Juno News - Media freaks out after Poilievre calls out WEF

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:22.960 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:32.620 lawton show here on true north on this tuesday august 15th 2023 just after four o'clock eastern

00:01:40.020 daylight time it is wonderful to have you aboard on what i hope will be a very informative

00:01:45.820 illuminating entertaining exciting and perhaps a little bit riling show riling that is if you are

00:01:51.580 the mainstream media who believes that talking about many of the things that we talk about on

00:01:57.440 this show is a little more than embracing conspiracy theories. Yeah, I don't know why

00:02:02.960 I was unable to say the word conspiracy theories there. I was like, I lost the ability to speak.

00:02:08.340 But in any case, the whole point of the program here, you'll have to excuse me, we are using

00:02:15.080 a new program for today's show. And I was just been told there's a little issue with my audio.

00:02:20.740 and I was told to make sure that my microphone was set up properly

00:02:25.820 and it was set up properly.

00:02:27.480 So anyway, all that aside, we had such like an energetic start too

00:02:32.540 and then it's the technical glitch that throws us off.

00:02:35.580 So apparently it's working now.

00:02:36.660 All right, we're good.

00:02:37.920 The big story that I wanted to talk about today

00:02:41.100 is this piece in the Canadian press that was published everywhere.

00:02:46.140 CBC picked it up, CTV, I think even the Toronto Sun did.

00:02:49.380 And it is a story-taking aim at Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives over their discussion of the World Economic Forum.

00:02:57.400 Now, this is a file I know very well.

00:02:59.300 I've been to Davos for the last two World Economic Forum conferences.

00:03:04.100 Now, before you start throwing up crosses and yelling at me, globalist, globalist, you should know,

00:03:09.160 I was there as a journalist to put questions to people, and I did.

00:03:12.840 I put questions to many of the participants of the Davos elite.

00:03:16.540 I put questions to Klaus Schwab himself, though he very quickly put up his hand and said,

00:03:21.940 I forgot somewhere I have to be.

00:03:23.600 And then he scurried into a room that even with my media credential, I was unable to access.

00:03:28.880 What did you think of my Klaus Schwab impersonation, by the way?

00:03:31.920 It could have been a little bit more menacing.

00:03:33.720 As my friend Mark Stein says, the sinister Teutonic megalomaniac hiding in plain sight

00:03:38.600 as a sinister Teutonic megalomaniac.

00:03:41.560 But all that aside, the World Economic Forum is very clear about what it wants.

00:03:48.020 It wants a world in which the people who go to the World Economic Forum are the ones in the driver's seat.

00:03:53.700 You may recall Klaus Schwab telling people that, oh no, the future doesn't just happen.

00:04:01.080 Let's also be clear.

00:04:04.200 The future is not just happening.

00:04:05.980 The future is built by us, by a powerful community as you here in this room.

00:04:15.180 We have the means to improve the state of the world, but two conditions are necessary.

00:04:23.440 The first one is that we act all as stakeholders of larger communities, that we serve not

00:04:33.460 our only self-interest, that we serve the community. That's what we call stakeholder

00:04:40.560 responsibility. And second, that we collaborate. And this is the reason why you find many opportunities

00:04:49.180 here during the meeting to engage into very action and impact-oriented initiatives to

00:04:58.120 make progress related to specific issues on the global agenda the future is built by us

00:05:08.360 yes and that is exactly the world that the world economic forum wants the most charitable dismissal

00:05:15.240 of concerns about the wef is that oh it's just a talk shop it's just a little conference they

00:05:20.120 don't actually do anything but as you heard from vista schwab himself the value proposition that's

00:05:26.600 that's put to the people who spend millions of dollars to be members of the WEF and to go

00:05:30.640 to the conferences year after year, is that it isn't just a place where talk happens. It is a

00:05:35.540 place where action happens. And I mean, as I've said, it is a place where business leaders will

00:05:42.320 pay millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars to go there. Politicians are there for

00:05:46.960 free. And that's because they're the product being sold. Christopher Freeland doesn't need

00:05:50.940 to pay to be there because the CEO of Microsoft is paying to be there with Chrystia Freeland.

00:05:56.780 Now, why you'd spend $250,000 to hang out with Chrystia Freeland, that is a question I will ask

00:06:01.560 you many, many times if I get the chance. But that is the problem here, is that the politicians

00:06:07.160 are the product being sold. And they're the reason that what's happening there is so influential.

00:06:13.000 Now, all of this is to say that there are very real questions we can put to Canadian politicians

00:06:17.880 that like to go along with this.

00:06:19.980 One is what is in Canada's interests about this?

00:06:23.220 One is what are Canadians getting out of it? 0.83

00:06:25.340 Three, how much are you spending to be there? 0.52

00:06:27.740 Four, is it hypocritical for you to fly around the world

00:06:30.620 for discussions that are all about

00:06:32.140 how we need to do more with less

00:06:33.960 and watch our emissions and all of that

00:06:36.040 and countless more questions.

00:06:37.560 Now, these are not conspiratorial.

00:06:39.260 These are very legitimate policy questions.

00:06:42.000 We have a cost of living crisis in this country

00:06:44.180 is hanging out in the mountains with billionaires,

00:06:46.980 the best thing to be doing? Is it the best use of your time? And does it benefit Canadians?

