Juno News - February 13, 2024Less than four in 10 Canadians trust the media – surprised？
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Summary
Trust in institutions is in decline, and it s a problem that needs to be re-instilled, argues Andrew Lawton. In this episode, he takes a look at a recent survey by Statistics Canada, which shows a decline in Canadians' trust in institutions.
Transcript
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welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true
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north hello and welcome to you all this is the andrew lotten show canada's most irreverent talk
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show here on true north i am i was having a wonderful day this morning for like five minutes
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so yesterday after the show i checked the mail i didn't even look at it i just threw it into a pile
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and figured i'd get to it later today i got to it and uh the first thing i see on the pile is
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the property tax bill. So anytime government is there with its ever-extending hand out,
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it tends to put me in a bit of a foul mood. But at one point, I will pay the property tax bill,
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and then I will really be in a foul mood. But that will not be today, because I want to come
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on fresh. Although maybe the show benefits if I come on in a bit of a sour mood, because then I
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just can lash out with full strength of reverence at whatever is aggrieving me on a given day. But
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nevertheless hope you are all having perhaps a less sour day although maybe you all got your
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property tax bills around the same time it is tax season and then we're gonna have to pay CRA
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no no no I'm working myself up again I can't do it will not do it let's talk about the media that'll
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surely calm my nerves right so this was a rather fascinating so the statistics Canada survey came
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out I've come to enjoy statistics Canada reading by the way my wife is like a bit she reads the
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Statistics Canada stuff. And she was telling me, oh, you should read Statistics Canada. So I did.
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And lo and behold, I see this graph they've put out today as far as trust in institutions
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is our concern. Now, here, I want to read the numbers to you because the graph doesn't give
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you precise figures. The one on the bottom of each section there, the red line, that is the result
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of this most recent survey. So fall of 2023, a few months ago, but they just came out today.
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the middle line the light blue is spring so that's about six months earlier and then the blue is a
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fall of 2022 so a year earlier so each of these sections is showing a progression the question
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is about confidence in institutions trust in institutions now I want to focus on the bottom
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section there for a moment because as you see trust in the Canadian media is at 37 percent
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37% of Canadian surveyed say they have trust in the Canadian media.
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Now, it's a bit of an increase because six months earlier, it was 28.
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So whether trust has increased by 6% or 7% in the past year,
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or whether this is just an aberration on the survey, a statistical anomaly, I don't know.
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The only one of these that Canadians like less than the media,
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we can take that off now, is federal parliament, which is 28. So when the only one people trust
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less than you are federal politicians, that is, I think, a bit of a danger here. And then you have
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above that more trust in the school system, the justice system, in the courts, and police. 65%
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of Canadians trust police, 37% trust journalists. So when there is a big crime scene and the police
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show up and then the journalists show up. Twice as many people like the uniformed guys and gals
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than like the ones there with their notebooks and recorders. Now, these figures are obviously
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a survey. They're not necessarily as precise as they could be, but I think trust in institutions
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is a very significant issue that we've all seen in decline. Now, I remember asking in Davos,
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Christine Lagarde, I played the clip, I think yesterday or on a previous show recently,
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I asked her about how Canadians can have trust in digital currency when institutional trust
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is in such a dismal state. And she just used that lovely line of, I can't take questions right now
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because I'm in a quiet period. So not doing her part to re-instill trust in these institutions.
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So let's dig into the why. I think the reason is, well, I think there are a couple of reasons here.
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I think number one, Canadian media has not done a traditionally good job of earning trust. I think
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in a lot of cases, and I'm not talking about individual reporters, I'm talking about the
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institutions and corporate structures as a whole, have kind of been resting on their laurels for
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many years and not giving a value proposition to Canadians as to this is why you should trust us.
