00:07:41.420And just if I could add, Rachel, you know, the whole idea of a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.
00:07:48.980Well, when you immigrate to this country and become a citizen, you take an oath of loyalty.
00:07:54.880You make a solemn vow to be loyal to your new country and to abide by the values of that country.
00:08:02.160Committing an act of terrorism is a complete breaking of that oath.
00:08:06.600And so, therefore, I think the government will be well within its rights to rescind it on the idea that you did not fulfill the commitment you made in front of the government and God when you became a citizen of this country.
00:08:20.020So, for the prime minister to play, like, just, you know, play games like, oh, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.
00:08:25.520Well, a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.
00:08:27.660And if you've committed an act of terrorism, I think Canada will be well within the rights to revoke your citizenship and send you packing.
00:08:36.620You know, one of the other aspects of this controversy that just kind of bothered me is I felt like it was a little bit misguided from the Liberals to put Jennifer O'Connell as the lead on this.
00:08:45.400I mean, I'm surprised her answer wasn't something like boo-hoo, get over it.
00:08:48.900This is, like, not a serious political player.
00:08:51.280I don't think that she's trusted with the Canadian people.
00:08:56.380And so, to see her, you know, putting the blame back on Stephen Harper is not surprising to me.
00:09:01.320And I think she's really lost a lot of respect among the Canadian people because she's always playing political games.
00:09:06.600And I don't think she actually wants to see solutions.
00:09:08.740I don't think she's working towards solutions.
00:09:11.040There are some parliamentarians who are better at working with the other side and do so in good faith.
00:09:16.900And there are others who are only interested in playing politics.
00:09:18.780And she is one of those who's only ever interested in playing in politics.
00:09:21.840And, you know, we put a compilation together of some other bad actors within the Liberal Party who can't help themselves.
00:09:28.200And every time there's criticism of their government, they blame Stephen Harper, who, as we said, hasn't been in power for nearly a decade.
00:09:35.580I think it's important to remind people that when we formed the government in 2015, there were absolutely no measures in place to detect, disrupt and counter foreign interference in the electoral context.
00:09:50.180Mr. Poliev was Minister of Democratic Institutions.
00:09:53.220Two years in 2013, CSIS publicly identified the risk of interference in democratic processes.
00:10:01.020The previous Conservative government did absolutely nothing.
00:10:03.580Under my watch, personally, I've been in this role for about six and a half months.
00:10:06.720I've appointed 64 judges so far and more. There are more to come.
00:10:11.200And the average year under the Harper government, they appointed 65 per year.
00:10:14.700So on that metric alone, I'm working twice as fast as the Harper government.
00:10:18.240Would the Conservatives actually like to know that since 2006, the five years with the highest amount of car thefts in Canadian history were under the Stephen Harper government?
00:10:30.220In 2015, Stephen Harper presented a budget that had slashed funds for policing, slashed funds for CBSA officers, slashed funding for Veterans Affairs Services, and we were there to clean up the mess.
00:10:45.860I have to say that I really don't think Jennifer O'Connell wants to be playing the game about under which government were car thefts were.
00:10:55.300I can assure you that back in 2015, I was in high school at the time, there were no reports about people in Toronto taking desperate measures like putting poles at the end of their driveway to stop criminals from driving off of their vehicles.
00:11:08.340That wasn't the reality then. Back in 2015, there wasn't certain parts of the country that I actively wanted to avoid because I was worried if my vehicle was at a gas station and I was filling up that someone might come along and carjack it.
00:11:19.860Things have changed drastically. Obviously, people are feeling much less safe they were now than then.
00:11:23.960But Isaac, what's your take on this whole situation?
00:11:26.320I mean, do you think that this is just sort of par for the course in politics that the new government's always going to blame the previous government when something happens?
00:11:33.640Or do you think that there is maybe a window where that's fair to do, you know, maybe in the first two years, maybe depending on the issue a little longer?
00:11:41.260And after that, Canadians are like, you've been in power for over five years now.
00:11:45.000You know, it's time to take responsibility for your government's action.
00:11:47.440What would the timeline on that look like?
00:11:50.320Yeah, for just answering the first part of your question, I don't know that it's par for the course in politics per se,
00:11:57.080but I definitely think it's par for the course for the Liberals.
00:12:00.240When we were talking about compiling a compilation of the Liberals bashing or blaming the Stephen Harper government for their mistakes,
00:12:10.260I was immediately thinking, oh, there must be hundreds of examples because I'm just thinking of the many press conferences I've watched over the years.
00:12:17.980I mean, I feel like the Liberals do that on a weekly basis, almost blame the Harper government or at least in some way, the Conservative or Polyefro government.
