The Never-Ending Lockdown
Episode Stats
Words per minute
186.77013
Harmful content
Misogyny
12
sentences flagged
Hate speech
9
sentences flagged
Summary
Justin Trudeau gets a haircut. What does that have to do with anything? Well, let's just say, it's not a big deal, unless you're a Canadian. Andrew Lawton talks about it.
Transcript
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Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, are we headed towards a permanent lockdown? Is pancake syrup racist? And what to look for in the conservative leadership debates?
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Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.
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And no, just in case your autocorrect is acting up, it's not irrelevant, it is irreverent, a totally different quality, I assure you.
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Although one that lends itself well to people wanting to accuse me of being the latter.
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So we'll try to be pretty relevant talking about the things everyone cares about in Canada, such as Justin Trudeau's haircut.
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But I know it has been like the number one topic, top of mind for all people for exactly zero seconds.
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CBC cares about it. A lot of the mainstream media may care about it.
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Real Canadians, I don't think, care about it.
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I've got to play this clip for you right out of the gate.
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Rosie Barton on CBC after Justin Trudeau gave one of his press conferences.
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I think it was on Monday, it might have been on Sunday.
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And this is the stellar commentary from the anchor chair at CBC.
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Okay, that is the Prime Minister of Canada on this Tuesday morning.
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And I'll just say what everyone is thinking before we get into the meat of what he said.
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Yeah, pointing out what most people I don't think cared about.
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Justin Trudeau just surprised Canada with his new haircut.
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And if you look in the story, it really doesn't say anything about people being surprised.
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Just a couple of people on Twitter that seem to care about it.
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But I don't even think really that was all that relevant.
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I actually got one on Friday, which was the very first day that it was permissible in my part of Canada.
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And it was great because all of my friends in Toronto couldn't because they were kept back in a separate category.
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But southwestern Ontario, most of Ontario, was opened up as far as hair salons and stuff were concerned on Friday.
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And I normally am not one of the people that has to get everything on the first day.
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Like, I've never waited in line for the new iPhone.
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I've never seen the movie on opening day, whatever movie it is.
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The haircut, I figured I could because the place that I go, you can check in online.
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And I thought, okay, if I can check in online, then I'm not going to deal with this, like, mad mayhem situation there.
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I can just show up at my anointed time, sit down and get the haircut, and then that's that.
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It was not that way, as a matter of fact, because the check-in online gave a time of, like, four hours in the future.
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I waited and did some other stuff, puttered around town, went when I was supposed to go.
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Where they had decided to turn the parking lot into a waiting area.
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And they had, like, chairs set up six feet away from each other in the parking lot.
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And they had this whiteboard, and they were trying to tell people the order.
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But they were doing this weird thing where instead of just going with the check-in order,
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they were trying to mesh when you checked in versus when you showed up.
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And I was, like, number two for three people because they just kept adding in, like, number ones ahead of me,
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And then eventually they just gave up on that and just went with the online check-in.
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And I got in, got the haircut, and had to wear a mask.
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It was actually my first time through the entire pandemic wearing a mask.
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And I had to wear a mask while getting my hair cut.
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But the hairdresser, barber, whatever you want to call them, she was wearing a mask as well.
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And it was weird because, like, I think my sideburns have, like, I'm not going to do a close-up,
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but I think they have, like, a mask band line on them because she didn't even, like, take off the mask.
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And, you know, I couldn't really complain because, you know, nothing works in the last three months.
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So you have to just be grateful you're getting the haircut.
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And it's funny because I, generally speaking, view life through the lens that there are good experiences and there is material.
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So even something chaotic, I can usually get a good story out of.
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But I do find it funny because while I am joking about it and poking fun at it,
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what's happened in the last three months has made us so eternally grateful to be able to have a haircut,
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grateful to be able to go to a store, grateful to be able to do this.
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And it's weird because that gratitude tends to be unhealthy, I think, in the long term
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when we have to be grateful that the government has bestowed upon us this great gift of going to buy bread from a store,
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of going to get your hair cut, of going to get your nails done, or whatever the case may be.
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And that's very dangerous because now we see reports out of China that this so-called second wave is coming back.
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And if you look at some of the things that are being discussed there, Beijing has cut all flights.
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They have done a lot to put lockdowns in place.
