Juno News - Out with the Canadian flag, in with the Ukrainian one

00:00:00.000 Hi, everyone, and welcome to a special live edition of Fake News Friday here on the Candice

00:00:10.480 Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candice Malcolm. And as you know, we love Fridays here at True

00:00:15.280 North and here at the Candice Malcolm Show because it gives us an opportunity to look back,

00:00:19.000 reflect on the media and how dishonest they are, how they spin, how they manipulate the truth,

00:00:23.460 how they try to manipulate you. Fortunately, you're too smart for that. You don't fall for

00:00:28.240 their tricks, but so many people do. And we'd like to go through in some detail of the dishonesty

00:00:33.360 in the legacy media. So joining me today is my producer here on the Candice Malcolm show and

00:00:37.940 journalist here at True North, Harrison Faulkner. Harrison, thanks for joining us today.

00:00:43.060 Yeah, glad to be on Candice and glad to do a live FNF. It's something I think that we should

00:00:48.960 try and look to do more. Exactly. Yeah, we did a live show on Wednesday and it was really fun.

00:00:53.980 And so we thought we would try it again here on Friday.

00:00:56.820 So one of the things that's become a theme in Canadian media is that all of these Canadian symbols that they used to relish in,

00:01:04.160 they used to rally around, they used to promote, have now suddenly become passe and unacceptable,

00:01:09.780 whether it be the name, the word freedom itself, apparently, we're told is hateful and represents extremism or something like that.

00:01:19.580 And the Canadian flag. We've seen more and more people in the legacy media telling us on Twitter and through news stories, fake news stories, that the Canadian flag does not represent anything good anymore. It now represents sort of the worst of the worst. And it's just so interesting and almost ironic, Harrison, that exact time as they're throwing out the Canadian flag, saying it represents something beyond the pale and reprehensible, we see them rallying around the Ukraine flag, which I get it.

00:01:44.600 we're in a conflict. There's a global conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The world is getting

00:01:49.300 sucked into it. And generally speaking, you know, Ukraine is a side that was attack provoked. And 0.95

00:01:55.820 therefore, that's, you know, that's the side that we're on, apparently. And, you know, total

00:02:01.780 unwillingness to look critically at Ukraine, to look at the fact that this is a young country,

00:02:05.900 it is a deeply corrupt country, a country without the same kinds of institutions and connection to

00:02:12.260 freedom, liberalism and democracy like we have in Canada. So it's just bizarre that all of these

00:02:17.040 sort of pristine liberals, media people who think of themselves as elite, they have no time for

00:02:23.700 Canada and all the time in the world for a country like Ukraine. And of course, we see the complete

00:02:27.900 whitewashing of Nazis, the infestation of the Nazi ideology and neo-Nazis in Ukraine is becoming

00:02:35.180 a serious problem. So we're going to talk about all that today, Harrison. Let's start with the

00:02:39.920 with a Canadian flag thing because we definitely saw this during the freedom convoy where you know

00:02:44.780 legacy media journalists were just triggered by the flag the whole the very sight of the flag

00:02:49.400 is something that that upsets these journalists if you fly one from your flag uh if you fly one

00:02:55.260 from your truck or your vehicle uh be careful you're gonna you know make some liberals cry out

00:02:59.060 there apparently but uh we have uh Linda Steele who is a radio personality down in Vancouver over

00:03:04.300 at cknw980 and she wrote this on twitter harrison she writes it makes me sad that now when i see

00:03:11.340 someone flying a canadian flag from their vehicle i immediately feel uncomfortable sad face um so

00:03:18.620 i i i don't really know what you know why what what led her to to tweet this i guess she might

00:03:24.060 have been driving down the street and seeing a canadian flag made her feel uncomfortable

00:03:29.340 So as we know, the Freedom Rally, the Freedom Convoy, had a huge uprising of national unity

00:03:37.460 and patriotism.

00:03:38.420 I really haven't seen much like this in my life.

00:03:41.020 I've said this before, Harrison.

00:03:42.660 I volunteered at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and I was there in downtown Vancouver right

00:03:49.640 at the stadium when Canada won the gold medal in the men's hockey against the United States.

00:03:54.260 It went to overtime.

00:03:55.620 Sydney Crosby scored the game-win goal.

00:03:57.080 was biggest moment in sports at the time. And Vancouver erupted into this huge patriotic showing

00:04:02.720 of just like, like love for country. It was a really incredible, amazing experience just to

00:04:08.120 be part of it. And I remember there was some talk afterwards about how Canada had, you know,

00:04:12.540 we're becoming a country of our own, and we were embracing our own type of patriotism separate from

00:04:17.300 American patriotism, separate from British, we were just coming into our own kind of thing.