00:12:28.980As for the window, yeah, that's a tough one.
00:12:32.700You know, I think it really varies on the issue.
00:12:36.520Obviously, here we were talking about a terrorist who came into Canada under the Liberals' watch.
00:12:43.120So, I mean, at that point, you think you at least have to take some of the accountability,
00:12:47.180even if it is, in reality, a shared responsibility, which I don't even know if it is.
00:12:51.260But the Liberals taking accountability for any mistakes or errors that they make is not something I often see them do.
00:12:59.100They, instead of take accountability, deflect the blame to others.
00:13:04.520I think that there's probably some room when you form government to say, listen, we're trying to fix these issues that were created by the previous government.
00:13:11.800But truthfully, I think that Canadians, writ large, are not really interested in these types of excuses.
00:13:17.840And it's in the best interest of any government to do that as little as possible.
00:13:21.800And if you are going to do that, you need to clearly explain what your plan is to fix these solutions in a timeline as to when we could see these issues being abated.
00:13:28.660I think it's used far too often in politics as an excuse for governments not to be held accountable for their crappy and ineffective policies.
00:13:36.940But while we're on the topic of bad actors, William, True North commissioned a poll.
00:13:41.420I know that you have the juicy details on this.
00:13:44.620What have we learned about the CBC this week?
00:13:47.520Yeah, well, the CBC, in its quest to become ever more hated by Canadian taxpayers,
00:13:52.940did another great job of convincing taxpayers that they're getting absolutely fleeced when it comes to how their money's being spent.
00:14:01.440They decided to pay their executives big multi-million dollar bonuses, 18.4 million in bonuses,
00:14:09.560despite the fact that, according to their own analysis, fewer and fewer people are actually watching CBC, particularly CBC News.
00:14:21.040So I don't know what the metric is to decide whether or not bonuses are warranted.
00:14:27.080You would think people actually watching CBC might be one of the factors considered.
00:14:32.920But as it turns out, nobody is watching CBC.
00:14:36.260But that didn't stop them from giving themselves an awful lot of our money as a job well done, in their view.
00:14:41.860I think we see this time and time again when the government, when something's funded by the government,
00:14:48.740whether it's a government entity or simply receiving government subsidies,
00:14:51.500all of a sudden there's no need for that entity to actually be successful because the government dollars have been promised
00:14:58.080and they almost always keep coming anyways.
00:15:00.900Isaac was just talking about this with a report from the parliamentary budget officer
00:15:04.540who found that, you know, government services were not meeting their criteria.
00:15:09.380They were not doing what they set out to do.
00:15:11.280And the people who are responsible for them are not facing any consequences for their actions,
00:15:14.960oftentimes because it has to do with protection in unions and things like that.
00:15:18.420But instead, in this case, they're being given radical budgets.
00:15:21.140And I can't help but look at this story and wonder, you know, does the CBC,
00:15:25.780could they help themselves a little bit if they were to turn off the taps on the budgets?
00:15:29.980Maybe Canadians would have more sympathy for this.
00:15:31.980Or maybe this is just a situation where they actually see the writing on the wall.
00:15:35.800They see that it's going to be a conservative government.
00:15:38.520Canadians, the public has largely turned against them.
00:15:40.920And they're just trying to take everything they can on the way out.
00:21:55.720And people were listing the shows they were streaming instead, which was like random reruns.
00:22:00.420And I mean, they're like, oh, we committed to these shows.
00:22:02.780But really, that's more important than an NHL playoff game.
00:22:07.280And all the while, the NHL playoff games were setting viewership records,
00:22:10.920bringing in tens of millions of viewers.
00:22:12.840And I can only imagine a handful of people watching what the CBC was streaming at the time.
00:22:17.820Yeah, I was just going to laughingly say maybe they worried that too many people would start to watch the CBC,
00:22:25.820because apparently having viewers isn't a priority for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
00:22:31.500at least according to their own bonus metrics.
00:22:33.700Just, you know, there was one other interesting statistic True North got from the poll it did on Canada's media landscape.
00:22:40.780And that was a cheap criticism people level against the CBC is that they are simply biased,
00:22:45.380that they do not fairly portray Canada's conservatives.
00:22:50.080They paint them as far right and as extremist.
00:22:53.340And to be clear, the CBC went so far as to sue the Conservative Party actually in the last election.
00:23:01.160And I think for a lot of people, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
00:23:04.920Well, the idea that getting taxpayer funding, biases, reporting, is not restricted just to CBC.
