Juno News - The Establishment is pulling out all the stops to end the freedom convoy

00:00:00.000 The Freedom Convoy has more momentum than ever, as Canadians across the country showed up to

00:00:04.840 support the truckers, to support the Freedom Convoy. And in response, the establishment is

00:00:10.060 flailing. They are doing everything they can to stop these protests and discredit the protesters.

00:00:15.160 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:21.140 Hi everyone, thank you for tuning into the podcast. So the weekend saw a tremendous outpouring of

00:00:26.640 support for the Freedom Convoy, which was a little bit surprising, I'll be completely honest.

00:00:30.600 What we've seen over the past two weeks is a coordinated attempt by the legacy media,

00:00:35.340 by the Trudeau liberals in Ottawa, by political elites and the establishment all over the country

00:00:40.600 to try to discredit the Freedom Convoy. They want you to believe that the Freedom Convoy is a fringe

00:00:46.920 minority. They want you to believe it is filled with extremists, filled with racists, that it is

00:00:51.180 an angry mob, and that it is something that you don't want to be a part of. It's something that you

00:00:54.660 do not want to support. You don't want to go anywhere near it because it is just filled with

00:00:59.100 rotten, bad people. That is the message that I have heard over and over and over again in many forms

00:01:04.780 from the establishment in this country. And yet, despite that message blaring through the airways

00:01:10.400 on the legacy media and from so many politicians of all stripes in this country, regardless of that

00:01:16.080 coordinated smear campaign, what did we see? We saw more and more Canadians show up to support

00:01:22.560 freedom to say, we've had enough. We don't want more mandates. We don't want more government

00:01:26.340 interferers. We don't like government overreach in this country. We want our country back. We want

00:01:30.760 our freedoms back. We are united and we love our country and we're not letting it go. And it was

00:01:36.100 just so amazing to see that. I'm a person that tries to get my news from as diverse a source as

00:01:41.340 possible. I read almost everything that comes out of the legacy media with regards to politics in this

00:01:46.400 country. Like I said, I'm a news junkie. But more and more throughout the course of this

00:01:50.480 convoy and trying to get my news from a broader source of places, I've gone more to the source.

00:01:57.080 So one of the things I did this morning when I was preparing for the show, when I was reading

00:02:00.020 the news in the morning, is I went over to Instagram. I went directly to the Freedom Convoy

00:02:04.740 page and I just went through their stories and I went through what they were posting, all of their

00:02:08.480 videos, because it is not some kind of, it's not just a centralized campaign of people putting out

00:02:13.400 their own message. What they do is that they post and share the message of anyone who's tagging them.

00:02:17.380 So you really see a diverse group of people across the country who are supporting the convoy for many

00:02:22.940 of their own reasons. You see a lot of people who are from immigrant backgrounds, people who came to

00:02:26.760 Canada because they want freedom, because they had left a government that was tyrannical, that had too

00:02:31.660 much overreach. They came to this country for freedom and they want their freedom back. People

00:02:35.420 from all walks of life, lots of working class people, lots of young people, again, lots of people from

00:02:39.320 lots of different backgrounds. And it's just really interesting to see that message, which is so positive,

00:02:43.840 so full of love and unity and pride in Canada, again, versus this really, really negative message

00:02:50.520 that we're seeing being pushed out almost frantically by the legacy media, by journalists who just want

00:02:55.760 you to believe that this is some kind of a racist movement, that everything about it has been sullied

00:03:00.300 and that if you support the truckers, you're basically with that one guy who's waving a swastika

00:03:05.840 flag. That is the equivalent that the legacy media want you to believe. And I think that more and more

00:03:10.560 Canadians are tuning out to that message. More and more Canadians can see through it. They're on social

00:03:14.620 media, they're on TikTok or Instagram, and they can see the images for themselves that make this look

00:03:20.840 a lot more like a big Canada celebration. Now, I'm not saying that every single person at those

00:03:25.620 rallies is a good person that I would want to invite over to my house for dinner. I'm not saying

00:03:29.540 that I align with them all and agree with them all on all of the issues, but that's not how a country

00:03:34.400 works. That's not how a democracy, especially a pluralistic democracy like Canada, that's not how it

00:03:38.400 works, right? All the people that are there, they're there for one reason, they support freedom,

00:03:42.640 they want their country back. It's as simple as that. And trying to read different motives or

