Juno News - September 02, 2025


Poilievre demands SELF-DEFENCE laws for Canadians in their home + Smith WRECKS Edmonton School Board


Episode Stats

Length

30 minutes

Words per Minute

188.38599

Word Count

5,741

Sentence Count

307

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

Candice Malan talks about a new proposed law that would allow Canadians to defend themselves and their families in the middle of the night if someone is breaking into their home. She also talks about the recent home invasion that left a father dead in front of his children.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hope everyone had a wonderful
00:00:06.120 Labor Day long weekend. That's it, folks. Summer is over. Back to school. Hopefully,
00:00:10.200 you're getting your children into a routine. It's always a bit of a relief
00:00:13.620 to get the kids back on schedule and busy with school. I want to talk about an interesting
00:00:22.080 development, a very good development from Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives. This episode today
00:00:27.660 is sponsored by Macamie College and a little bit more on them later. So Pierre Polyev is proposing
00:00:32.900 a stand on guard principle for self-defense. He is talking about bringing in something like
00:00:38.840 castle law. This is a huge area of discussion in Ontario. So much crime, so many terrifying examples
00:00:46.040 of home invasions. I can't imagine anything more frightening and more scary than a criminal gangster
00:00:51.400 breaking into your house in the middle of the night. And I will tell you that if anything like
00:00:55.560 that ever happened to me, I would use the full extreme extent of my abilities to defend myself
00:01:02.200 and my family, and so would my husband. And the idea that Canadians often get charged for defending
00:01:08.580 themselves in their home is outrageous and ridiculous. So it was great to see Conservative
00:01:11.980 Leader Pierre Polyev advocating for a change to the criminal code that would allow Canadians to defend
00:01:18.940 their families inside their homes. It is very ridiculous. This isn't already a law, but I want to play
00:01:24.580 this clip of Pierre Polyev in Brampton on Friday announcing a proposed amendment saying your home
00:01:29.600 is your castle and you should have the right to defend yourself even using lethal force if necessary.
00:01:35.220 Let's play that clip. Conservatives are standing here today based on the principle that your home
00:01:41.960 is your castle. We're calling on the government to introduce and immediately pass the stand on guard
00:01:49.360 law. Our amendment instead will change section 34.2 of the criminal code to say that the use of force,
00:01:59.500 including lethal force, is presumed reasonable against an individual who unlawfully enters a house
00:02:08.940 and poses a threat to the safety of anyone inside.
00:02:13.000 100% agree with Pierre Polyev on that one. Now, Canada's Attorney General, Liberal Minister of Justice,
00:02:21.120 Sean Fraser, jumped in. First, he shared on X a little small clip of Polyev there saying
00:02:26.500 using lethal force if necessary. Yes, if someone is breaking into your house and they have a weapon
00:02:31.940 and they may be willing to use it on you and your family, you should be able to use lethal force
00:02:36.880 to protect yourself. So he took a little clip of Polyev saying that and then underneath he writes,
00:02:42.560 this isn't the Wild West, it's Canada. Canadians deserve real solutions that make us safer,
00:02:47.220 not slogans that inspire fear and chaos for Polyev's political survival. Well, actually,
00:02:53.440 Sean Fraser, it's in part due to your time as immigration minister. You flooded the country with
00:02:59.080 not the high quality immigrants that Canada is used to getting, but just anybody who wants to come.
00:03:03.680 So we have millions and millions of people in our country, many of them who shouldn't be here in
00:03:07.200 the first place, contributing to the crime wave. Now, you're Attorney General. A large part of the
00:03:12.320 problem is because of your governance, you individually, you, Sean Fraser, you, the things
00:03:17.700 that you have done to our country, and broadly speaking, the government that you're part of,
00:03:21.200 including the Trudeau government and continued now under Mark Carney. And so, yes, Canada does feel
00:03:26.080 a little bit like the Wild West. So saying that it isn't Wild West and it's Canada on Friday,
00:03:31.240 that didn't age very well because the big story that came out over the weekend is that, yes,
00:03:35.580 Canada does feel very, very much like the Wild West here in Vaughan, just a suburb outside of
00:03:40.680 Toronto. As Joe Warmington writes, a father was fatally shot in front of his children in the middle
00:03:46.740 of the night, in his home, in his house. He was killed during a home invasion early Sunday morning.