00:06:52.380 Well, Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives have been talking about this issue. Now,

00:06:56.780 fully candid that I know the Conservatives have themselves been participants of this. Stephen

00:07:01.900 Harper spoke at Davos. Several of Harper's ministers, including John Baird and Maxime

00:07:06.760 Bernier, spoke at Davos. And the point I've raised about this on the show in the past is that

00:07:11.460 the WEF of 15 years ago is not necessarily the WEF of today, or certainly the level of influence

00:07:18.660 is a lot more now than it was back then. And also the way that politicians engage with it

00:07:24.400 has changed. It used to be an opportunity where you'd see politicians show up and actually

00:07:29.420 represent Canada there. They'd speak about Canadian interests. They'd advocate for Canada.

00:07:34.120 And over time, the WEF stopped being more of a forum and started to be more of an active

00:07:40.920 lobbying organization in and of itself with its own policy agenda, its own goals, and its own

00:07:46.460 objectives. And politicians started to be emblazoned in WEF regalia, like the Young Global Leaders

00:07:53.060 Program, for example, and were less so wearing their national colors and more so singing from

00:07:59.240 a WEF songbook when they showed up there. They were all too willing to attach themselves to this

00:08:04.440 agenda and this organization. And when Pierre Polyev speaks up and says, you know what, we are

00:08:09.660 going to reject the globalist elites, reject the globalist Davos elites, which is what the

00:08:15.460 Conservatives said in a fundraising email that was sent out the other day, that strikes me as a very

00:08:21.280 legitimate thing to say. Now, that's not to say there aren't many conspiracy theories about the

00:08:26.560 WAF, but you don't need to find conspiracy theories. You can just use the organization's

00:08:31.140 own language and own mandate to find ample reasons to criticize it. At the very least,

00:08:35.700 It is a waste of time and a waste of money. At the very worst, it's a policy agenda that spells

00:08:40.860 bad news for Canada, its interests, and certainly Canada's economy. But when Pierre Polyev raises

00:08:46.760 these concerns, the media pounces. The story in the Canadian press is accusing Trudeau or accusing

00:08:53.080 Polyev of, quote, embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories. This is, as Polyev puts it,

00:09:00.340 a hit piece through and through. It quotes two so-called experts, one of whom is a liberal donor,

00:09:06.420 but they conveniently leave that out of the article. These political science professors

00:09:10.580 who offer nothing whatsoever that justifies how Polyev is embracing conspiracy theories. They just

00:09:16.460 expect us to take their word for it. And they go beyond that. If you look on Twitter, some of the

00:09:22.900 rhetoric from people like, for example, Rachel Gilmore here, who's a TikToker and former global

00:09:27.820 news journalist. She says that Polyev's email is, quote, insane behavior, unquote. She calls on

00:09:34.400 reporters to be brave enough to cover it. Well, reporters already were covering it. But then she

00:09:39.140 calls the word globalist an anti-Semitic dog whistle used in conspiracy circles, an anti-Semitic

00:09:46.240 dog whistle. So by this measure, anyone who uses the word globalist, certainly in the context of

00:09:53.900 Davos is an anti-Semitic dog whistler, right? I believe we have a news headline that is worth 1.00

00:10:01.360 looking at here. Trump the populist descends on globalist Davos. Ooh, that sounds menacing. That

00:10:08.980 is from the far-right anti-Semitic hate rag CBC. Okay, that must be a mistake there. Did you

00:10:19.880 photoshopped that Sean did you uh did they actually say fluffy roses and you took it out

00:10:24.360 and put in globalist or is that no that's the original okay well that's a little bit weird so

00:10:28.740 maybe just maybe globalist isn't the evil scary anti-semitic dog whistle maybe it's a term that

00:10:34.520 people have been using for years that has its own meaning and its own context and even the media was

00:10:39.300 using that word in 2018 but no in 2023 when the conservatives use it it is because they are evil 0.95

00:10:45.580 scary right-wing anti-Semitic hate mongers. Lovely. This is where discourse has descended. 0.93

00:10:51.100 And there are many people who would love to dismiss all the legitimate criticism of the

00:10:55.840 WEF as simply conspiracy theorizing because it saves them from having to engage on why

00:11:02.060 this organization, which has co-opted a lot of the media. I mentioned in my coverage last

00:11:07.400 time that when I went to Davos the first time, I had no papers. I was unaccredited. They

00:11:11.460 had rejected me but last time around they actually said I could go with accreditation and I was all

00:11:16.840 excited and then I had a bunch of people pounce on me because they said oh yeah you're uh you're

00:11:20.460 you're being co-opted just like Chrystia Freeland was because she years ago used to be uh writing 1.00

00:11:25.060 the book on how terrible these super rich guys are and now she's like one of them chumming around

00:11:29.860 in the Swiss mountains but no no I just had an orange badge this I should have brought it out

00:11:34.600 for the show here but this was the media badge now the white badge is the really coveted one

00:11:41.040 that you get when you're an invited guest of the forum when you are a Davos elite yourself

00:11:45.420 and a lot of journalists get white badges because though they're invited on the panels and they're

00:11:49.800 invited to speak and they themselves start hobnobbing with the elites and very much join

00:11:55.460 their ranks so a lot of the media in Davos for the WEF is not interested in being critical

00:12:01.380 or even skeptical of the organization.

