Juno News - Liberal strategist launches SHOCKING personal attack on Conservative MP

00:00:00.000 For the second time in days, liberals are taking personal attacks at conservative MP

00:00:09.840 Jamil Javani after his diplomatic mission to Washington DC. This came out of a political

00:00:16.080 podcast. The host is a well-known liberal insider, former national campaign chair for Paul Martin.

00:00:22.720 Here he is referring to Javani's physical appearance.

00:00:25.440 He's too unattractive physically to be successful in politics.

00:00:33.200 He's not going to be the leader of a political party.

00:00:37.600 Look, I don't know if I'd agree with that. I don't know if I'm not going to weigh in on that.

00:00:42.940 Which part? And he's too unattractive?

00:00:44.400 You got to break this down, Fred. I know it's day one, but come on.

00:00:48.840 Look, as soon as the election was over, he immediately put out a...

00:00:52.440 I can't believe you're going to dismiss this. It's not mattering. Of course it matters.

00:00:57.160 I don't... Look, I think he's well-spoken, and I'm not ever going to say if a guy looks good or bad.

00:01:02.440 I just can't do it.

00:01:06.040 The attacks on his appearance are particularly cruel because Javani, a black man, lost his hair while

00:01:11.400 undergoing chemotherapy. Ben Mulroney responded on X with this post.

00:01:17.400 I'm old enough to remember a Tory attack ad that mocked Jean Chrétien's facial paralysis.

00:01:25.480 It was beyond the pale. This is that.

00:01:29.560 Just days ago, Liberal MP John Paul Danko compared Javani to a notorious Nazi-sympathizing anti-Semite.

00:01:37.000 A U.S. hostile government, deliberate destruction of global allegiances, and the stability that our

00:01:44.760 country has relied on. We have a Conservative Party of Canada's own, Unity Mitford, who is attempting to

00:01:50.520 freelance negotiations with the American president right now.

00:01:53.720 Our guest today is Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilly. Brian, welcome to the show.

00:01:58.840 Good to be with you again, Mark.

00:02:00.520 All right, so you've written about the incident involving the Liberal MP from Hamilton West,

00:02:05.480 I think it is, John Paul Danko, and now we have another personal attack on Javani

00:02:10.600 for his appearance. It seems particularly cruel, but what's going on here? I guess that's my first

00:02:16.520 question. How do you account for this?

00:02:19.400 Well, Liberals want a Team Canada approach, and by that, they don't mean everybody working

00:02:24.440 together. They mean Team Liberal approach. And if you do anything that is off Team Liberal brand,

00:02:29.480 then they're going to attack you. So, John Paul Danko, Liberal MP for Hamilton West,

00:02:33.960 and Castor Dundas, I believe he might be my parents' MP, depending on the border changes.

00:02:41.720 He stood up in the House of Commons while Jameel Javani was down in Washington and called Javani

00:02:53.320 Unity Mitford. And if you don't know who Unity Mitford is, well, she was a British socialite born

00:02:59.960 into an aristocratic family in 1914. In the 30s, she became enamored with Adolf Hitler,

00:03:06.440 moved to Germany, supported the Third Reich, and tried to get other Brits to do the same. 0.54

00:03:11.320 So, Jameel Javani is being called that for going down to Washington, meeting all the same people that

00:03:17.240 Mark Carney met with, that Dominic LeBlanc has met with, that other top Liberals have met with,

00:03:22.760 to try and say, hey, you know what, let's get past our differences and come to a trade deal.

00:03:28.360 That makes you a Nazi sympathizer? Is John Paul Danko going to call Mark Carney

00:03:32.360 Unity Mitford, or a Nazi sympathizer? And then you've got David Hurley, who was one of Paul

00:03:39.400 Martin's top advisors, helped bring in the juggernaut, the biggest majority, oh wait, no, they didn't.

00:03:45.080 He helped Paul Martin get a minority in 2004, get a loss in 2006, helped Kathleen Wynne lose dramatically

00:03:55.000 in 2018. And he's on his Hurley Burley podcast, which is quite popular among politicos, and says,

00:04:02.280 Jamil Javani is too ugly or not attractive enough to be successful in politics. What?

00:04:09.800 Okay. So, you know, you've heard the saying, Mark, if you're taking flack, it means you're over the

00:04:16.520 target. I think that Javani's getting under the Liberal skin. I was talking to him the other day

00:04:21.800 about his trip to Washington, and he said, you know, he felt good about it. And he was like,

00:04:26.520 I believe him when he says he genuinely wants to help the government secure a deal for Canada,

00:04:31.320 that he's putting Canada first country over party. And the Liberals seem threatened by that

00:04:38.200 and want to undermine it. But Javani said, no, they were good meetings. Of course,

00:04:42.920 part of the reason he went down is he's close friends with Katie Vance, the vice president.

