In this episode, Candice talks about the incredible interview she conducted with opposition leader candidate Pierre Polyvenc about immigration, crime, inflation, the economy, the election, and much more. She also announces the launch of a new media company, Juno News, in partnership with Kian Bextie.
00:01:22.220So make sure you go check that out. I really want you to see the interview. It was great.
00:01:26.180I got to sit down with Pierre, asked him a wide range of issues and topics.
00:01:32.160We discussed so many things from immigration to crime. We talked about inflation.
00:01:37.540We talked about Trudeau. We talked about the election. We talked about a lot of things.
00:01:40.760So you're really going to want to check that out.
00:01:42.580So I want to tell you a little bit about the interview because it almost didn't happen.
00:01:46.280I have been kind of talking behind the scenes with Pierre Polyev's team and the OLO, the Opposition Leader's Office, and we decided to confirm the interview.
00:01:56.460We chose Wednesday. We decided that that was when it was going to happen.
00:02:01.180And basically, we were about to fly out, and all of a sudden, anyone who's in Ontario right now knows that we are facing severe winter weather right now.
00:02:10.100It was a very cold day in Ottawa, and there was sort of like a pending blizzard that was
00:02:15.740supposed to roll through and completely shut down the airports and everything.
00:02:20.540And so my husband and I were flying out in the morning to get to Ottawa for the interview,
00:02:24.960didn't even know if the plane was going to take off, what was going to happen.
00:02:28.320Fortunately, we got there, landed, got into a car, rushed downtown to the Conservative
00:02:34.040Party's headquarters, and I got to go in there, made it just in time to sit down with
00:02:39.600Pierre is such a nice guy very gracious gave us lots of time there were no
00:02:43.800parameters restrictions around the interview about to ask any questions that
00:02:47.220I want it was a lot of fun I really enjoyed my conversation with him he he
00:02:50.880surprised me with some of his answers but it really just solid stuff and I
00:02:54.600really want you to be able to watch that full interview so like I said 7 p.m.
00:02:58.560tonight you have to subscribe though go to Juno news and subscribe I'll give you
00:03:02.400a little teaser of what the interview looks like so here is one of my favorite
00:03:07.080exchanges of the interview when we were talking about illegal immigration and what Mr. Polyev
00:03:12.460would do to crack down on illegal immigration. One of the other things that's happening in the
00:03:18.060states right now in the new administration is that President Trump has been serious about
00:03:22.660deportations. And a couple of weeks ago, we had Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that if he
00:03:28.340were the Canadians, he'd be concerned that a lot of the bad people that are in the United States
00:03:32.060right now might try to sneak up into Canada. This happened last time Trump was President,
00:03:36.760Mr. Trump was president, where we had people crossing illegally through Roxham Road, thousands
00:03:41.400and thousands and thousands. And it was disgraceful. I went there myself, Pierre, and I couldn't
00:03:45.920believe it. You had CBSA officers acting like bellhops, lifting their suitcases, putting them
00:03:50.860into buses, taking them to Toronto or Montreal, their choice. They got to choose where they would
00:03:55.080go. So we were sort of facilitating illegal entry into our country. I believe Roxham Road has been
00:04:00.860closed, but I'm sure that happens in other places. I'm wondering, what would you do to stop bad
00:04:06.300people that are about to be deported from the United States from just walking across
00:08:16.280Evie says that the two representatives that they met with, and then he names them, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gore, agreed to share a few items with Trump.
00:08:28.580One, the willingness to engage, two, work on key areas of agreement, and three, that Canada would never be the 51st state.
00:08:36.520Well, I think David Evie was speaking out of terms because James Blair himself, the person who he met with, commented and replied to this on X.
00:08:47.420He said it was pleasant to meet with the premiers.
00:08:50.100To be clear, we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state.
00:08:55.420We only agreed to share Premier Eby's comments.
00:08:59.020Further, we said the best way to understand President Trump's position is to take what he says at face value.