00:12:04.660 And I mentioned in a Substack I wrote yesterday,

00:12:07.180 I do my own Substack, andrewlottin.substack.com,

00:12:10.660 that a serious media would be challenging

00:12:13.240 Canada's ties to the WEF,

00:12:15.880 not smearing those who do,

00:12:17.780 like Pierre Polyev or Danielle Smith,

00:12:20.260 who was asked about it yesterday.

00:12:22.560 And I believe we have the clip.

00:12:24.880 Do we have the clip of Danielle Smith?

00:12:27.980 We do not have the clip of Danielle Smith.

00:12:29.700 We'll get that clip in a little bit later.

00:12:31.380 But basically, Danielle Smith gave a very reasoned response to this, which was that she does not in any of her time talking to people in Alberta have anyone coming up to her and saying, you know, Premier, what I really think you should do is go to the Swiss mountains, hang out with the Davos crowd, because I think that is going to really help Albertans out or in the Canadian context to help Canadians out.

00:12:53.420 So what exactly is so dangerous about the Davos agenda?

00:12:56.980 Because admittedly, they get credit for a lot more than they do.

00:13:00.200 Sometimes the criticism is just directed at some wacky person saying something on a panel.

00:13:05.360 And there are many, many, many examples of that.

00:13:08.940 But I think there's a serious point there, which is that you have to look at the type of people that Davos invites

00:13:15.500 and the type of people that Davos accepts and the type of ideas that are entirely uncontroversial to utter in a room there

00:13:22.300 that are so wildly disconnected from the world around you.

00:13:25.180 Take, for example, this clip, which I shared,

00:13:27.700 I believe it was in 2022, of J. Michael Evans,

00:13:31.980 who is the president of Alibaba Group,

00:13:34.460 which is a big Chinese enterprise,

00:13:36.360 although he himself is Canadian.

00:13:38.760 And he was just boasting about this brand new little program

00:13:42.520 that Alibaba was developing,

00:13:45.100 which is coming soon to your phone.

00:13:47.720 Developing through technology

00:13:50.200 and ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint.

00:13:54.780 What does that mean?

00:13:56.300 That's where are they traveling?

00:13:58.520 How are they traveling?

00:13:59.900 What are they eating?

00:14:01.400 What are they consuming on the platform?

00:14:03.620 So individual carbon footprint tracker.

00:14:07.480 Stay tuned.

00:14:08.460 We don't have it operational yet,

00:14:10.060 but this is something that we're working on.

00:14:13.320 Ooh, an individual carbon footprint tracker.

00:14:16.760 Stay tuned.

00:14:17.700 It's going to be the most exciting launch since Barbie and Oppenheimer, an app that monitors what you eat, where you travel, what you buy and how you live.

00:14:26.360 Now, of course, it's all voluntary. No one has to install the app.

00:14:29.400 It's not like China would do a social credit thing to monitor your compliance with it.

00:14:34.320 Or, oh, maybe it's going to be like those programs you install in your car to get cheaper insurance where the carrot is dangled in front of you that, oh, if you drive better, you get a cheaper rate.

00:14:43.580 That sounds fine. It's voluntary, right?

00:14:45.780 Well, this is exactly the problem that we are going to be up against here.

00:14:49.500 And we have Spencer Fernando, who is joining us on the show to talk about this in just a couple of moments here.

00:14:55.380 But before we get to Spencer, I want to put this clip as well.

00:14:59.160 Again, when I talk about the type of things that you can get away with saying and doing in Davos.

00:15:05.660 This is a banking CEO from Norway, Kirsten Braithen.

00:15:10.400 I apologize if my Norwegian accent is not up to par.

00:15:13.240 where she talks about the transition away from oil and gas.

00:15:17.520 And she had a very specific word to describe the impact such a transition will have.

00:15:22.680 We need to accept that there will be some pain in the process.

00:15:27.880 The pace that we need will open up for missteps.

00:15:33.460 It will open up for shortages of energy.

00:15:36.780 It will create inflationary pressures.

00:15:38.740 And maybe we need to start talking about that, that that pain is actually worth it

00:15:43.100 because if we don't there's no business case there's no economy there's there's no welfare

00:15:48.300 but but so far i think we are have been a little bit careful actually talking about

00:15:52.860 the pain in the short term that is likely to come from from the from this very important change

00:15:59.660 oh great it's a nice little recognition that the transition away from oil and gas is going

00:16:04.060 to come with a little bit of pain and we should talk about it but oh wait no the pain is worth it

00:16:07.820 so all of you people who lose your jobs in oil and gas yeah that's going to be painful but it

00:16:12.140 It doesn't matter because it's all for the better purpose.

00:16:15.260 It's all for the greater purpose of moving us to a greener, cleaner world.

00:16:18.380 Again, the type of thing that has people in Davos nodding along and clapping,

00:16:22.600 but in the real world has very real consequences.

00:16:25.780 And it's not just benign and certainly shouldn't go without being challenged and without being criticized.

00:16:30.660 But in Canada, we have a media that is unwilling and unable to ask these questions

00:16:35.680 and instead smears those who do.

00:16:38.540 And by the way, I have to whip out the greatest hit here.