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Instead, they just turn around and say that everyone should. Now, my colleague Cosman Georgia
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had a great piece this week at True North in which the VP of the Toronto Star was saying that unless
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government subsidizes media and unless government forces the big tech companies to subsidize media
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then pseudo-journalists are going to take over so he said the only way to protect real journalism
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the Toronto Star sorry I I didn't mean I meant to say that with a straight face the only way to
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protect the real journalists of the Toronto Star is through government funding otherwise the evil
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scary dark web pseudo journalists are going to be the ones who come on. Now, this is, I think,
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a fascinating, fascinating development here. And it's one of these things that we see more and more
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in Canada, because in Canada, you throw the subsidization approach in to the mix, and that
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makes it so that journalists all of a sudden have this pitch. Whenever you hear people talking about
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misinformation and disinformation. What you have are people trying to make there be gatekeepers
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on truth, gatekeepers on what real journalism is. And look, some guy with a blog in his basement,
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realizing full well, the place from which I'm broadcasting right now, is not the same as
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someone that has an established operation where there are checks and balances and editors and
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all of these things. But I think journalists have tried to use that contrast to the point where it's
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no longer believable for a lot of people because you've had big stories that have been broken
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by bloggers in their basements. Look at the Harvard, look at the Harvard plagiarism scandal
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with Claudine Gay. That was broken by two sub stackers, two independent journalists without
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any institutional backing. And it was only after they broke the ground that mainstream media outlets
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eventually followed them because they realized that it would look too bad if they were left out
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of that story. So it isn't just enough to say, well, you know, we have our own processes and
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procedures. We're the real journalists, not these guys, because Canadians are flocking to those
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guys. And I pardon the gendered language, but Canadians are flocking to independent media who
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are doing this sort of work. So it really isn't all that surprising that the trust is in decline.
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And then you look at interactions like this. Now, I realize these are polarizing to people,
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but I share them because they're revealing one way or another. This was Pierre Polyev yesterday
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Why did your party want to grant over $100 million
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We don't want to give any tax dollars to the mainstream media.
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Our belief is that the mainstream media and all...
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Did you grant your party's decision to grant regulatory relief?
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the media that is bought and fade poor which where are you from by the way which which outlet are you
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in which outlet which outlet Canadian press ah okay Canadian press so you're talking about tax
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dollars for media isn't CBC your biggest right isn't no I can answer yeah you want an answer
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100 million dollars in regulatory relief to the mainstream media when would you like me to respond
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Okay, good. Okay, great. So, of course, you are a tax-funded media outlet and spreading Justin Trudeau's message.
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So, you're interrupting me again. You're interrupting me again. I am answering the question.
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Why do you regret granting $100 million in regulatory relief to the mainstream media?
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Your question is false. So, if you can allow me to correct your falsehoods, then we can answer the question directly.
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so false Canadian conservatives do not believe in giving tax dollars to media
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outlets that's Justin Trudeau that's Justin Trudeau that's Justin Trudeau
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okay if you if you don't want me to answer the question I'll move on to
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someone else you're a tax you're a tax funded mouthpiece to the PMO that's the
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reality so I'm trying to I'm trying to but you're heckling are you gonna are
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you gonna let me answer the question are you just going to heckle on behalf of
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Justin Trudeau? Which is it? I would love the answer. Great. So our party does not support tax
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dollars for media outlets because that's when we end up with biased media like you who come here
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and articulate the PMO talking points rather than delivering real news to the Canadian people.
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Justin Trudeau gave Bell Media and other media tax dollars supposedly to protect media jobs
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And then what happened? They all got laid off. So the supposed justification for giving Bell all this money was that it was going to save media jobs.
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Well, they all got fired. So I guess that wasn't the real reason for giving tax dollars to the media.
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The real reason was for him to buy support from the media, which is what it actually did.
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So we believe that media should be driven by readership, viewership and listenership.
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And that's what allows it to represent the Canadian people rather than taking marching orders from the PMO.
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Now, just to give you a bit of context there before I show the Liberal government's response to that, what the reporter was asking about was a story.