00:03:46.860 trying to smear the whole group with one broad brush is just ignorant and it's wrong. And I think 0.96

00:03:51.160 that's why the legacy media is failing. And the more they fail, the more they sort of cling on

00:03:55.960 wanting to maintain their grasp on power as it's slipping away. It's really amusing to watch and it's

00:04:02.780 all playing out. Now, again, just to contrast the hateful narrative coming from Justin Trudeau and the

00:04:07.820 legacy media with images pouring out from the convoy themselves. I think that, again, the more the

00:04:12.560 media malign this group, the more they're encouraged and incentivized to put their own stream out, to

00:04:17.320 film themselves, to watch, to become independent journalists and show Canadians a different side

00:04:22.280 of the story. And so we're seeing images just pouring out of what look like big celebrations,

00:04:28.280 dance parties. We're seeing people waving the Canadian flag, dancing. We're seeing Indigenous drum

00:04:33.420 circles. We are seeing this beautiful image, which went viral over in Toronto of a Sikh man being held

00:04:40.600 up, dancing, doing the bangra. I think it's called dance and waving a hockey stick with a Canadian flag.

00:04:45.780 How Canadian is that? Everyone is cheering and celebrating. Lots and lots of happiness, big crowds

00:04:51.860 all over the country talking about Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto,

00:04:57.380 Ottawa, Quebec City. We have big convoys also on the U.S. border at various places. In Coutts, Alberta,

00:05:04.560 they were riding horseback around the convoy. Look at that beautiful sight of horseback riders on the

00:05:11.500 prairies. We also saw a big convoy blockade over at the Windsor-Detroit border, which is the, I believe,

00:05:18.900 is the largest border crossing in the world, the largest international suspension bridge,

00:05:22.760 and a major transportation artery that was temporarily blocked on Monday evening. It is back open as of

00:05:28.420 Tuesday morning. So of all the, of all the beautiful and inspiring footage that came out all over the

00:05:33.420 country, just beautiful images of Canadians coming together, opposing their government, opposing government

00:05:38.160 overreach. It was a beautiful sight to see. I think my favorite clip, though, of the, from the weekend came

00:05:43.140 from Quebec City. Here's the scene out in Quebec City. Keep in mind that this was the heart and the epicenter of

00:05:49.040 the Quebec separatist movement. Much of the last half century was spent with people in this part of the country

00:05:55.120 being opposed to Canada, not wanting to be part of Canada, and, and, and rejecting it. Instead, choosing to embrace

00:06:00.760 French Quebec nationalism and independence. Well, that was not the scene over the weekend. Here they were in Quebec City

00:06:06.920 waving the maple leaf alongside the fleur-de-lis, but I saw a lot of Canadian maple leaves in there, and here they are

00:06:12.580 singing our national anthem, singing of Canada in French. What a beautiful sight.

00:06:19.040 It's interesting. I've seen a lot of people commenting about how Justin Trudeau,

00:06:49.020 is finally solving some of the thorniest issues in Canadian political life. He is finally uniting

00:06:54.400 French Canadians and English Canadians, finally uniting Quebecois with the rest of Canada. 0.54

00:06:59.860 Unfortunately for Trudeau, he is uniting them all against him. They all oppose him. They want their

00:07:04.120 Canada back. They want their freedom back, and it is really interesting to see this sort of new political

00:07:09.360 alignment that is going on. Well, in response, Justin Trudeau, his friends in the legacy media,

00:07:15.540 but also establishment politicians of all stripes, from all backgrounds, and at all levels of government.

00:07:21.060 We saw Doug Ford coming out saying that this is an occupation. Doug Ford is a conservative

00:07:24.980 premier of Ontario, completely shameful, turning his back on these protesters and on the blue-collar

00:07:30.760 working class of very people who got Doug Ford elected. He seems to be forgetting where he came

00:07:35.920 from and buying into the legacy media smears against these protesters. He's throwing them under the bus.