00:16:41.120 you may wonder well what's this got to do with canada it's not like the wef has any control or

00:16:45.860 influence over the canadian government right well let's ask mr schwab what we are very proud of now

00:16:52.060 as a young generation like prime minister trudeau president of president of argentina and so on

00:17:00.620 that we penetrate the cabinets so yesterday i was at a reception for prime minister trudeau

00:17:08.540 And I would know that half of this cabinet or even more half of half of this cabinet are for our actually young global leaders of the world.

00:17:25.000 We penetrate the cabinets. We penetrate the cabinets.

00:17:29.640 I mean, that's the kind of word that you might think would attract some attention.

00:17:34.280 I imagine if, for example, one of the Koch brothers or who else, who's like the evil, scary right winger, I don't know, Stephen Harper, he's the head of the IDU, which I know gets the left all riled up.

00:17:45.940 What if Stephen Harper said, oh, yes, we, I mean, he would be not as exciting as penetrating cabinets.

00:17:50.580 He'd be like, well, we penetrate the cabinets of governments around the world.

00:17:54.680 And I look at the government here and I say, well, half of them are mine.

00:17:58.700 They're graduates of my program.

00:18:00.120 People would be a little bit perturbed by that, wouldn't they?

00:18:02.980 That would raise just, you know, maybe a couple of questions.

00:18:05.500 Where is the curious, skeptical media?

00:18:08.060 Now, I mean, the most charitable interpretation of this is that Klaus Schwab is all bravado.

00:18:13.900 He's just bloviating.

00:18:15.160 He's trying to, you know, puff himself up and tout his own influence and make it seem like he's controlling the Canadian government.

00:18:21.140 He doesn't actually control the Canadian government, to which I say, OK, but why are the Canadian ministers like Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne and Justin Trudeau occasionally,

00:18:32.020 why are they going along with it? Why are they feeding into this belief? Are they representing

00:18:38.100 Canada when they go, or are they representing the WEF, or are Canada's interests and the WEF's

00:18:43.600 interests just so inextricably linked now that there's no distinguishing between the two?

00:18:48.160 Let's bring in Spencer Fernando here, a fantastic independent journalist, and apart from half the

00:18:53.720 cabinet, not, as I understand it, an alumnus of Klaus Schwab's Young Global Leaders Program,

00:18:59.020 although who knows apparently half the people uh in the country are here spencer it is wonderful to

00:19:03.340 talk to you thanks for coming back on the show good to be here uh now how this all started of

00:19:07.580 course is pierre polyev says what he's been talking about for quite a while here and then

00:19:12.300 the canadian press just pounces on this and accuses him of embracing conspiracy theories for

00:19:19.100 expressing a position that i think most canadians would probably find utterly unobjectionable right

00:19:23.820 yeah and you know one point i make when i talk about uh the wef and how people respond to it

00:19:30.700 is that uh there's a big nuance that's being missed obviously missed on purpose by the media

00:19:34.940 which is there's really two kinds of critics of the left there are the the legit conspiracy

00:19:38.860 theorists the ones who claim oh they you know they caused the pandemic obviously no evidence

00:19:43.260 for that no one credible believes that who claim that there's some you know evil sinister

00:19:47.500 organization you know controlling the whole world behind the scenes but then there's the

00:19:51.260 very legitimate criticism, which is what Paulie was talking about, which is that if you look at

00:19:55.820 what they talk about, it's this kind of policies that are hurting Canada right now, driving up the

00:19:59.740 cost of energy, moving decision-making away from a lot of national governments and the electorates

00:20:06.380 of countries having influence over their governments and bringing things up to a higher

00:20:10.700 level that's more detached from the day-to-day lives of people. And that's obviously a negative

00:20:14.940 thing. So of course, the media is not making that nuanced point. They're not talking about how

00:20:19.580 others, different kinds of criticism, some that are legitimate, some that are not. They're just

00:20:24.120 trying to lump it all in as a conspiracy theory and hoping that it'll just stop people from

00:20:27.600 talking about it. Yeah. And it was a very similar dynamic to what we saw on a lot of the COVID

00:20:33.560 discussions where, you know, there were people that absolutely had, you know, any number of

00:20:37.540 conspiratorial beliefs. But then we also had this group in the middle that are saying, well, hang on,

00:20:41.300 I, you know, I believe COVID is real, but I've got questions about how it originated, or I'm

00:20:45.420 skeptical that we need a vaccine mandate or a vaccine passport to get through it. And then

00:20:49.540 those people were accused of being conspiracy theorists. And it's become one of the most

00:20:53.860 effective vehicles to really shut down criticism. If you can just really lump it all into one

00:21:00.800 category and say, anyone raising any questions is a conspiracy theorist. Even if in the case of

00:21:05.640 Polyev, the media failed to come up with a single example of anything he said that was conspiratorial.

00:21:10.680 The accusation was really just, well, he says this stuff and other people have conspiracy theories about them.

00:21:17.900 Yeah, I mean, all you have to do is just play like the clip you played there, which is what's actually funny about that is, you know, the Norwegian lady there was a lot more honest than most of our politicians. 0.93

00:21:28.180 She was at least admitting that the policies she supports are going to cause real pain. 0.99

00:21:31.340 Right. I mean, you don't you don't see that kind of honesty from the liberal government.

00:21:34.300 I mean, on the one hand, they say, oh, we're very worried about the cost of living.

