Juno News - August 20, 2023


Should Canada boycott the WEF？ (feat. Spencer Fernando)


Episode Stats

Length

13 minutes

Words per Minute

223.10507

Word Count

2,967

Sentence Count

156


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The big story that I wanted to talk about today is this piece in the Canadian press
00:00:14.200 that was published everywhere. CBC picked it up, CTV, I think even the Toronto Sun did.
00:00:20.260 And it is a story taking aim at Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives
00:00:24.280 over their discussion of the World Economic Forum.
00:00:27.740 The story in the Canadian press is accusing Trudeau or accusing Polyev of, quote,
00:00:33.440 embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories.
00:00:37.200 This is, as Polyev puts it, a hit piece through and through.
00:00:41.520 It quotes two so-called experts, one of whom is a liberal donor,
00:00:45.460 but they conveniently leave that out of the article.
00:00:48.340 Let's bring in Spencer Fernando here, a fantastic independent journalist.
00:00:51.900 And apart from half the cabinet, not, as I understand it,
00:00:55.700 an alumnus of Klaus Schwab's Young Global Leaders Program,
00:00:59.300 although who knows, apparently half the people in the country are here.
00:01:02.380 Spencer, it is wonderful to talk to you. Thanks for coming back on the show.
00:01:05.320 Good to be here.
00:01:06.620 Now, how this all started, of course, is Pierre Polyev says what he's been talking about
00:01:10.860 for quite a while here.
00:01:12.080 And then the Canadian press just pounces on this
00:01:15.080 and accuses him of embracing conspiracy theories for expressing a position
00:01:20.180 that I think most Canadians would probably find utterly unobjectionable, right?
00:01:25.240 Yeah. And, you know, one point I make when I talk about the WEF
00:01:29.040 and how people respond to it is that there's a big nuance that's being missed,
00:01:33.580 obviously missed on purpose by the media,
00:01:35.220 which is there's really two kinds of critics of the WEF.
00:01:37.300 There are the legit conspiracy theorists,
00:01:39.480 the ones who claim, oh, they, you know, they caused the pandemic.
00:01:42.480 Obviously, no evidence for that. No one credible believes that
00:01:45.180 who claim that there's some, you know, evil, sinister organization,
00:01:48.440 you know, controlling the whole world behind the scenes.
00:01:50.700 But then there's the very legitimate criticism,
00:01:52.800 which is what Polyev is talking about,
00:01:54.340 which is that, you know, if you look at what they talk about,
00:01:56.960 it's this kind of policies that are hurting Canada right now,
00:01:59.200 you know, driving up the cost of energy,
00:02:01.300 you know, moving decision-making, you know,
00:02:02.900 away from a lot of, you know, national governments
00:02:05.200 and the electorates of countries having influence over their governments
00:02:09.020 and, you know, bringing things up to, you know, a higher level
00:02:11.220 that's more detached from the day-to-day lives of people.
00:02:13.880 And that's obviously a negative thing.
00:02:15.480 So, of course, the media is not making that nuanced point.
00:02:19.020 They're not talking about how there's different kinds of criticism,
00:02:21.800 some that are legitimate, some that are not.
00:02:23.840 They're just trying to lump it all in as a conspiracy theory
00:02:26.160 and hoping that it'll just stop people from talking about it.
00:02:29.060 Yeah, and it was a very similar dynamic
00:02:31.140 to what we saw on a lot of the COVID discussions,
00:02:34.520 where, you know, there were people that absolutely had,
00:02:37.000 you know, any number of conspiratorial beliefs,