00:23:13.660That same poll that we did, and I think we just flashed some of those metrics on,
00:23:18.520but I'll bring the poll back up there.
00:23:20.30055% of taxpayers believe that if you take government or taxpayer subsidies,
00:23:27.700then you become unable to impartially report the news.
00:23:32.260And I think that shouldn't come as a huge surprise for people.
00:23:36.440But it is really the endemic reason why people don't trust the CBC is because they know that only one of those two parties
00:23:43.720really wants to give them unlimited funding.
00:23:46.460But for all of Canada's media who do take taxpayer subsidies, it harms their credibility.
00:23:52.800And we now know that 55% of Canadians believe that they cannot take taxpayer subsidies and report the news fairly.
00:23:59.820True North, of course, we do not take government funding.
00:24:02.960We rely on the support of individual Canadians.
00:24:05.780And that's why when we report, we keep them in mind, not the government handing out the checks to the other media in this country.
00:24:13.460I appreciate you saying that, William, because I think even in the context of independent media,
00:24:18.900you know, that's something that is really special about True North is that we don't take, you know,
00:24:23.920any advertising dollars or donors or sponsorships or anything like that from the federal government.
00:24:30.320And it's just becoming increasingly, we're becoming increasingly unique and alone in that.
00:24:34.780And it's something that I think is important and that we should be proud of and that we should continue to remind people of
00:24:39.280because it is really such a rare thing, also very difficult to do in today's day and age.
00:24:43.440You know, one thing I want to just touch on quickly before we get back to the NHL,
00:24:46.960because I know Isaac has a good story about that, is one thing we might all miss with the decline of the mainstream media
00:24:52.520and, you know, if Pierre Polyev does indeed turn off the taps for them,
00:24:56.200is sort of this really combative approach that he's taken to media and just the way that he has really learned to undress their comments.
00:25:04.780And we were talking about Canadians are recognizing that the CBC is biased,
00:25:07.700and that's one of the reasons they wanted to defund them, is Pierre Polyev is really an expert in knowing how to really reveal what the media's questions are
00:25:16.980and to get at the heart of the fact that they are biased, they often don't know what they're talking about at these press conferences,
00:25:22.160they often have very loaded questions with a lot of inflammatory rhetoric that they can't back up.
00:25:26.880I'm thinking, of course, about the infamous munching on the Apple scene when the reporter says Canadians think,
00:25:31.320and then he actually didn't know a single Canadian who thinks that it's,
00:25:33.840they use that type of language to push their own left-wing agenda and often are not aware of what Canadian thinks
00:25:40.500because they're so out of touch with Canadians.
00:25:42.120So that's something I personally will miss, although I suspect it'll still be several years before, you know,
00:25:47.500before we see a big correction, a big correction in media, generally speaking.
00:25:53.200Isaac, why don't you go ahead and talk about, you know, the NHL?
00:25:56.500We saw a little bit of a feud brewing between Trudeau and probably my favorite American governor.
00:26:04.420So go ahead and break that down for us.
00:26:06.980Yeah, so you were speaking about being out of touch with Canadians, but now we're going to shift to DeSantis,
00:26:12.380who, of course, is becoming more and more in touch with Canadians as he embraces the hockey culture.
00:26:18.080And this clip that we're about to show was in response to a question at the Eric Erickson conference,
00:26:24.960which is an American conference of conservative politicians, scholars, and the like.
00:26:30.260And the person asked, they sent an email to Eric Erickson and they said,
00:26:35.500can you please ask my favorite American governor, that being Ron DeSantis,
00:26:39.980about my least favorite Canadian, that being Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
00:26:44.400So we can play the clip right now if you'd like.
00:26:46.440So all I can say is this, Justin Trudeau, since he has been Prime Minister of Canada,
00:26:54.360number of Stanley Cups for Canada, zero.
00:26:58.720Governor Ron DeSantis, number of Stanley Cups for the state of Florida since I've been governor, three.
00:27:06.680Yeah, so obviously Canada hasn't won the Stanley Cup in like 20, 20 years.
00:27:16.000And DeSantis is lucky enough to have two NHL teams in his state, that being the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers, of course.
00:27:24.500And they've won three Stanley Cups in the last four or five years as he's been governor.
00:27:29.360So, yeah, what do you guys think about governor, I mean, Ron DeSantis kind of making a funny jab at Trudeau?
00:27:36.740You know, it's not that serious, I think.
00:27:39.220I mean, far be it from me to defend Trudeau for anything.
00:27:43.700But in this case, initially when I heard this clip, my initial reaction was I had, you know, I said, as I said, I don't really watch hockey.
