Juno News - The Candice Malcolm Show： Ask Candice Anything!

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, Merry Christmas. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas day with your family,

00:00:08.520 with your friends at church, wherever you were to celebrate it. Today for the Candice

00:00:12.380 Malcolm show, we are doing a very special episode where we're doing a extended version

00:00:17.020 of Ask Me Anything. We're not going to talk about any news. We're just going to go through

00:00:20.440 the mailbag and answer all the questions. If you'd like to have a question answered

00:00:24.720 in a future episode or future podcast, you have to be a club member in order to get a

00:00:29.040 question asked. So you can head on over to tnc.news, sign up as a club member, and then

00:00:34.420 you can submit your questions and I will read them on air in a future show. So let's jump

00:00:38.660 right into it. First question. Hi Candice, Merry Christmas to you, your family, and the True

00:00:43.180 North family. I've been seeing some media exposure on the minister's mandate letters purportedly

00:00:47.680 prepared by Trudeau to give the tasks and directions for each minister to accomplish,

00:00:52.840 from the minister of everything to the minister of nothing. Given the cranial capacity of PM

00:00:57.480 Trudeau, it is not possible he had the acumen to produce these documents other than probably

00:01:01.860 contributing his signature. Who really prepares these mandate letters and how are they vetted

00:01:06.500 to suit the Liberals' agenda? Kindest regards, Gordon. Well, thank you so much for the question,

00:01:11.360 Gordon. Yeah, of course, Justin Trudeau, I mean, he doesn't even do his own prime initial

00:01:15.040 jobs anymore. That's why he appointed Chrystia Freeland to be his deputy. So we know that he's

00:01:20.400 not really doing the day-to-day kind of business aspect of the prime minister. And so when it comes

00:01:25.380 to these mandate letters, basically they are prepared by the PCO, by the Privy Council Office,

00:01:30.480 which is sort of the bureaucratic office that's adjacent to the prime minister's office. The

00:01:34.740 prime minister's office is full of the political staffers that are appointed by the liberal

00:01:38.100 government. And then the Privy Council is the permanent bureaucracy that is there. So the PCO

00:01:44.020 creates these documents sort of as an outline based on the liberal party platform. They pass it

00:01:49.240 over to the political side in the prime minister's office. The staffers who are appointed by Trudeau would

00:01:54.060 go through and sort of change the wording, add certain things, and then those letters would go

00:01:59.360 off to the minister themselves. So no, Justin Trudeau didn't sit down and create these. Although I will

00:02:05.800 say that under the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, my understanding is that he was really big

00:02:10.540 into these kind of memos, into producing these kind of documents, and that he would, if he received

00:02:15.180 a memo, he would stay up. He would read every single thing that came across his desk, and that he had a

00:02:19.100 larger part in crafting these kind of things. But as far as the liberals and the bureaucracy,

00:02:24.720 you know, the liberals and the bureaucracy, they basically all agree and believe the same stuff.

00:02:28.480 So it's easier for the liberals because they can have the bureaucrats do part of their job. 0.99

00:02:32.980 Okay, next question. Dear Candace, this is specific to U.S. politics, but it relates to Canadian politics

00:02:38.300 as well. Could I get your thoughts on Nick Fuentes confronting Ben Shapiro while Ben was with his

00:02:43.520 wife and kids? I personally think Nick crossed the line, and that political discourse in both the

00:02:48.700 U.S. and Canada has reached an all-time low. This reminded me of when Trudeau was almost attacked

00:02:53.440 when he marched in a climate march with his kids. When political figures of all parties are with their

00:02:58.880 families, they should be left alone. Yeah, so, you know, this is a really good question. I was watching

00:03:04.120 this footage the other day of Ben Shapiro. He is walking into a hotel with his family when he is

00:03:10.260 confronted by a conservative sort of political activist who had a beef with Shapiro. Here,

00:03:15.200 let's play part of that clip. Ben, it's great to see you. Why did you give a 45-minute speech about

00:03:21.340 me at Stanford and you won't even look at my house? Hey, hey, hey, he's with his kids. Come on,

00:03:25.640 I'm right here. I'll just say that, you know, Ben Shapiro handled this like a pro. He obviously showed a

00:03:31.120 lot of self-control to ignore this kind of heckling that was happening. And, you know, I have a kid as

00:03:37.720 well. I have family and the idea of someone confronting you in an aggressive, negative

00:03:42.100 way when you're with your kids is just completely out of line. It's completely offside, in my

00:03:47.940 opinion. When someone's with their family, they should be left alone. I've been confronted a couple

00:03:53.240 times, many times, just, you know, when I'm visiting Calgary or Edmonton, sometimes in Toronto,

00:03:58.980 sometimes in Vancouver. Someone will recognize me and come up to it. Fortunately for me, it's always

00:04:03.340 sort of been a positive encounter. People negatively see, if they see me and they have a negative