00:21:37.260 oh here's a new carbon tax you know here are a bunch of policies that drive up the cost of energy

00:21:41.480 so they they never even have the guts to admit what they're actually doing but yeah you know

00:21:45.980 it's you know we've i think we've seen how this plays out you know in you know four or five months

00:21:51.880 there'll be some mainstream media article saying well actually the web does have some problematic

00:21:55.860 aspects to it you know here's why people are legitimately concerned it's almost like they

00:21:59.660 want to be the ones to get there first to talk about something and if they don't then they just

00:22:03.240 dismiss it until they start talking about it then it's legitimate as you say with covid

00:22:06.860 you know you couldn't bring up the lab leak idea oh no that's that's totally that's that's insane

00:22:11.120 only crazy people will believe that people got banned from social media for talking about it

00:22:15.720 people got in serious trouble and then all of a sudden you know a year or two later you know

00:22:19.320 new york times other you know credible publications you know as some people see them

00:22:23.640 they start talking about it then okay now it's it's okay to talk about now it's okay

00:22:27.520 and that's a big problem in a free society because the whole point is we're supposed to you know

00:22:31.500 find out the truth through debating ideas openly and honestly and if we just you know shut people

00:22:36.120 down for having opinions that are not, you know, that people think are too conspiratorial, then

00:22:41.380 we're not going to get to the truth, right? Yeah, you're quite right about that. And I go back to,

00:22:46.660 I don't know if you were on when I brought it up, this headline in CBC of taking aim at Davos when

00:22:52.160 Trump was there. And they, you know, say Trump the populace descends on globalist Davos. So when

00:22:57.140 Donald Trump was going there, it was all too easy for the left to criticize this and say, oh, yeah,

00:23:01.540 it's these out-of-touch elites. And now that, you know, it's the right that has concerns with WEF,

00:23:06.360 it seems to be conspiratorial in the same people's eyes. And I can actually fully admit that the left

00:23:11.960 may have been much better at sussing out the problems with this organization many years ago,

00:23:17.980 because it used to be. I mean, Chrystia Freeland, when she was a journalist, wrote the book on this

00:23:22.060 organization and made a lot of very good points about it. Naomi Klein, who I don't agree with on

00:23:26.520 very many things as well, was a very, very significant critic of this. And a lot of the

00:23:32.420 left wing protests that there used to be there were kind of the very similar things that we see

00:23:38.780 in like the Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump agreement on, you know, the problems of free trade and the

00:23:44.140 problems of globalization and how it's really become a class struggle in a lot of ways. And

00:23:48.720 I think that there's something perhaps that the right could have learned about that sooner. But

00:23:52.480 it is interesting the way the media responds to these things, because when it was the left

00:23:56.840 raising these criticisms, there was never that I recall any denunciation of them. They were never

00:24:01.680 called conspiracy theorists. But now that the right is raising these concerns or more of the

00:24:06.780 right raising these concerns, it's we have to denounce the denouncers. Yeah, I think a big

00:24:12.380 thing, too, is that there's been, you know, a not so subtle shift in I don't know if you want to

00:24:18.300 call political ideology or the way people talk about things. But, you know, what does it mean

00:24:21.540 be conservative you know liberal left right there's a lot of overlap and a lot of i think

00:24:25.540 confusion for people and so um you know it used to be very conservative to say well you know keep

00:24:30.740 taxes low have free trade you know be very capitalist and you know support the free market

00:24:35.060 i'd still define myself that way well whether that's still considered conservative or not

00:24:38.740 you know you're seeing more of a shift towards you know state intervention cultural conservatism in

00:24:42.900 some ways but i think the media instead of talking about the nuance which i guess goes over some of

00:24:47.540 of their heads, they just, they look for the easiest, you know, thing they can say, which is,

00:24:51.020 oh, fascism, conspiracy theorist, you know, anti-Semitic. I see some people trying to call

00:24:55.780 Paulie an anti-Semitic, which is obviously absurd. And so it's just, a lot of it's just laziness.

00:25:00.680 It's not wanting to delve deeper into the issue, not wanting to deal with any complexity or nuance.

00:25:05.020 It's just, what's the quickest insult I could find to make the whole issue go away or just

00:25:08.280 label someone badly and then people will stop talking about it. So I think that's part of what

00:25:11.740 we're dealing with too, is just very lazy journalism in many cases.

00:25:15.660 What's your thought on how Polyev has been relatively unrepentant?

00:25:19.100 Because I know the last couple of conservative leaders, Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer,

00:25:23.700 were both fairly timid when it came to the media.

00:25:26.580 And they both really buckled when the media was going after them.

00:25:30.500 Whereas Polyev, to his credit, hasn't done that.

00:25:32.920 And even on the WEF stuff, he came out after that CP article and just said,

00:25:36.780 no, it's a hit job. 0.96

00:25:37.620 It's ridiculous. 0.98

00:25:38.320 I'm not buying into it. 0.96

00:25:39.860 Do you think he'll be able to keep that up?

00:25:41.300 And do you think he will keep that up?

00:25:43.520 I think so.

00:25:44.300 So, I mean, the polls are looking pretty good for him.

00:25:47.100 You know, obviously, that's how he campaigned for the leadership.

00:25:49.560 So, I think, you know, I don't see him wanting to change from that perspective.