00:11:45.480After initially not taking the comments by Trump very seriously, remember that Trudeau
00:11:51.360sort of laughed it off at the beginning, which I think is actually the right approach. I talked
00:11:54.680to Preston Manning and he agreed. He thinks that this was all initially meant as a joke to kind of
00:12:01.380ruse Trudeau and tease Trudeau and that it's really the Laurentians and the media that are
00:12:06.860blowing things out of proportion, making it seem like it's a real threat that Canada is about to
00:12:10.860get annexed any minute. While Stephen Harper, the former Conservative Prime Minister, jumped in and
00:12:16.600shared serious concern. So Stephen Harper was speaking on Tuesday in Ottawa at a launch party
00:12:23.800for his book, Flags of Canada. And there he said that U.S. President Donald Trump's annexation
00:12:29.540threats should be met with unwavering determination to preserve this country's independence at any
00:12:35.860cost. He said that Canada should accept any level of damage to fight back against Donald Trump. So
00:12:42.540it seems like former Prime Minister Stephen Harper really takes this threat literally. And he does
00:12:49.080think that Trump is trying to take over Canada, that it is a serious, literal threat that we
00:12:55.800should be willing to accept any level of damage. I don't agree with that, folks. I think that,
00:12:59.640again, this is all part of the negotiation. And look at what Danielle Smith had to say
00:13:04.640in Washington, D.C. She says that she thinks that they're making inroads and that things
00:13:09.520are going well. So the people who are on the ground talking to American officials and Republican
00:13:14.380insiders in Washington, someone like Danielle Smith, says, like, let's not lose our minds over
00:13:19.780this. Let's keep calm and negotiate a deal. Here is what Danielle Smith had to say.
00:13:24.760I think diplomacy is working. I think that the fact that we got a 30-day reprieve was because
00:13:30.260we agreed to work on the cross-border problem of fentanyl. I was pleased to see the federal
00:13:34.560government announced a fentanyl czar, and my administration has already been in touch with
00:13:39.040him to talk about how in Alberta we can lend to the success of those efforts. So what I would say
00:13:44.880is what I've seen from this president is that he is prepared to make a deal.
00:13:49.060And in other news, Canada has finally appointed a fentanyl czar. So the Trudeau government on
00:13:54.840Tuesday appointed Kevin Brousseau, his national security advisor, has now become Canada's first
00:14:02.100fentanyl czar. Brousseau is a former senior officer in the RCMP, rising up the ranks to
00:14:06.800become Manitoba's Deputy Commissioner in 2016. He left policing in 2019 to become a senior public
00:14:13.240servant, serving as the Assistant Deputy to Transport Canada and then Associate Deputy for
00:14:19.400the Department of Fisheries. Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., Finance and Intergovernment
00:14:24.360Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that he had spoken to Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary,
00:14:30.460Howard Lutnick, about Canada's new fentanyl czar, adding that he feels confident that they very
00:14:35.520much have their attention. Here is this clip from Washington. Howard Lutnick was there. The
00:14:42.640National Economic Advisor to President Trump was also there. We started the conversation by
00:14:49.540discussing our shared priorities around border security and the fight against fentanyl. We took
00:14:55.620stock of the good work that has been done around illegal migration. We spoke about the appointment
00:15:01.960of our fentanyl czar who will be in Washington in a few days. I'm confident that we very much
00:15:09.380have their attention. They made that clear to us that Canada is very much top of mind for
00:15:16.360the work that Mr. Lutnick's doing. That was encouraging. Okay, moving on. So yesterday on
00:15:21.180the show, I had Cosme Zherja, a senior reporter and journalist for True North on the show. We
00:15:25.980spent the entire episode talking about Mark Carney and how he has not really been vetted.