00:02:38.860 but then we also had this group in the middle that are saying,
00:02:40.960 well, hang on, I, you know, I believe COVID's real,
00:02:42.940 but I've got questions about how it originated,
00:02:44.820 or I'm skeptical that we need a vaccine mandate
00:02:47.840 or a vaccine passport to get through it.
00:02:49.520 And then those people were accused of being conspiracy theorists.
00:02:52.820 And it's become one of the most effective vehicles
00:02:55.120 to really shut down criticism.
00:02:58.240 If you can just really lump it all into one category
00:03:01.360 and say anyone raising any questions is a conspiracy theorist,
00:03:04.540 even if, in the case of Polyev,
00:03:06.240 the media failed to come up with a single example
00:03:08.360 of anything he said that was conspiratorial.
00:03:10.920 The accusation was really just,
00:03:12.960 well, he says this stuff
00:03:14.520 and other people have conspiracy theories about them.
00:03:18.040 Yeah, I mean, all you have to do is just play
00:03:20.520 like the clip you played there,
00:03:21.840 which is what's actually funny about that is,
00:03:23.840 you know, the Norwegian lady there
00:03:25.700 was a lot more honest than most of our politicians.
00:03:28.340 She was at least admitting that the policies she supports
00:03:30.340 are going to cause real pain, right?
00:03:31.680 I mean, you don't see that kind of honesty
00:03:33.320 from the liberal government.
00:03:34.460 I mean, on the one hand, they say,
00:03:35.840 oh, we're very worried about the cost of living.
00:03:37.520 Oh, here's a new carbon tax.
00:03:38.800 You know, here are a bunch of policies
00:03:39.900 that drive up the cost of energy.
00:03:41.660 So they never even have the guts to admit
00:03:43.640 what they're actually doing.
00:03:45.460 But yeah, you know, it's, you know,
00:03:46.880 we've, I think we've seen how this plays out,
00:03:49.200 you know, in, you know, four or five months,
00:03:52.440 there'll be some mainstream media articles saying,
00:03:54.220 well, actually, the web does have
00:03:55.420 some problematic aspects to it.
00:03:56.940 You know, here's why people are legitimately concerned.
00:03:59.100 It's almost like they want to be the ones
00:04:00.620 to get there first to talk about something.
00:04:02.300 And if they don't, then they just dismiss it
00:04:03.940 until they start talking about it.
00:04:05.260 Then it's legitimate.
00:04:06.020 As you say, with COVID, you know,
00:04:07.780 you couldn't bring up the lab leak idea.
00:04:09.400 Oh, no, that's, that's totally, that's, that's insane.
00:04:11.380 Only crazy people will believe that.
00:04:13.660 People got banned from social media
00:04:15.120 for talking about it.
00:04:15.920 People got in serious trouble.
00:04:17.140 And then all of a sudden, you know,
00:04:18.240 a year or two later, you know,
00:04:19.540 New York Times, other, you know,
00:04:21.140 credible publications, you know,
00:04:22.660 as some people see them,
00:04:24.260 they start talking about it.
00:04:25.220 Then, okay, now it's, it's okay to talk about.
00:04:27.100 Now it's okay.
00:04:28.080 And that's a big problem in a free society
00:04:29.800 because the whole point is we're supposed to,
00:04:31.500 you know, find out the truth
00:04:32.480 through debating ideas openly and honestly.
00:04:34.620 And if we just, you know,
00:04:35.760 shut people down for having opinions
00:04:37.520 that are not, you know,
00:04:39.400 that people think are too conspiratorial,
00:04:41.280 then we're not going to get to the truth, right?
00:04:43.980 Yeah, you're, you're quite right about that.
00:04:45.660 And I go back to,
00:04:46.820 I don't know if you were on when I brought it up,
00:04:48.200 this headline in CBC of taking aim at Davos
00:04:52.080 when Trump was there.