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And more than 100 people are now infected in an outbreak that's just been over a couple of days.
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And the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, I'm looking here, had reported 27 fresh cases on Tuesday,
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Now, I think there are a couple of things to take away from this.
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Number one, yes, we know that COVID-19 is very infectious.
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We know it's not as deadly as we feared early on, but it is still infectious.
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But more importantly, we also know that the rest of the world tended to be in the first round of this downstream of China.
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So something that happens in China very much moves everyone else into this fear of,
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And the danger of this is that it completely forces us into the same situation we've been in for the last three months.
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So part of the reason, to be honest, I got the haircut on Friday is because I'm like,
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I just am pessimistic enough that I don't think everything is going to be open and stay open
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And now there is this whiff, so everything's locked down again.
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And this is very dangerous because it gives government license to say,
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oh, see, this is why we have to continue indefinitely.
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This is why we have to just keep going on with this.
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This is why we can't just reopen and say, all right, you know, it's a party.
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Everyone have fun, go to the restaurants, go to the patios and all of that.
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I saw a tweet going around that I want to share with you that I think encapsulates
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why we should be a little bit nervous of how governments will respond to this.
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Keep wearing that face mask every moment you're in public and without complaint until a vaccine is found.
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Doing so protects essential workers, often people of color,
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and limits our exposure to a medical system rife with bias that can be deadly for us.
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And this is basically saying that if you don't wear a mask, you're not only killing grandma,
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And this whole tweet is based on an idea that I've seen a lot of,
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all of the things we do to so-called social distance,
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flatten the curve, end the curve, whatever, are not just until the curve is flattened.
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They're not just about ensuring we have hospital capacity,
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which, by the way, is what flattening the curve was about.
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Flattening the curve wasn't about making sure no one got infected.
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Flattening the curve was about making sure we didn't have an exponential spike
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that would overwhelm the healthcare system.
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And if you talk to healthcare practitioners, nurses, doctors, and you look at the numbers,
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by and large, in Canada, hospital emergency rooms and ICUs were pretty much empty throughout the pandemic.
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And I'd say actually less full than usual even,
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because people with other issues weren't going to hospitals because they were scared of the coronavirus.
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So we didn't have a curve that was anything other than flat.
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The whole point was never to protect every single person in the country from getting it.
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It was to make sure that it was managed and measured, which happened.
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So when the talk now goes to keep wearing the mask until there's a vaccine,
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keep distanced until there's a vaccine, that was not what we signed up for.
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And there's a reason that patios are being flooded right now in places where they're allowed,
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And that's because people were, for three months, told you've got to stay home to save lives.
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And it's going to be a very tough sell to tell these people,
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We've got to keep doing this and we can never get back to normal.
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I went to on Sunday or Monday, whatever day it was,
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a little bakery that is near my house that I love.
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And I was waiting in the socially distanced line well into the parking lot to get in.
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You know, I've joked with my wife all the time.
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And then I realized I was in a literal bread line.
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And there's a thing about communism is that it kind of sneaks up on you one way or another.
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Like we're not staying in the bread line the same way that,
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you know, Bernie Sanders wants everyone in the bread line.
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And it was just that the metaphor was not lost on me.
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And I don't think is lost on many other people.
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So right now, when we have this whole thing happening in Beijing,
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it's giving license to extend lockdowns anywhere and everywhere.
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We saw in Canada, the border closure with the United States was extended until July 21st.
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Ontario extended its emergency order until the end of the month.
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We've got some provinces like Alberta and BC that are moving in the right direction.
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Ontario is slowly but surely moving in what I'd say the right direction.
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But all of that's going to be reversed if we start seeing these flare-ups,
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as they're being called, like what happened in Beijing.
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So I'm going to put a little pin in this right here and say that we need to be a lot more
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insistent about civil liberties being protected,
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a lot more insistent about the science being followed,
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and not just do what we did at the very beginning of this, myself included,
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Let's just assume the worst and prepare for the worst.
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there is no excuse for following along with the worst case scenario predictions and projections
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when we know those don't align with what we're actually dealing with.
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show.
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is thinking of changing the name because of its sordid and racist past.
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And I find this story a bit interesting for the main reason that if you read the actual CTV story
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about Kitchener renewing a debate about the name change,
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you'd know that they aren't actually doing anything of the sort.