00:15:30.120We don't really know much about him. And yet he's basically been selected to become Canada's
00:15:36.000next prime minister. He'll probably be the prime minister sometime in early March after the liberal
00:15:41.640leadership vote. Well, I want to show this clip of Mark Carney that's making the rounds. He was
00:15:47.180in Kelowna, British Columbia. And here's what he tells the crowd. He says that all of the federal
00:15:53.680powers of the federal government, including the Emergencies Act, should be used against the
00:16:00.000Americans in this trade war. So first of all, the liberals are playing this up as a crisis,
00:16:04.280as an existential threat to Canada, because it's better for their electoral future if Canadians
00:16:08.580are afraid and worried and fearful and divided. This is the liberal playbook. They've used it
00:16:13.100over and over again. And Mark Carney, again, just lets the cat right out of the bag and says,
00:16:18.000hey, remember when we used those Emergencies Act illegally during the COVID Freedom Convoy
00:16:22.860to crack down on peaceful protesters? Well, we're going to do that again. We will use the
00:16:28.280emergency power once again it's just one crisis one emergency after the next for these people
00:16:34.020and again Carney showing us a different side of him that you probably won't see in the legacy
00:16:39.500media here is that clip and something that my government is going to do is to use all of the
00:16:44.980powers of the federal government including the emergency powers of the federal government to
00:16:49.960accelerate the major projects that we need in order to build this economy and take on the americans
00:16:57.080now true north and juno news may be some of the only outlets in the country delivering the news
00:17:03.480telling you the truth telling you the facts about someone like mark carney who is again very unvetted
00:17:08.300the media is not looking at him critically they are not showing canadians the full picture they're
00:17:13.220just giving him this sort of glossy rosy honeymoon period like look at this fresh new face he's a
00:17:19.200smart central banker who's going to come save canada from those mean nasty americans well you
00:17:24.300deserve to see both sides. Canadians deserve to see both sides because otherwise Canadians aren't
00:17:29.220going to know who this man really is. And again, I'm worried that Canadians will make a colossal
00:17:34.500mistake in the next election if they don't learn more. And so again, we've seen this in the polls.
00:17:39.540I had Hamish Marshall, great pollster on the show earlier this week to talk about the fact that now
00:17:44.040that Trudeau is out of the picture and now that it looks like Mark Carney will be the person
00:17:48.000running, the election is actually going to be a lot tighter than we initially thought. It's not
00:17:52.820going to be a shoe-in for Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives. It's not going to be a cakewalk
00:17:57.200and an easy majority. So the latest polls to come out, this was in the National Post, a new Leger
00:18:02.600poll suggests that a Mark Carney-led Liberal Party could boost Liberal support by six points,
00:18:08.860up to 37% tying the Tories, tying the Conservatives. Unbelievable. Unbelievable if Canadians let the
00:18:16.540Liberals get away with what they've done to the country over the last nine years. I can't say this
00:18:21.460enough folks it is so important that we have independent media we have an independent news
00:18:26.120source to hold people accountable including the legacy media hold them accountable because they
00:18:31.400are not telling you the full story they're not telling Canadians the truth please I encourage
00:18:35.360you to go on over to junonews.com subscribe to our new company help us build the future help us
00:18:42.440reach more Canadians the more people we have subscribed the more resources we have to share
00:18:47.400to promote, to produce more content, to put our stories all over the internet, to advertise
00:18:52.220everywhere. We want to grow this company. We want to make it the biggest independent or even the
00:18:56.800biggest media company in Canada. We need your help. Please help us build a future. Head on over
00:19:01.160to junonews.com and please subscribe. Okay, moving on. So this Saturday is Flag Day. Yes,
00:19:08.980we have a Flag Day in Canada. It is the day where you're supposed to show your pride in the Canadian
00:19:13.580flag honor the anniversary of the new flag of canada remember we used to have the red ensign
00:19:18.300it was redone to show that we were more independent from the united kingdom we got
00:19:22.380the maple leaf that has been our flag for some 60 years now and this weekend is the day that
00:19:27.340you're supposed to remember that fly the flag show your patriotism so it's interesting because we
00:19:31.740have seen a sort of resurgence of patriotism in canada a love of country particularly on the
00:19:38.220political left on the liberal side of the aisle. Recall that during the Freedom Convoy, during the
00:19:43.500depth of the COVID lockdowns, the Freedom Convoy came out and one of the rallying points that they
00:19:48.620had was a Canadian flag. They were fighting for their Canadian values that they felt had been
00:19:53.340taken away from the Trudeau government, their Canadian freedoms that are enshrined in our
00:19:57.740charter. They were using the flag as a rallying point to show, hey, look, we're all Canadian. We
00:20:02.300love this country and we want our country back, while the left and the liberals hated that. They
00:20:06.700They hated this idea that this sort of blue collar group of rowdy Canadians were saying enough of the lockdowns and that they were using the flag to the point where the left really separated themselves and denounced the flag.