00:25:52.900 Even if he did, I think he faced so much pressure because of how he campaigned that he wouldn't really be able to.

00:25:57.520 Not that, of course, he wants to.

00:25:59.380 And, you know, the reason I think it's working, and this is, I think, a deeper point for why the liberals are struggling, is that things are just bad in the country.

00:26:06.260 I mean, you know, we can talk about all the complexities of certain things.

00:26:09.020 but in many cases, people are looking around and saying, well, the liberals have been in power for

00:26:13.040 eight years and things are getting worse. Okay. This guy, Polyev, well, what's he talking about? 0.68

00:26:18.080 Okay. You know, we need affordable housing. We need to deal with crime. We need to lower the

00:26:21.860 cost of living, you know, pretty common sense things. People look at that and say, well,

00:26:25.200 at least this guy's addressing the issues I have. And then they turn on the news and they say,

00:26:28.700 oh, the liberals say Polyev is a dangerous, scary conspiracy theorist. And I think people are just

00:26:33.140 going to start to tune that out. I mean, they've heard it so often. It really doesn't match up

00:26:36.900 with reality. And so I think, you know, I don't, I don't, I'm not shocked that liberals are trying

00:26:41.700 this. I mean, they've got to try something, right? In politics, ether, whatever attack you think is

00:26:44.960 going to work, but they don't really have much left in terms of saying, oh, look, look how great

00:26:48.960 we're doing. Look how great things are for you. Look how affordable everything is. And so the,

00:26:53.840 the other issue too, as much of the establishment media, you know, if you look at Bill C-18 and how

00:26:57.820 they're all lining up behind that, despite it being an absolute disaster, they're really just

00:27:02.220 desperate for money. And they know a conservative government is not going to give them a bunch of

00:27:05.640 money is not going to restrict social media companies and restrict free speech for their

00:27:09.800 benefit. And so they now have a vested financial interest in trying to keep the Liberals in power. 0.96

00:27:14.220 So I think it's important to filter our perception of their coverage through that lens as well,

00:27:19.580 which is that, look, they want the Liberals to stay in power because they want the Liberals

00:27:22.540 to give them taxpayer dollars and restrict independent competitors. So that's going to

00:27:27.040 certainly shade their coverage. Yeah. And to be honest, when you talk about how terrible things

00:27:31.680 are for Canadians right now.

00:27:33.300 A lot of these issues exist outside of Canada,

00:27:35.220 and that's a legitimate question of the WEF

00:27:38.080 on a different plane, which is,

00:27:39.660 okay, you guys think that you're solving

00:27:41.140 the world's problems here.

00:27:42.560 Well, you had Putin speaking in 2021,

00:27:45.780 and a few months later, Russia invades Ukraine.

00:27:48.360 You had all these great people in the private sector

00:27:51.760 and the public sector talking to each other

00:27:53.500 about solving things, and inflation's out of control.

00:27:56.340 We've got Europe that is in for another very cold winter

00:27:59.060 because of energy issues.

00:28:00.160 So, I mean, even if you don't believe that they're influential, the question is, all right, what are you providing? What service are you providing to world leaders that go there when you failed at the most basic things? And I don't know if there's an answer for that. And, you know, to Canadian leaders, I'd say, where's the value proposition? What are you getting for Canadians when you hang out with these billionaires? Because I've yet to see that.

00:28:22.620 Yeah, I think a big part of it is just, you know, it's like a club for people, you know, you hear all the celebrities are going there, you know, politicians are going there, you know, people want to get involved and, you know, be seen there.

00:28:34.020 And, you know, I guess it's some sort of credibility boost in some cases. But I think, you know, a big part of all this is that there's a lot of people who have, you know, they're, it's a good way to put it. They're almost their purpose for living in many ways is all about being involved in some sort of, you know, world historical battle or, you know, being a historical figure.

00:28:53.820 I think Stephen Gilbeau is a good example of that. He obviously sees himself as some sort of heroic figure who, oh, it doesn't matter how many people he hurts economically. It's all for the greater good, as he mentioned earlier, the so-called greater good that a lot of politicians use to do things that aren't really good ideas.

00:29:10.440 and so he's obviously sure that he's the good guy he doesn't question himself at all you know he just

00:29:15.240 gets more and more aggressive you know more restrictions on energy more bans on plastic and

00:29:19.900 everything you know make make people's life more difficult for the greater good to save the planet

00:29:23.640 and so you know davos i think gives people a chance to congregate and feel like they're being

00:29:28.460 part of something right oh they're part of you know reshaping the world and saving the planet

00:29:31.860 and so you know when they're told well actually you know nothing you do is working it's only

00:29:36.440 making things worse and people don't really like you and don't want to hear this kind of stuff

00:29:40.640 they're not just going to give in, right, because their whole purpose is built up in that.

00:29:44.840 And so I think that's something we need to look at for the types of people we elect

00:29:49.920 and types of people we trust in the position of power is you don't really want people

00:29:54.660 who think that they're saving the planet or that they're some big historical figure.

00:29:58.380 You want someone who wants to manage the government well, keep taxes low,

00:30:02.480 have services be relatively effective.

00:30:04.540 You don't want people who have some sort of massive mission in mind.

00:30:07.380 And so I think that's part of what the whole Davos thing is.