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starts with a Facebook post apparently from a woman of Kitchener, Jenna Thomas,
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who says a lot of people aren't aware that Horatio Herbert Kitchener,
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was a successful British general against the indigenous forces of Africa, India,
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and places like that at the time of the British Empire.
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However, he was also a symbol of hate, they say.
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Someone from whom everyone needs to detach because of the atrocities and yada, yada, yada.
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and a representative of the city of Kitchener says that they are not at all changing.
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They say, well, we in no way condone, diminish, or forget his actions.
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Kitchener has become so much more than its historic connection to a British field marshal.
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Our name is not a celebration of an individual leader's hurtful legacy.
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Now, the city of Kitchener still goes down the road of talking about how he was a bad guy,
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So the Kitchener name change debate being revisited is actually angry woman on Facebook
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because everyone's unpleasantly against all names of everything.
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I mean, does Kitchener want to go back to Berlin?
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Because surely we could say Berlin may have been connected with some atrocities in the past as well.
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It reminds me of that Norm Macdonald bit about Germany.
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The only country that really worries me is the country of Germany.
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I don't know if you guys are history buffs or not, but...
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List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests.
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Now, this is something that is getting longer and longer, and it's changing by the day.
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And even from when I first looked at it yesterday, it's gotten a fair bit longer.
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Going around the world, United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, New Zealand, even within
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the UK specifically, there's a separate page, actions against memorials in the United Kingdom
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So things that have been vandalized, knocked down, toppled.
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But the list of monuments and memorials removed is massive.
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And these are, in many cases, being moved by lawmakers or by the people that own them.
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You know, you look at the very top of the list here.
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Statue of Edward W. Carmack, toppled by protesters.
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You have statue of Charles Lynn, toppled by protesters.
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You have statue of Robert E. Lee at Robert E. Lee High School, toppled by protesters.
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So even things that, I mean, but you don't need to topple them as protesters because governments
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are, by and large, in rapid, rapid form, taking these down themselves.
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You have a whole bunch of them here that are listed.
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Plans for removal by city, plans for removal by state, removal by city, and so on and so
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And the point that I raised on Monday, I think bears repeating here.
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Does any of this contribute to an actual resolution that pushes racism further and further to the
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And this could be applied to Quaker as well, which I don't know if you saw the news has
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Quaker is going to change the name of this iconic pancake syrup and recognizes that it was
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Now, the brand has been around since the 1800s, and it's undeniably a racial stereotype, which
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is why the company has, over the years, tried to amend and has amended the mascot and the
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logo and the imagery to get from that, you know, minstrel character that it once was, the
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mammy character, basically, to something that is just a smiling black woman.
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And it was actually a black friend of mine, Stacey Washington, who kind of just said, you
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Here was a strong black woman mascot or logo, and now she is no longer.
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And what Quaker has said here is that we recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial
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As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take
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a look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers'
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So, I would say that, you know, from a branding perspective, yes, this probably should have
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At the same time, Aunt Jemima is an iconic name.
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I don't know how you replace it with something that people embrace with the same gusto they
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But at the same time, you also have to ask, why now?
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Because companies like Quaker have resisted for years and years and years these same pushes,
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This time, it's at this point where the domino effect means that no one wants to be the one
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No one wants to be the one to say, we're not going to go along with this and go down this
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We don't want to risk the scorn of being called racist, so we'll just give in.
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Now, I wonder, why couldn't Aunt Jemima be embraced kind of like a Rosie the Riveter
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type character of have a strength that comes in spite of the history rather than having
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The point is, is that millions and millions of dollars have been made off of this brand.
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And to say now, okay, we're just going to change it and move on and we recognize it's
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If companies are doing the bare minimum because it gives the illusion of countering racism
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when none of these things actually are creating anything positive.
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And this is the point with taking down statues that we talked about on the show on Monday.
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That if you destroy things and aren't interested in rebuilding something, all you're left with
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as a whole, you're not left with anything constructive.
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And I've got to point out one of the most inspirational stories that I've seen in the midst of all of this.
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And that's Hal Johnson from Body Break, which every Canadian knows Body Break.
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You were raised with it, even ones that look like me.
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I may not have followed the commercials, but I saw the commercials of Hal Johnson and Joanne
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The one thing that was so fascinating about it is that they never truly opened up about
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Like they weren't open about the fact that they were married.
