Juno News - April 21, 2021


Mainstream Media Has Overt Contempt for Social Conservatives

Topics
social conservatives mainstream media
Mentioned
Erin O'Toole Kathy Wagenthal Andrew Scheer Peter McKay Conrad Yakabuski Andrew Lawton Show Stephen Harper Scott Horton Leslyn Lewis Derek Sloan
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Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

162.9

Word count

1,313

Sentence count

73

Harmful content

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Stinkin' Albatross around Andrew Scheer's neck a term coined by Peter McKay to describe the number of social conservatives in the Conservative Party of Canada. This week, we're talking about the stinking albatross, and why it's a real thing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I want to talk about what Peter McKay called the stinking albatross around Andrew Scheer's neck,
00:00:17.900 which is social conservatives in the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:00:21.800 This rhetoric was echoed by Conrad Yakabuski in a Globe and Mail column in which he says
00:00:27.360 that like clockwork, the Tory stalking species known as the stinking albatross returns to Canada each election season
00:00:35.620 after wintering in warmer climes where the culture wars occur year-round.
00:00:40.840 He is taking aim at Cathy Wagenthal, a Conservative MP,
00:00:45.280 who introduced a private member's bill that would ban sex-selective abortion,
00:00:50.140 which is basically abortion that is decided for the sole basis of someone not wanting to deliver a child of a particular gender,
00:00:58.800 almost exclusively because people do not want daughters for various cultural reasons,
00:01:04.180 all of which are rooted in a very misogynistic view that females are less worthy of living than males.
00:01:11.860 And in doing so, she has...
00:01:14.400 And by the way, Cathy Wagenthal has always been a very reliable pro-life member of Parliament.
00:01:19.800 She's never equivocated on this position.
00:01:22.520 She's always been very transparent.
00:01:24.040 And her voters in her riding have rewarded her by re-electing her time and time again.
00:01:29.140 And she's decided that she wants to take aim at this problem, which we know is happening.
00:01:33.220 There's not a lot of research on it, but it does very much occur.
00:01:37.760 And I am, as a pro-life person,
00:01:41.740 slightly concerned with sex-selective abortion restrictions for two reasons.
00:01:47.020 The chief among them is that it tends to mask the problem.
00:01:51.560 If you believe that abortion is wrong because it takes a life,
00:01:54.120 it shouldn't matter what the motivation is for it.
00:01:57.800 The reason I say that is because a bill like this makes it seem as though
00:02:01.300 the intent is the problem more than the actual outcome.
00:02:05.920 The other part of it is that I feel that...
00:02:08.620 And this one is something I'm of two minds on, frankly.
00:02:12.000 It almost is more of a political push towards pro-life policy than anything else.
00:02:19.380 And the reason for that is because it may well be effective.
00:02:21.700 There are lots of people in Canada who are pro-choice.
00:02:25.040 They would identify as pro-choice.
00:02:26.580 But when it comes down to it, they would oppose sex-selective abortion.
00:02:30.700 So bills like this tend to appeal to those people.
00:02:33.700 But in a lot of ways, I almost feel that they mask...
00:02:36.440 Again, if you feel abortion is wrong, they mask what is wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with intent.
00:02:43.080 So it ties into the reason I already mentioned.
00:02:45.920 But at the same time, I don't want to question Kathy Wagenthal's motive.
00:02:50.060 She's been a tireless advocate on this file.
00:02:52.700 She believes what she believes.
00:02:53.880 But it's interesting that now, the existence of a pro-life MP in Aaron O'Toole's conservative party
00:03:02.320 is all it takes for the mainstream media to say,
00:03:06.640 oh, well, Aaron O'Toole's got that hidden social conservative agenda.
00:03:10.380 I mean, look at this story.
00:03:11.560 Look at the photo used for the story.
00:03:13.040 It's a photo of Aaron O'Toole.
00:03:14.460 The entire analysis is based on this idea that Kathy Wagenthal's bill
00:03:18.200 is that stinking albatross around Aaron O'Toole's neck.
00:03:21.120 And a lot of the critics of Andrew Scheer, of Aaron O'Toole, of Stephen Harper,
00:03:26.360 they're not good faith critics of this.
00:03:29.160 They don't actually care about whether the leader is pro-life,
00:03:33.260 whether the party will officially back any policy that's pro-life.
00:03:36.800 They don't want pro-lifers to exist in Canada at all.
00:03:40.700 And they don't, therefore, want any pro-life politicians to exist.
00:03:45.340 And Aaron O'Toole, who literally said in no uncertain terms,
00:03:49.040 I'm pro-choice, I believe in abortion rights, I've always believed in that.
00:03:52.580 Here's when and why I started believing in that.
00:03:55.020 Here's how long I believed in it.
00:03:56.720 I'm not going to do anything.
00:03:58.060 And he's still getting hit with story. 0.98
00:03:59.400 Oh, well, you know, the stinking albatross is back
00:04:01.680 because an MP from, I think, Saskatchewan
