Juno News - December 31, 2020The Year of the Hypocrite
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Summary
Coming up, why 2020 is the year of the hypocrite, and Candice Malcolm joins for a look at the past year and the year ahead for True North. The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now, with a roundup of the people who have not been following their own guidance, advice, and directives in the last year.
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, why 2020 is the year of the hypocrite, and Candace Malcolm joins for a look at the past year and the year ahead for True North.
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Welcome, everyone, to the final episode of the Andrew Lawton Show for 2020.
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I know most of us, and I certainly include myself in that category, are looking forward to once and for all turning the page on this year.
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But regardless, I hope you have had as best a year as is possible, given the circumstances.
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We know that certainly the political elites telling us not to live our lives are having a good time,
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which is why I wanted to devote this show to doing a bit of a roundup of sorts to all of the people who have not been following their own guidance,
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advice, and directives in the last year, all of which has, of course, come to a bit of a boiling point, even in the last few days,
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as the rules for the and not for me crowd have decided to take their Christmas vacations while telling us that we have to carve the turkey on Zoom,
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and you might as well not even have a turkey because it's just going to be you and someone else instead of anyone else in your family gathering together for Christmas.
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Patient zero of this, I don't know exactly who it was, but I will say that the biggest story this week is Rod Phillips,
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who was in St. Barts, which is the most exclusive, luxurious Caribbean destination,
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one of the most expensive places to vacation in the world, and he was there not just for a few days,
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not just for a little quick jaunt or maybe to get off a cruise ship because, well, you can't do that anymore,
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but he was there for, it sounded like it was going to be at least a month.
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He went down there in mid-December, was still there, and no one knew it until this past week
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where Doug Ford has decided to tell him to get his backside home.
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So he resigned, and you know what? I don't actually think it's all that unsurprising.
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How do you come back from that? How do you have any credibility when you set out that the rules are only for other people, not for you?
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They're for the little people. They're not for you. You're Rod Phillips. You can do what you want.
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And that was the thing, and when he came back to Pearson Airport and he did a little impromptu press conference,
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it sounded like he genuinely didn't know. Someone had asked him if he was going to resign,
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and he's like, well, you know, it's up to Doug Ford, and you know, there's a lot of work to do.
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And then not long later, he had, in fact, resigned.
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So I think in this case, we can very much read between the lines and say he was fired.
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Again, my approach to this is not to penalize people for going on vacations,
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but to say to anyone, hey, listen, do what you want, live your life, do it safely, follow the rules,
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but that's not what's happening. We're going more and more towards the other direction.
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And Rod Phillips, I don't actually know all that well. I've met him once or twice.
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I've always understood him to be an honorable and decent guy, but that's the whole point of this,
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is that people like him who want to live their lives should not be telling other people in the province not to.
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And this is the issue, and I want to stake right out of the gate here.
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I am not anti-travel. I'm not one of these people saying, well, it's irresponsible, you know, how dare you go?
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Because in fairness, even if you are completely concerned about what's happening with COVID-19 in Ontario and in Canada,
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if you look at the numbers, a lot of these places, these vacation destinations are actually safer than Ontario.
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I mean, if you're living your life in Ontario or in Quebec or somewhere else,
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you're going to be around a lot more people than if you decide you're going to camp out on a beach for a month
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So in that sense, you know, I'm totally pro-travel.
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My concern is with the hypocrisy, with telling people you should not be traveling
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and then yourself getting on a plane, going down, and only coming back when you get caught.
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And by the way, this was not the first time he did this.
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He also, we learned this week, took a personal trip to Switzerland in August.
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I've never been. Sounds great. Sounds fun. Hope he had a blast.
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I don't care that he went to Switzerland. I don't care that he went to St. Bart's.
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I care that he did it while serving in a government that would condemn me for doing the very same thing.
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And this is why something like this is so egregious.
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And by the way, Rod Phillips, when he delivered the Ontario budget, decided he was going to make 2021 the year of the Ontario staycation.
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Fewer small business owners have been harder hit than our tourism operators.
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We expect that traveling within Ontario will be safe sooner than traveling beyond our borders.
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So the Ontario government was putting $150 million towards making the year of the Ontario staycation 2021.
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And Rod Phillips, I mean, in fairness to Rod, he would probably be saying,
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Well, no, no, no. I said 2021. It's still 2020.
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So maybe he was planning on coming back on the 31st anyway.
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And, you know, these are like the people that say their diet starts tomorrow.
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Because his view is that, yes, we need to make Ontario the year of the staycation, but not until I get back from St. Bart's.
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You can't even, well, maybe you can write this script because the Simpsons did.
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And now for an emergency announcement from the mayor.
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People of Springfield, because of the epidemic, I have canceled my vacation to the Bahamas.
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Hey, you, get that steel drum out of the mayor's office.