00:30:10.440 I mean, obviously, Klaus Schwab, I think he does sometimes talk up his own influence

00:30:14.860 because that's where his sense of purpose comes from.

00:30:17.320 He's orchestrating everything around the world.

00:30:19.260 I'm sure it makes him feel good to see people say that about him.

00:30:22.020 But if the West was really running everything, I think they'd be a little more careful and subtle about it. 0.58

00:30:26.440 I mean, would you pick Klaus Schwab who basically seems like a villain ripped out of a James Bond movie?

00:30:31.240 Would he really be the front man for it?

00:30:32.800 I mean, a little too on the nose sometimes, I think.

00:30:34.820 Well, yeah, yeah, you're, you're right about that. And that's the problem. I mean, it's like,

00:30:38.020 even if the WEF is not the shadowy global cabal of people running the world, man, do they not do

00:30:44.440 much to dissuade people from taking that image? It's like right out of central casting and like,

00:30:49.060 you know, it's a future list built by us. It's like, yeah, okay, fine, fine. Uh, Spencer Fernando,

00:30:53.320 independent journalist, extraordinary. You can get his work at spencerfernando.com.

00:30:57.980 Always good to talk to you, Spencer. Thanks for coming on.

00:31:00.540 No problem. Take care.

00:31:01.200 All right. Thank you very much for that. And by the way, let me just point out here that when you go there, it's a very weird place. And I've been to two now covering it for True North, and I've been very grateful that there's been so much support for our coverage of this.

00:31:17.760 but it's just an odd place because on one hand, it like has all the trappings of a regular

00:31:22.120 conference. You go and you're like, oh yeah, you run into this person and that person. And oh,

00:31:26.980 you're beside, you know, so-and-so at the urinal in the bathroom, but it just happens to be the

00:31:31.300 king of the Belgians or something. And you're like, well, that's weird. You know, the last

00:31:33.960 conference I was at, it was, you know, I don't know, some, you know, county warden that I was

00:31:38.320 at the urinal beside now it's the king of the Belgians. So it's, it's odd. And then you, you

00:31:42.160 go and they, all of these like swag bags, you know, except I was walking down the street once

00:31:46.160 and it was really, really cold. The snow was coming down and the United Arab Emirates was

00:31:50.260 handing out mittens and toques to people with these little United Arab Emirates bags. And I'm

00:31:54.220 like, well, on one hand, do I want free swag from the United Arab Emirates? No. But on the other

00:31:58.300 hand, am I very, very cold right now? And could I benefit from United Arab Emirates swag? So I think

00:32:03.920 you know the answer to this question that I have a United Arab Emirates toque and gloves. Actually,

00:32:08.820 no, I think they were out of the gloves. I think I might've only gotten the toque. I think Sean

00:32:12.140 might have. Sean, do you remember, did we get the toques and the gloves or just the, just one or

00:32:16.920 the other? He got gloves. Maybe I got the toque and he got the gloves. And that was the, that was

00:32:20.940 the trade-off there. And then the hot chocolate. I did like the hot chocolate video last time of

00:32:24.560 like, you know, Facebook's hot chocolate and the Swiss government's hot chocolate and Zurich's

00:32:28.460 hot chocolate. But you, you can't let yourself get sucked in by that. This is an organization

00:32:33.000 that for all the oddities of it has a very serious and very radical policy agenda. And I think that's

00:32:38.640 why. I mean, it's fun to look at sort of the oddities of it, but you also have to talk about

00:32:42.420 the seriousness of it and talk about the meat of it. All of this discussion about the World Economic

00:32:48.760 Forum leads me to this here that I wanted to tell you in that True North is going back. We are

00:32:55.080 returning to the World Economic Forum annual meeting 2024, which is coming up in January,

00:33:00.880 and we are going to be covering it with the biggest team we've ever sent there. We are going to have

00:33:05.720 more people on the ground, and we are going to be talking to the movers and shakers, talking to the

00:33:10.540 global elites, whether they want to hear from us or not, and really putting the questions to them

00:33:15.280 that we've been talking about on this show, questions that Pierre Polyev and Danielle

00:33:19.040 Smith have raised, and questions that the media in this country generally, certainly the legacy

00:33:23.740 media, refuse to raise. And one thing I will point out about this is that it is incredibly difficult

00:33:30.120 to get there. The World Economic Forum seizes all of the hotels in the area, basically, before they

00:33:37.500 even announce the dates, which means that the second the dates are announced, every hotel is

00:33:42.540 sold out. So you're left with Airbnbs. Many of those are booked out to the same people who go

00:33:47.300 back year after year. We found an Airbnb, a town over last time we were there. This time we could

00:33:53.800 not get it. And we ended up having to find accommodations very far outside of Davos. We're

00:33:59.000 still looking because we want to be able to get closer but we had to find accommodations in another

00:34:03.980 literally in another country in Austria on the other side of the border and we are going to

00:34:09.520 commute day in day out unless we can find something closer and even then we have to spend a fair bit

00:34:14.720 of money to do it so the reason I tell this to you now is so that if you are interested in this

00:34:19.620 and you do think there's value to this that we need to explain why it's not a conspiracy theory

00:34:24.440 to report on the World Economic Forum,

00:34:26.700 to report on the Canadian government's links

00:34:29.020 to the World Economic Forum.