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But I think I just, as a kid, always assumed they were a couple because they were together.
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And Hal Johnson said that Body Break actually came about because of a desire to combat racism.
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And you normally see me giving fitness and health tips and being very positive.
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But you think that Body Break was started because of fitness.
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That was the number one reason that we started Body Break, Joanne and I.
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And I got hired by Jack Hutchison at 11 o'clock in the morning.
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And he was very enthusiastic about me joining TSN.
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At 2 o'clock that afternoon, I got a phone call.
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And he said, sorry, but the higher-up said, because I'm black and they already had Mark Jones,
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who's now with ESPN, has been there for many years.
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Because they already have a black reporter, they don't want to have two black reporters.
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The next month, I then subsequently met Joanne, which was my good fortune and my good luck.
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And we started talking about doing something in television together, something fitness or
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something, you know, along those lines, because Joanne's background.
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But then on June 8th of 1988, I was doing a commercial.
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There was myself, a white young lady, and a white guy.
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And then after about a half hour of that, just ready before we were going to shoot,
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the assistant director goes to the director and says something.
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And then the director tells the white guy and white girl to switch positions.
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So it's myself, the white guy, and the white girl's on the end.
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So at lunch, I then talked to the assistant director as we're in the buffet line.
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And I just, you know, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him,
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He said, well, the client really didn't want you next to the white girl because,
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you know, and, you know, God forbid, somebody might think you're with the white girl.
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And then he chuckled and laughed and then turned.
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My dad had always told me, never get mad at something.
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Because when you get mad, you can't find a solution to it.
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So that afternoon, after lunch, I took a piece of paper and I just wrote out kind of a storyboard.
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How can I make that we can all live, work, and play together?
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And there won't be this attitude that white and black and Asian and persons with disabilities
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So I came up with this idea, and the idea is Body Break.
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And that was really the formulation of the idea.
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I then took it around after Joanne and I had produced this, which we had no production background at all.
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But we took this around to 42 different companies and were turned down by every one.
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But then I went to TSN again, and I saw the program director this time, a different gentleman,
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However, the problem is you're black and the young lady, I remember him saying, the young lady is white.
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And so we don't think the Canadian public is ready for a black and white couple together.
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And he said, if you change the person, your part, to be a white gentleman, we'll take it on the air.
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Well, I went home that afternoon, and I looked at the phone and thought, who can I call, what can I do?
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And after a half an hour of chanting that and looking at the phone, I yelled over to Joanne,
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who does the fitness and multiculturalism for Canada?
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So I then picked up the phone, called participation, had a meeting in two days,
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and within a very, very short period of time, we had a contract for six episodes,
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and then we subsequently did 65 for participation.
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So it was without that, without that TSN spawning me to think, to go that route,
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without the racism that they displayed, without the racism of June 8th of 1988
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All those little things created body break, and we're happy to have hopefully given health and fitness tips
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to Canadians for 32 years, but also enlightened you that we all can live, work, and play together,
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regardless of our ability, disability, or skin color.
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What he says there is that it wasn't about fitness, it was about combating racism.
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He was turned down from a job at TSN because they already had apparently reached their black reporter quota
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When they first pitched body break, they were told that they needed to swap him out for a white guy
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because, oh, you can't have an interracial relationship on television.
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And what they did, Hal and Joanne, is fought racism the best way they could
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By showing, hey, this is something we're going to normalize,
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this is something we're going to make so it's not controversial,
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and this is something that we're going to put on TV so that people see it
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and so that no one is ever going to say, oh, no, we can't do that.
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They put out a statement saying they're sorry for this, you know,
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The irony is that TSN actually played body break spots,
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even in spite of what it had done and said to Hal Johnson
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and he said a lot of companies would be very risk-averse
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because they know their audiences are mostly white,
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so they have to just, you know, stick to what they know.
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I just thought they were two people that loved fitness.
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I always thought they were as long as I knew they were a couple,
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which is just a, you know, a fun, really good team.
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And the thing about it, though, is to learn about what went behind,
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They said we're going to fight it just by being us
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and by creating something, creating something positive,
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but it's also a heck of a lot more long-lasting.
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They're more interested in building statues to good things
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is a great example of how successful they were.
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And it's not to say that they solved all the problems of the world.