00:04:53.160 And they, you know, say,
00:04:54.020 Trump the populist descends on globalist Davos.
00:04:56.820 So when Donald Trump was going there,
00:04:58.700 it was all too easy for the left to criticize this
00:05:01.080 and say, oh yeah, it's these out of touch elites.
00:05:03.120 And now that, you know,
00:05:03.960 it's the right that has concerns with WEF,
00:05:06.480 it seems to be conspiratorial in the same people's eyes.
00:05:09.440 And I can actually fully admit
00:05:10.960 that the left may have been much better
00:05:14.940 at sussing out the problems
00:05:16.600 with this organization many years ago,
00:05:18.140 because it used to be.
00:05:19.400 I mean, Chrystia Freeland,
00:05:20.300 when she was a journalist,
00:05:21.260 wrote the book on this organization
00:05:22.800 and made a lot of very good points about it.
00:05:24.460 And Naomi Klein, who I don't agree with
00:05:26.520 on very many things as well,
00:05:28.500 was a very, very significant critic of this.
00:05:31.560 And a lot of the left-wing protests
00:05:33.940 that there used to be there
00:05:35.820 were kind of the very similar things
00:05:38.320 that we see in like the Bernie Sanders,
00:05:40.260 Donald Trump agreement on, you know,
00:05:42.840 the problems of free trade
00:05:44.060 and the problems of globalization
00:05:45.220 and how it's really become a class struggle
00:05:48.020 in a lot of ways.
00:05:48.840 And I think that there's something perhaps
00:05:50.620 that the right could have learned about that sooner.
00:05:52.360 But it is interesting the way the media
00:05:54.480 responds to these things,
00:05:55.720 because when it was the left
00:05:57.000 raising these criticisms,
00:05:58.580 there was never that I recall
00:06:00.140 any denunciation of them.
00:06:01.520 They were never called conspiracy theorists.
00:06:03.620 But now that the right is raising these concerns
00:06:05.560 or more of the right raising these concerns,
00:06:08.380 it's we have to denounce the denouncers.
00:06:11.500 Yeah, I think a big thing too
00:06:12.960 is that there's been, you know,
00:06:14.280 a not so subtle shift in,
00:06:17.480 I don't know if you want to call it
00:06:18.700 political ideology
00:06:19.520 or the way people talk about things,
00:06:20.900 but, you know, what does it mean to be conservative,
00:06:22.580 you know, liberal, left, right?
00:06:24.020 There's a lot of overlap
00:06:25.000 and a lot of, I think, confusion for people.
00:06:26.800 And so, you know,
00:06:28.340 it used to be very conservative to say,
00:06:29.980 well, you know, keep taxes low,
00:06:31.700 have free trade, you know,
00:06:32.760 be very capitalist and support the free market.
00:06:35.400 I'd still define myself that way.
00:06:36.880 Well, whether that's still considered conservative or not,
00:06:39.100 you know, you're seeing more of a shift towards,
00:06:40.600 you know, state intervention,
00:06:41.900 cultural conservatism in some ways.
00:06:44.080 But I think the media,
00:06:45.320 instead of talking about the nuance,
00:06:46.680 which I guess goes over some of their heads,
00:06:48.220 they just, they look for the easiest,
00:06:49.840 you know, thing they can say,
00:06:50.800 which is, oh, well, fascism,
00:06:52.400 conspiracy theorist,
00:06:53.720 you know, anti-Semitic.
00:06:54.740 I see some people trying to call
00:06:55.960 Polyam anti-Semitic,
00:06:57.400 which is obviously absurd.
00:06:59.000 And so it's just,
00:06:59.760 a lot of it's just laziness.
00:07:01.020 It's not wanting to delve deeper into the issue,
00:07:02.880 not wanting to deal with any complexity or nuance.
00:07:05.020 It's just,
00:07:05.560 what's the quickest insult I could find
00:07:07.020 to make the whole issue go away
00:07:08.180 or just label someone badly