00:34:30.720 You can support us by supporting this coverage.

00:34:33.720 You can head to donate.tnc.news,

00:34:36.660 donate.tnc.news and make a contribution there.

00:34:40.580 And we very much appreciate it.

00:34:41.880 I mean, we're committed to going

00:34:43.000 because we've had so much correspondence

00:34:45.440 from people in past years

00:34:47.260 and even in the last couple of weeks saying,

00:34:49.300 I hope you won't give up because it is a big story.

00:34:52.300 And even if Canadian press is invested in denouncing anyone who raises these questions

00:34:57.140 of spreading conspiracy theories, they are very real questions and they are very important

00:35:01.480 questions and we're going to continue asking them.

00:35:04.300 One example of this is how Chrystia Freeland justifies being Canada's finance minister 0.99

00:35:09.380 and deputy prime minister, while also being a board of trustees member for the WF.

00:35:15.620 Because again, at the very least, this is no different than if she were on some corporate

00:35:20.620 board and she were on the Canadian government's cabinet in a very senior position you say well

00:35:25.920 maybe there's a little bit of a conflict of interest especially when the WEF gets money

00:35:30.500 from Canada Canada gives WEF money so at the very very least this is not asking a lot someone should

00:35:37.360 be able to ask her how she's not in a conflict of interest but no one to my knowledge in the

00:35:42.060 legacy media in Canada has done this they won't respond to our media queries I was only able to

00:35:47.580 put the question to her because I made a point of finding her in Davos. Hi, Minister Andrew

00:35:55.020 Lawton, True North. I was just wondering if it's a conflict of interest for you to be a trustee

00:35:58.500 while also a cabinet minister. Are you proud of the work? And if so, why is there an issue

00:36:03.460 answering a question about it? Enjoy your panel, Minister. That is a 10 second, I don't know if

00:36:11.680 you can even call it an interview per se. It's certainly not an exchange, no interaction. It was

00:36:16.320 very one way. You've heard of the walk and talk. Well, in this case, I talked and she walked. 0.98

00:36:21.540 And that was attempting to get Christia Freeland to answer what should be a very simple question.

00:36:26.240 Now, ideally, some media figure with access to Christia Freeland and access to Justin Trudeau

00:36:31.780 would put those questions in a forum where they won't duck and run. I'm not optimistic of that

00:36:36.460 happening. But the reason that clip is important is because it's proof that True North, when we

00:36:41.060 were there, were asking questions that very few other people are. And by very few, I mean our

00:36:46.300 friends at Rebel. I know they covered the WEF. There was a wonderful independent journalist I

00:36:50.760 met from Japan who went there and was asking questions. And interestingly enough, I appeared

00:36:55.840 with her. And a good friend of mine is a Japanese singer. She lives in Canada with her husband,

00:37:02.200 who's Canadian. And she's a Japanese singer. And she told me when I ran into her a little while

00:37:06.720 ago that I'm apparently huge in Japan now. And I don't know if this is like David Hasselhoff being

00:37:10.840 huge in Germany. But apparently after that interview I did with Masako Ganaha, I like became

00:37:16.260 very huge in Japan. And I met another guitarist who lived in Japan that was like familiar with

00:37:20.640 my work. So if you are watching from Japan, thank you very much. I may have butchered the 1.00

00:37:26.480 pronunciation, but those are the only two words in Japanese I know apart from, well, I guess

00:37:30.860 sayonara and sushi, I also know, but I know sushi too well, sadly. But that was great. And she,

00:37:36.420 Masaka found Klaus Schwab on the streets and was about to ask him a question and she was so pleasant

00:37:42.840 so polite and Klaus Schwab was like oh yeah I've got to go I've got to go and then he had a moment

00:37:47.520 of pause and he said wait which media are you from and she says I'm an independent journalist

00:37:52.620 and immediately he says no thank you and leaves because when you're an independent journalist

00:37:56.500 they know you're not going to be asking the same fawning questions that so many of the people that

00:38:01.240 wannabe in the club are asking. So this is why we are going to continue to cover this. And as I

00:38:06.440 mentioned, if you want to chip in yourself and join us, donate.tnc.news, donate.tnc.news. That

00:38:12.900 is the website you can hit. And I'll just end on a little bit of a light note here because

00:38:17.640 John Kerry, you know, can give you a little bit of candor as well. Just like that Norwegian banker

00:38:23.300 gave us a little bit of honesty when she talked about the pain of the transition. John Kerry gave

00:38:27.520 a little bit of honesty when he talked about how difficult it is being him what has been the most

00:38:32.380 challenging aspect of your role as special and for climate um making my flights on time

00:38:43.140 oh so clever oh yeah he's telling us to live less to fly less to drive less to eat less but

00:38:54.380 the only thing that makes his job so challenging is all those flights he's on. Yeah, the rest of

00:39:00.080 you plebs have to stay home while John Kerry flies around to tell more of you to stay home. Well, 0.99

00:39:05.180 that is the hypocrisy that is par for the course in Davos and what we will go there to expose.

00:39:09.960 That does it for us for today. This is Canada's most irreverent talk show,

00:39:13.800 The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:39:24.380 tnc.news

00:39:54.380 We'll be right back.

00:40:24.380 We'll be right back.

Juno News - August 15, 2023

Media freaks out after Poilievre calls out WEF

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