00:04:22.140 And I think that the Freedom Rally did something similar. It was this moment of patriotic

00:04:26.600 uprising where canadians spontaneously went out uh to truck stops to overpasses to the freeways

00:04:33.480 to cheer on these brave uh courageous truckers who were taking a stand for all of us for freedom it

00:04:39.240 was an incredible patriotic moment i know you were down in ottawa during the rallies and i think you

00:04:44.920 had had a similar experience of the patriotism and the love of country and and and the symbolism of

00:04:50.280 the flag back to its original purpose which was representing freedom or the freedom that we had

00:04:55.320 the freedom that we fought for you know we fought in several wars as a nation to defend freedom not

00:05:00.520 just here but abroad and and so to me that's all so positive and it's so strange that some people

00:05:05.720 out there uh journalists in our profession are triggered by the very side of it what uh what's

00:05:11.000 your take and and and maybe tell us a little bit about what it was like in ottawa and and and how

00:05:15.480 you saw the flag in relation to the freedom convoy yeah well it's funny that you bring up the 2010

00:05:21.400 winter olympics as an example because that's when i was in ottawa that's what i kept thinking about

00:05:25.720 the fact that you know there was so much patriotism and so much pride in being a canadian uh the only

00:05:32.040 time the only thing i could compare it to was what it was like during the olympics in 2010

00:05:36.360 um and i actually think that this was even bigger than that because there was there was the whole

00:05:42.040 there was basically the domestic scale of it which traveled across the country we saw people lining

00:05:48.200 up over lining overpasses waving canadian flags but also the canadian flag made its way across

00:05:54.440 the world as a symbol for freedom kind of it restored what it was all about um around the

00:06:00.040 world and so yeah in ottawa um as many people have described it it was like canada day but

00:06:07.240 every day for three and a half weeks or for however long they were there for two and a

00:06:11.880 half weeks it was it was really incredible to see and um it's it's it's kind of crazy that

00:06:17.480 we're at the point where journalists are now triggered at the sight of the canadian flag

00:06:22.280 um it makes you wonder where do where do these people go from here right because uh there isn't

00:06:28.440 a freer country or there well they're one could make the point but canada is one of the freest

00:06:33.640 countries uh in the world that flag has always represented that and always represented the

00:06:39.320 canadian way of life that so many around the world seek um and and fight tooth and nail to

00:06:44.600 to get to canada and so it's really it's it's kind of like the height of of um you know taking

00:06:51.320 the country for granted you you take our freedoms for granted so much so that even the sight of our

00:06:56.280 flag triggers you it's uh it's it's really kind of nuts it's yes it's fundamentally a lack of

00:07:02.120 gratitude and a lack of awareness i mean maybe some of these people on the left have some kind

00:07:06.440 of a utopian idea of of a freer country or an even better uh country the reality is that you're right

00:07:12.600 Canada is built on all of these institutions and this history that we need to preserve,

00:07:17.800 not take for granted and not dismiss just because it isn't trendy. Well, Linda Steele over at CKNW

00:07:24.920 wasn't the only one triggered by the flag. Here we had a response from a person called Min Dariwal,

00:07:30.360 who is a CBC Edmonton employee. And she says this, she says, you're not alone, Linda. I saw two big

00:07:37.100 flags on the back of a pickup whipping down the white mud the other day. And it made me instantly

00:07:42.500 think of how much disrespect and negativity has been associated with it lately. That'll change.

00:07:47.940 It has to. We've come too far. And so, again, the way that these people see the convoy, the way that

00:07:55.840 they see the uprising of people saying to government enough is enough. You've destroyed

00:08:01.120 our country through your overzealous government COVID policies. It's been a disaster. We need to

00:08:06.580 end that now. We need to move on. And, you know, because it was a group of trekkers, it was a group

00:08:12.140 of working class people who don't typically engage in politics and policy, these sort 0.96

00:08:17.640 of like snobby, middle class, comfortable, elite thinking, you know, Laurentian elite 0.76

00:08:25.460 wannabes who live in places like Edmonton and Vancouver, looking down their nose and

00:08:30.820 just the sort of, you know, it's dripping in classism and vitriol towards people that

00:08:36.680 that they don't, you know, their disrespected negativity associated with it. It's like these

00:08:42.640 people are so out of touch, Harrison, and they don't even recognize it. No, absolutely. And I

00:08:48.120 think it was at the very beginning of this or right when in our live show, when Trudeau enacted

00:08:54.220 the Emergencies Act, and you and Andrew and our editor Harley run a live program. I remember Harley

00:09:00.280 made a point about how the divide is so obvious now that the same the same words that are said

00:09:06.840 are the same symbols that are shown by uh by different people mean totally different things

00:09:11.960 so when when these people when these journalists and like you said these sort of elites and

00:09:17.160 laurentian elite wannabes when they fly the canadian flag it means something different than

00:09:22.280 when a working class canadian flies the canadian flag and that is i think that's clearly becoming

00:09:29.640 uh that these people have such a different vision or view of this country and like you said they're

00:09:35.640 just very very far removed well i want to i want to move on to this this segment here and we missed

00:09:41.800 this because it was it's a few weeks old but we had to cover it on this program because it's just

00:09:45.800 so it's so insane um city news ran a segment uh basically calling into question the canadian flag

00:09:54.600 itself, saying that the Canadian flag, just exactly like Linda Steele wrote, the Canadian

00:09:58.920 flag must represent something horrible and evil now that it was being flown at the trucker convoy.