00:07:09.320 and then people will stop talking about it.
00:07:11.000 So I think that's part of what we're dealing with too,
00:07:12.660 is just very lazy journalism in many cases.
00:07:15.840 What's your thought on how Polyev
00:07:17.660 has been relatively unrepentant?
00:07:19.260 Because I know the last couple of conservative leaders,
00:07:21.400 Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer,
00:07:23.860 were both fairly timid when it came to the media.
00:07:26.740 And they both really buckled
00:07:28.680 when the media was going after them.
00:07:30.660 Whereas Polyev, to his credit,
00:07:32.180 hasn't done that.
00:07:33.060 And even on the WEF stuff,
00:07:34.740 he came out after that CP article
00:07:36.320 and just said,
00:07:36.940 no, it's a hit job.
00:07:37.780 It's ridiculous.
00:07:38.460 I'm not buying into it.
00:07:40.020 Do you think he'll be able to keep that up?
00:07:41.460 And do you think he will keep that up?
00:07:43.720 I think so.
00:07:44.540 I mean, the polls are looking pretty good for him.
00:07:47.260 You know, obviously,
00:07:48.060 that's how he campaigned for the leadership.
00:07:49.720 So I think, you know,
00:07:50.600 I don't see him wanting to change
00:07:52.160 from that perspective.
00:07:53.080 Even if he did,
00:07:53.780 I think he'd face so much pressure
00:07:55.000 because of how he campaigned
00:07:56.380 that he wouldn't really be able to.
00:07:57.680 Not that, of course, he wants to.
00:07:59.460 And, you know,
00:08:00.140 the reason I think it's working,
00:08:01.300 and this is, I think,
00:08:01.960 a deeper point for why the liberals are struggling,
00:08:03.740 is that things are just bad in the country.
00:08:06.480 I mean, you know,
00:08:06.940 we can talk about all the complexities
00:08:08.440 of certain things,
00:08:09.300 but in many cases,
00:08:10.580 people are looking around and saying,
00:08:11.880 well, the liberals have been in power
00:08:13.020 for eight years
00:08:13.700 and things are getting worse.
00:08:15.580 Okay, this guy, Polyev,
00:08:17.120 well, what's he talking about?
00:08:18.240 Okay, you know,
00:08:19.540 we need affordable housing.
00:08:20.520 We need to deal with crime.
00:08:21.420 We need to lower the cost of living.
00:08:22.700 You know, pretty common sense things.
00:08:24.380 People look at that and say,
00:08:25.260 well, at least this guy's addressing
00:08:26.240 the issues I have.
00:08:27.440 And then they turn on the news
00:08:28.420 and they say,
00:08:28.860 oh, the liberals say Polyev
00:08:29.960 is a dangerous, scary conspiracy theorist.
00:08:32.260 And I think people are just going to start
00:08:33.660 to tune that out.
00:08:34.500 I mean, they've heard it so often.
00:08:36.000 It really doesn't match up with reality.
00:08:38.120 And so I think, you know,
00:08:39.220 I don't, I'm not shocked
00:08:40.780 the liberals are trying this.
00:08:42.200 I mean, they've got to try something, right?
00:08:43.460 In politics,
00:08:43.920 either whatever attack you think
00:08:45.000 is going to work.
00:08:45.820 But they don't really have much left
00:08:47.160 in terms of saying,
00:08:48.180 oh, look, look how great we're doing.
00:08:49.520 Look how great things are for you.
00:08:50.660 Look how affordable everything is.
00:08:52.440 And so the other issue too
00:08:54.800 is much of the establishment media.
00:08:56.480 You know, if you look at Bill C-18,
00:08:57.840 how they're all lining up behind that,
00:08:59.200 despite it being an absolute disaster,
00:09:01.740 they're really just desperate for money.
00:09:03.140 And they know a conservative government
00:09:04.600 is not going to give them a bunch of money,
00:09:06.140 is not going to, you know,
00:09:06.800 restrict social media companies