00:03:53.900 Abdul Aleem Faruqi, 46, was merely asleep in his Vaughan home with his wife and three children
00:03:59.460 armed robbers broke into his house, demanded valuables. What happened next is still under
00:04:04.560 investigation by York Regional Police folks. But the horrifying reality is that, as Joe
00:04:09.920 Warmington writes, what did occur is horrifying for an innocent family who were minding their own
00:04:14.260 business in their home in the middle of the night on the long weekend of summer 25th. He was shot
00:04:19.800 trying to protect his four-year-old daughter. Goodness gracious, this is happening in Canada. It's just
00:04:25.020 so unbelievable. And yes, this happens all the time. This happens all the time in Ontario.
00:04:29.680 As we saw, home invasion at a local Ontario inn leaves two assaulted, and the suspects are still
00:04:35.780 at large. A little motel in Renfrew, Ontario was also broken into over the weekend. Police say at 9pm
00:04:42.120 Sunday, officers responded to an inn on Gibbons Road after hearing reports that two males had entered
00:04:47.820 a room, assaulted its occupants, and used what was believed to be bear spray, sold some property
00:04:54.320 before leaving. This happens all the time. And so yes, we need something more to protect ourselves.
00:04:59.920 Our country is descending into chaos because of the liberals. And so for someone like Sean Fraser
00:05:05.680 to say it's not the Wild West, you can't defend yourself in your home, is absurd and patently
00:05:10.380 ridiculous. All right, folks, I want to take a minute to thank today's sponsor, which is
00:05:14.600 Macamie College. So Macamie College has an applied politics and public affair program. It's a two-year
00:05:20.840 evening online program available across Canada. Students have the opportunity to learn to run
00:05:25.580 political campaigns, organize grassroots movements, and push policy in the right direction. Students
00:05:30.860 also have hands-on placements in their community or with the party they believe in. So when they
00:05:36.140 graduate, they have real job-ready experience. Applicants only need a high school diploma or homeschooling
00:05:41.340 equivalent to apply. Intake starts in September and January. And folks, we are very excited to
00:05:46.520 announce that anyone who applies and is successful in enrollment will get a $500 scholarship from Juno
00:05:55.040 News. So apply using our link. It's in the description. You can go to candicemalcolm.com
00:05:59.080 slash Macamie. That's M-A-K-A-M-I. And if you apply through that link and you're successful,
00:06:05.000 you get a $500 Juno News scholarship. You know, I went to the University of Alberta and studied
00:06:10.860 political science. And the thing you realize when you're doing a university degree is that it
00:06:15.060 doesn't lead you to a job. And so for me, after three years of being a political science student,
00:06:19.960 I looked around and realized I had no job skills. I had never worked in politics. Everything was
00:06:24.860 theoretical. It was all in the classroom. And I had to start working on political campaigns just to get
00:06:29.820 my foot in the door. The hard thing about politics is that you need experience to get a job, but jobs
00:06:35.360 require experience. And so doing something like this, I mean, the fact that you can do it online,
00:06:39.100 the fact that you could do it on the evening is really helpful. If you're interested in politics
00:06:42.420 and you're watching the show, I presume you are, this is something that you really might want to
00:06:45.740 consider, or hey, maybe, maybe one of your adult children might be interested in doing something
00:06:50.860 like this. So again, check out this link at candicemalcolm.com slash Macamie College. And I'm
00:06:56.620 pleased to welcome our guests on today's show, which is Erica Baruch. She is the department head of
00:07:02.000 applied politics and public affairs at Macamie College. She's a former principal secretary to
00:07:06.320 Daniel Smith and the founding president of the United Conservative Party. Erica, welcome to the
00:07:11.640 program. Great to see you. Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. Okay. I want to hear your opinion. I
00:07:16.240 believe you are a gun owner. That's my producer. I am restricted and unrestricted. So I, I'm just so
00:07:23.300 excited that this happened. I was like, where was this during the campaign? Because public safety was
00:07:28.400 such a big topic. And the fact that I think that would have been a big contrast to this,
00:07:34.440 this liberal government, like Sean Fraser has two kids. How can you sit there, regardless of
00:07:39.460 ideology, sit there and actually think like, if someone came into my home, I'm not going to protect
00:07:45.720 my children. Like, it's mind boggling that this is even something that's being now having like having
