Juno News - August 03, 2021


Meet the left-wing lockdown authoritarians

Topics
lockdown mental health impacts
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Jason Kenney Ryan Jesperson Dina Hinshaw COVID-19 Hinshaw Nahid Nenshi Supriya Hinchot
Do we need to get rid of all COVID-19 protocols？ Election Readiness

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

159.63

Word count

2,037

Sentence count

137

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

A province finally has stood up against the madness of endless lockdowns, media fear-mongering, and irrational paranoia when it comes to COVID. Candice talks to Dale Smith, a freelance reporter and member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, to explain why.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.480 Canada finally has a province willing to stand up against the madness of endless lockdowns,
00:00:05.680 media fear-mongering, and irrational paranoia when it comes to COVID-19.
00:00:09.720 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:16.760 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in.
00:00:19.560 So you probably saw this news last week.
00:00:21.960 Alberta announced that it was lifting many of its remaining COVID restrictions,
00:00:26.160 including forced quarantines and mask mandates.
00:00:30.260 So Alberta's chief medical officer, a woman named Dr. Dina Henshaw, 1.00
00:00:34.700 announced the province's new approach to the virus last week.
00:00:38.400 She noted that Alberta will be dropping the forced quarantine requirements
00:00:41.620 for those who had close contact with a COVID patient,
00:00:44.640 and that later this summer they will drop all quarantine mandates and many mask requirements.
00:00:49.760 So in other words, they'll start treating COVID much like any other airborne illness.
00:00:55.260 When you get sick with the flu, you stay home.
00:00:57.940 Not because of some government mandate or government law forcing you to stay home,
00:01:02.280 but you do, simply out of an abundance of caution, out of respect for others, and out of common sense.
00:01:08.680 The government does not need to legally require you to stay home when you're sick.
00:01:13.440 People do that on their own.
00:01:15.140 People do that for every other illness,
00:01:16.820 regardless of how severe the symptoms are or how contagious it may be.
00:01:21.060 And while most Albertans probably let out a sigh of relief about these new changes,
00:01:26.780 these measures were quickly condemned and demonized by the usual suspects in the authoritarian left-wing lockdown crowd.
00:01:34.480 Check out this interview, which was plastered all over CTV News' website with the headline,
00:01:39.620 who does this to their own public, featuring an angry emergency room doctor who apparently wants Canada to stay locked down forever.
00:01:48.960 We're so confused as a population.
00:01:51.860 Like, they're not going to be putting any protections in place,
00:01:54.840 and they're not going to be testing for infections,
00:01:57.700 and they're going to let people with COVID walk around.
00:01:59.680 Like, when I tell people this story, their face is dropping, like, that's not possible.
00:02:05.200 You're lying to me.
00:02:06.760 They can't be doing this.
00:02:08.100 And I think it's this sense of incredulity that the people that are in place to protect Albertans
00:02:16.600 are actually trying to make us sick.
00:02:19.000 We're very confused.
00:02:20.240 Doctor, the premier is saying that the cases no longer equal high levels of hospitalizations,
00:02:30.260 that the focus needs to be more on vaccines.
00:02:33.860 We don't know that.
00:02:34.600 We don't know that.
00:02:35.260 Nobody's gone, ever gone through a cycle of complete relaxation of restrictions through Delta.
00:02:47.460 Nobody.
00:02:47.840 It's insane.
00:02:50.440 It's this incredible experiment to see how many people we can get sick,
00:02:56.320 have long-term disability, and possibly die.
00:03:00.220 Like, who does this to their own public?
00:03:02.680 Who does this? 0.95
00:03:03.440 Like, what the hell? 0.81
00:03:06.380 Why was he wearing his ER scrubs?
00:03:08.760 He was doing an interview from his own living room.
00:03:11.580 I didn't get that.
00:03:12.380 Well, anyway, this person's voice apparently is the voice that the media wants us to be listening to.
00:03:20.200 And while countless journalists were expressing similar anger and outrage at the province of Alberta and at Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dina Henshaw
00:03:28.860 and at the province's premier, Jason Kenney, and generally against the leadership in Alberta, some journalists took their aim directly at the people of Alberta.
00:03:39.220 So this is Dale Smith.
00:03:41.760 Dale is a freelance reporter who is based in Ottawa, and he is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
00:03:48.900 That's that very exclusive club in Ottawa that gets all sorts of unprecedented access to politicians and they get resources.