00:09:08.140 and restrict free speech for their benefit.
00:09:10.740 And so they now have a vested financial interest
00:09:12.880 in trying to keep the liberals in power.
00:09:14.380 So I think it's important to filter,
00:09:15.820 you know, our perception of their coverage
00:09:17.800 through that lens as well,
00:09:19.740 which is that, look,
00:09:20.560 they want the liberals to stay in power
00:09:21.800 because they want the liberals
00:09:22.640 to give them taxpayer dollars
00:09:24.240 and restrict, you know,
00:09:25.240 independent competitors.
00:09:26.320 So that's going to certainly
00:09:27.460 shade their coverage.
00:09:29.500 Yeah.
00:09:29.660 And to be honest,
00:09:30.460 when you talk about how terrible things are
00:09:32.100 for Canadians right now,
00:09:33.440 a lot of these issues exist outside of Canada.
00:09:35.380 And that's a legitimate question
00:09:37.180 of the WEF on a different plane,
00:09:39.180 which is, okay,
00:09:40.020 you guys think that you're solving
00:09:41.300 the world's problems here.
00:09:42.720 Well, you had Putin speaking in 2021
00:09:45.680 and a few months later,
00:09:47.120 Russia invades Ukraine.
00:09:48.520 You had, you know,
00:09:49.840 all these great people
00:09:50.880 in the private sector,
00:09:51.980 in the public sector,
00:09:52.820 talking to each other about solving things
00:09:54.600 and inflation's out of control.
00:09:56.480 We've got Europe that is in
00:09:58.020 for another very cold winter
00:09:59.220 because of energy issues.
00:10:00.320 So, I mean,
00:10:01.400 even if you don't believe
00:10:02.300 that they're influential,
00:10:03.640 the question is, all right,
00:10:04.440 what are you providing?
00:10:05.500 What service are you providing
00:10:07.240 to world leaders that go there
00:10:08.820 when you failed
00:10:10.260 at the most basic things?
00:10:11.460 And I don't know
00:10:12.260 if there's an answer for that.
00:10:14.380 And, you know,
00:10:14.860 to Canadian leaders,
00:10:15.700 I'd say, why,
00:10:16.860 where's the value proposition?
00:10:18.360 What are you getting for Canadians
00:10:19.540 when you hang out
00:10:20.740 with these billionaires?
00:10:21.600 Because I've yet to see that.
00:10:23.980 Yeah, I think a big part of it
00:10:25.340 is just, you know,
00:10:26.200 it's like a club for people.
00:10:27.340 You know, you hear,
00:10:29.320 oh, celebrities are going there.
00:10:30.480 You know, politicians are going there.
00:10:31.700 You know, people want to get involved
00:10:32.880 and, you know, be seen there.
00:10:34.380 And, you know,
00:10:35.260 I guess it's some sort
00:10:36.240 of credibility boost in some cases.
00:10:38.240 But I think, you know,
00:10:39.500 a big part of all this
00:10:40.620 is that there's a lot of people
00:10:41.880 who have, you know,
00:10:43.140 their, that's a good way to put it.
00:10:45.940 Their, almost their purpose
00:10:47.160 for living in many ways
00:10:49.040 is all about being involved
00:10:50.320 in some sort of, you know,
00:10:51.220 world historical battle
00:10:52.520 or, you know,
00:10:53.040 being a historical figure.
00:10:53.980 I think Stephen Gilbeau
00:10:55.280 is a good example of that.
00:10:57.920 He obviously sees himself
00:10:59.120 as some sort of heroic figure
00:11:00.500 who, oh, it doesn't matter
00:11:01.460 how many, you know,
00:11:02.160 people he hurts, you know,
00:11:03.260 economically,
00:11:03.860 it's all for the greater good.
00:11:05.120 As he mentioned earlier,
00:11:06.060 the so-called greater good
00:11:07.520 that a lot of politicians
00:11:08.860 use to do things
00:11:09.700 that aren't really good ideas.
00:11:10.980 And so he's obviously sure
00:11:12.340 that he's the good guy.
00:11:13.340 He doesn't question himself at all.