00:07:53.380 to talk about this and those stories that you read the stories Pierre talked about. I just I can't
00:07:58.680 believe we're in a world where we have to say people that went through their pal and our pal
00:08:03.140 have a right to defend their house. Any Canadian has a right to defend their property is is actually
00:08:09.480 just mind boggling. Well, it's so true. I don't have a gun license. I didn't grow up like I don't
00:08:13.520 have a background with guns. But I did go out and purchase a non lethal gun because it legally
00:08:18.560 purchased through Canada. Because of this terrifying stories in the GTA about crime. It's not something
00:08:23.460 that I ever expected to happen in Canada. And I feel like under the liberal government, you sort
00:08:27.160 of have this like toxic brew of like massive borders immigration, plus a revolving prison system,
00:08:33.020 revolving door, bleeding hard justices, judges that just let let criminals off the hook. And then on top
00:08:38.900 of that, they are taking away gun rights and taking away legal gun owners rights to defend themselves
00:08:44.600 in the comments like this. It's just it's it's unbelievable. And I think you're right that the
00:08:48.980 public safety issue should have played a larger role in the election, Erica. I don't know what it's
00:08:53.260 like in Alberta. But in Ontario, I feel like every time I'm talking to friends or talking, you know,
00:08:57.120 at a family barbecue or at an event, everyone's talking about their fear of home invasions and
00:09:02.700 carjackings. It's just become it's just unbelievable that this is a major problem in the GTA. What is it
00:09:08.460 like out in Alberta? I mean, it's it's the same. I think we have a big conversation to around rural
00:09:14.860 properties. And I know Alberta's put some things in place to look to protect rural property owners from
00:09:22.520 people coming on stealing or messing with big equipment. And those do not come with, you know,
00:09:27.780 a low ticket price. That's someone's livelihood if you're if you're coming and destroying farm
00:09:32.920 equipment or something to that effect. But regardless, I think it is a coast to coast issue
00:09:37.520 of public safety. And again, like Pierre talked about making like we need to be in a place where
00:09:44.520 villains are villains and victims are victims. And we've kind of flipped the script because of the
00:09:49.500 liberal government. So I'm really happy to see this. I'm really happy to see that they're carrying
00:09:55.640 it forward one as a gun owner to not feel in a country where we do have significant process. I
00:10:02.180 mean, it's it's higher than getting your nexus to get your gun license and rightfully so we have
00:10:06.200 really great parameters on who should own a gun. But the fact is, if someone came into my house,
00:10:12.480 and I can only use my rifle for the back end to hit someone or to do anything to protect myself,
00:10:18.560 I mean, like there are stories where people are using any type of component in their house,
00:10:24.740 kitchen utensils to protect themselves. And the fact that someone it's violating on as is to be
00:10:31.340 in your home and have someone intrude, let alone hurt your loved ones. I just again, I'm glad to see
00:10:38.240 this. I am going to probably be very disappointed when the liberals don't vote on side of this,
00:10:43.420 even though I think that this is, you know, less ideological than the liberals are making it
00:10:49.000 out to be. It's about like you said, people stealing cars. And the message was to put your
00:10:55.540 keys out your front door in order to have the criminal, someone that's breaking the law have
00:11:03.040 access and ease to your personal belongings. Like, again, I just, I'm glad this is in place. I wish
00:11:10.180 this would have come up in the election. Cause I think again, people that maybe aren't conservative
00:11:14.560 supporters can see the common sense that this is bringing forward to protect, protect your own land
00:11:20.980 and your family. I saw a funny meme that was circulating on social media. And it was like
00:11:24.960 the difference between Americans and Canadians when it comes to castle law and the Americans they had,
00:11:29.500 it was like, I don't know, maybe I'll try to find and get the guys to put in post, but, um,
00:11:33.260 it was a sheriff saying, you know, if someone breaks in your house, you should kill them. And we prefer
00:11:37.420 that you do. And we have courses at the local community center that will teach you how to use
00:11:41.060 your firearm to kill someone coming into your house. And then it flipped to, you know, in Canada
00:11:45.060 and it was a sort of infamous, uh, uh, police officer, I believe it was in Etobicoke saying,
00:11:51.580 uh, just leave your fobs at the front door so that when the criminal breaks into your house,
00:11:54.960 they can just take the car and leave and they don't have to disturb you. You can just keep sleeping.