00:10:03.340 So we're going to move to this clip. But before that, I want to just read the tweet that City

00:10:08.260 News prefaced that they used to write this video. And the tweet says, is the Canadian flag being

00:10:15.520 sullied by the truck convoy? Images of the flag have been associated with the demonstrators,

00:10:20.340 And many people are now weary to fly the flag in support of Team Canada at the Olympics in case they are mistaken as convoy supporters.

00:10:27.880 So God forbid they're mistaken as people who just want their freedoms back.

00:10:32.080 Well, there is some validity to that, Harrison, because you wouldn't want to be mistaken if it meant that Chrystia Freeland was going to seize your bank account.

00:10:39.080 So that's the only thing. I would be careful flying the flag, too, if I thought that Chrystia Freeland was out there willing to steal all your money, basically.

00:10:46.240 Oh, yeah. So let's throw to this clip so we can just watch this absolutely absurd legacy media piece. 1.00

00:10:56.400 It's such a shame that people now have to think carefully about whether or not they want to be carrying with pride the Canadian flag.

00:11:05.600 It's one of the saddest outcomes, I think, of this protest.

00:11:09.180 As people cloak themselves in Canadian flags, put them on their pickup trucks, or just carry them upside down throughout demonstrations, the question's being asked, is the meaning behind the flag starting to change?

00:11:21.660 Seeing the Canadian flag so closely aligned with these protesters, wearing it, flying it, showing it off on their vehicles and so forth, is starting to have an impact on the image of Canada and on the image of that flag, which for so many decades has been a flag that represents freedom and pluralism and progressiveness.

00:11:51.660 there's so much to get into yeah it's not the elites that they have sitting there

00:11:56.300 like again looking down their nose and saying that the canadian flag used to represent freedom

00:12:02.780 it's like what do you what do you think that what do you think the current protests are about like

00:12:06.940 it's so bizarre that you know the whole idea is this is a freedom convoy these are people who

00:12:11.660 want their lives back after the government has made a terrible mess of our society not just in

00:12:15.660 terms of its covid response but in every element of our society you can look at education you can

00:12:21.420 can look at our civil society you could look at businesses small businesses you can look at

00:12:25.360 the mental health crisis there's so many issues that have come out of the government's absolutely

00:12:30.980 colossal handling of covid and all these people want harrison is their freedom and now you have

00:12:38.420 these stuffy elites saying but the flag used to represent freedom and now it represents

00:12:42.280 a different kind of freedom that we don't like and then i like how he just kind of adds in

00:12:45.820 the canadian flag is also always represented pluralism and progressivism it's like i guess

00:12:50.540 it's one of those things you can read into it whatever you want like you know oh you know to

00:12:54.780 me the canadian flag has always represented tradition and family like you can you can you

00:12:59.900 can read anything into it but really how is that news you know this is this is just a sad state of

00:13:06.060 of affairs in canadian news no i mean there's so much there this this piece they interview this

00:13:11.660 guy clive veroni who's basically a no-name i've never heard of this guy apparently i guess he's

00:13:16.940 some sort of expert on the flag but they couldn't find one person to uh to defend the Canadian flag

00:13:23.760 or to basically say well no I actually do think that the Canadian flag still represents what it

00:13:28.180 represents to everyone in the world and so you know there's there's a lot there's a lot there

00:13:31.740 but one thing I one thing I found interesting about being in Ottawa and talking to the protesters

00:13:37.880 who had who had you know traveled with the convoy across the country was that they said that seeing

00:13:44.600 the flag at these events and this the event itself gave them new hope in canada it actually restored

00:13:51.400 their faith in their own country and gave them a gave them a sort of a new sense of patriotism

00:13:56.760 and another thing too is that the trucker convoy inspired protests all over the world for freedom

00:14:03.000 the whole idea of these protests that we see in france and in australia um and in other countries

00:14:08.680 in europe uh is all about wanting wanting to have people get their freedoms back and what greater

00:14:15.400 what greater symbol uh to do that and you know than the canadian flag to have to see that being

00:14:21.480 flown at all these protests around the world i mean to me that's that's an incredible thing to

00:14:26.120 see that's a that's the kind of thing that makes me makes me love the flag the fact that it is a

00:14:30.840 symbol for freedom around the world yeah it is and to me if i was abroad it happens you know when if

00:14:36.680 you're flying if you're traveling around somewhere else and you see a canadian flag to me i i get

00:14:41.000 really excited i get really happy i guess i guess that doesn't happen to everyone here is david

00:14:45.320 coletto who is a liberal pollster and he this was during this we had to go back a couple weeks to

00:14:50.040 find this this was uh during the height of the protest in ottawa and david coletto writes this

00:14:54.840 he says i'm in california for a few weeks and on the drive into town there was a group cheering

00:14:59.800 the freedom convoy on an overpass and a few canadian flags waving okay again if i'd seen

