Juno News - March 03, 2023


The CBC buries coverage on interference


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

162.9199

Word Count

3,167

Sentence Count

186

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome everyone to another exciting edition, or at least I hope it lives up to the standard
00:00:14.640 of excitement we all strive for. We've got Sue Ann Levy on, so I don't think that will be an
00:00:19.120 issue. It is Fake News Friday, March 3rd, 2023. I am Andrew Lawton and as mentioned just a moment
00:00:26.440 ago, joined as always by a trusty, loyal, hilarious co-host. We switched between Harrison and Sue Ann.
00:00:34.720 We're going to have them battle it out in a cage match to see who gets to be the permanent co-host
00:00:38.960 at some point, but Sue Ann, always a delight to have you here. Thanks for doing this. Thank you,
00:00:43.640 and I want to know in honor of Fake News Friday that I do not have fake breasts like the Halton
00:00:49.680 shop teacher. Mine are real. I have to be very careful of how I respond to that in this climate.
00:00:58.640 I won't ask you to prove it or anything like that. I would never be so gauche. We will take you at face
00:01:03.440 value as your self-identification indicates there, and it is a show debunking fake news, so I know you
00:01:09.180 wouldn't be a purveyor of fake news yourself. This is the time in the week where we navigate through
00:01:15.660 the tornadoes of trickery, the hurricanes of hoaxes, and make sense of it as only we can,
00:01:21.640 and perhaps have a couple of laughs along the way. The serious story this week, Sue Ann, has obviously
00:01:27.320 been the unraveling and expanding scope of China's interference in Canada's elections, but when
00:01:34.300 there's a story that puts the Liberal government on the hot seat, fake news is never far behind.
00:01:40.420 CBC at one point this week had all of its homepage about the federal government banning TikTok, not
00:01:48.100 about China interfering in Canadian elections, not about China donating to the Trudeau Foundation, but
00:01:54.520 their emphasis was on TikTok. Do you think this is just an accidental misarrangement on the homepage
00:02:00.920 or something deeper? Oh, come on. Of course, it's quite calculated, actually, I think, because, you know,
00:02:09.040 it's like deferring one's attention to the shiny object. And TikTok's to blame, not the Trudeau
00:02:17.820 government, of course, who's bailed out the legacy media. So, you know, if you can find, I guess,
00:02:25.400 a scapegoat, TikTok becomes the scapegoat. And it's just so funny the way they react, don't you think?
00:02:34.160 Yeah, it is. And I mean, even the federal government banning TikTok, which people have called for for many
00:02:41.680 months now, I think probably over a year. And they're doing it just now when they happen to be
00:02:46.980 in the midst of a firestorm about China. So it really is the epitome of this big giant thing that
00:02:52.860 everyone's going on. And let's just throw a couple of, you know, breadcrumbs your way without dealing
00:02:57.840 with the overarching problem here. And when the media then focuses on this as being a big deal,
00:03:03.060 it is the media really falling for the liberal government's distraction.
00:03:07.700 Yeah, they're so easily manipulated. It should be they should be embarrassed by it. But I have a
00:03:13.160 question for you. There's a certain global reporter who's known to be a TikTok star. Does that mean she's
00:03:18.520 been banned as well? Well, no one can read her on a review her on a federal government device.
00:03:25.400 So this may actually increase the caliber of parliamentarians work if they aren't getting
00:03:31.720 their insights from TikTok in general, you never know. Yeah, or some TikTok stars who pretend to be
00:03:37.800 journalists. Now, now, you know what, there's a time and a place for that sort of stuff. And I think
00:03:43.680 it's great if you're talking about, you know, little primers on news, little commentary, but I have yet to
00:03:49.740 see hard hitting journalism take form on TikTok. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I've never seen it.
00:03:54.660 Yeah. And I think TikTok wasn't ever meant to be a hard hitting journalism platform. It was meant to
00:04:02.920 be, you know, a platform that you had fun with. You know, we've got enough quite enough with Twitter
00:04:10.220 and Facebook video, and we've got so many social media platforms. But I thought TikTok was always
00:04:16.600 just a fun thing that you, you know, you did dog tricks on. Yeah. And if you looked at CBC on March
00:04:26.640 1st, this was the day that all of this was going on. So two days ago, here were the stories, and I'm
00:04:32.800 just going to rapid fire them. What does TikTok know about you? What should you know about it?
00:04:38.180 TikTok sets new default time limits for minors. Jagmeet Singh will deactivate TikTok account in response