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The Conservatives, along with the NDP and Bloc Québécois, voted in favor of, according to the framing of this Canadian press story, $40 million in regulatory relief for Bell.
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Or I guess it was $100 million to companies in general, but of that, $40 million went to Bell.
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Now, this is, I think, relevant here because what happened was there was a conservative motion to a liberal bill, to the Online News Act, actually, to abolish licensing fees that companies had to pay.
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So regulatory relief kind of masks it was government not collecting this money.
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And the rationale from the conservatives, from the NDP, from the Bloc Québécois, I believe at the time was, well, hang on, we're just trying to have a level playing field here.
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So we're not going to pick and choose who has to pay what.
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So it was made to sound as though there was a bailout of some kind and it was trying to expose a hypocrisy.
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Now, I would have appreciated it if Pierre Pauliev had just addressed the question, but he was trying to scrap with the premise of it.
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And I think that's a fair thing to do in general.
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I know these sorts of stunts, to call them that without any judgment one way or another, tend to do very well.
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because he is diverging from how conservatives have in the past handled the media where they
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get bludgeoned but still try to appease and bend over backwards and make friends where he's saying
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listen I'm just I'm not going to be afraid to call you out and we're going to do this now
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what's interesting is the way the liberals are responding the liberals want to be the great
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media defenders they even dispatched heritage minister Pascal Saint-Ange today to go out and
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give this talking point. I just want to get back on the altercation between Pierre Poiliev yesterday
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and a journalist from Canadian press. First of all, I want to say that he's pretty thin-skinned.
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It's our job when we're politicians to answer questions from journalists. We're accountable
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to the Canadian population and it's the journalist's job to ask those questions.
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Some questions are difficult. Some questions are easy. Yesterday's question was pretty easy.
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He was just asked to explain why his party introduced an amendment to lift fees for Canadian broadcasters.
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It's a pretty easy question. It's his party that brought that forward.
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So, yes, when you're a politician, you need to answer questions.
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And when you're attacking the press, when you're attacking our free press, you're also attacking democracy.
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Sorry, I was just doing some statistical debating here because our friend Chris Sims, who thankfully is watching the show, hello Chris, had sent along the footnote of that chart that I showed and the chart had showed, and I shared these numbers with you live, that trust in the media was at, if I recall the exact number here, 37% by Canadians.
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But weirdly, the footnote is kind of confusing here because it says that in provinces, trust in media had very, very low trust in Atlantic Canada, where only 15% trusted the media, Ontario and BC where 13% did, and the Prairie Provinces where 12% did.
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So in order for those numbers to make sense, Quebec's trust in the media would have to
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be sky high, so I'm not exactly sure how they get to that because Quebec has high confidence
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So I'll drill into these numbers a little bit, but I think that's incredibly relevant
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here that, you know, yeah, even if we accept at face value that overall trust in media
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that Canadians have, 37% here, you go outside of Quebec and we're talking about 12, 13,
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15% trust in media, which is absolutely abysmal. And I think understandably so. And look, we saw
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that clip from Pierre Polyev and the CP reporter. There was one last week. This has become just a
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regular occurrence, oftentimes with either Canadian press or CBC. Those are the two that he seems to
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get into it with. And there are people that don't like it. I get it. There are people that do the
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whole, oh, this is not prime ministerial. But at a certain point, you have to look at why trust is
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declining in the first place, and I think it's because journalists have oftentimes, not all
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journalists, but many journalists have kind of wanted to hide behind the question mark. Now,
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if someone else has made up this term before, I've never heard it, so maybe I'm coining it for the
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first time, but they want to hide behind the question mark. You say you frame something as
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a question, and whatever you said before that question mark is defensible because, oh, I'm just
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I'm just asking questions. But really, journalists are in many cases making arguments. They are
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belligerents in the political fight, not just these passive, neutral, truthful observers.