00:15:04.440 this i would have been thrilled i've been like wow our flag is making our way making its way around

00:15:08.280 the world uh not not david coletto note to everybody watching that david coletto has a

00:15:13.960 ukraine flag in his bio and right there he's saying uh he's saying no to canada that's not

00:15:19.320 good he says not thrilled at all that our flag has become a symbol of this meanwhile he's got

00:15:24.280 the ukraine flag right right center so you couldn't have a better uh contrast there out with the old

00:15:29.880 in with the new uh canadian flags cannot be used to represent freedom folks uh but the ukraine we're

00:15:35.240 all about the ukraine flag put that in your bio and everybody stand together uh again to me harrison

00:15:41.320 this is kind of an interesting again maybe the class divide it's like there's kind of two

00:15:44.680 canadas right there's like the people who go out and work for a living people who work with their

00:15:48.120 hands people who work with the elements canada has always been a country whose economy is based

00:15:52.440 on resource extraction so the people who work in the resource industry broadly speaking the people

00:15:57.000 who keep the country running right and then you juxtapose that with the sort of laurentian class

00:16:02.440 of people who who you know they live in the downtown cities not even necessarily along the

00:16:07.560 st lawrence seaboard which is where the uh name came from laurentian it used to sort of represent

00:16:12.360 the sort of toronto ottawa montreal corridor but i think i think there's little laurentian elite

00:16:17.400 cities around universities in canada and these people just have a totally different impression

00:16:21.400 of canada like to them canada is multicultural it's progressive it's liberal it's you know the

00:16:27.400 the exactly what trudeau represents and to them seeing the other side of canada front and center

00:16:32.920 and representing their country on a world stage you know it was no longer the justin trudeau the

00:16:38.200 the prim and proper uh french-speaking uh you know sophisticated metropolitan man representing

00:16:44.120 canada it was these sort of rugged blue-collar truckers who were out doing interviews and and

00:16:49.800 being the face of canada and i think that that really really triggered and shocked uh the

00:16:55.800 sensibilities of many and it was it's just really interesting to see because to me you know i was

00:17:00.040 cheering on the the uh uprising for freedom and so many people were clearly uh dismayed about that

00:17:06.760 and and you know even seeing seeing the flag abroad uh triggered them but i i wanna i wanna

00:17:13.000 you know we we talked about the canadian flag here so i want to talk about ukraine because it's such

00:17:17.160 a stark contrast right it's like you can no longer be proud of canada that's out that's passé uh

00:17:22.440 let's everybody rally around ukraine now uh look canada has its problems they pale in comparison

00:17:29.080 to the problems in ukraine you know being invaded by a larger power uh the the bloodshed the killing

00:17:36.120 the wars is truly awful ukraine itself though it's not perfect right and and yet the dichotomy that

00:17:41.160 we are being expected to be fed here is that ukraine can do no wrong and that everything 0.95

00:17:46.680 that's bad about them has to be whitewashed and covered up uh andrew coin another uh journalist

00:17:51.960 liberal journalist uh wrote this from uh ringing lines from christia freeland so he's quoting the

00:17:57.320 uh deputy prime minister working lines from freeland there are moments in history when

00:18:00.760 the greatest struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight in one place which is

00:18:05.000 waged for all humanity so she's like channeling her inner winston churchill here she says in 1863

00:18:11.880 That place was Gettysburg. 1940 was the skies above Britain. And now it is Kiev in 2020. Today

00:18:18.760 is Kiev. And so this whole idea is that we are all we're all Ukrainians now. We're all in Kiev.

00:18:25.240 We're all fighting on behalf of this. Whether we like it or not, whether we've signed any

00:18:29.240 official war declaration or whether this has anything to do with Canada, that's all out the

00:18:36.040 window. We're all fighting for Ukraine. We're all Ukrainian now. And so it's so interesting that

00:18:41.360 you can't be proud of Canada anymore. But let's all show our patriotism towards a foreign country

00:18:47.320 involved in a foreign conflict, which is the chant of war. And that's the direction that 0.95

00:18:52.880 we're heading. That's where they're pushing us. And then, of course, you can't say anything

00:18:56.620 bad about Ukraine, despite all of this new appearances that we keep seeing pop up

00:19:02.500 of really bad stuff going on in Ukraine. And I know, Harrison, we've covered this on previous

00:19:07.080 shows a steady stream of fake news and lies coming out of Ukraine that are often debunked

00:19:13.100 days later, whether we see the corruption that happens in the Ukrainian government.

00:19:18.420 And now it seems like the Ukrainian military has a bit of a Nazi problem, a little bit

00:19:23.580 of a neo-Nazi problem.

00:19:25.120 And as much as people in the media can deny it and say it's fringe and it's nothing and

00:19:28.720 it's being overblown and that's Putin propaganda, we keep seeing it.