00:07:43.060 We saw the municipal government in Ottawa basically just flat-out calling us an occupation,

00:07:48.400 saying that they're going to do everything they can. The police really stepping into overdrive,

00:07:53.040 ramping up their pressure, ramping up their presence in Ottawa to try to intimidate and remove

00:07:57.920 these truckers from Ottawa. And going after the money supply that is the lifeline of any kind of a protest

00:08:03.420 or any kind of a group, they need money in order to continue their protest. They raised $10 million

00:08:08.540 from people who believed in their cause and supported it. Well, the government went after

00:08:13.980 the funding, went after the money. That was a big story over the weekend that their GoFundMe account

00:08:18.260 was suspended. So this all started on Wednesday when GoFundMe decided to freeze the Trucker Convoy

00:08:25.600 fund. It had reached $10 million. They decided to freeze it and they were doing an investigation

00:08:29.560 into how the money was being spent. Well, the next day, GoFundMe was summoned to appear before

00:08:36.020 Parliament. So a committee of MPs voted to bring representatives of GoFundMe to Parliament as soon

00:08:41.440 as possible to answer questions about the crowdfunding company's ability to screen out hate campaigns.

00:08:47.680 So the assumption here is that the Trucker Convoy is some kind of a hate campaign and that we need to

00:08:53.940 get to the bottom of it. So corporate officials from GoFundMe met with local police in Ottawa on

00:08:58.940 Wednesday, they decided to freeze that $10 million in support of the truckers. It's not currently

00:09:04.280 accepting any further donations or distributing any of the funds. The company said in a statement on its

00:09:08.760 website that it was reviewing whether the fundraising complies with its terms of service. The terms say

00:09:14.280 GoFundMe will shut down campaigns that promote hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination,

00:09:20.120 terrorists, or intolerance of any kind. Of course, the insinuation is that that is what's happening with

00:09:25.860 the Trucker Convoy. So once again, they're just trying to smear them. That was all on Wednesday.

00:09:30.180 And by Friday, they really stepped it up. Ottawa police vowed to surge and contain the convoy and

00:09:35.940 referred to the Trucker Convoy as an occupation. Well, once that happened, GoFundMe decided to pull

00:09:42.360 the plug completely. They released this statement on Friday evening. GoFundMe supports peaceful protests

00:09:48.240 and we believe that was the intention of the Freedom Convoy when it was created. We now have evidence

00:09:54.420 from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation with police

00:10:00.040 reports of violence and other unlawful activity. Goes on to say, to ensure GoFundMe remains a trusted

00:10:05.340 platform, we will work with local authorities to ensure we have a detailed factual understanding of

00:10:10.400 the events taking place on the ground following a review of relevant facts and multiple discussions

00:10:14.500 with local law enforcement and city officials. The fundraiser is now in violation of our terms and

00:10:19.720 services term eight, which provides the promotion of violence and harassment and has been removed from

00:10:25.420 the platform. Organizers provided a clear distribution plan for the initial $1 million that was released

00:10:30.620 earlier this week and confirmed funds would be used only for participants who travel to Ottawa to participate

00:10:36.220 in a peaceful protest. Given how the situation has evolved, no further funds will be directly distributed

00:10:41.380 to the Freedom Convoy organizers. We will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible

00:10:47.400 and established charities verified by GoFundMe. So they're just stealing the money. They're commandeering

00:10:53.440 this fund. They're saying we've talked to local politicians and local police officers in Ottawa who

00:10:57.840 are all drumming the same politicized narrative as Justin Trudeau to try to smear these people. At this time

00:11:03.200 on Friday, there were not reports of violence. I know that there's since been some violence because the

00:11:07.340 police have moved in to try to remove the convoy. Some people are sort of fighting back.

00:11:11.380 There have been arrests at this point, but, but go back to last Friday and it just wasn't a violent

00:11:15.780 protest. It wasn't, but the police were saying it was, and the politicians and the city councilors

00:11:20.780 were saying it were. And so GoFundMe is taking a politicized account of the events on the ground

00:11:26.280 and using that to steal basically to say that this money is no longer yours. We're taking it back.

00:11:30.760 We're giving it to charities that we verify. And so that caused even more outrage to the point where

00:11:35.920 GoFundMe announced that it was just refunding, that it was just straight refunding anyone who had

00:11:40.720 given money to GoFundMe because that whole weird thing about established charities, like we're

00:11:46.040 going to take the money that you raised for the truckers and give it to other groups. People were

00:11:50.460 not happy about that. But generally speaking, just the idea that GoFundMe, a third source crowdsourcing

00:11:56.020 fund, that people who wanted to give money to the truckers know that GoFundMe is not a trusted

00:12:00.600 vehicle to give your money to. I would be surprised if any conservative group ever used GoFundMe again

00:12:06.120 after seeing this. Jordan Peterson rightly said, the theft of GoFundMe donations to the truckers