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It's not to say that they solved racism in television or racism in Canada,
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but they did their part and they started to be part of the solution,
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It's not enough just to identify problems and complain about this,
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What are you doing to solve them in a long-lasting way?
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And a huge, huge, huge gratitude for Hal and Joanne for doing that,
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not just on fitness and obesity and health and well-being,
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but on racism, which I don't think anyone knew necessarily was part of their mission,
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show.
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Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show as we close things out for this edition of the program here.
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A man with horse and buggy furious after being refused service at the KFC drive-thru.
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He did what we've all done at some point in the day,
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And he took his horse-drawn buggy through the drive-thru at Kentucky Fried Chicken,
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and they wouldn't even let him into the drive-thru.
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They said, you know, we can't serve you here, automobiles only.
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Ian Bell said he felt absolutely humiliated by it,
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And evidently, McDonald's does not care about whether you take a horse through the drive-thru.
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So, you know, it's not the horse-drawn buggy that I find hilarious.
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It's like the feigned outrage of, you know, just being so humiliated by it.
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I've seen people walk through drive-thrus because they don't have a car,
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and I'm just waiting for, like, a discrimination case to be filed against,
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you know, discriminating against those without driver's licenses once one of them is turned down,
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especially now that we're living in an era where all of the dining rooms of these places are closed down.
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So the drive-thrus, for some cases, have been the only way to get there,
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So if you're craving a Big Mac or a bucket of KFC and all you got is a horse,
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Let's spend a couple of moments here, if we can, on the developments in the conservative leadership race.
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So today, we have the first of the debates of the leadership candidates,
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the four verified candidates, Leslyn Lewis, Derek Sloan, Peter McKay, and Aaron O'Toole.
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In French, tomorrow, they're debating in English.
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It's not like the last leadership race where you had a bunch of debates across the country.
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In this case, because of the pandemic, all of their campaigns have been done remotely.
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But this is going to be, I think, a very underwhelming event.
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I'll do the dirty work so you don't have to, which is, you know, watching politicians talk to each other.
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And I would encourage you to go back and take a look at these interviews,
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We also interviewed a couple of the others who didn't make the final ballot.
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The one who we didn't interview is not for lack of trying, and that's Peter McKay,
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whose campaign ignored every single one of our interview requests.
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I've had people saying, oh, you know, why are you shilling for so-and-so by not interviewing McKay?
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And I say, well, the question is, why is McKay not interested in talking to independent media?
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That's the question that I've put to them and still didn't get an answer.
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So I would only base what I think of the candidates on the conversations that I've had.
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If you're not interested in sitting down and talking to your base, then, you know, quite frankly,
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But the whole narrative that we've seen form is that Peter McKay is headed towards a coronation.
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Derek Sloan thinks that none of them are true blue, and he's true blue.
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And Leslyn Lewis thinks it's time for something different.
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That's, you know, if I just distill everything down to a single soundbite that is being framed
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as far as the narrative goes, that's what I would say.
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Anyway, now, I will say, and I know I have to be very careful here, because I know that
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people have very strong feelings about all of them, that I was waiting and hoping for
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someone to just completely, 100% knock my socks off and wow me.
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So with all of the candidates, you know, I kind of feel, well, I don't like about this,
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I'm going to have a lot more of a detailed analysis next week, because I wanted to wait
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until after the debates to really say, okay, this is what I think.
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And I don't think I'm actually going to do an endorsement, but I am going to talk a little
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bit more in detail about who I think is probably more likely to give the conservatives what they
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But the reason I bring it up now is because everyone has to be very careful about the idea
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of letting identity politics seep into the discussion here.
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And this is something that came up when I was speaking to Leslyn Lewis, where Leslyn Lewis
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had said that the conservatives have a diversity problem, which you can agree or disagree with.
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But a lot of people wrote to me saying they weren't pleased with that because the conservatives
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have always been the ones pushing back against these identity focused narratives.
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And what Leslyn Lewis had said was that it's not about identity politics.
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It's just about understanding that a party needs to reflect the country it wants to govern.
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However, her campaign also did a poll just last week or two weeks ago that I found very
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They polled a bunch of Canadians on the idea of what type of leader they would want leading
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And it was, do you want a former cabinet minister who's a non-minority male?
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Do you want a PhD holding minority woman lawyer?