00:04:48.520 They're in a fantasy football league together. Still, they were classmates at Yale Law School.

00:04:53.880 Javani, I believe, did a reading at Vance's wedding. They've kept in touch. You know, it's not like,

00:05:01.160 oh, I haven't seen you in 20 years. They've kept in touch. And they come from similar backgrounds,

00:05:07.000 which is not privileged, and they work their way up. So using those connections, politics is about

00:05:12.600 people. Politics is about making connections. Using those connections should have been embraced

00:05:17.400 by the Liberals. Instead, they've insulted him. Even Mark Carney was dismissive and insulting.

00:05:23.800 Melanie Jolie outright lied about him. And then David Hurley's comments about his looks and

00:05:28.840 John Paul Danko calling him a Nazi sympathizer. And by extension, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler.

00:05:34.440 None of this is good.

00:05:36.120 Did Javani show up to federal Liberals? Is that what happened here by getting meetings with Trump,

00:05:41.800 J.D. Vance, and I believe Marco Rubio? Is that what happened here?

00:05:46.440 Marco Rubio and very importantly, Jameson Greer. Jameson Greer is the US trade representative.

00:05:51.640 He's the lead guy on trade negotiations. Look, these guys are able to get meetings with all of

00:05:58.440 these people, or most of them. But, you know, obviously there is a sticking point somewhere.

00:06:06.840 Mark Carney is well-liked by Donald Trump. You see that when they're together. Trump seems to

00:06:12.040 genuinely like him. But Carney won't lean into that to get Canada a deal. He seems to want to lean into

00:06:17.480 not getting the deal because it's good for him politically. Perhaps they do feel threatened by

00:06:23.080 Javani though, that he was able to be at ease. You know, he's a backbench MP. As Carney pointed out,

00:06:29.400 I don't believe he's the trade critic for their party and he's not a minister and he's not the

00:06:33.320 prime minister. And then he made a comment to the effect of, this is all just for the media.

00:06:38.360 Yeah. He's, he's been dismissed as a freelancer, as you know, going rogue, but there's a particularly

00:06:49.000 nasty undercurrent to the Italians. He didn't go rogue though. He didn't go rogue. You can ask 0.99

00:06:57.800 Peter Palliev, do you support this? And Palliev has told me, yes, absolutely. If this helps the country,

00:07:04.840 I'm all for it. I was a bit surprised because when Javani first made the public comments last fall,

00:07:11.000 I thought, well, this has to be, you know, him doing his own thing. Uh, the boss can't be happy

00:07:16.680 with him trying to help the liberals. And then I was interviewing Palliev at the end of the year,

00:07:20.760 just before Christmas. And I asked him about that. And he said, no problem. Uh, Jamil has my full

00:07:25.960 support in this because the country needs it. And that should have been the, the attitude of the

00:07:31.560 liberals, Mark. The country needs this. We want team Canada. Unfortunately for them,

00:07:37.560 team Canada only includes people who play in liberal red jerseys.

00:07:43.000 I'm wondering if it's an extension of their dislike, strong dislike for Trump. Maybe that's what it is.

00:07:49.080 And they see him as kind of an insider because the unity Mitford reference, she was kind of a notorious

00:07:56.840 groupie. I mean, they didn't have that word, but she, she would follow Hitler around and go to his, 0.82

00:08:02.760 the places where he would hang out. And I mean, to me, she was like a political groupie who became 0.99

00:08:07.720 kind of an insider. And then she came out as a rabid anti-Semite and joined the British fascist

00:08:14.440 party at the time. And so, I mean, the comparison here is bizarre. Uh, you've called on that particular

00:08:21.160 MP to apologize. So far that hasn't happened, has it? No. And there's been no calls for him to

00:08:28.440 apologize from the conservatives. I think they're just letting it, uh, slide, letting it be water

00:08:33.240 under the bridge and letting it show who the liberals really are. Um, you know, this week on this front

00:08:40.920 has been the liberals at their worst. They've called for cooperation from the conservatives.

00:08:45.880 They're getting cooperation from the conservatives and now they're rejecting cooperation from

00:08:50.120 conservatives and hurling names with people. Um, if it hadn't been for the shooting in British

00:08:56.120 Columbia, maybe things would be different, but that, uh, of course dominated Wednesday and in the

00:09:01.560 early part of Thursday, you know, continues to dominate in the headlines. So, uh, that's taken away

00:09:06.680 from things like name calling in parliament, which, you know, the speaker should really call out Danko for that.