00:04:08.920 feeling about me, fortunately they've left me alone. But I can't imagine having that kind

00:04:14.560 of confrontation when you're with your family. And I think that this activist who confronted

00:04:19.460 him really lost a lot of his support because no one likes to see that. And the same thing

00:04:23.480 goes, whether it's Andrew Scheer with his children, Dustin Trudeau, I think that families should

00:04:29.560 be left alone and should be left out of the political debate. And I'll just say one more

00:04:34.860 thing, especially for Ben Shapiro, because Ben Shapiro is not only an outspoken conservative,

00:04:39.380 a very effective communicator, but he's also an Orthodox Jew who stands up to the far right,

00:04:44.800 to the sort of white supremacist fringe on the far right. And because of that, he gets a lot

00:04:50.680 of death threats. He gets a lot of threats. My understanding is that he has security detail.

00:04:55.100 Now, you know, he is just, he's a political commentator. He's a podcast host. And yet he

00:04:59.260 has to have round the clock security because of the amount of threats that he gets. So just,

00:05:03.880 again, another reason why people should just be left alone when they're with their family.

00:05:09.840 All right, next question. What do you think is the biggest international threat to Canada?

00:05:13.780 Many would argue Russia or China or even Islamist terrorism. What do you think? Well,

00:05:19.280 it's kind of interesting because, you know, Canada isn't really a big global player. So we don't

00:05:23.200 really have threats in the same way that the United States is. I think that whatever is a threat to

00:05:27.640 the United States is a threat to Canada. So all of those examples that were listed are threats.

00:05:32.980 I think that there's a real concern that in 50 or 100 years, China's economy will be much,

00:05:38.600 much bigger than the United States and they'll be able to assert so much more power around the world.

00:05:43.320 So, you know, right now we sort of have this peaceful liberal global order that's based on the

00:05:48.700 United States being the dominant superpower, basically the only superpower. And a lot of people

00:05:53.020 hate the United States for that. But if you step back and you consider what the alternatives are,

00:05:57.620 imagine if the world's biggest global superpower was a, you know, corrupt human rights abusing

00:06:04.780 communist dictatorship. And instead of the U.S. spreading sort of goodwill around the world and

00:06:10.420 promoting peace and democracy and free markets, you had a global menace promoting communism and

00:06:17.060 authoritarian regime around the world. I think that we would live in a very different kind of world.

00:06:21.160 That's the concern with China. But look, here's what I will say about Canada. The biggest threat, 0.95

00:06:27.380 I believe, to Canada and the future of our survival as a country is our ability to stay united. So I

00:06:33.020 would say that all of these are a threat insofar as Canada is opened to being manipulated by right

00:06:39.380 now mass migration, mass immigration, people coming to Canada with no expectation that they adopt any kind

00:06:44.880 of Canadian values, identity, join the community, learn our local languages, that people are just

00:06:51.040 allowed to come and settle and kind of create their own closed communities. So that could be any of

00:06:55.580 those groups. That could be a closed Islamist community where they believe in Sharia law and

00:06:59.940 promote a jihadist ideology. It could be a closed community of people loyal to the Chinese communist

00:07:06.940 government or any number of other communities. But people coming here, not becoming Canadian and instead 1.00

00:07:12.940 bringing their sort of values and tribal hatreds or their ideology that's counter to our free and democratic

00:07:19.820 society to Canada. And what will that look like 50 to 100 years from now if we have all these little

00:07:25.020 closed communities? I think Canada will be a society at war with itself and it won't be strong enough to sort of stay

00:07:32.940 united and fight against any external threats that could happen at that time. So that would be my

00:07:37.420 fear of the biggest threat to Canada. Next question. This is a good one. There has been so much talk about

00:07:43.000 impeachment here in Canada, but I really don't think the media or the average Canadian understands

00:07:47.260 what's going on in the States. Can you clarify to your viewers what this is actually about? Newsflash to

00:07:53.080 Canadians, Donald Trump is still President of the United States. So I'll have to be honest, I haven't really been

00:07:57.820 watching much of the Canadian coverage of this just because it's so mind-numbing and I don't think it's very

00:08:02.880 fair or accurate. So impeachment is an accusation. Impeachment isn't a ruling. It isn't something

00:08:10.400 that is finalized. It's basically the House in the United States. There's two there's two houses.

00:08:15.280 There's the House of Representatives and then there's also the Senate. So the House are the people that

00:08:20.000 can impeach a president and impeachment again is just an accusation. So because the Democrats control

00:08:25.120 the House, they have accused Donald Trump and then in order for him to actually get removed from

00:08:29.920 office, it would have to get confirmed by the Senate. Well, the Senate is controlled by the Republicans

00:08:34.480 and so it's not going to happen, just as it didn't happen under Bill Clinton when he was impeached.

