggest
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barrier for black people trying to get into the wine business is not seeing themselves represented
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which leads to a belief that a future career isn't possible i would hesitate to say that
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systemic racism is holding back black people from jobs in the wine business in canada i think it's a
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very uh snobby and closed business a lot of the times you have family connections and pedigree
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that are getting people in so there certainly may be an existing demographic but uh if you can become
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a bipoc wine consultant surely you can also penetrate the wine industry regardless of your
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skin color i love this part in the article where they're quoting a black wine cellar owner so clearly
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this man's been able to break down the structural barriers that the cbc have so eloquently described
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for us i love this part he says byfield says he has heard from black wine consumers who have told
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him that they were uncertain if they'd be welcomed at wine tours tasting rooms and wine stores they
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were in they were intimidated by the process he said and that just kept them away is he talking
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about the lcbo here it's a very strange line andrew i've never heard this before that black people are
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concerned that they won't be welcomed in wine stores i'm pretty sure that they take anyone's money
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for booze that's kind of how the government works and operates these stores i've never heard that line
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uh it's it's it's very eye-opening stuff i gotta tell you well i mean they talk he's talking about
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wine tours so presumably he's talking about winery but even then i i'm not aware of a winery in
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in ontario or elsewhere in canada that's ever turned anyone away because of their skin color
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our colleague at true north rupa subramanya weighed in on this she said you know 3.5 percent
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of canada's population is black they're an incredibly relevant group there's a significant history
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in canada of black history especially in nova scotia and southern ontario so i think it's
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critical to the country story but it's a small demographic group so rupa saying here singling
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out a particular group that's statistically unrepresented in a certain sector as a share
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of total population is one of the problems there's also an unproven inference that unrepresent
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underrepresentation is because of discrimination and racism she says there's lots of reasons why
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black south asians persians etc don't own wineries in canada and they're asserting without evidence
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that racism is to blame so i thought that was a very uh good uh comment from rupa who again is not
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taking aim at the underrepresentation of people of indian origin in owning wineries well again these
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are the kinds of things like you know for example i don't think andrew will see a cbc article about
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the underrepresentation of white people in the shawarma business for example but again that's
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that's basically i wouldn't want i wouldn't want white white shawarma no i don't want to wait i
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want the person who has like the recipe that's been in their family for like 45 generations from
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syria to make my shawarma well fair point fair point but the the i'm still going to take the point
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the point stands that i don't think we're going to see an article from the cbc like that but again
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one one can hold out hope just like you can hope that maybe the cbc would ask you to do an interview
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on the national about the freedom convoy i think in both instances we'd be waiting quite a while
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yeah it all comes full circle well that wraps us up for today another edition of fake news friday
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in the can here i hope you have a wonderful weekend we'll be back next week with more of
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the program and all of the other shows on true north including ratioed with harrison faulkner the
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andrew lawton show with yours truly the rupa subramania show and perhaps wine wednesday if that
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finally gets approved by management so have a great weekend everyone we'll talk to you soon