00:19:32.260 and so uh earlier this week we had international women's day and we saw nato post a

00:19:41.220 tweet in in response to international women's day it says this all women and girls must live

00:19:47.460 free and equal this international women's day we think of the remarkable women of ukraine their

00:19:51.860 strength bravery and resilience are symbolic of a nation okay great message there and we've got

00:19:56.820 four images here. But uh-oh, uh-oh, let's take a look at that top left image, the Ukrainian

00:20:03.200 female soldier here. Well, what happens when you zoom in? You see that there is a neo-Nazi

00:20:09.860 label logo on her uniform. That is a neo-Nazi black sun symbol that represents a Nazi battalion

00:20:17.840 within the Ukrainian military. Oops, better delete that tweet, NATO. Maybe you should have had

00:20:23.520 someone looking at these images a little more closely. So Harrison, you've done a little bit

00:20:28.120 of research on this symbol, the Black Sun. What does it mean? Yeah, well, just in our preparation

00:20:33.440 for the show, I wanted to make sure I did a quick little Wikipedia search about what this is

00:20:38.600 to get a good understanding of it. And just reading from the Wikipedia page here, it's a

00:20:43.380 Nazi symbol that has been employed in a post-Nazi Germany context by neo-Nazis and also in some

00:20:49.780 strains of satanism which is nice uh like it's it's the kind of it's the kind of symbolism uh

00:20:56.260 that you know you could you could basically in that nato photo you could you could kind of excuse

00:21:01.620 someone for not doing that zoom in to not look exactly there like to look exactly for it um but

00:21:08.580 the problem is candace is that that photo is not the only time we've seen that uh that black sun

00:21:15.300 image come up um i believe we've seen it in other photos as well i think there was a ctv tweet if

00:21:22.900 i'm correct there's a ctv uh tweet where they also showed this black sun image on two female

00:21:29.460 soldiers and it so much so it got so much attention that ctv news had to put up a correction tweet

00:21:36.100 um which basically apologized for airing this this segment or this image with this

00:21:41.540 with this image on it so that the tweet reads ctv news vancouver aired a story tuesday that

00:21:47.460 included an image of two female ukrainian soldiers who are wearing an offensive symbol on their

00:21:51.940 uniforms they they go with offensive symbol candace instead of neo-nazi uh symbol uh and

00:21:57.620 it says which was regrettably not recognized before being broadcast the image has been removed

00:22:02.340 from our coverage so so there you go candace i mean at least they're owning up to it but

00:22:06.180 i would say that's a little a little light on um on the on the apology first well and you hit the

00:22:12.980 nail on the head there when you said an offensive symbol right that's a euphemism they're trying to

00:22:17.460 make you think that oh oh there was an offensive symbol like maybe it was a profanity or maybe it 0.55

00:22:22.580 was it was a swear word or something like that no a nazi symbol it was a nazi symbol why wouldn't

00:22:28.020 you just straight out say it because no one wants to say anything bad about ukraine right now no one

00:22:32.260 wants to throw off Chrysia Freeland's message that this is an all-in-out civilizational,

00:22:38.080 existential war between freedom and tyranny. And we all have to side with freedom, which has been

00:22:42.740 assigned to the Ukrainian team. And therefore, you cannot question it. Well, it gets even worse

00:22:48.180 because it wasn't just NATO. It wasn't just CTV. We had a former Trudeau-era cabinet minister,

00:22:55.380 former environment minister under the Justin Trudeau government, Catherine McKenna,

00:22:59.700 who also shared a picture also celebrating two female soldiers also wearing neo-Nazi symbols.

00:23:06.460 So Catherine McKenna posted this on Twitter. She said that this International Women's Day,

00:23:12.640 standing with the brave women across Ukraine, defending their freedoms, their rights and their

00:23:17.700 country. Look, I agree with this message. I think it's a nice message. I think that there are a lot

00:23:21.920 of tremendously brave women out there in Ukraine, tremendously brave men as well, many more

00:23:27.280 tremendously brave men defending their freedoms defending their country defending their rights

00:23:31.720 that's all good but again Catherine McKenna doesn't know what she's talking about because

00:23:36.540 right there top right corner you can see the female soldiers the black vest right there you

00:23:42.960 can see that Nazi sun and once you see it once you know that that that's what they use and that's 0.66

00:23:47.820 how they recognize that's how they identify themselves you can't unsee that and you know I 0.66

00:23:52.880 know that Catherine McKenna doesn't have the geopolitical insight and the knowledge like

00:23:59.040 Chrystia Freeland, our deputy prime minister does. Remember, it was last week that our deputy

00:24:05.000 prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, was posing with a bandera scarf, the scarf that represents

00:24:10.100 a Nazi from Second World War, someone who had his hand in overseeing the murder of 100,000 plus

00:24:17.280 Poles and Jews. And there she was, you know, someone who knows Ukraine inside and out, who's

00:24:23.600 lived many years in both Kiev and Moscow. Christine Freeland cannot be forgiven for making that

00:24:29.420 mistake. She knew exactly what she was holding, what she was doing. Catherine McKenna, on the

00:24:33.100 other hand, I don't think that she really has that knowledge. So she unfortunately left that tweet up

00:24:37.380 for several days. I know that Ezra Levant, the rebel, was heckling her about that, saying like,