00:04:44.340 to security privacy concerns. I noticed they didn't do a story about Melissa Lansman, the deputy
00:04:50.020 conservative leader, deactivating hers overnight. Canada is jumping on a bandwagon with TikTok ban.
00:04:56.140 Tech expert says federal government banning social media platform TikTok from government phones.
00:05:01.520 Is TikTok bad? Here's why many Western countries are taking a closer look. Attempted interference in
00:05:07.440 2021 election did not compromise the result report. So you scroll way, way, way, way down,
00:05:13.600 you get past the eight stories about TikTok, and then you find the first story about China's
00:05:18.260 interference is actually that, well, there really wasn't any interference. It does seem like CBC is
00:05:23.220 doing a bit of pass blocking here for the Liberals. Well, why are the Liberals banning TikTok then?
00:05:29.460 What is this big exercise all about? But, you know, you've seen it repeatedly, that they will, you know,
00:05:38.840 deflect and reinvent stories, reinvent the narrative, push people to the shiny object that has very little
00:05:47.160 to do with the subject at hand. And I mean, this is a huge story, China's interference in the election.
00:05:55.120 But they continually give Justin Trudeau a free pass on every little thing. So why should this be a
00:06:04.820 surprise to any of us? Yeah, fair enough. And, you know, CBC for this show anyway, tends to be the
00:06:11.840 gift that keeps on giving. This one was fascinating. Many of you who are active on social media and you
00:06:18.780 follow footage of the convoy and other big events in the Canadian political sphere, you may know
00:06:24.460 Mocha Bezergin. And I apologize to Mocha for likely butchering his last name, but Mocha used to be at
00:06:31.540 Rebel News. Now he works independently. He's a great photographer and videographer. He's everywhere
00:06:37.120 and including Roxham Road, where he's done tremendous footage. So at some point he went to Roxham Road and
00:06:44.620 was filming and a Canadian press photographer got a picture of him walking around. Now, CBC then
00:06:54.020 shows this story in an article about Roxham Road. The headline of the article,
00:07:00.300 Man Dies After Encountering Patrol Agents at Canada-US Border. And there's a picture of our friend
00:07:06.680 Mocha next to a big sign that says, Arrete, stop. Now, Mocha is not actually dead. And if you look at the
00:07:15.500 caption of the photo, it gets even more concerning because they offer a biographical description of him
00:07:22.560 as being a migrant waiting for transport. So they've not only killed off Mocha, but they've also taken away
00:07:30.540 his Canadian citizenship of 21 years and made him an illegal. And, you know, again, is it sinister? No.
00:07:37.700 It sure as heck is lazy, though. Lazy reporting. And, you know, the whole issue with Roxham Road,
00:07:45.480 which I covered while I was at the Toronto Sun before I came to True North, has been a huge
00:07:51.300 issue that has filtered into our cities. It's impacted on the city of Toronto, where I make my home.
00:07:59.400 Refugees are filling up shelters. Nobody or hardly anybody in the legacy media covers this sort of
00:08:06.640 stuff. But they get into these sideshows that are absolutely ridiculous. It's rather frustrating to
00:08:12.540 see this kind of lazy, inaccurate reporting, when in fact, Roxham Road should be dissected
00:08:21.040 as to the impact on Canada's cities. As I said, in particular, Toronto, I think what's happened is
00:08:29.560 Quebec has diverted a lot of the refugees who are crossing the border illegally and being allowed
00:08:35.320 to cross the border illegally, I don't understand it at all, now to Ontario. And it's Ontario's problem
00:08:41.800 now. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, this nonsense about the photo is a bit of a sidebar to the
00:08:47.900 overarching issue. And the media, I think, has done a tremendous disservice by buying into the
00:08:53.320 government's language of this being irregular migration instead of illegal migration. They
00:08:58.640 refuse to call illegal immigration, illegal immigration, which is part of the problem here,
00:09:03.460 because this is about narratives. And you've got the federal government saying on one hand, you know,
00:09:07.860 oh, yes, we're taking this seriously, but it's complicated. And yeah, it's not just as easy as going
00:09:12.400 there and turning people away. But that's exactly what they did during COVID, at least in the earlier part of
00:09:17.260 the pandemic. And now they've just gone back to this being an open, I don't even think a revolving
00:09:21.840 door because no one's going the other way. It's just a one way red carpet. Exactly. You hit the nail
00:09:27.580 on the head. They were able to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. And I will say illegal, I'll call