00:11:58.860 And it's like, you know, just the, the, the, the, the mindset of, you know, in Canada,
00:12:03.440 it's like, well, just give them your stuff and no one gets hurt. That's sort of what
00:12:05.860 the liberals are saying here. It's that, um, you know, you, you shouldn't be violent just
00:12:09.960 because someone comes into your house to be violent doesn't mean that you should be violent
00:12:12.740 back. And it's not saying, I mean, I don't think the encouragement by the conservatives
00:12:16.700 is to use force and be violent, right? I mean, my dad lived in Louisiana for 25 years where
00:12:23.800 everyone has multiple guns. They are all taught properly how to use them. I mean, it's very much
00:12:29.680 like it's also a sport larger down there, but you're right. Like they have that sense of security
00:12:35.460 in their own home. However, in Canada, we're very different and this is not, it's apples
00:12:40.000 to oranges on how our gun policy works. I'm very proud of our gun policy and all the hoops
00:12:45.040 and bells and whistles I had to go through to become a gun owner. And I think that the society
00:12:50.220 that we live in under this liberal government is telling me like, I'm a bad person and I shouldn't
00:12:54.700 be doing this. Like that's not the solution. And it's not my intention of having it. Um, a lot
00:13:00.920 of us use it for the sport of, of guns and firearms are going to like clay shooting and
00:13:07.460 things like that, that, you know, I don't know why we're feeling like horrible people,
00:13:11.220 um, or meant to feel like horrible people. And so you're right. I I've seen that meme.
00:13:16.280 I think it's quite comical. I mean, I don't think we're encouraging Canadians to be at,
00:13:20.800 at that root of here, go get your gun, um, and, and protect your home. But again, it comes
00:13:25.780 back to like the whole concept of this is you own your home or you live in your home. It is your
00:13:33.220 safe space. You have your family there. You want to protect your family. I think anyone,
00:13:38.640 any Canadian or anyone in the world wants to put that priority first. And the fact that we have a
00:13:42.940 government that's limiting that, um, is so disappointing, not just as a gun owner or as a
00:13:49.280 conservative, but as a Canadian, I can't believe that we're even having a conversation where we have
00:13:54.560 to have and have people push back on the idea of protecting their own family, a family man himself,
00:14:00.480 Sean Fraser. And I doubt that if someone was breaking into his home, he would be like, come on
00:14:06.420 in, let's have a cup of tea. Here's all my jewels or here's all my assets. Exactly. And the idea is it
00:14:12.080 is a last resort, right? Like you're not out there swinging your gun around saying, come on in. Right.