00:20:18.580And they decided that the Canadian flag was a symbol of hate, was a symbol of far right, whatever they called us.
00:20:25.300It was total nonsense and it was ridiculous.
00:20:27.680You know, we're talking about years and years of the left demonizing Canadians, telling us that we're racist, telling us that our country is genocidal and that we were built off of oppression and really saying that they wanted nothing to do with Canada.
00:20:40.980I was happy for the political right to take over the flag and have that be our symbol because we still love our country.
00:21:59.480And so, hey, I think that a lot of people may have seen our interview and agreed with us because Pierre Paulyev, a couple of days later, posted this clip on X.
00:22:06.700similarly encouraging Canadians to go out there, purchase a flag for Flag Day,
00:22:12.040celebrate the Maple Leaf, celebrate Canada. Here is what that looked like.
00:22:15.820This Saturday is in fact Flag Day. So I'm encouraging everyone, regardless of your
00:22:21.760political allegiance, to go out, get yourself a flag, big or small, put it on a flagpole in front
00:22:27.780of your home or through your window or in any other way that you can show our colors. We're
00:22:34.160very proud of this country. We'll never be the 51st state. We will always be a strong,
00:22:40.180self-reliant, sovereign country. So let's show that message by raising the flag.
00:22:56.200And just because some liberals and some left-wingers on social media are now trying to take the flag
00:23:01.060back doesn't mean that the actual Liberal Party of Canada has because they haven't officially
00:23:05.300celebrated or recognized Flag Day since 2020. Remember that Justin Trudeau lowered the flag
00:23:12.020to half staff after that fake news hoax of the unmarked grave story came out. He left the flag
00:23:17.800down at half mass for months and months. It was a total disgrace. It was so disgraceful for our
00:23:23.740country to be humiliated that way with a prime minister who was basically saying that we should
00:23:27.740have shame. We should feel shame in our country. We shouldn't fly the flag. We shouldn't celebrate
00:23:31.540being Canadians. That is the wrong approach. I hope the Liberals will reverse that and once again
00:23:36.700recognize something like Flag Day, but I don't think it's going to happen this year. We have
00:23:40.800seen some Liberal boosters online, like I said, have a little change in tune, change of tone when
00:23:46.020it came to the flag. So I'm going to point one of my favorite examples of hypocritical Liberals out.
00:23:52.020So this is an individual named Mike Gibbs. He is a big Liberal supporter on X, and he wrote this
00:23:56.840back in 2022. Okay. So this was three years ago. He says on this Canada day, I can't help but think
00:24:03.580perhaps we need a new flag or a refresh flag because Canada and arguably our flag was tarnished
00:24:10.660long before the convoy with centuries of blood and genocidal murder of indigenous nations.