00:09:32.700 it what it is. During COVID, they put a stop to it. And now it started up again. And now these people
00:09:39.360 are crossing the border quite freely. And believe me, they have heard because, as I said, I followed it
00:09:44.560 quite closely in Toronto. They hear in, you know, countries like Nigeria and other countries in Africa,
00:09:54.320 for example, that there is an open border. So they come to the States. I mean, I did stories about them
00:10:01.000 taking a bus to within, you know, a mile of the border and then walking over with their designer
00:10:06.880 suitcases.
00:10:07.640 Well, there's, there's one, there's been a couple of photos, but one in particular that stands out in
00:10:13.300 my mind, which if we can get the rights to it, we'll put it up in the show here, but you can find
00:10:17.260 it online yourself. It's a police officer actually carrying someone's bag for them as they cross
00:10:23.400 illegally into Canada. They're greeted by a Mountie who becomes Canada's official baggage porter.
00:10:28.960 And see, you can't, you know, our, our country has become absolutely absurd. And yes, I, I actually
00:10:38.260 saw plenty of, hang on. I don't want to interrupt Sue Ann, but I've just got the line, the Mounties,
00:10:42.740 we always get your handbag.
00:10:44.380 We always get your handbag and your luggage, your designer luggage. So I've also seen pictures of
00:10:49.700 them just walking in there, you know, their late model running shoes, the, you know, the Nikes and
00:10:56.460 stuff with the, um, the hard, uh, luggage and wheeling it across. And, you know, I'd laugh, I'd,
00:11:06.520 I'd laugh if I didn't want to cry about it.
00:11:08.920 Yeah. It's, you know, the old, it's the true, you know, refugee story of, I showed up with only the
00:11:14.120 clothes on my back and a Louis Vuitton suitcase and, uh, the latest designer treads as I sought asylum
00:11:19.980 in Canada from the United States. And, you know, uh, think about the impact that has on the cities,
00:11:29.220 various cities, uh, social services system. They have shelter, they have to have, uh, they have,
00:11:36.740 you know, uh, resources, other resources, they get free, uh, healthcare. And, um, you know,
00:11:45.240 they say it's, it's a crazy, crazy thing. And it's, uh, they, I dare say are taking total
00:11:53.620 advantage because they know that Canada's open borders are, you know, there. And I think it
00:12:00.940 initially started really, Andrew, a couple of years ago when, uh, Trudeau and our late great mayor in
00:12:08.660 Toronto, John Tory, wanted to get back at Donald Trump, wanted to show that they weren't like Donald
00:12:13.040 Trump, you know, when he clamped down on illegal migrants. And so of course that opened the flood
00:12:18.860 gates and here we are. Yeah. And you get all of that. I know we're getting a little off topic here,
00:12:23.520 but I know you've seen this, uh, oftentimes you get all these cities and States in the United States
00:12:28.760 that claim they want to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants. And they all happen to be conspicuously
00:12:33.860 miles and miles and miles away from the borders where illegal immigrants are going across places like,
00:12:39.240 you know, Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts or Northern California. And then when governors in
00:12:43.960 these border States have called the bluff and just ship migrants up to Martha's Vineyard, they all get
00:12:48.840 very offended by these illegal migrants just showing up in their towns. Oh my. Yes. Well, it, you know, it did
00:12:56.020 start a few years ago, also in Toronto where hotels were taken over and the house rest, yeah, for refugees.
00:13:02.520 So there is a fallout and, you know, nobody thinks about that, but getting back to what we were talking
00:13:08.520 about. So these are the stories that should be told, but they're not being told. Their poor Mocha is
00:13:13.860 declared dead. And, uh, he's also a dead immigrant, illegal or irregular. I guess he could be a regular
00:13:21.020 or illegal depending on who's talking about it. The moral of the story, Mocha alive and well, and still
00:13:28.300 in good standing unless Justin Trudeau has tried to revoke his citizenship, but I don't think that's
00:13:32.660 happened just yet. Uh, so CBC and CP have gotten it wrong there. Uh, let's talk about this one, which
00:13:39.540 I want to be a bit delicate with, because I think that, uh, what's happened here is Scott Adams, who is
00:13:46.200 the cartoonist behind the long running Dilbert series made some comments that I personally believe
00:13:53.080 are indefensible and, and whatever his intent was, whether he was trying to be edgy, whether he was
00:13:58.280 trying to be sloppy with the point he was making. I don't know, but I look at this and I hear this
00:14:03.220 and I don't like it. You know, nearly half of all blacks, uh, are not okay with white people.