00:24:42.560 why haven't you deleted this? Don't you have anyone to tell you this kind of thing? But here's

00:24:46.820 the beauty of being a liberal, Harrison. You can show Nazi symbols. You can wave Nazi flags. You

00:24:53.740 can have that affiliation front and center. No one's going to hold you account aside from the

00:24:58.360 independent media. The legacy media doesn't bat an eye. They roll their eyes. They ignore it. In

00:25:03.040 fact, they do even worse. They jump into the political fray and they begin defending the

00:25:07.800 liberals against the accusations that they shouldn't be waving Nazi flags. There's so many

00:25:12.020 layers of hypocritical thinking and behavior, because it's like, hello, you smear the truckers 0.95

00:25:19.820 for one guy waving a swastika. You said that they all were waving swastikas. Meanwhile, we have 0.98

00:25:24.700 multiple times now where liberals have posted pictures of Ukrainians with Nazi symbolism. And

00:25:30.200 the media is not only not holding into account, they're defending them and saying that people who

00:25:34.820 are brazing it are Russian shills and propagandists, as we've seen in the past.

00:25:39.720 Yeah. And also, there's such a hesitancy from conservatives and from people on the right to go and make their voices heard on these opportunities. It's not all about politics, but everyone knows that if a conservative were to post a picture like that, the media and the left and liberals, everybody, would be ganging up on them. 0.66

00:26:00.860 But it seems that there's so much hesitation to call attention to this and to basically try and basically put up an even fight when the liberals do it.

00:26:13.080 And they know that they get away with it and they exploit it.

00:26:15.580 Now, one thing I want to say, I mean, the NATO tweet, like I said, there is room.

00:26:21.240 You could basically say that someone didn't see that.

00:26:23.800 We could even pull up the original NATO tweet there.

00:26:26.320 So if you look at it there, there's no way you would see that black sun symbol.

00:26:30.320 but if you go to the, if you go to the Catherine McKenna tweet, it's, it's very obvious. Like you

00:26:36.040 would have to, you would have to really be trying not to notice that it's, it's white on a black

00:26:41.720 vest. So it's very clear what that is. You would have to be, you'd have to be really trying not to

00:26:48.120 notice it to be sort of, I don't know, playing the, playing the ignorance card there. So yeah,

00:26:54.360 I'm not sure what was going on with McKenna there, but I mean, she wasn't the only person

00:26:57.840 to share that photo, right? That was that was shared by a lot of people. Yeah, it's front and

00:27:02.080 center. It's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And there's a broader

00:27:05.000 issue here, Harrison, that is at play, which is that the media have absolutely no interest in

00:27:10.440 looking into this, right? You know, two weeks ago, a month ago, everyone was really, really

00:27:14.880 concerned that there was some kind of a Nazi infiltration into the trucker convoy. It was

00:27:20.380 never proven. It was never substantiated. It was based on nothing. It was based on one provocateur

00:27:25.720 showing up at the rally for 10 minutes and then leaving so so so there was no real basis for that

00:27:31.580 but the media fixated on it they were obsessed with it justin trudeau talked about it over and

00:27:36.220 over again to the his to the point of parody where he accused a jewish mp a conservative mp of jewish

00:27:42.920 heritage of jewish ethnicity of standing with those who wave swastikas so so when it came to

00:27:48.020 the sight of a swastika in canada it was so horrendous to us uh that the media obsessed

00:27:53.240 over it. Okay, I didn't appreciate that. I didn't agree with that. But that was the standard that

00:27:58.100 they created. Now, here we have Ukraine, a new country, a country that has a lot of civil

00:28:04.960 instability, a lot of infighting and tribal sort of hatreds that are coming up. There seems to be

00:28:11.160 a pretty clear issue when it comes to this Azov battalion and the neo-Nazi forces at play. But

00:28:18.280 media has lost any interest in talking about it as recently harrison as november 2021 interestingly

00:28:25.560 the media were interested in it they they they had it had a fascination with it in fact there

00:28:30.280 were many many stories from that time from just five six months ago of the canadian media looking

00:28:37.400 into this idea that there were neo-nazi linked um units in the in the ukrainian military and that

00:28:44.680 canadian officials met with them canadian officials were linked to them canadian officials

00:28:49.000 were training them and so here here is one story from the ottawa citizen it says canadian

00:28:54.520 officials who met with ukrainian unit linked to neo-nazis feared exposure by news media according

00:28:59.800 to documents a year before the meeting canada's joint force uh joint task force ukraine produced

00:29:05.080 a briefing on the as of battalion you can see even in this in this uh news story you can see

00:29:10.120 the swastika on the on the guy's helmet i mean this was a major problem and the fact that the

00:29:14.520 canadians were somehow involved with this was something that the media had interested they

00:29:18.600 were investigating it they were looking into it but then suddenly as soon as this conflict erupted

00:29:24.360 and as soon as we had captured or we had christia freeland shown with that uh bandera flag it was

00:29:30.200 like the media and i and i can just say from personal experience i posted that story i think