00:24:16.180We need a reset. We need a new symbol. So that was on July 1st, 2022. Well, the same user,
00:24:22.300Mike Gibbs, now on February 10th, 2025, had this to say, nothing better than a brand new Canadian
00:24:29.000flag. We just got it from Canadian Tire. F Trump, F mega. And then he also wrote, you'd think it was
00:24:36.220Canada Day. I've never seen this many flags up in Ajax before. The resistance to Trump and Canada
00:24:42.900is growing. All right, pal. You can see his Twitter bio there, Mike Gibbs with the rainbow flag and
00:24:50.040the Ukraine flag, him, he, him pronouns. Thanks, bud. Thanks, bud. So this guy is saying that
00:24:56.080there's a resurgence in the Canada flag after just three years ago, telling us that it was
00:25:00.500genocidal. Yeah, I think we're tired of that. I think we see through you and your noise. So rich,
00:25:06.620so much irony in the fact that it's now liberals telling us to wrap ourselves in the flag when for
00:25:10.820years they have been the ones demonizing the flag. Okay. I want to show you earlier, I sat
00:25:16.540down with Kian Bexie. Like I said, we were in Ottawa for the release of the new announcement
00:25:21.480of Juno News. So excited to bring this to you. We filmed a promo video outside and then we went back
00:25:27.300inside and recorded this interview. So part of what we want to offer to subscribers of Juno News
00:25:32.360is sort of an inside behind the scenes look at journalism. What is it like to be an independent
00:25:37.100journalist? What is it like to go around the country and tell these stories to Canadians?
00:25:41.320It was great to have this sort of fireside chat with Kian, who is my co-founder at Juno News.
00:25:46.860We hope to bring you conversations like this.
00:25:49.320We're going to offer it to subscribers every month.
00:25:52.040You're going to get a sit down with Kian and I where we talk about what we're working on,
00:25:55.360what we're doing, give you a little behind the scenes of what it's like to be an independent journalist in Canada.
00:25:59.940So here is what that interview looked like.
00:26:04.480Hi, everyone. I'm very pleased to be joined with my co-founder, Kian Bexty.
00:26:08.580We have come together to start a new media company, as you probably know, called Juno News.
00:30:12.060Yeah, it's definitely a positive feedback loop.
00:30:13.720Yeah, and so much of it comes from the citizen journals.
00:30:18.060One of my favorite recent examples was when we had Elon Musk down there doing Doge in the U.S.,
00:30:25.360and they were uncovering all of the crazy, crazy programs that were happening at USAID or USAID.
00:30:31.460And then all of a sudden, the sleuths went in and did the same thing to the Canadian equivalent.
00:30:36.420And there was a whole thing about whether the website was down, whether they were trying to hide it, whatever happened there.
00:30:41.100But regardless of that, it was like all of a sudden there were dozens, if not hundreds, of really amazing researchers finding the most ridiculous examples of these government programs and putting them out there.
00:30:54.100So, you know, the media is stacked against sort of free-thinking, free-speaking people in this country because the Trudeau government funds the legacy media, like they pay for journalism.
00:31:04.680But I think that there's just such a groundswell of independent voices, independent media.
00:31:09.480Yeah, that's why I'm so excited to be in this space,
00:31:11.760like to launch Juno News, to have this platform.
00:31:14.540I think it's like we're at the right place at the right time
00:31:16.300because hopefully there'll be a change of government.
00:31:18.600I really hope Pierre Polyev follows through and defunds the CBC immediately,
00:31:23.260gets rid of all these other subsidies and programs to journalists
00:31:38.560What's terrible about the CBC, aside from their just blatant partisanship, is that they're losing ad money, which is like the number one indicator of a failing news site.
00:31:49.460Ads are how companies should be run, news companies should be run.
00:31:53.100If you're not getting views on the site, then what's the point of the news company existing in the first place?
00:32:00.540And the CBC is hemorrhaging ad revenue.
00:32:02.660They're supported by our tax dollars, and we're supposed to hope that enough people are viewing it that they're sort of able to sustain themselves, but that just hasn't been the case.
00:32:11.420It hasn't been the case with most mainstream media legacy outlets, and that's why they rely on the journalism subsidy.
00:32:17.540On top of all of the ad contracts that they have with the government of Canada and every other provincial government in the country,
00:32:24.460which is reasonable for governments to advertise on these platforms, because I was talking to someone about this yesterday.
00:32:31.860Anyway, on the Counter Signal, we have ads with the Alberta government, and the people that view our news, some of them are, like, morally opposed to viewing anything in the mainstream media, and especially the CBC.