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And at the end of it, they said, oh, well, you know, 50% of Canadians or 46% of Canadians
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said they want Leslyn Lewis because they picked her resume out of the four resumes they were
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It had nothing to do with vision for the country.
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It had nothing to do with personal capability or competence.
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And oh, Canadians said they wanted the minority female.
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And I think this was something that I have issues with because Leslyn Lewis is a heck of
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But to have this poll and to suggest that it means anything at all, I felt was insulting
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to the people that Leslyn Lewis is trying to get to vote for her.
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And to say that, you know, we just need to resort to tokenism, which is really how this
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And the reason I'm picking on that particular poll is because I felt that that was probably
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a very dangerous reflection of one thing that I've seen a lot of people say, which is that,
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oh, we need to choose who we're going to have lead us based on how it will look to the media.
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And I'm not just talking about identity politics.
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I'm talking about in general here now, how people tend to view which foot to put forward,
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not based on what's right or what's sensible or what's smart, but based on how the media
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And that's the problem with this idea of, oh, you have to have broad appeal.
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You have to have, you know, a range of appeal that you give to voters.
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And this is what Peter McKay's campaign has been saying, that he's the only one that could
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And, you know, we need a sensible, modern, moderate conservative and all this sort of stuff.
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That's what a lot of his surrogates are saying.
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And the danger of that is that we have gone down this road before.
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Andrew Scheer, who I like personally, who I've always gotten along with personally, who
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I know is a solid conservative, did not run a conservative campaign by any stretch.
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He went to the most basic of issues of just, you know, pocketbook politics, shied away from
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a lot of the so-called hardline conservative issues.
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He lost and lost in such a way that he didn't even get to stay on as leader, that the knives
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People saying that he was too conservative and not conservative enough.
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So at the end of it, Andrew Scheer didn't even have the support of either the red Tory
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So when you take that to the current race, we don't have the benefit the conservatives had
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in 2017, which was like 13, 14 candidates to choose from, where you had everyone from
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Lisa Raitt to Kevin O'Leary, from Rick Peterson to Deepak O'Brien.
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We don't have those options right now for Kennedy.
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You've got four people, which means that the idea of finding someone who checks off every
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single one of your boxes is probably not going to be there.
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You have to choose who do you think is the best within that.
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So given that you have two people that are very directly appealing to social conservatives,
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Derek Sloan and Leslyn Lewis, and one who's trying to appeal himself as the second
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choice for social conservatives, Aaron O'Toole, if Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan do very well,
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I'm convinced that Peter McKay needs to win on the first ballot if he is to have any hope
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of actually emerging the victor of this race overall.
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But again, he also, I'm seeing from a lot of people who are fond of Peter McKay, not just
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Atlantic Canadians and Quebecers, but people from other parts of the country as well.
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The number of MPs that he has endorsing him, of MPs that I'm like, you're not a PC red
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But I think that a lot of them believed that they had to hitch their trailer to what they
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And I think early on, everyone thought it was going to be a lot more clear of a coronation,
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So all of this is to say, here's what I'm looking for in the debates.
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And here's what I think conservatives with a small c, ideological conservatives need to
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Someone who is going to be conservative, but not just speak in soundbites.
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Someone who's going to articulate what conservatism actually means, how it applies to Canada,
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Because I do believe that there is an issue in Canada, not that the message that conservatives
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sell is wrong, but that they have not done a good job ever of selling it.
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In leadership races, everyone's all about, okay, defund the CBC and stand up for free speech.
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And then in general elections, everyone's all about, well, the marginal tax rate, you know,
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If we've learned nothing else from the United States in 2016, it is that we need fire breathers
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And that means that you need to have actual fire that you're breathing and you need to
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We need a message that's worth, you know, shouting from the rooftops.
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And we need someone who's prepared to shout it and actually sell it and not shy away
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at the first sign of backlash, which, you know, is going to come no matter what.
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I mean, even if Peter McKay, who's the former leader of the progressive conservatives, who's
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a moderate red Tory guy, even if Peter McKay wins, you know, he's going to be like, you
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know, the worst, most evil hard line right winger ever to the media anyway, regardless of
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So if you're going to get tarnished for being that, I'd rather have someone who's actually
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And if you don't want to watch it, I'll be tweeting it at Andrew Lawton.
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Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.
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