00:29:34.600 we were one of the first of the first ones to report on it harrison and i was getting so many

00:29:39.480 so much heckling from our colleagues in legacy media on, you know, wouldn't you defend Chrystia

00:29:46.140 Freeland? This is obviously, she's obviously not a Nazi, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was just

00:29:50.700 so interesting to see why are you defending a politician against a journalist? Like, isn't a

00:29:56.280 job of a journalist to expose politicians and hold them accountable? Why are you trying to hold me

00:30:00.160 accountable? And then again, like, when it comes to any of these stories, they just, they were

00:30:04.860 interested in it five months ago. And now it's not convenient to the Trudeau government's

00:30:08.560 narrative. So you just don't cover it anymore. Yeah. It's unfortunate because we're not taking

00:30:14.180 a side at True North. What we're trying to do is just basically tell what's happening from an

00:30:20.340 unbiased perspective on this issue to basically say that, yes, the deputy prime minister was

00:30:25.500 holding a scarf that has neo-Nazi connections. That is clear. And that's what we are doing.

00:30:32.320 So the idea that you are on the side of Russia, if you are criticizing government leaders,

00:30:38.560 for bad for for bad mistakes mistakes that they even admit to because freeland deleted that tweet

00:30:45.640 so if it wasn't a problem like the legacy media are trying to paint it as and she wouldn't she

00:30:50.120 would have no reason to delete that mckenna would have no reason to delete her tweet the idea that

00:30:54.520 you are a russian uh propagandist if you criticize the canadian government is a slippery slope that

00:31:01.080 people aren't really seem seeming to pay that much attention to the fact that anybody who's

00:31:06.440 critical of the government is some sort of foreign agent that's a that's a bad state for uh for our

00:31:12.060 media to be in absolutely i want to i want to address something uh someone mentioned in the

00:31:16.500 comments here they said please stop calling ukrainian people nazis studied the history

00:31:19.860 before speaking nazi ukraine became home to thousands of thousands of jews uh during the

00:31:25.960 second war so calling about nazis is untrue of course i completely agree with that i don't think

00:31:30.160 that the ukrainians are nazis by any means by any extent i think that there is a small group

00:31:35.620 of people who have infiltrated. And there's clearly a problem. There is clearly a group of

00:31:41.120 people in that country, not all of them. I don't even think it's a significant percentage. It's a

00:31:45.860 small group. However, they're part of the military. They have their own battalion. It's called the

00:31:51.440 Azov Battalion. So the fact that there is something of appeal amongst this ideology,

00:31:58.780 this far right group is a concern. And just to compare it back to Canada, right? I don't think

00:32:05.380 that canada has a real nazi problem i don't think that there's a real nazi presence in this country

00:32:09.340 i think it's really really exaggerated i think that there's a very if there if there are real

00:32:13.640 nazis in canada i've never met one i've never seen one they're not active they don't go they're not

00:32:18.500 involved in the political system in any way shape or form there's no home for them anywhere um

00:32:23.240 despite that fact the media are constantly trying to invent this idea that there's a

00:32:27.940 fringe far right in canada and it's infiltrating the conservative party and conservative movement

00:32:31.880 That is a lie. Whereas when it comes to Ukraine, I don't know. I don't know the extent of this issue. I don't know the extent of the of the influence that they have.

00:32:41.960 I will just say from the reports that I've read and my analysis looking at the situation, it seems like that is a more of a real accusation, a more of a real problem or something there, there where that isn't the case in Canada.

00:32:53.420 So that's my only point here. And I by no means believe, and I didn't say that Ukrainians are Nazis. That's absolutely false. Many most fought against Nazis during the Second World War. And that's history as well.

00:33:10.800 So thanks for the question. And as part of the fun, Harrison, of doing these shows live is you can you can react and talk about these people.

00:33:19.720 But, you know, there were several of these types of stories that were definitely of interest on the political left.

00:33:25.440 People pointing out the fact that Canada was through our military was connected to right wing extremists.

00:33:32.480 We were funding them and the government was was well aware of that.

00:33:36.260 So I don't expect the media to hold Justin Trudeau to his account.

00:33:39.680 I don't expect them to have the same standards as they hold to the conservatives and the opposition and the truckers.

00:33:45.840 But the hypocrisy is just blaring on this one, Harrison.

00:33:49.360 What do you think?

00:33:50.580 Yeah, you're absolutely right that we are by no means calling all Ukrainians Nazis.

00:33:55.660 That's clearly overblown.

00:33:58.160 What we're just saying is that there is a public interest angle in Canada's engagement with Ukraine.

00:34:04.460 And what is being posted to social media, that is what our job is.

00:34:08.340 So that's all we're doing. And I think it's, I think it's, I think when the prime minister accuses conservative MPs of standing with swastikas, then, and then turns a complete blind eye to what's happening in Ukraine with plenty of evidence to document, to document what's going on.

00:34:27.180 And that's then where journalists like us at True North have to step in and to call it like we see it and basically do our job as journalists.