00:12:11.100 was the single worst act of political corruption I have ever witnessed in Canada. That is a severe

00:12:16.660 tweet, but it I think echoes the severity of what is going on. $10 million taken away from a cause

00:12:22.500 because elites and the establishment don't like the cause. Ron DeSantis, who is the governor down in

00:12:28.000 Florida, said it is fraud for GoFundMe to commandeer $9 million in donations sent to support truckers and give

00:12:34.620 it to causes of their own choosing. I will work with Florida's attorney general to investigate

00:12:38.840 these deceptive practices. These donors should be given a refund. Likewise, Ted Cruz, who is the

00:12:43.960 Republican senator down in Texas, has demanded that the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. launch a

00:12:49.360 full investigation into GoFundMe after the for-profit crowdfunding company deplatformed the Freedom

00:12:54.680 Convoy's multi-million dollar campaign. It's sort of interesting that it takes U.S. politicians who care

00:13:01.120 about freedom and care about the neutrality of tech companies that had to step in here. We didn't hear

00:13:06.080 this from conservative politicians. We didn't hear it from conservative premiers to say that this stuff

00:13:10.980 should be happening in Canada. I'm glad that there are Republicans in the U.S. who are paying attention

00:13:15.520 because perhaps we will get to the bottom of this. Justin Trudeau and the liberals are used to

00:13:19.660 basically playing rough shop and doing whatever they want in Canada and getting away with it. We saw

00:13:24.020 that with the We Charity scandal. We saw that with SNC. We've seen it so many times. But the fact that

00:13:28.900 they're using these big tech companies, which are U.S. based, to try to interfere with a peaceful

00:13:33.340 democratic protest in Canada. Well, interestingly, that also makes it relevant in U.S. jurisdictions.

00:13:38.260 So perhaps his outside look investigating into what is happening in Canada is just what we need

00:13:42.680 in order to shine further light on what looks like something that's pretty nefarious and pretty

00:13:47.820 corrupt. Elon Musk, who has been sharing his opinions very frequently about the Trekker Convoy and

00:13:53.380 not shy to show his support. He shared this very apt, very accurate meme. It shows on the left,

00:13:59.480 it says amateur thieves and it shows those Los Angeles train robberies are stealing Amazon packages.

00:14:05.060 Millions of millions of Amazon packages were stolen from trains from the large, large homeless 0.99

00:14:09.980 population in Los Angeles. And they just discarded and left their garbage everywhere because that's

00:14:14.580 what they do. He called them amateur thieves and he juxtaposed that with GoFundMe who he called

00:14:19.620 professional thieves. So there is some good news to come out of all of this, which is that the

00:14:24.040 truckers are not discouraged. A lot of people did get their money back and they created a new

00:14:28.300 fundraising campaign over at a site called Give Send Go, which is a Christian conservative alternative

00:14:33.240 to GoFundMe. And as of this recording, they have raised 6.1 million U.S. dollars for the convoy. So

00:14:41.000 not exactly discouraged. I'm sure that they will raise more than they ever did on GoFundMe in part

00:14:45.500 because of that backlash from tech overreach, colluding with government, using politicized

00:14:49.860 statements to base their account and pulling the plug on that. Really, really despicable. And

00:14:55.340 again, just to echo what Jordan Peterson said, the theft of GoFundMe donations to the truckers

00:14:59.980 was the single worst act of political corruption I have ever witnessed in Canada. I think I echo that.

00:15:06.580 And a final bit of good news coming out of the weekend, Carlton MP for the Conservative Party of

00:15:11.320 Canada, Pierre Polyev, who is incredibly popular. He has a huge social media following. He is very

00:15:16.260 savvy and a good communicator. He announced that he will be running for leader of the party. He wants

00:15:21.980 to be prime minister. He released a video and here is what that looked like. See, here's the problem.

00:15:27.780 Trudeau thinks he's your boss. He's got it backwards. You are the boss. That's why I'm running for prime

00:15:34.100 minister, to put you back in charge of your life. Together, we will make Canadians the freest people on

00:15:40.940 earth. Freedom to raise your kids with your values. Freedom to make your own health and vaccine

00:15:47.040 choices. Freedom to speak without fear and freedom to worship God in your own way. Using COVID as a

00:15:54.660 political opportunity, the Trudeau government has attacked small businesses, truckers and other

00:16:01.900 hardworking Canadians. Our destination is a Canada where the government is servant, not master.