00:08:40.320 So just because someone's impeached doesn't mean they're removed from office. That would have to

00:08:43.600 require the Senate confirmation. The Senate is not going to impeach Donald Trump, so he's going to

00:08:47.920 remain president. Now this is all just a political show, essentially. Like so much in Washington,

00:08:53.920 it's political theater. It doesn't really have any kind of impact. If you look at the polling and the

00:08:58.880 data in the United States between Democrats and Republicans, you'll see a nation that's very,

00:09:03.520 very divided. Most Democrats want Trump removed. They want him impeached. Most Republicans don't.

00:09:09.200 Even when you look at independents, the split is almost down the middle. 47 percent of independents

00:09:14.240 want Trump removed from office. 46 percent want him to remain in office and let the voters decide

00:09:19.520 in November 2020 election. So again, just because someone's impeached doesn't mean they're removed

00:09:24.400 from office. And I think this does set a bit of a dangerous precedent. I know it happened under Bill

00:09:28.720 Clinton with Republicans doing the impeachment, but essentially what you can have is anytime there's

00:09:34.160 a president who is from an opposite party of the party that controls the House, the president can be

00:09:41.280 impeached. So I think what we'll see in the future as the country remains very divided and a very stark

00:09:46.160 partisan divide is that when there's a Republican-controlled House and a Democrat president,

00:09:51.680 that president will get impeached. When there's a Democrat-controlled House as there is right now

00:09:55.920 and a Republican president, that president will get impeached. It really doesn't really mean much.

00:10:00.720 Okay, let's move on. Okay Candace, I have a question. It's about the TMX pipeline and the economics of

00:10:07.680 the project. I would like to know what the financing arrangements are for the construction. We all know

00:10:13.120 the Fed's paid $4.5 billion for ownership of the present line, including presumably the Kinder Morgan

00:10:18.160 cost to the point of the expansion preparations. Now the line is in construction phase, incurring and

00:10:23.520 paying presumably costs. Normally such a big project requires contractual commitments for borrowing or

00:10:30.160 otherwise providing the construction phase. That commitment normally is made on an agreed upon

00:10:35.760 settled basis of repayment or borrowed funds along with financial plan for the investor of the

00:10:41.520 distribution and or handling of profit or loss. In the TMX case, we the public are the investors. I

00:10:47.120 hope the government has a business plan. I haven't heard or seen a word of this. If information, if this

00:10:52.480 information is available somewhere, my engineering curiosity would like to see it. Can you help?

00:10:57.120 Regards, Bob. Well, thank you for the question, Bob. So this is a pretty complicated question.

00:11:01.760 I've looked at it a while and I can't actually find any contractual commitments for the borrowing

00:11:06.480 on any basis. But basically this is what the finance department says. It is not, however,

00:11:12.400 the intention of the government of Canada to be a long-term owner of this project. At the appropriate

00:11:17.360 time, Canada will work with investors to transfer the project and related assets to a new owner or

00:11:23.120 owners in a way that ensures the project's construction and operation will proceed in a manner that protects

00:11:29.280 the public interest. Many investors have already expressed interest in the project, including

00:11:33.360 indigenous groups, Canadian pension funds, and others. Basically what happens is the $4.5 billion

00:11:39.040 went to just what was the existing cost of the pipeline and what had been done to that point. Now that

00:11:44.320 the pipeline is now back in the construction phase, it is the federal government, aka funded by Canadian

00:11:50.400 taxpayers. That's the money that's going to be invested into building the actual pipeline. So the $4.5 billion

00:11:56.800 was just the very baseline, the very start. We're continuing to fund it and the government of Canada still has

00:12:02.240 this pipe dream that they are going to be able to eventually sell the pipeline to a private investor.

00:12:07.600 I wouldn't hold my breath on that. The whole reason why the federal government had to purchase this

00:12:12.720 pipeline in the first place was because the private sector wasn't really interested in doing it anymore,

00:12:17.760 given the lack of certainty about the future of pipelines and the oil industry in Canada. So

00:12:23.920 that information was all available just through the finance minister's website over in the government of Canada.

00:12:32.640 So the idea is basically that the government of Canada is going to be able to find a private investor.

00:12:36.720 I wouldn't hold my breath about that given the fact that the government had to buy this pipeline in the first place

00:12:42.400 because the private sector was no longer interested in holding such a project given the

00:12:48.080 grave uncertainty about the future of pipelines and the oil industry in Canada. So I think that's going

00:12:54.160 to be a long-term boondoggle that we will keep an eye on. All right, so I'm going to leave it at that.

00:12:59.360 Thank you so much for everyone who submitted questions. And again, if you would like to be part of the

00:13:04.640 Ask Me Anything, sign up for one of our clubs and you can send a question over and I will read it on air.

00:13:09.520 Thank you very much and we will be back next week. Thank you.

Juno News - December 26, 2019

The Candice Malcolm Show： Ask Candice Anything!

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