00:04:04.260 introduced a private member's bill,
00:04:06.280 which, by the way, most Canadians,
00:04:08.320 even those ardently pro-choice, would agree with.
00:04:11.220 So this is why conservatives should never play by the left's rules,
00:04:18.020 should never play by the mainstream media's rules,
00:04:20.180 should never play on their terrain.
00:04:22.420 And this is true whether you're talking about a carbon tax,
00:04:25.100 as we were last week,
00:04:26.160 and it's certainly true when you're talking about social policy.
00:04:29.620 This is what he writes.
00:04:30.500 Eventually, a future conservative leader must understand
00:04:33.720 that playing to the SOCONs is a losing strategy, period.
00:04:37.660 It might help you win a leadership race, 0.81
00:04:39.280 but it will leave you with a stinking albatross around your neck
00:04:41.920 of which no amount of flowery perfume can disguise the stench.
00:04:47.560 This is the mainstream media's characterization
00:04:50.120 of people who value life.
00:04:53.280 And one of the things that I found interesting
00:04:55.360 is that pro-life candidates that seek the conservative leadership,
00:04:58.940 whether we're talking about Leslie Lewis or Derek Sloan,
00:05:02.140 they didn't say they expect it to be a socially conservative party.
00:05:06.080 They wanted a party that simply respects
00:05:08.100 that social conservatives are in it.
00:05:10.520 And if the liberals were authentic about representing Canadians,
00:05:13.960 they would recognize that they preside over a country
00:05:17.240 that has social conservatives in it.
00:05:20.700 So whatever the group is,
00:05:22.160 and again, statistics tend to be a little bit tricky on this.
00:05:25.020 My friend Scott Hayward of Right Now
00:05:27.060 has done tremendous work
00:05:28.820 at trying to really look at genuine public opinion on this.
00:05:32.260 And he points out that 82% of Quebecers support
00:05:35.660 restricting sex-selective abortion
00:05:37.400 and 67% of Quebecers support legally restricting late-term abortion.
00:05:43.160 And that's just one recent example.
00:05:45.300 84% of Canadians support legally restricting sex-selective abortion
00:05:49.820 and 70% of Canadians support legally restricting late-term abortion.
00:05:54.820 This is very valid, up-to-date polling
00:05:57.240 that suggests the mainstream media position,
00:06:00.340 the liberal government's position,
00:06:01.960 the elite narrative,
00:06:03.480 is distinct from what ordinary Canadians think and feel.
00:06:08.300 And you may think,
00:06:09.720 okay, well, the conservatives still have to win over people
00:06:12.940 by getting their message out through the mainstream media.
00:06:15.520 Sure.
00:06:16.320 But I do want to believe,
00:06:17.660 and perhaps this is an overly romantic notion,
00:06:20.060 that voters reward authenticity.
00:06:22.100 And when Andrew Scheer couldn't give
00:06:25.200 a very clear position on abortion,
00:06:27.960 which was, well, I'm, you know,
00:06:29.860 yes, I'm pro-life,
00:06:31.120 but, you know, I know I won't touch it.
00:06:32.620 And, I mean, but my member,
00:06:33.700 like, no one knew,
00:06:34.800 even pro-lifers had no idea what he was saying.
00:06:37.360 Whereas Aaron O'Toole
00:06:38.280 has given a tremendously clear position on it,
00:06:40.460 and the mainstream media coverage is identical.
00:06:43.120 He's clearly pro-choice,
00:06:44.200 and the media coverage is,
00:06:45.200 oh, well, yeah, 0.99
00:06:46.100 those stinking albatross, 0.99
00:06:47.300 stench pro-life people, 1.00
00:06:48.720 they're dirty, smelly people, 1.00
00:06:50.720 you know, no party wants them. 0.99
00:06:51.740 That's really what Conrad Yakubusky is saying,
00:06:54.180 by taking Peter McKay's metaphor
00:06:56.360 and just extending it beyond which,
00:06:59.340 beyond the point at which any metaphor
00:07:01.260 should be extended
00:07:02.600 and still keep its original meaning.
00:07:04.300 So what we have happening here
00:07:07.000 is the beginning of the age-old conservative dilemma
00:07:11.120 of feeling like their problem
00:07:13.160 is not being conservative enough.
00:07:15.680 And I'm not trying to preach to anyone right now
00:07:18.100 on social issues,
00:07:19.080 whether you're watching
00:07:20.240 and you're pro-life, pro-choice,
00:07:21.820 doesn't matter to me.
00:07:23.540 But understand that the conservative movement in Canada
00:07:26.900 has people who believe this.
00:07:29.380 And as we see from party conventions
00:07:31.200 and internal races like nominations and leaderships,
00:07:33.960 there may be more social conservatives
00:07:35.980 than non-social conservatives
00:07:37.420 in the conservative party,
00:07:38.580 but at the very least,
00:07:39.960 it's not a fringe group.
00:07:42.020 And if you look at national polling,
00:07:43.480 it's not even a fringe group in Canada itself.
00:07:46.260 It is just painted as fringe
00:07:48.180 by the people that believe
00:07:49.640 they have a monopoly
00:07:50.840 on which ideas are worth discussing
00:07:53.400 and which ones are not.
00:07:55.320 If you liked watching this clip
00:07:56.740 of the Andrew Lawton Show,
00:07:58.000 True North has lots more for you
00:07:59.800 all over at www.tnc.news.