00:09:14.520 You would think that that was going to happen, but it never did.

00:09:17.960 Let's check gears a little bit on the Ontario liberal scene, because my understanding is that

00:09:24.440 they're going to allow people who are not citizens to vote for the next leader of their

00:09:30.280 party. You know, what's going on here? Well, unfortunately, most parties allow

00:09:36.600 non-citizens to vote in internal party elections. And my view is all of them have to clean it up, 1.00

00:09:43.320 uh, to varying degrees. They're all bad at the federal and provincial level. They're all bad,

00:09:50.040 but most parties say you at least need to be a permanent resident. So you're living here permanently.

00:09:55.880 What the Ontario liberals are going to do is allow temporary residents to vote.

00:10:01.560 Why? You're, you're going to let your leader be chosen by the, uh, what is it? Four to five million

00:10:09.960 people who have come to this country on student and work visas. You know, we've seen this before, 0.99

00:10:15.720 by the way, with the federal liberals and hand on, uh, the accusation there was that China used Chinese,

00:10:23.960 foreign students. They'd bust them in. They told them who to vote for. We want Handong to be the 1.00

00:10:30.040 liberal candidate in Don Valley North. And he was elected claims of Chinese interference backed up by

00:10:36.840 CSIS. Now he says he had nothing to do with it. Fine. We'll take him at his word. But China clearly 0.97

00:10:41.960 wanted that man. Is China going to select the next leader would, you know, that doesn't seem to bother

00:10:48.040 liberals, but what about, what if the Americans decided, Hey, you know what? We should pick the next

00:10:52.600 Ontario liberal leader in American foreign interference. A lot of Americans live in Canada.

00:10:57.720 They could do that. Uh, this is utterly bizarre that they would allow this in my view. It should

00:11:03.400 be one set of rules. If you can't vote in a general election at the federal or provincial level, you

00:11:09.480 cannot vote for nomination meetings for party leadership, any of that. If you're not a citizen, you

00:11:16.920 can't vote. Unfortunately, I don't believe that we enforce the citizenship rules on voting

00:11:22.280 strictly enough in our general elections either though. Yeah. It really opens the door to foreign 1.00

00:11:27.240 interference though, doesn't it? I mean, you would think that we'd be particularly sensitive about

00:11:32.440 that given the report that came out a while back about interference in the 2019, the 2021 election,

00:11:39.720 and probably in the last election. And so you would think that that would be an issue for the

00:11:46.360 leadership races because of course you, you would think that would be an issue for the federal

00:11:52.200 liberals as well, Mark. But remember, Mark Carney is forging a new strategic partnership with China.

00:11:58.360 And China is not the only country engaged in, uh, foreign interference in this country. Russia does,

00:12:04.200 although that's mainly on the disinformation front, trying to undermine institutions. Um, the, uh,

00:12:10.760 uh, uh, China is the big actor. India tries to undermine different diaspora communities and they want to 0.98

00:12:17.960 make, uh, you know, every Sikh temple, uh, look bad and, uh, you know, foment, uh, division there. But

00:12:25.160 China really gets involved in trying to select candidates and they should seriously be worried 0.96

00:12:31.480 about this. And the fact that they're not, uh, tells you how bad the, uh, shape the party is in. I mean,

00:12:37.800 this was the dominant party in Ontario from 2013 to 2018. And they only just got official party status

00:12:45.960 in the last election back in February. Uh, but they're leaderless and, uh, they're basically,

00:12:52.760 uh, useless at Queens park. I guess Nathaniel is running, not running. I, I guess last time he's 0.89

00:13:00.680 running. Yeah. Yeah. He's running a guy named Mike Crawley, who not the CBC reporter,

00:13:06.840 who used to be at Queens park, but a guy named Mike Crawley, who used to be the federal, uh,

00:13:12.440 president of the liberal party of Canada. Uh, he's organizing to run and a couple of others are

00:13:17.720 looking at it, but more people have put out news releases saying that they're not running

00:13:21.480 or they'll think about running one day than have actually committed to running.

00:13:25.800 There's a lot of talk about a federal election. The date I keep hearing is May the 8th. Have you

00:13:32.360 heard any more about possibility we, the Canadians could be headed to the polls again this year?