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And this is where Pascal Saint-Age, I just have to roll my eyes because she comes out and says
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this is an attack on democracy. It's an attack on a free press. No, it's an attack on questions
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that Pierre Polyev thinks, and people can decide for themselves, are off base. Questions he thinks
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are loaded and does not want to answer. And the system works when both sides are putting pressure
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on the other. Politicians shouldn't be deferential to the media. Journalists should not be deferential
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to politicians. You know, the liberals are in no position to complain about this because what
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the liberals do, they just ban reporters. They don't want to take questions from the press
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conference. What would you rather? I would rather Justin Trudeau say, you know what, we're going to
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let the rebel at our press conferences. And if they ask a question I don't like, I'm going to
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give it to them. That's what Pierre Polyev does. He can say, yeah, you know what? We don't want
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government funded media at our press conferences. That would be wrong because then you are banning
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access. Debating and arguing are not attacks on press freedom. They are the system working. A
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free press is a press in which the media is held accountable and the political class is held
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accountable. And the consumers, Canadians are the ones who can decide for themselves which they
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like better, which they feel has the moral high ground, if either of them. And I mean, looking at
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these trust figures from Six Canada, I think Canadians are generally speaking saying they
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like neither. I wanted to pivot to this rather horrendous display in Toronto yesterday, Mount
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Sinai Hospital, a renowned hospital. It's obviously Jewish in origin and focus, as the name would
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suggest, but it is not a hospital staffed by only Jewish people or serving only Jewish people.
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Apparently, Sean was born at Mount Sinai, and to my knowledge, Sean confirms he is not Jewish. So
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there we go. Mount Sinai Hospital gave this show its producer. We're very grateful for that. But
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for the anti-Israel, and I would say in many cases, outright anti-Semitic activists, Mount Sinai
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is a fair target in their hatred of Israel and Jews.
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Just yesterday, we had a mob targeting this hospital.
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Right there, you have a Palestinian flag being hoisted on the entrance, the front facade of the hospital by people who have no business being there.
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And interestingly enough, when the pandemic was on and you had people protesting COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates at hospitals,
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you had no shortage of condemnation from the political class saying this is terrible.
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You had laws being passed by provincial governments to criminalize or severely restrict the disruption and blocking of hospitals, of these pieces of critical infrastructure.
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But there has been nary a peep from a lot of those folks who condemned this sort of action during the COVID era, which, by the way, was never as aggressive as what we just saw there.
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Just as a reminder, this is what Justin Trudeau said at the time.
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The Liberal Party of Canada, if re-elected to form government, will make it a criminal
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offense to block access to buildings that provide health care, whether that's hospitals,
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clinics, abortion clinics, pharmacies, testing centers.
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It is not okay that across the country, hospitals are having to put up barricades today to manage
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the mobs coming their way and further we're going to make it a criminal offense for anyone
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to threaten or intimidate any health care practitioner on their way into work
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in the practice of their exercise of their duty or a patient on their way to get medical services
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so there are two stories here number one is i think the establishment silence on this relative
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to their condemnation when it was a different type of protester, but also the blame that goes
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squarely on the protesters themselves. Barbara Kay is a phenomenal columnist at the National Post
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and the Epoch Times and has been one of my favorite guests on this show over time, and she joins us
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again. Barbara, always good to talk to you. Let's just get this right out of the way here. The
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pretense that this is anti-Zionism and not anti-Semitism is long gone, is it not?
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I would think so. I would think that October 7th kind of stripped that veil and shredded it. There is no difference when people are screaming free Palestine and they're carrying that flag, which is not the flag, by the way, of a state. It's the flag of an intention. And the intention is to eradicate Israel. So, yeah, we're talking anti-Israel, but also anti-Semitism, really of a very hardcore kind.