00:03:55.960 It's a very exclusive club, and we're told it's only for very, very serious journalists who do very, very serious reporting.
00:04:03.200 Dale is one of them.
00:04:04.760 And so when he was trying to explain these measures to people who aren't from Alberta, apparently Dale is from Alberta,
00:04:11.360 so he was trying to explain these measures to others.
00:04:14.380 This is what he said.
00:04:15.120 Now, I included this in my Toronto Sun column, and some of Dale Smith's friends or his fans on Twitter were accusing me of taking it out of context.
00:04:23.620 So I'm going to read the entire Twitter thread here, just so that I'm not accused of taking it out of context,
00:04:29.620 and I'll let you decide for yourself what he's saying.
00:04:32.700 So the thread started this way.
00:04:34.100 Supriya, who is a journalist in Toronto, she's actually fairly reasonable, or at least she used to be prior to COVID.
00:04:40.600 She tweeted this out, and she said this,
00:04:43.060 I need someone to explain Alberta to me.
00:04:45.100 Ryan Jesperson, you up for the task, buddy.
00:04:47.480 Ryan Jesperson is a former left-wing radio host up in Edmonton.
00:04:51.280 So Dale Smith replied to this tweet.
00:04:52.800 He said, what do you need to know?
00:04:55.200 Supriya says, how does a province that has currently experienced this then decide to go ahead and do this while having the second worst vaccination rate?
00:05:04.820 And so currently experiencing this, I guess, is talking about how there's the spike in the Delta variant,
00:05:10.100 and then they decided to go ahead and do this, which is easing up all these lockdown rules.
00:05:14.320 So this is what Dale said in reply.
00:05:16.760 I'll read all the tweets again, just so I can't be accused of taking it out of context.
00:05:20.240 So he says,
00:05:21.840 He goes on.
00:05:38.740 With that in mind, they're more concerned about individual freedoms than the collective good.
00:05:44.640 It's also why they're more concerned about low taxes and socking away resource revenues in sovereign wealth funds and preparing for the future.
00:05:52.400 It's why, like Americans, they are more concerned with ending restrictions and masking than they are with actually combating the virus.
00:06:01.100 That Hinshaw was shrugging off, allowing it to become endemic because it would take too much human resources fits into these priorities.
00:06:11.400 So there you have it.
00:06:12.620 I won't add any commentary to what Dale put.
00:06:15.340 He clearly has a pretty negative view of Albertans, which he compares to all Americans, even though clearly America is a very vast, broad country with lots of different people with lots of different views.
00:06:28.060 And the province of Alberta is settled by a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds.
00:06:32.400 That aside, that kind of gives you a little bit of a window into the way that the mainstream media views Albertans, but also views Dr. Hinshaw, the chief medical officer over there in Alberta.
00:06:45.860 So while left-wing journalists were doing their best to demonize the province, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney pushed back against these agenda-driven lockdown advocates in the media.
00:06:55.840 This is what Jason Kenney had to say about the media and their constant fear-mongering about COVID.
00:07:00.760 We have seen the numbers come down dramatically in Alberta.
00:07:05.620 We should salute that.
00:07:06.620 You know, I think it's time, let me be blunt, I think it's time for media to stop promoting fear when it comes to COVID-19 and to start actually looking at where we're at with huge vaccine protection.
00:07:21.200 We have crushed that third spike.
00:07:24.380 COVID continues to exist.
00:07:25.660 As I've said before, the virus will continue to circulate.
00:07:28.920 Numbers will go up and they'll go down.
00:07:31.900 But what matters most is that the widespread protective effect of vaccines is real.
00:07:38.700 We should embrace the science.
00:07:40.600 Hear, hear.
00:07:41.740 But it isn't just the media and it isn't just the crazy activist doctors they promote.
00:07:46.160 Left-wing politicians also wanted in on the action.
00:07:48.720 So Calgary Mayor Neheed Nenshi similarly just lost his mind over the idea of having to live with COVID.
00:07:56.520 He says this,
00:07:57.640 It's inconceivable to me.
00:07:59.500 It's the height of insanity, he said, about Dr. Hinchot's decision to no longer have that government-mandated forced quarantine.
00:08:07.900 So many of the fellow travelers of these left-wing journalists and politicians decided to organize their own protests.
00:08:15.400 This is what that looked like.
00:08:17.200 These people are actually protesting for more government intervention.
00:08:21.640 They're against government easing restrictions.
00:08:23.940 So they went out there to demand more government control in their lives.