00:13:38.040 Um, may the 8th would track. I, I haven't heard that specific date, but that would track,

00:13:42.760 you know, if they're going to go, uh, when do they want to go? Well, the next GST payment,

00:13:48.280 and of course they're in the middle of boosting that and rebranding it as the, uh, Canada groceries

00:13:53.480 and essentials benefit. Here's government money to help you buy your food. And you're not even on welfare.

00:13:58.760 Uh, that, that should be a sign that things are not good in Canada's economy. Uh, it's one thing

00:14:04.680 if you're on welfare, it's another thing to say, Hey, 12 million Canadians, you need help buying

00:14:09.160 basic food. Um, so that goes out April 2nd and the next one goes out July 3rd. So that, you know,

00:14:17.160 they do want to have the vote in between those. I'm not convinced that they are going, but I am

00:14:21.800 convinced they're setting the table so that if they need to pull the plug, they can. They're still

00:14:26.840 trying to get a majority through floor crossings, but that, that clearly isn't working. Um, you know,

00:14:32.520 I was told, Oh, watch two or three more after the conservative convention. Well, that's more

00:14:37.320 than two weeks ago now. And as it happened, I've been hearing since mid November when Chris

00:14:41.880 Dontremont crossed, Oh, we're about to get two or three more. And then you go back to your sources.

00:14:47.320 Well, where are they all they're about to cross. So they're still trying on that front, but if they

00:14:52.360 don't get it and they need to, they're setting the stage. So the, the Davos speech to poke Trump

00:14:57.720 in the eye that I believe was done on purpose. It got the reaction Carney wanted. Uh, Trump responded

00:15:04.200 with anger, Canadians responded with anger and rallied to Carney. His poll members went up.

00:15:09.800 Then he does this grocery benefit with increased payments, the Canadians, then he's accusing the

00:15:16.600 conservatives of obstructing bills in parliament, setting the stage. So we can say parliament's not

00:15:21.560 working. Uh, we need reset and I need a mandate to, to deal with Donald Trump. That's going to be

00:15:27.640 the narrative if they go. Um, and if they don't go in the spring, I don't see how this parliament, uh,

00:15:33.800 uh, goes much into the fall, if at all. Of course, there's supposed to be negotiations over

00:15:39.240 the future of Kuzma as well, I think in the summer. So I, I don't know how you squeeze all of that in.

00:15:44.760 Is it, would that be something that happens after the election? Would the liberals report

00:15:50.120 good before any ideas there? Well, I think the liberals would prefer to have an election before

00:15:55.560 that, then they can use Trump as the boogeyman. Um, until the Dabo speech, I wasn't sure how the 0.51

00:16:01.720 liberals were going to run another election saying we'll protect you from Donald Trump. We're the only

00:16:07.240 people that can handle them because that's what they ran the last election on. And they've done very

00:16:11.640 badly at it. Uh, sure. Some Canadians are happy that, oh, he's standing up for Canada. He's showing

00:16:17.240 Donald Trump. Um, our tariffs are higher. They apply to more goods. Uh, our economy is

00:16:23.800 just about in recession, if not already in recession. None of these are good things,

00:16:28.760 but there's a section of the Canadian public that, you know, just like some conservatives,

00:16:33.080 they only, they don't care if they win. They just want to own the libs. Well, 0.93

00:16:36.680 there's a big section of the Canadian public right now that doesn't care if we win economically. They

00:16:40.520 just want to show Donald Trump. And well, that's great. If you're living off your investments and

00:16:47.160 your S and P 500 index out of the New York stock exchange, and you're got your home paid off and

00:16:54.680 you're living off your investments, people that have to go to work every day, they're feeling the

00:16:59.560 pinch and they need a solution. Carney doesn't want a solution before he goes to the polls. Again,

00:17:05.080 he wants to use Trump as the boogeyman in my view, uh, run a replay of the last election,

00:17:11.480 but this time he hopes to get a majority. Yeah. Well, it worked last time, I suppose.

00:17:16.920 Maybe not as well as he would have liked because they didn't get that majority, but I guess we'll

00:17:20.840 have to see what happens. Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show. How do people find you online?

00:17:26.120 Uh, you find me at the torontosun.com or, uh, read my own pieces at, uh, brianlily.com.

00:17:32.600 Uh, that's where the sub stack is. Brian Lilley, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

00:17:36.920 Thank you. If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism

00:17:42.680 where breaking news stories are told by going to junonews.com backslash straight up.

00:17:49.560 That's junonews.com backslash straight up. Thank you so much.

Juno News - February 12, 2026

Liberal strategist launches SHOCKING personal attack on Conservative MP

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