00:27:49.940But I spoke to many hockey players and they said, oh, it's very hard for Canada to attract the best players because American players typically get paid more.
00:27:58.220We actually looked into this and I guess there's a cap for how much you can get paid in the NHL.
00:28:01.880And I thought, well, taxes in Canada are so much higher.
00:28:10.640And highest jurisdictions like Quebec, followed by, you know, New York and LA.
00:28:15.100So that wasn't really a fair comparison.
00:28:16.740However, I do think that the quality of life in the States is probably just a little bit better because your money gets you so much more in the States.
00:28:25.100And also if you live in a southern state, warmer climate, if that's something that's important to you, might not be important to hockey players.
00:28:31.380And then also with the Canadian market, like Canadians are just so interested and crazy about hockey.
00:28:37.960And so if you're a hockey player who really just loves hockey but doesn't enjoy the limelight,
00:28:42.680you might be more interested in playing for an American team where fans are not quite invested in your personal life.
00:28:49.120They're not quite as invested in your family.
00:28:52.300You know, we were just talking about that clip with Connor McDavid when he showed his house in Edmonton
00:28:57.360and he was criticized for not having like enough personality, like just stuff like that.
00:29:01.320You know, some players might just be really interested in playing the game,
00:29:05.040but not interested in all the drama that comes along with them.
00:29:07.480But as I said, you know, I don't want to be lambasted for my comments about hockey because my knowledge is rather limited
00:29:13.920and I wouldn't consider myself a hockey foreign by any stretch of the imagination.
00:29:17.980William, what about you? What's your take?
00:29:20.180I mean, I think it rankles us up in Canada a lot more when it's places that don't have ice that are succeeding in hockey.
00:29:29.900That really bothers us intellectually and emotionally to know that a place where there is no ice,
00:29:35.160except which is artificially created, is winning Scantily Cups as opposed to the land of ice.
00:29:40.940We have ice everywhere for a large chunk of the year.
00:29:44.480And so that I know is always a bit frustrating.
00:29:47.920And as for, I definitely think you're right that being a NHL player is a bigger deal in Canada.
00:29:53.940We treat those NHL players differently than they do in the States.
00:29:57.940I suppose they have Kardashians and we have hockey players.
00:30:42.400Yeah, I always thought bonuses, not just signing bonuses, but all types of bonuses were taxed or tax free or less taxed at least,
00:30:50.740which is why they were even an added incentive for players on top of just the money itself.
00:30:54.800I remember seeing, yeah, John Tavares going to war with the CRA, but I don't know how that's gone.
00:31:00.980But thinking of places without ice, yeah, I remember a few years ago when Austin Matthews, the Leafs captain, obviously,
00:31:08.740who is from Arizona, was the number one overall draft.
00:31:11.440And I thought to myself, you know, how does that happen?
00:31:15.320Eric, he's coming from Arizona, which I can't imagine has a strong child hockey market,
00:31:19.840which is why we see so many kids from Ontario drafted into the NHL, because they have such a strong hockey community.
00:31:27.600These children are able to access the best coaches in the world.
00:31:31.040I mean, right, like Austin Matthews, I mean, he's an anomaly in that sense that I really think he had to be more independent
00:31:37.940than, say, a child would have had to been in Ontario.
00:31:40.660I don't know. I think maybe we should get like a new hockey show or like a sports show going over at North Isaac to take the lead.
00:31:47.320I obviously know a lot about this, and I think there's always like interesting ties for how it plays into politics.
00:31:52.680But that's just an idea. Maybe our audience can let me know if there would be English and something like that.
00:31:57.940All right, everyone, that's all we have time to cover today on Off the Record.
00:32:02.000Thank you so much for tolerating us for the last 35 minutes or so.
00:32:05.860I hope that you guys have a great weekend. We'll see you later.
00:32:08.700And don't forget that everything you heard today was Off the Record.
00:32:20.360Well, I had to laugh at that one story where the Liberals were accusing Pierre Polyevre of not doing anything about foreign election interference.
00:32:30.020They said Pierre had two years and then he didn't do anything election interference.
00:32:34.060As opposed to the Liberal government, we had eight years where we did nothing about election interference, which is a lot longer.
00:32:40.400And then, of course, when they they didn't want to do anything about election interference,
00:32:44.000they had to be pulled kicking and screaming towards actually taking the issue seriously.
00:32:48.740So, you know, there's a bold claim for the for the Trudeau government to make.
00:32:54.120But only is it a bold claim, but it's like Pierre Polyevre was never the prime minister.
00:32:57.140Well, sure, he was a conservative MP, but like, ridiculous.