00:08:28.180 Can you imagine?
00:08:28.820 And remember how the media treated the anti-lockdown rallies?
00:08:33.020 They called the protesters COVIDiots.
00:08:35.140 They painted them all as far-right, sometimes even white supremacists. 0.63
00:08:39.540 They ridiculed and mocked these protesters for daring to speak out against the lockdowns.
00:08:44.880 Well, this is how that same mainstream media treated the pro-lockdown protesters.
00:08:50.800 This is a tweet from a global news reporter.
00:08:55.160 She says,
00:08:55.660 A growing crowd at a rally in Edmonton spurred by Alberta doctors.
00:09:00.480 Participants say they came here today to protest the province's changes to COVID-19 measures.
00:09:05.800 The event in Edmonton mirrors another one in Calgary.
00:09:09.160 So really, she's just sort of saying, you know, these people are guided by doctors.
00:09:14.400 They're guided by doctors.
00:09:15.460 And also, it's a growing crowd.
00:09:17.300 So you can see that they have the media on their side cheering them on.
00:09:22.400 And really, you know, it's remarkable, folks, how much the tables have turned.
00:09:27.660 I'm old enough to remember, what, three months ago, when these same left-wing voices were
00:09:33.000 hectoring the anti-lockdown crowd for daring to criticize the all-knowing public health
00:09:38.460 officials.
00:09:38.980 But now that a few of those public health officials have changed their tune and decided to ease
00:09:44.560 up some of the lockdowns, that authoritarian lockdown crowd, including politicians like
00:09:48.940 Nahid Nenshi, including activist journalists like Dale Smith, well, they've given themselves
00:09:53.400 permission to condemn the same experts to their heart's content.
00:09:57.900 Remember, when you do it, it is vicious and undermining trust, public trust in our system.
00:10:02.920 When they do it, though, it's perfectly reasonable because they're fighting on behalf of what?
00:10:08.040 Safety for all?
00:10:08.980 Who knows?
00:10:09.760 It must be nice to believe that you have the moral high ground, no matter which side of
00:10:13.980 the position you take.
00:10:15.720 The global COVID pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns gave these busybodies a taste of unlimited power
00:10:22.620 and control.
00:10:23.780 And they liked it just a little bit too much to let it go.
00:10:26.500 Ironically, by demanding more restrictions now, even for fully vaccinated Canadians, these 0.50
00:10:33.020 left-wing doctors, journalists, and politicians are actually undermining the case to get vaccinated.
00:10:38.520 The reality is that according to data from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the COVID
00:10:43.300 case mortality rate, which really is the only thing we should care about, we shouldn't really
00:10:46.880 care about the number of cases.
00:10:48.660 There would never be a news report reporting on the number of flu cases because it doesn't
00:10:52.880 matter how many people get the flu.
00:10:54.200 What really matters is how many people die from the flu.
00:10:57.140 And so when we're looking at the COVID case mortality rate, for patients who have had one
00:11:01.720 dose, the death rate is 0.0027.
00:11:06.220 And for those who have had two doses, those who are double-vaxxed, the death rate is 0.0018.
00:11:13.420 You get that?
00:11:14.040 That's about on par with the seasonal flu.
00:11:17.040 In fact, the National Post had a very handy article today showing you all the things that
00:11:21.980 are more likely to kill you than COVID-19 if you're fully vaccinated.
00:11:26.820 And this includes car crashes, the flu, late-stage cancer diagnosis, Parkinson's, diabetes, and
00:11:34.080 hepatitis.
00:11:35.700 All of those things are more likely to kill you than COVID if you're fully vaccinated.
00:11:40.240 And yet you have all of these activists demanding more lockdowns in Alberta.
00:11:44.420 It is completely absurd.
00:11:45.900 Compound the very low risk for vaccinated Canadians of dying from COVID with new information about
00:11:52.380 the drastic impact that lockdowns had on mental health and the well-being of Canadians.
00:11:57.180 And it makes Alberta's new approach seem like a slam dunk. 1.00
00:12:00.640 I'm talking about a recent Statistics Canada report that showed that more than four times
00:12:06.160 as many working-age Canadians died because of the lockdowns than because of the virus.
00:12:11.380 So this is according to StatsCan, between January 2020 and April 2021, 5,535 Canadians under
00:12:19.420 the age of 65 died because of the indirect consequences due to the pandemic, while 1,380 Canadians
00:12:27.440 in the same age group during the same period died from COVID.
00:12:32.320 The lockdowns were deadlier than the virus for most Canadians.
00:12:35.780 It's time we stopped listening to the left-wing, lockdown, authoritarian crowd and started living
00:12:42.540 our lives.
00:12:43.560 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.