00:34:36.880 So, yeah, I think it's important to clarify that, of course, we're not saying that about all Ukrainians.

00:34:42.140 But you're exactly right. We have to do a job that some people may not find comfortable.

00:34:47.260 That's often what happens in journalism. It's not comfortable to talk about.

00:34:52.120 But when the prime minister accuses Canadians and conservatives of standing with people who

00:34:56.820 have swastikas, they should expect to get some sort of response when there is evidence and when

00:35:03.660 there's something to be said about that. Yeah, no, and it's so true. And even just, you know, 1.00

00:35:08.100 there's a large Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. I think Canada is the largest Ukrainian population

00:35:12.500 outside of Ukraine. So there's a lot of people who have their own connections, their own family

00:35:17.600 history. And it's interesting. I have a lot of Ukrainian friends. I lived in Alberta for many

00:35:20.740 years. And there's a lot of people, especially in northern Alberta, that are from Ukraine. And I've

00:35:24.760 been trying to talk to as many of these friends as possible, especially people who still have family

00:35:28.660 back in Ukraine. And one of the things I found that's really interesting, Harrison, is that

00:35:32.760 there's no one way of thinking about Ukraine and their country. It really almost depends on what

00:35:39.000 part of the country they're from, where their ancestors were, when they left and when they

00:35:43.560 came to Canada, because Ukraine is a very diverse place, right? So if you're Ukrainian, but of Polish

00:35:49.480 heritage, you might have a very, very negative idea of Bandera and the role that he played. 0.52

00:35:55.320 Whereas if you were someone that was Ukrainian from Kiev or something like that, wanting to 0.98

00:36:00.380 fight against the Soviets, you would be more for that. So it's interesting when we look at 0.99

00:36:05.200 figures like Bandera and look back at the Second World War, it's important to preface, and I always

00:36:10.020 try to do this in my reports, that some people view him as a national hero. And there are statues

00:36:15.160 And there are streets named after him. And I'm talking about Stefan Bandera, the Nazi leader who started one of these movements, one of these far right movements today.

00:36:24.480 It's not all seen in the same light. And certainly, you know, I have Ukrainian friends that are Russian speaking, that come from Russian heritage.

00:36:31.600 So it's definitely a complex place. And I think that our line of criticism mostly focuses back on Canada and of the just pure hypocrisy when it comes to the way that the media and politicians criticize some flags and not others.

00:36:47.720 And of course, the great irony that we want to cover today was the fact that so many of these journalists are saying out with the Canadian flag and in with the Ukrainian flag.

00:36:55.900 So I'll give the final word to you, Harrison.

00:36:57.460 what we've seen here is a outlets like true north and other

00:37:06.980 outlets that are best to to tell like it is and not be biased not by the government

00:37:14.420 it's why it's so important because we've seen it time and time again that journalists in this

00:37:19.380 country mainstream journalists are are taking a side and are sticking with that side and are

00:37:24.420 excusing um what is newsworthy and so again i just think it's it this goes to show exactly how it looks

00:37:33.460 like true north are are so important because you know these conversations and we can't just gloss

00:37:39.620 over the fact so there's a level of nuance and there's there's context that without being part

00:37:46.020 without being from ukraine without living there we just don't know what it's exactly like so

00:37:50.900 you know journalists are doing their best um i think some could do a lot better than they are

00:37:55.780 of course but that being said i think you know what we've discussed here is important stuff to

00:38:01.620 talk about um and when christia freeland and katherine mckenna engage in these sorts of

00:38:05.460 issues they should expect that canadian journalists are going to hold them to account

00:38:09.060 and if conservatives in parliament aren't going to do that or if opposition people in parliament

00:38:13.860 are journalists then i guess it'll end up having to be us right so that's kind of the way i view it

00:38:19.060 yeah absolutely i think journalists could be doing a lot better and instead of blindly

00:38:24.480 marching us towards a war that we really don't understand a lot of the basis behind and we

00:38:31.520 really shouldn't be involved in at all uh journalists partially play the role uh bear

00:38:37.500 the blame for for a lot of the misinformation so do so do our leaders by the way who are so happy

00:38:42.140 and so quick to censor and to try to shut down what they call misinformation you know it's kind

00:38:48.720 of terrifying to see the the united act against promoting russians like there was even something

00:38:56.020 on facebook saying that they changed their policies allowing for people uh to basically

00:39:01.440 incite violence against russians right now they usually have a policy that prevents that

00:39:05.580 but they're pausing it and allowing people to temporarily incite violence which is terrifying

00:39:10.840 because it's like you know we have these principles we have these norms we believe in liberty and if

00:39:15.840 we allow ourselves to throw them out at a moment like this, we're not going to be able to easily

00:39:20.480 get those back. Well, Harrison, thanks so much for joining us for a live edition here. It's been fun

00:39:24.640 and we'll be back again next week. That's Harrison Faulkner, True North journalist and producer here

00:39:29.620 at the Candice Malcolm Show. It's Fake News Friday. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - March 11, 2022

Out with the Canadian flag, in with the Ukrainian one

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