00:14:17.280 It's like, if you're in a horrible situation, which I pray that none of us find ourselves in,
00:14:22.220 but if something horrible like that were to happen, you know, it's, it's part of it is having
00:14:26.500 the assurance of mind that, you know, I, I know how to protect myself and my family. Um, but also
00:14:31.400 just given the news and given what's happened in our country and in our cities over the last number
00:14:35.860 of years, um, being secure in the fact that, you know, that you're not going to go to jail,
00:14:40.380 um, if some thug breaks into your house and you have to stop him using force before he gets to your
00:14:44.900 children, heaven forbid. Um, okay. I want to move on and talk a little bit about what's happening in Alberta
00:14:49.040 with the schools and the book bans. So a little bit of background on this earlier this year,
00:14:53.940 the UCP government and premier Daniel Smith announced a ministerial order effective October
00:14:59.420 1st, 2025, that all K to 12 school libraries must remove books with illicit sexual content.
00:15:06.800 And then there would be further restrictions coming in, in January, 2026. And so there's been a lot of
00:15:12.260 pushback. I know Nahid Nenshi, the leader of the NDP party really opposes this and they sort of tried
00:15:16.680 to politicize it, making it seem like, oh, these conservatives, they're bigots. They're trying
00:15:20.160 to ban books. Um, so Danielle Smith came with receipts. She showed up at a press conference
00:15:25.080 on Friday, um, showing the press and journalists exactly what she's talking about when she says
00:15:32.100 which books need to be removed from kindergarten classrooms and K to 12 schools. So let's play
00:15:38.160 this clip of Daniel Smith on Friday. Look, I, I think you're, I'm going to have to show the, uh,
00:15:44.640 the screen here because people aren't kind of getting what it is we're trying to do here.
00:15:50.160 We are trying to take graphic pornographic images out of elementary schools so that kids are not exposed
00:15:57.440 to age and appropriate material. So I want, I'm going to leave it on for 15 seconds. I'm warning you
00:16:02.640 that the content may be disturbing and it's not appropriate for young users. Viewer discretion
00:16:08.640 is advised. I know that the cameras probably can't print it on the, on the evening news tonight
00:16:14.320 without probably facing some kind of broadcast standards council complaint. And I know that I
00:16:19.100 would get delisted from Facebook for showing these kinds of images on Facebook because they're
00:16:23.580 pornographic. That is what we are trying to address. There's another one here. Um, please take a look
00:16:29.040 at it so that and might invite all of the school trustees to take a look at it too. We have tried
00:16:34.640 to be as, uh, as polite about this so that people understand what it is. Here's another one. So you can
00:16:40.960 have another look at the kind of material that we think should not be exposed to young children,
00:16:47.760 aged seven years old. And I think we've got one more that we would like to show you as well.
00:16:51.600 Here is another example. So I, I don't know how much more clear we could be that what we are aiming to
00:16:58.800 this all began because these were the images that parents were showing us that were accessible to
00:17:05.120 children in elementary school libraries. So it's just absolutely vile that seven-year-olds would have
00:17:11.680 to see. I mean, we blurted out folks don't want to expose you to pornographic images, but we're talking
00:17:15.840 about like gay sex acts, um, written out in children's novels and, uh, you know, cartoon characters
00:17:21.840 acting out like sexual acts and gay sex acts for small children. It's just, it's just so perverse.
00:17:27.840 Shouldn't be controversial at all. And so, uh, what, what ended up happening? Well, this is sort of
00:17:32.240 silly. So the Edmonton school board took Danielle Smith's edict saying, we're going to remove the
00:17:37.520 pornographic sexual content from public schools and Catholic schools. And then they decided that
00:17:43.920 they were going to remove more than 200 books from their library, including some very excellent books.