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I mean, if someone wants to protest at the Israeli consulate in Toronto, I may disagree
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with it, but I'd say have at it because you're at least protesting the thing that you claim
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to object to if they want to protest at the Israeli embassy.
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When we saw Jewish-owned businesses being targeted very early on, I mean, some of the
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footage looked like, to be frank, a new Kristallnacht.
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And then you see the protesting at Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Now, I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of Mount Sinai's leadership, but I've
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never heard of this hospital having any connection to the Israeli government or Israeli politics or
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foreign policy. It just happens to be Jewish and have Sinai in the name. Am I missing something
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here? No, you're not missing anything. I know very well the origins of the Mount Sinai Hospital
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because if you go back far enough in Canadian history, you don't because you're very young.
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but back in the day there were quotas on Jews in medical school and it was very difficult for
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Jewish doctors to get internships or residencies in the other hospitals and the Jewish community
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said you know what let's start our own hospital same as the Jewish general hospital in Montreal
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so they did but obviously these hospitals hire everybody they're very multicultural places of
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course and uh they're open to the community so everybody uh their patients come from
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the entire community and so it represents its legacy uh and it does mean that you can get kosher
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meals there if that's your inclination but aside from that it's uh and rooms for you know uh
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uh circumcision for you know ceremonies and that sort of thing that's that's what's jewish about
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and there's a chapel i think um but apart from that it's a community hospital like all the others
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but you know these clowns they they see a name that sounds jewish they just i mean they don't
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really do their homework on this they they just see it as a target because it has a jewish name
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or a jewish uh you know implication or like heather reisman's store uh it's owned by a jew
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delicatessen owned by a jew i mean they don't care if the clientele or the staff or everybody else is
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nothing to do with uh being jewish so yeah that's yeah and and you know i go back to
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for years and years ago we have seen the bds movement the boycott divestment sanctions movement
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which is in and of itself i think rooted in anti-semitism and it would historically protest
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uh anything that had even a peripheral relationship to israel i mean aroma coffee is a coffee shop
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that's israeli owned they do a wonderful job whenever i'm in toronto i try to go to aroma
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it's not a political operation it just happens to be by virtue of geography an israeli company so
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you've got you know activists that boycott that we've now taken this bds movement which i think a
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lot of people thought was just this little corner of the university thing that didn't really affect
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anyone and we've now seen the export of this to hospitals like like i've always been a cynic
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about these things but i i never imagined that bds would extend to hospitals well just to make
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you a little more cynical andrew i can tell you that uh it's very common practice for uh even
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hamas leaders uh just recently for example i think it was ismail honey as he's the head political
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honcho for hamas who lives in qatar uh his daughter or his sister or somebody in his family
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was just in Hadassah Hospital in Israel for a life-saving operation. Very common for the big,
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you know, the big cheeses in the most anti-Semitic movements. When they want expert medical care,
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they send them to Israeli hospitals. And where they are, by the way, treated with exactly the
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same professionalism and concern and care and compassion as anybody else. Even terrorists,
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by the way who end up in israeli hospitals are very well treated uh palestinians routinely they
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can't get away if their child has a um a heart condition for example that's too sophisticated
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for the hospitals in in the west bank that they bring them they're treated they go home in some
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cases um they have treated people who have been very grateful at the time and then came back to
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try to blow up a pizza parlor you know so it's it's a sort of strange world we we uh inhabit when
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we get into the you know the the the the lower reaches of uh cynicism promoting facts this world
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yeah well and that's always been i mean the most glaring hypocrisy from from you know dictators
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islamist and otherwise is that they're all about death to the west but where do they send their
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kids to go to school i mean kim jong-un i think he you know north korea if i recall he was educated in
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either in Europe or somewhere like that. You have Iranian dictators and mullahs. They send
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their family members to Switzerland, the United States, France for medical treatment. And you're
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right. And you mentioned that he lives in Qatar. For people that don't realize this, even they
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don't want to live in this Gaza that they say is such a wonderful, wonderful place were it not for
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the evil Zionist Jews that are wreaking havoc on it when they haven't even been there for 15 years
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now so where do you think this is going because i saw this display at the hospital wasn't all that
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surprised by it now uh but i i did note that conspicuous silence from people that uh if you
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know those who are critical of vaccines were protesting a hospital would have wanted to send
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in the police and now are silent well i'm glad you showed that clip of what uh justin trudeau said
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some years ago, and he was lending his moral authority to an idea and to what he thinks is
00:27:09.540
the moral, you know, let's have some moral clarity here. It is not acceptable. This is not acceptable.