00:14:08.880 According to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll, uh, that's a hate group.
00:14:15.640 That's a hate group. And I don't want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, you know,
00:14:21.360 based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the
00:14:27.840 hell away from black people. Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away
00:14:34.980 because there's no fixing this. This can't be fixed.
00:14:40.440 So he's saying white people should stay away from black people. Don't bother doing anything
00:14:44.700 because they're going to hate you anyway. It's a generalization. I've seen, you know, Samuel say,
00:14:49.980 who I find to be very reasonable, uh, racial commentator in Canada has said, this is full stop
00:14:56.040 racist. And he doesn't use that word lightly. However, Scott Adams, the guy on the internet
00:15:02.740 is different in my view than Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert in the sense that I believe
00:15:08.600 most artists should probably be viewed separately from their work. But we've now seen in response to
00:15:14.300 this, this wave of cancellation, which has been kind of furthered in Canada as well with the Globe
00:15:19.620 and Mail saying, yeah, they're not going to carry Dilbert anymore. They put a statement out that said
00:15:24.300 they respect and encourage free speech, but his views do not align with our editorial or business
00:15:29.260 values as an organization. What do you make of this Sue Ann? Number one, whatever happened to second
00:15:34.960 chances? So he, you know, he made a mistake and he could apologize and let's move on. Um, you know,
00:15:42.960 it wasn't a very, it was an indelicate way of saying probably what a lot of people are, are thinking in a
00:15:49.540 different way that, um, you know, black activism has, uh, got in some ways out of control because we
00:15:57.920 have critical race theory being taught where some people are oppressed. The whites, uh, are oppressors,
00:16:04.540 white people are oppressors. There's white supremacy being thrown out there. And I think a lot of people
00:16:08.880 have gotten frustrated with the landscape that we're in, you know, involved in now. So, you know,
00:16:16.820 I'm sure that, well, I can't get into his head. Let's put it that way. But I would say that it's
00:16:22.940 probably in, in the midst of an environment where people are upset with, you know, this stuff being
00:16:29.480 rammed down their throats. And I think that his, if, if we are to take that interpretation, I think he
00:16:36.560 made a fatal error in not distinguishing black people in general, because he did speak in generalizations
00:16:42.880 from the activists that I think are very concerning. It would be no different than
00:16:47.060 lumping in, you know, people who are gay and lesbian with, you know, the really radical trans
00:16:52.700 activists that don't support free speech or with lumping in all Muslims with, uh, radical Islamist
00:16:58.600 Muslims, just to give a few examples here. So I think absolutely people should be able to engage
00:17:03.580 and debate the point. And I get so bothered that the only step people are prepared to take is to go
00:17:10.960 immediately to cancellation. Right. Or to call whomever who makes a comment. And this was a very
00:17:17.540 sloppy comment. Uh, they're racist. They're, uh, you know, Islamophobic, whatever it may be. They throw
00:17:24.420 out all the, the terms that they think will silence people. Um, they're so quick to judge. And this is in a
00:17:31.700 society that we're talking about, supposed to be tolerant, supposed to be, uh, they're supposed to be
00:17:37.120 free speech, but it's only free speech is determined by those, uh, I guess the woke culture or the
00:17:44.800 activists who decide what is permissible and what isn't a simple apology. And let's carry on. And I'm
00:17:53.280 not going to, you know, he has a great cartoon, as you said, and, uh, you know, to, to just cancel him
00:18:00.020 entirely seems like just undue punishment, but, you know, there is a crazy double standard in this
00:18:05.720 world right now. And, uh, you know, you have to be so careful what you say. If an activist comes out,
00:18:12.460 as I've been targeted by many, uh, say trans activists, for example, calling me all kinds of
00:18:18.980 names, saying, making assumptions on very publicly, but that's okay. Uh, because I'm on the wrong side of
00:18:26.360 the equation. So all I'm saying is that, uh, it's, it's a crazy double standard. Uh, those of us like
00:18:33.780 you, like me are not allowed to say certain things without being targeted. Others can get away with
00:18:40.560 it. Very well said, Sue Ann Levy. This is Fake News Friday. I'm Andrew Lawton. We will talk to you
00:18:47.700 all next week here on True North. Thank you so much.
00:18:56.360 Thank you.