00:32:46.320But they still have a right to view messaging that is important from the government, whether it's about budget plans or important, like, announcements that they're making.
00:32:57.140And the federal government does the same thing with legacy media outlets
00:33:01.200and even some, like, smaller media outlets.
00:33:03.380I don't think they pick and choose favorites there.
00:33:13.120Well, to the point about ads, it's one of those funny things.
00:33:15.420It's like if the government wants to get to your readers, that's the way to do it.
00:33:19.000And if you say no to those government ads, they're just going to turn and try to find,
00:33:22.220they basically give the money to your competitors.
00:33:24.260I don't really have a problem with that.
00:33:25.960But the thing that drives me just absolutely crazy is, you know, the whole premise behind the media bailouts is that the media companies said that there's no business case in Canada, that you cannot make money and run a business and do journalism because Canadians aren't willing to pay for it.
00:33:40.840Well, part of the reason they're not willing to pay for it is because the CBC gives it away for free, right?
00:33:47.180So they're doing all of this journalism, giving it away for free.
00:33:50.120And then they say to their competitors, like, you know, you have to monetize by creating subscriptions and paywalls, but you're competing on an uneven playing field because the CBC has them.
00:33:59.740But then even for the large newspapers like the Toronto Stars and the Post Media, you know, they say that they need the government bailouts just to exist, and they wouldn't exist without it.
00:34:09.020But I think that the independent media has, again, proven that the claim that they're making is false.
00:37:59.040location so you could see like it's actually like it's not just a few it's not just a handful
00:38:03.480we're talking about i think it's over a hundred churches um yeah so honestly cosmon is as good
00:38:09.440as it gets and again a good win for independent media that we have him on our side this is why
00:38:14.640i know that this this is going to work out well juno because the counter signal you know the
00:38:19.980the biggest story that we ever published like it was it was viewed so much um broke all the
00:38:26.580records on our site and around the world was when we published that the 50th church had been burned.
00:38:32.280Like once that happened, that was so shocking to an American audience that it just, you know,
00:38:38.100it spread like wildfire, to forgive the pun. But it's tragic what has happened in this country.
00:38:44.240You know, if it was any other religion, this would have been treated almost akin to a genocide,
00:38:49.980what is going on with churches in this country. And I feel like it has slowed down a little bit,
00:38:55.620but the legacy of that lie that there was mass graves in the ground in Kamloops they were they
00:39:04.340were treating it like it was the holocaust that happened in this country which is a it's it cheapens
00:39:09.480the holocaust and it's just a lie there there were no mass graves but and and the the word is
00:39:16.380important their mass graves they were treating it like there was there was piles of bodies of
00:39:20.600children buried which of course if that did happen that would be outrageous that would be insane and
00:39:25.560And nobody, you know, if there was evidence of that happening, we should try to uncover that evidence and expose that injustice, that crime against humanity.
00:39:35.360And the mainstream media willfully lied and misled the public about that in a way that has damaged the reputation of our country, of the Catholic Church, to another extent, and has warped the image of, you know, an entire religion in this country.
00:39:55.400and the history of our country among the eyes of the world.
00:39:58.540Well, there's so many things I could say, but yeah,
00:40:00.220the use of the word mass graves isn't intentional.
00:40:03.240When you hear that, you think of the Soviet Union
00:40:06.340or you think of the killing fields of Cambodia or something like that.
00:40:09.400We're never talking about mass graves.
00:40:11.220And the fact that they used that, I think you're right, that was deceptive.
00:48:38.080He wants concessions on things that we should do even though the Americans, you know, whether the Americans want us to do it or not.
00:48:45.740It'd be good for Canadians to open up the market and provide more milk to families so that single moms who have three kids and are struggling can put milk in their kid's cereal bowl.
00:48:55.800You know, I looked at a jug of milk when I was going to the supermarket last week.
00:49:00.020It was like eight bucks for four liters of milk, and a stick of butter was even more than that.