00:27:16.320
This is not who we are, blah, blah, blah. But when we have an incident like this, and we've had many
00:27:21.120
similar incidents, that's his moment to get up and say, I'm distressed by this. I'm upset by this.
00:27:27.140
as a Canadian, this disturbs me greatly. This is not who we are. And all the shibboleths that he
00:27:33.240
says with all the other stuff, he's, he's not in the frame here. He should be going down to
00:27:40.340
the Mount Sinai hospital and holding a press conference outside it and say, this is one of
00:27:44.980
our great hospitals in this city. There is no way that anybody inside this hospital, staff,
00:27:52.900
um patience anybody should feel one minute you know i mean the speech writes itself all he has
00:28:00.440
to do is is you know and and by the way not say uh and islamophobia islamophobia is bad too like
00:28:07.860
not even if he does the first thing you know he's gonna i know he's gonna tack it on but if he could
00:28:12.660
just for once forbear to tack on that little you know and we're equally you know upset about
00:28:18.680
Islamophobia, because there are no Muslim schools or mosques or at the moment that are
00:28:24.940
being targeted for hatred by anybody, let alone Jews. And that's where you get the message
00:28:33.540
trickling down. And all he has to say is, you know, if he, just what you said, if you have a
00:28:41.040
problem uh you have you have free speech here and you have uh the right to your opinion if you have
00:28:48.600
a problem with what's going on in the middle east and you think it's israel's fault go to the israeli
00:28:54.020
embassy and protest there do not like i mean why am i writing the speech for him i you know he's
00:29:00.440
not going to pay me but wouldn't somebody in the pmo think that up and say hey come on uh let's
00:29:06.300
let's write a sort of a nifty little you know perky speech for and and take you know fly into
00:29:12.860
toronto for the day and make a day of it like put on some other speeches elsewhere he could stop
00:29:20.400
this i mean let's let's put it this way he might not be able to stop all of it but he could
00:29:25.440
certainly muffle the uh uh the the cheering squad who might be just a little embarrassed after their
00:29:36.400
prime minister has told them this is not who we are as canadians uh to say you know i think i'll
00:29:41.120
skip this demonstration so he could certainly bring the temperature down on this and he hasn't
00:29:45.040
yeah and at the very least i think the moral clarity would be incredibly important barbara
00:29:49.680
kay always enjoy your work in the national post the epic times and wherever else you pop up thank
00:29:53.760
you so much for coming on today thanks andrew all right thank you and just before we move on
00:29:58.480
to the next subject i wanted to bring up this related thing here because canada has decided
00:30:03.120
it's going to open its doors metaphorically to people from gaza who have connections to canadian
00:30:08.800
citizens and uh look i think absolutely there are many many many people in gaza who understandably
00:30:14.960
want to flee hamas they are people who have been trapped there by hamas hamas itself has been the
00:30:21.120
greatest barrier and also because other Arab countries want nothing to do with this. Egypt,
00:30:26.400
you want to see a well-secured border. Take a look at the border between Egypt and Gaza. The
00:30:32.320
Egyptians want nothing to do with this. Jordan, which is made up of ethnic Palestinians, wants
1.00
00:30:38.000
nothing to do with people from Gaza. So a lot of the blame is put on Israel, but it should be put
00:30:42.960
on these Arab neighbors that are doing nothing. But nevertheless, I do believe that understandably
0.98
00:30:48.000
innocent people in Gaza that want to flee this, they have the right to avail themselves of the
00:30:53.380
refugee and asylum systems elsewhere in the world. Now, Canada has decided it's going to allow some
00:30:58.880