00:16:09.400 Polyev is such a contrast to Aaron O'Toole. He is so many things that O'Toole was not. He is

00:16:14.460 passionate. He's full of conviction. He's incredibly articulate. He knows exactly where he stands. He is

00:16:19.720 a fighter. He is willing to confront the legacy media for their smears and for their lies. He's willing

00:16:24.520 to confront the prime minister as he did with the WE committee, calling him out, saying exactly what so

00:16:30.120 many Canadians want to hear and seeing him fight back. I think that is exactly what the Conservative Party

00:16:35.200 needs right now. They need a politician that is young, energetic and full of conviction and I think

00:16:41.120 it's a good path for the Conservative Party. Of course, not everyone in the party wants to go down

00:16:44.900 that path. We saw as Aaron O'Toole sort of on his way out, kind of blowing up the party, saying that

00:16:49.320 there's two paths here. There's two ways that the Conservative Party can go. It can go the sort of

00:16:53.580 red Tory establishment way where we are welcomed into polite society by all the fancy people and we have

00:17:00.020 this sort of positive, progressive vision for the country or the other side is this sort of like

00:17:05.720 angry, hateful mob and trying to basically straw man the base of the Conservative Party. Well,

00:17:11.780 Aaron O'Toole is not alone in that thinking. There's plenty of MPs who echo that. We saw Michael

00:17:16.520 Chong, who is a Conservative MP for Wellington-Halton Hills in Ontario, saying this. He says,

00:17:21.980 the blockades in Ontario and at the border must end. Another MP, this one from Quebec for the

00:17:27.940 Conservative Party, said, I spent the week undergoing the siege of Ottawa. If the motivation

00:17:32.860 of the truckers could be understood, the current situation is quite different. I ask that we clear

00:17:36.820 the streets and that we stop the occupation controlled by radicals and anarchist groups.

00:17:41.660 And likewise, Greg McLean, who is the Conservative MP in Calgary Centre, said, I support law and order.

00:17:47.100 These illegal blockades must end now. I did not intend to minimize the gravity of the situation by

00:17:51.480 comparing aspects of it to a winter carnival. This is a very serious manner. The government of Canada

00:17:56.200 must show leadership and provide clear path moving forward. So there are plenty of MPs who don't

00:18:00.680 support the convoy. And it's all fine. It's okay to criticize the convoy, criticize the protesters

00:18:05.420 for their tactics or some of their beliefs. But at the end of the day, there is a bigger picture here.

00:18:10.520 There is a broader issue of importance, which is the freedom that we have in this country. The fact

00:18:15.180 that we are seeing a blue collar working class uprising here, demanding our freedoms back. And you

00:18:20.580 have Conservatives on the side of Justin Trudeau and the overzealous people over at GoFundMe and the

00:18:26.360 Ottawa police who are trying their best to basically treat this protest like an insurgency. The fact

00:18:31.460 that you have establishment Conservatives coming out on their side is not a good look for the party.

00:18:35.680 It's not a good look for Canada. They should be on the side of ending the mandates, ending the

00:18:39.880 restrictions, getting our life back to normal, getting the economy back up and running, getting people

00:18:43.800 back in jobs and supporting a free economy and a free country in Canada. And so the fact that some

00:18:50.000 of them are jumping on on board with Justin Trudeau is just sort of sad to see. Look, the Canadian

00:18:55.600 people continue to unite around the cause of freedom for all Canadians. The increasingly deranged and out 1.00

00:19:01.960 of touch media and political class continue to flail and cry wolf as they see their power slipping away.

00:19:07.460 The thing that strikes me the most about these protests, about these blue collar working class 0.71

00:19:11.960 uprising is how sort of non-ideological or pan-ideological they are. There are people from

00:19:17.560 all different backgrounds, people who should typically support Justin Trudeau. I'm talking

00:19:21.940 about young people, people of different backgrounds, but they're not. They feel united by the cause of

00:19:27.460 the convoy. Canada no longer feels divided by East versus West, by French versus English, Quebec versus

00:19:33.500 West, by left versus right. We're experiencing something of a political realignment in Canada. It feels right

00:19:39.780 now much more like the establishment versus the people. And the good news is that the people are

00:19:45.040 winning. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

Juno News - February 08, 2022

The Establishment is pulling out all the stops to end the freedom convoy

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