00:17:50.000 Actually, I looked at the list here of some of the ones, and these are all books that I read in high
00:17:54.080 school and university that I think everyone should read. So we're talking about Brave New World, um,
00:17:58.240 from Huxley, 1984, George Orwell, The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald, Alice Shrug, one of the best
00:18:04.080 books that I read growing up, um, as well as The Had Man's Tale, you know, a book from Maya Angelou. So,
00:18:10.080 like, really just important mainstream books. It seems like the Edmonton Public Library was trying to,
00:18:15.760 I don't know, combat Premier Danielle Smith. Maybe you can give us, uh, some further insight into,
00:18:20.560 uh, what exactly is going on here, Erica? Well, I would love to say that I understand the rationale
00:18:27.440 of pulling all of these books off, you know, in, in resort, but the only image that comes to mind is
00:18:34.320 like a toddler that gets their toy taken away and then says, oh, okay, then I'm taking all of the toys
00:18:39.600 and runs out of the room. Like, that's literally how I feel that Edmonton is handling this. I mean,
00:18:46.320 to be fair, again, like coming back, I don't want to sound like a pessimist, um, when I'm on,
00:18:52.480 consistently on the show, but, um, it is, it's like, why is that the action that's taken? Um,
00:19:00.560 I have watched the Minister of Education roll all of this out over the last few months. It shouldn't
00:19:06.960 be surprising of pornography, sexually explicit, like the fact that a minister has to stand there
00:19:13.200 and say within the education system for our primary education levels, we have found that
00:19:21.040 these are in the libraries and that kids can go and access them. And, you know, the fact that we're
00:19:27.520 even there is, is one thing. Um, I've heard from a lot of folks across all party lines of like,
00:19:34.320 I didn't know this was in the classrooms. I'm glad the government's doing something about them.
00:19:38.000 I don't think it became a partisan issue. And now we have, you know, Edmonton taking a very, um,
00:19:47.520 political stance on this. And I live in Edmonton. Uh, it's quite disappointing. We had
00:19:53.280 my stepchildren going back to school. Now, thankfully they're in 12 and 14 and they're not
00:19:58.000 maybe, um, exposed to, uh, this same situation, but we had a conversation with them and,
00:20:05.440 you know, the fact that they would even see this is, is disturbing as a parent.
00:20:11.680 It's so disturbing. I mean, you have to really protect your children and almost have like
00:20:16.080 pre-conversations with them about what they're going to encounter at school because it's so woke
00:20:20.800 and so politicized. And in this case, so sexualized, I mean, it's just silly because, uh, Edmonton Public
00:20:27.520 Library, I mean, the way that this was covered here's global news, uh, Edmonton Public School Board is
00:20:31.680 yanking more than 200 books from its library shelves this year to comply with provincial
00:20:35.680 directive on banning books containing inappropriate sexual content. So even the way it's framed,
00:20:39.680 it's like, this is to comply with the USB government. And, and again, using that term
00:20:44.800 banning books, um, really they're just removing books that are not appropriate. Here is Danielle
00:20:50.560 Smith replying and slamming the school board. Um, just saying that they're doing a little bit of
00:20:56.240 vicious compliance here trying to, I guess, embarrass Danielle Smith, uh, but she flips it around
00:21:01.840 and calls them out rightfully. Let's play that clip. We asked school boards to use their discretion
00:21:08.080 to identify books that might not be age appropriate for elementary school children. And then to, um, and
00:21:15.600 Edmonton Public is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is. And so if they
00:21:21.840 need us to hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate
00:21:28.080 for senior high school students, what kind of materials are appropriate for junior high school
00:21:33.840 students, and what kind of materials are appropriate for elementary school students, we will more than
00:21:39.440 happily work with them to work through their list one by one. So we can be super clear about what it is
00:21:46.320 we're trying to do. So Erica, you know, the premier quite well, she seems quite annoyed, um, by this
00:21:52.160 entire exercise. I mean, I think it's good for them politically. Um, but what did you think of her
00:21:56.240 response there? I mean, wouldn't you be annoyed when you're bringing something forward and someone takes
00:22:01.360 it so extreme and politicizes it and it's about children? Um, I completely understand now, you know,
00:22:09.840 I've sat in those rooms briefing her. Maybe that's not the tone you want to come across, but in fairness,
00:22:15.280 I actually think that's probably the tone of a lot of parents hearing this. Like to me,
00:22:20.080 if the Edmonton public school was not politicizing, this wasn't taking a woke agenda on this,
00:22:27.360 wouldn't their list match every other school district in Alberta? And we haven't seen that.