00:11:14.940 You know, he just gets
00:11:15.580 more and more aggressive,
00:11:16.540 you know, more restrictions on energy,
00:11:18.680 more bans on plastic
00:11:19.880 and everything, you know,
00:11:20.860 make people's life
00:11:21.840 more difficult
00:11:22.320 for the greater good
00:11:23.080 to save the planet.
00:11:24.540 And so, you know,
00:11:25.100 Davos, I think,
00:11:25.780 gives people a chance
00:11:26.620 to congregate
00:11:27.260 and feel like
00:11:28.180 they're being part of something, right?
00:11:29.440 Oh, they're part of, you know,
00:11:30.300 reshaping the world
00:11:31.120 and saving the planet.
00:11:32.580 And so, you know,
00:11:33.480 when they're told,
00:11:34.280 well, actually, you know,
00:11:35.120 nothing you do is working.
00:11:36.300 It's only making things worse
00:11:37.460 and people don't really like you
00:11:38.960 and don't want to hear
00:11:39.780 this kind of stuff,
00:11:40.820 they're not just going to give in, right?
00:11:42.080 Because it's their whole,
00:11:42.860 you know,
00:11:43.020 their whole purpose
00:11:43.620 is built up in that.
00:11:45.020 And so I think that's something
00:11:47.180 we need to look at
00:11:47.920 for, you know,
00:11:48.880 the types of people we elected,
00:11:50.220 types of people
00:11:50.840 we trust in the position of power
00:11:52.640 is you don't really want people
00:11:54.820 who think that they're
00:11:55.640 saving the planet
00:11:56.680 or that they're, you know,
00:11:57.460 some big historical figure.
00:11:58.640 You want someone who
00:11:59.260 wants to manage the government well,
00:12:01.260 you know, keep taxes low,
00:12:02.620 have services be relatively effective.
00:12:04.620 You don't want people
00:12:05.560 who have some sort of
00:12:06.460 massive mission in mind.
00:12:07.980 And so I think that's part
00:12:09.220 of what the whole Davos thing is.
00:12:10.580 I mean, obviously,
00:12:11.300 Klaus Schwab, you know,
00:12:12.500 I think he does sometimes
00:12:13.880 talk up his own influence
00:12:15.020 because that's, you know,
00:12:15.680 where his sense of purpose
00:12:16.500 comes from is, you know,
00:12:17.580 he's orchestrating everything
00:12:18.780 around the world.
00:12:19.460 I'm sure it makes him feel good
00:12:20.400 to see people say that about him.
00:12:22.140 But, you know,
00:12:22.800 if the weft was really
00:12:23.680 running everything,
00:12:24.420 I think they'd be a little
00:12:25.140 more careful and subtle about it.
00:12:26.580 I mean, would you pick
00:12:27.320 Klaus Schwab,
00:12:28.060 who basically seems like
00:12:29.340 a villain ripped out
00:12:30.140 about a James Bond movie?
00:12:31.420 Would he really be
00:12:32.020 the front man for it?
00:12:32.960 I mean, a little too
00:12:33.780 on the nose sometimes, I think.
00:12:35.240 Well, yeah, yeah,
00:12:35.780 you're right about that.
00:12:36.920 And that's the problem.
00:12:37.660 I mean, it's like,
00:12:38.200 even if the WEF is not
00:12:39.880 the shadowy global cabal
00:12:41.940 of people running the world,
00:12:43.600 man, do they not do much
00:12:44.900 to dissuade people
00:12:45.840 from taking that image.
00:12:47.080 It's like right out
00:12:47.760 of central casting.
00:12:48.600 And like, you know,
00:12:49.380 it's a future that's built by us.
00:12:50.760 It's like, yeah, okay, fine, fine.
00:12:52.560 Spencer Fernando,
00:12:53.480 independent journalist extraordinaire.
00:12:55.080 You can get his work
00:12:55.880 at spencerfernando.com.
00:12:58.180 Always good to talk to you, Spencer.
00:12:59.520 Thanks for coming on.
00:13:00.700 No problem.
00:13:01.120 Take care.
00:13:01.500 Thanks for listening
00:13:02.160 to The Andrew Lawton Show.
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