of these people in. Whether you agree with that decision or not, we have protocols in place and
00:31:04.340
we should have protocols in place to make sure that anyone who's coming to our country belongs
1.00
00:31:08.860
here. They are going to comply with our laws. They have not done any of the things that make
00:31:12.640
them ineligible for entry. Now a liberal appointed senator from PEI, Percy Down, had tweeted and I
00:31:19.740
couldn't find the original tweet but he tweeted what I think is the obvious here which is that
00:31:23.980
you know people in PEI are nervous about terrorists. They're nervous about terrorism. I've been to PEI
00:31:29.860
twice. I've never felt the terror threat there but I understand that people there might be like any
00:31:34.440
other Canadian concerned about terrorism. He was saying if anyone from Gaza is coming to Canada I
00:31:39.180
just want to make sure we've done our security checks so that they are not Hamas agents. Hamas
00:31:44.080
is not using other countries' generosity as a way to sneak into the country and bypass checks.
00:31:50.000
That's what he said. Is that controversial? I don't think so. I think that is an entirely
00:31:54.600
commonplace position to hold and to espouse. But he gets called Islamophobic. The PEI BIPOC
00:32:01.720
alliance or whatever it's called says it's racist. And what does he do? He capitulates. He puts up
00:32:07.200
this tweet. It's a bit of a half-hearted apology, but he says, upon reflection, the tweet I sent out
00:32:12.440
on Gaza was wrong. My apologies for my mistake. Not convinced it is the most thoughtful apology,
00:32:19.080
but nevertheless, he deleted. And then he issued a longer apology because he saw people were upset
00:32:24.420
about this apology. So he tried to do the whole middle ground thing. And he said, okay, no, no,
00:32:29.840
we need security checks for all international students. But he is still being called racist
00:32:48.740
So I don't think Usher from PEI was the one that,
00:32:53.540
but they're still saying it's racist, it's Islamophobic.
00:32:58.220
I'm just saying that in general, we need to do this.
00:33:06.100
So what's happened here is you have someone saying the obvious.
00:33:11.240
He's saying what Canadians think, which is that, well, you know,
00:33:13.900
we know that Hamas has a lot of people in Gaza.
00:33:17.060
We know that they're all trying to get out of Dodge
00:33:19.080
because none of these Hamas operatives want to be killed by Israel
00:33:21.900
as they're going through Gaza trying to destroy and obliterate Hamas.
00:33:25.720
So it stands to reason that, yeah, some of the people that are claiming,
00:33:28.480
oh, but I'm an international student or, oh, I'm a refugee,
00:33:31.020
oh, I'm seeking asylum, are probably going to be aligned with Hamas.
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00:33:34.720
I mean, even UNRWA, which is the, well, not even UNRWA, I think UNRWA's connection to terrorism is well established by now.
00:33:41.860
There were tunnels and a operations center and headquarters underneath the UNRWA headquarters, tunnels that Hamas people were using to get from the UNRWA headquarters around, tunnels they used to get into Israel as well.
00:33:56.360
This is exactly what's happening here. And what is it that the UN does? Oh, we into gambling in
00:34:03.060
this establishment? No, we had no idea. Nothing, no clue any of this was happening, even though
00:34:08.480
people have been saying for years that terrorists had co-opted and Hamas had co-opted UNRWA and
00:34:14.960
many people in UNRWA. So the reason I bring that up is that we know that anyone coming in who is
00:34:21.680
from Gaza to Canada or another country has a higher likelihood than, you know,
00:34:29.760
whoever, random person A coming from, let's say, Ethiopia or coming from another part of the world
0.66
00:34:37.160
to Canada and seeking asylum of being a terrorist because the terrorists are running like rats on a
00:34:44.420
sinking ship here and their way out, their way out is to get into a place like Canada.