00:22:34.880 So why is Edmonton the only one with this robust list? To me, that screams and points to the fact that
00:22:43.120 it's not meeting those thresholds of the government, but instead a political play, um,
00:22:48.720 that we're seeing. I mean, this is amidst the ATA that's based in Edmonton, um, fighting the
00:22:54.640 government, walking away from the mediation table, potential teachers strike. Like to me, this is a very,
00:23:01.920 very hyper-political move, um, by the Edmonton public school board. And to say that we have kids
00:23:09.520 in the, in the Edmonton public, um, I will say it was a quite disappointed.
00:23:15.200 Well, 100%. And again, the kids are the ones that get let down because they don't get to have access
00:23:21.920 to these great books that every young person should read. And so I will give, I will give credit.
00:23:28.400 We have one daughter that was in Edmonton Catholic last year. And one of the teachers actually wrote
00:23:33.360 home saying some of the kids are bringing some of their novels to school from their home for our
00:23:38.480 reading period. And they actually, you know, don't meet that threshold. Uh, we encourage if, if you
00:23:44.640 want to have your children read those books at home, that's fine, but they don't comply with what
00:23:48.880 is, um, part of our curriculum or what is within the, um, requirements or age appropriate books.
00:23:55.440 And so I will say that, that it's not a blanket statement on all education in Edmonton or Elbert.
00:24:02.240 I think these are just, these are bad actors playing political. And so we, I really appreciated
00:24:06.960 that the teacher had, had shared that with us and just requested that's your choice as parents,
00:24:12.480 but in the classroom, that's not appropriate. Well, it's good to hear that there are still some good
00:24:16.800 teachers out there, even, even in Edmonton. Uh, Erica, I want to talk to you a little bit about
00:24:21.040 the Canadian economy, because there was a report that came out last week that shows that, uh, you
00:24:26.720 know, the, the, the economy is barely chugging along and the private sector is in deep decline.
00:24:32.560 So I want to share this stats can, uh, table. First of all, you can see the, this is 2025 so far. Um,
00:24:40.240 you can see that the overall economy, uh, not good, but the blue line there is the public sector.
00:24:46.240 We have not seen growth in the public sector at all since October, 2024. And the only reason that
00:24:51.440 we're not in a full blown recession is because of the growth of government spending basically,
00:24:56.160 um, which is not a good way, uh, not a good indicator, uh, for the economy. Um, I'm wondering,
00:25:03.040 like, what, what is your, what is your view? I, I know that the media will sort of blame this
00:25:07.280 on trade and, and Trump, but I think that there's something deeper, um, happening here. You can see it with
00:25:12.400 the, uh, loss of, uh, investment into our economy and billions of dollars are being pulled, uh, from
00:25:19.120 the bond markets. Like it's, it's not, not a rosy picture. It's a pretty concerning, uh, for the
00:25:23.760 future. What do you think? Yeah. And I think that's where, you know, outlets like yours are
00:25:29.600 so refreshing where they're actually driving the facts and driving the actual current situation.
00:25:34.400 Cause if we go back six years ago, like we were already on a decline, we were already, um,
00:25:41.440 accumulating massive debt to your point, pushing money into public sector, thinking that that's
00:25:47.840 job creation when ultimately it's just, um, hurting taxpayers in the long run. And so this is a,
00:25:54.880 this is a decline we've seen. I think the reason why we're, it's more top of mind is because of the
00:26:00.720 tariffs that exposed how weak our economy actually is and has become in the last 10 years. It's
00:26:07.600 limited interprovincial trade. It's limited, um, our self-reliance. It's limited the ability for us
00:26:14.080 to get our resources to market and be an international player. Instead we crippled under, you know, the,
00:26:22.640 the U S relying solely on them. And under a Biden administration, you have an individual that's
00:26:29.120 putting his own country first, like we should. And now we're in a situation where I think it is
00:26:34.480 more top of mind to folks of how weak our economy was, but this isn't something from yesterday and
00:26:40.400 it's not something that's changing tomorrow. This has been almost a decade in working to get our
00:26:45.280 economy to be such a weak player in the even G seven. And so I don't, I'm not surprised. I think
00:26:53.280 there's lots of people that thought that Mark Carney's resume, even though if you would have checked his
00:26:58.480 references, they were probably not that great, but his resume was going to put us in a very
00:27:04.240 positive economic position. I mean, he introduces an act that I will say I initially support that's
00:27:11.360 happy to see the building Canada act, but the devil's in the details. And I think that's really
00:27:15.840 going to limit what he can actually get for a return on investment on that piece of policy.
00:27:21.520 Well, at the end of the day, if you're unwilling to develop your natural resources,
00:27:24.320 if you're ashamed of your natural resources, if you don't believe in pipelines and getting our
00:27:27.760 resources to market, you know, it doesn't matter how many trade deals you sign or, you know, how,
00:27:33.840 how well you do on the international stage. If you don't believe in your own economy,
00:27:38.800 it's not going to go anywhere. I want to read a little bit from the CBC news article on this,
00:27:42.080 because I have to chuckle with the way that they frame it. So the headline says,
00:27:44.880 Canadian economy shrinks 1.6% in second quarter, as you have US tariffs squeeze exports. So they're
00:27:50.560 blaming it all on Trump and the tariffs. And then the byline sub subhead here says,
00:27:56.480 contraction was much larger than expected, but higher spending softened the blow, right? So
00:28:01.760 it's like congratulating the Canadian economy basically just for printing money and borrowing,
00:28:07.600 because it would have been much, much worse if it weren't for government spending. It says here that
00:28:12.720 the latest figures show the Canadian economy grew an annual rate of 0.4% in the first six months of the
00:28:17.520 year. The second quarter contraction was the first quarterly slowdown in seven quarters. So,
00:28:22.720 I mean, we're just barely avoiding a recession at this point. It seems to me that the only reason
00:28:26.560 that we're not in a full blown recession again is because of our massive government spending. Maybe
00:28:31.120 that's why Carney blew out the budget so much, you know, everyone expected him to reign spending in,
00:28:35.600 but instead he blew it out just like Trudeau did. What do you think?
00:28:38.000 Well, he blew it out farther than Trudeau. And I mean, if you're a news outlet that actually exists
00:28:43.040 because of public sector investment by the government, of course, you're going to spin it
00:28:47.920 that way. And I think that's a disservice to Canadians on what the actual facts are. Like I said,
00:28:52.560 this decline is coming because, one, we were exposed. Two, I think that this was just inevitable
00:29:00.240 based on the ridiculous spending and how we don't have stronger interprovincial trade,
00:29:08.880 interprovincial deals and are actually looking at where do we create revenue. Justin Trudeau was
00:29:16.640 horrible for it, of hurting the West and limiting thinking solar is going to be the only thing that
00:29:23.120 gets us out of debt and deficit. And Mark Carney, you know, is very much the same. It's the same people
00:29:30.880 at the table. And so unfortunately, I think things may get worse before they get better
00:29:37.200 because we don't have a government that puts money back in the pockets of Canadians,
00:29:42.240 nor do they let industry and business create the revenue we very much need.
00:29:48.000 Well, that's so important, right? It's like maybe we would have a stronger economy if we didn't have
00:29:51.680 the government strangling every aspect of it and holding it back, right? It's not just the pipelines,
00:29:57.040 this massive regulation, the red tape that are required to do business in this country. All right,
00:30:02.240 that's Erica Brutz of Macme College, former principal secretary to Danielle Smith and the
00:30:06.400 founding president of the United Conservative Party. Erica, thank you so much for joining the show today.
00:30:10.480 Thank you for having me. All right, folks, that's all the time we have for today. We'll
00:30:13.280 be back again tomorrow with all the news. I'm Candice Malcolm. This is Candice Malcolm Show.
00:30:15.760 Thank you and God bless.