00:34:50.600
so it's shameful that you had a a member of the senate i mean i don't hold the senate in
00:34:58.360
tremendously high esteem but a member of the senate who's been in politics for a long time
00:35:02.800
who was one of the few people to come out and speak independently about justin trudeau
00:35:06.640
he had said i think it was a couple of months ago it's time for a new liberal leader if memory serves
00:35:11.360
i think that was uh percy down and he was he worked for jean chretien he was the chief of
00:35:17.820
staff to Jean Chrétien from, I think it was 2000, I'm just looking here, 2001 to 2003. So he's a guy
00:35:24.900
that knows politics very well and he gets shamed into submission for saying the obvious, saying
00:35:31.420
what's on everyone's mind when he dares to speak up and criticize and condemn the terrorist
00:35:38.980
co-option of the immigration system. So this is what happens when you try to do the right thing
00:35:46.000
and you apologize and you try to find a middle ground,
00:35:48.620
there are some people with whom you simply cannot find middle ground.
00:35:52.860
There are some people that you simply cannot find any source of agreement with.
00:35:57.420
And when you see this, you know, I've actually gotten,
00:36:00.760
I know this is a polarizing subject for people.
00:36:03.060
I've had emails when I have spoken about this issue,
00:36:06.780
people who say, oh, you know, I don't like the whole pro-Israel thing.
00:36:10.840
We can disagree and I welcome people who agree on some things
00:36:15.600
but this is too important an issue for me to be silent and I'm not going to both side something
00:36:21.600
where there is no both sidesing. Now absolutely I think we can criticize the Israeli government
00:36:26.200
absolutely if you feel like it you can criticize the way Israel has chosen to respond to what's
00:36:32.320
happened on October 7th but when you start saying that the real bad guys here the real bad guys are
00:36:39.000
the Israelis and when you start protesting hospitals and when you start saying anything
00:36:43.820
with a Jewish name, a Jewish owner is fair game. Do I support your right to freedom of speech?
00:36:50.340
100% absolutely. Do I support scaling the front of the hospital to fly the Palestinian flag? No.
0.81
00:36:56.400
Do I support standing out front of the hospital and shouting? No. Do I think it is legal and should
00:37:03.460
be legal to do that? Yes, providing you're not blocking entry or exit. But the legality and
00:37:10.680
the morality are very, very different. And I can absolutely, as a free speech, well, frankly,
00:37:16.580
as a free speech absolutist, I can say, yeah, I support your right to say and believe and protest
00:37:21.760
vile things, but I will not hesitate to call you out when you're using that freedom in an absolutely
00:37:28.140
disgusting and despicable way. And that's precisely what's happened on the, is precisely
00:37:34.900
what's been happening on uh j on this hospital situation and on other jewish-owned businesses
00:37:41.700
in toronto and you know people have said this is not a new phenomenon but it's been an awakened
00:37:46.580
phenomenon and the anti-semites have clearly decided that they no longer feel the need to
00:37:51.460
hide there's no shame or stigma in holding these beliefs and holding these views and that is a
00:37:58.580
profoundly profoundly dangerous and i'll say quite sad development so uh one of the things
00:38:10.260
to follow up on the ban on oil and gas advertising
00:38:15.540
But we've had some technical issues with our guests
00:38:18.240
and unfortunately we're not able to get her on.
00:38:19.860
So we will, I don't know if they're technical issues actually.
00:38:23.960
So hopefully we will be able to reschedule that
00:38:27.780
But my thanks to all of you for tuning into the show today.
00:38:32.820
well, what was I going to say? I was going to say on Canada's
00:38:39.280
talk show. We'll talk to you tomorrow. This is True North.