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Ah, yes, I believe there is a Simpsons clip for absolutely everything.
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Rod Phillips said that he deeply regrets traveling over the holidays.
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This is not a statement that indicates actual regret.
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And what's going to happen when he gets home will be very interesting because I'm not expecting
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him to do like a mea culpa on this in forms of an interview.
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I think what's going to happen is he's going to come back.
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And everyone's going to move on in the next couple of weeks.
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And Doug Ford has already promised a tough conversation of sorts.
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I think that what makes it look a lot worse is all of the stuff he did to kind of avoid
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So he had done many photo ops and he was posting them all on Twitter with this business and that
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He did his little Christmas video by the fireside.
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And while he was down there, he did a Zoom call, a public Zoom call with worship leaders in which
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it really, really, really sounds like you can hear Caribbean waves crashing onto the shore
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As much as I don't like sharing Liberal Party propaganda, the Liberal Party just happened to
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They needed some technical support in terms of being able to make their digital piece work.
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And it was great to see them great to see them work so close together.
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Who would have thought there was a more embarrassing water background to a Zoom call than a toilet
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And that is the waves crashing onto the Caribbean shores of Ajax, where he was supposed to be
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because he told everyone else that they had to stay home and even had tweeted about the
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importance of just having a Zoom turkey get together for Christmas or something like that.
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But the problem is, is that Rod Phillips is not unique here.
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Political leaders have been doing this since the very beginning of the pandemic.
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And there are varying degrees of transgressions.
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You know, you go back to Ontario Premier Doug Ford telling everyone not to gather for Easter
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and then deciding to go up and check the plumbing of his cottage in Muskoka or something like that.
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And there was, I think it was Easter or Mother's Day or something.
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Again, one of these holidays that we were all told to forego that Doug Ford had his family
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get together on despite telling people not to have such get togethers.
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And you just know when the Rod Phillips story was unfolding that there were a whole bunch
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of other political leaders of all parties that were canvassing their caucuses desperately
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trying to, like, hope that no one else was in the Caribbean, that no one else had done this.
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And that was why there was a flurry, a small flurry of acknowledgements from people that
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took place on December 30th, the day the story was breaking up.
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And one of them was a Saskatchewan cabinet minister who has decided to do what I think is brilliant
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because he's pitched his trip to his California beach house as an essential trip.
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Joe Hargrave, who is the highways minister, is saying in a statement that he is in Palm Springs
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to finish selling personal property and to move things back to Saskatchewan.
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So, he had said that he told Premier Scott Moe of his plans and said that it was an essential business.
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Scott Moe said, oh, well, you know, if he says it's essential, then who am I to judge?
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But he's going down there and he says it was important.
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You can basically just have a yard sale at your beach house and then you can declare it
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And to be fair, he may be doing important things.
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Don't be part of governments that are telling people not to.
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I mean, the Ontario government, as one notable example here,
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has been literally telling people to stay home.
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Someone on Twitter put together what I thought was a very useful montage
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We want people to stay in place, stay in your own homes as much as possible.
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I strongly encourage everyone to stay home and continue to follow public health measures.
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And no, I know I'm beating up on the conservative parties here,
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the Saskatchewan party and the Ontario PC party.
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But political hypocrisy is not limited to one party.
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An MNA from Quebec, Pierre Arcand, was in Barbados.
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And he's now been recalled by his party leader.
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Of course, we remember when Patti Hajdu, who has been the chief health spokesperson,
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with the exception of perhaps Dr. Theresa Tam in Canada,
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and she was hanging out in the Pearson Airport lounge without a mask.
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Now, interestingly enough, I haven't, I wasn't going to tell this story
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because I tend to believe that people deserve a bit of privacy,
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but I'm not actually telling it for bad reasons.
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Because I was in Toronto at the airport a couple of weeks ago,
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And what was interesting about it is that Patti Hajdu was legitimately in the lounge.
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I heard a woman walk in and she was talking on her phone and she sat down.
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But in social distancing, that was, you know, like three and a half kilometers away or something.
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But no, I heard her and I was like, oh, I recognize that voice.
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Then I looked up and I'm like, I think that's Patti Hajdu.
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I only had like a couple of moments before I had to catch my flight.
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And I'm like, you better believe that she kept her mask on for the entire time that I saw her there.
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But the whole point is that after she was busted in the lounge for no mask, I'm sure she's being very cautious now.
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Andrew Scheer, I mean, he was busted at Pearson Airport with no mask on when he was talking to people.
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But the thing was, the level of attention that the media has given conservatives compared to anyone on the left is very notable.
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And I would say that the reason we should be doing it the other way around, if we're going to be imbalanced about it,
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is because the liberals are the ones that tend to be the biggest nannies about this.
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Or, I mean, some of the conservatives aren't doing much better now, a la Ontario.
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So when Randy Hillier, who's an Ontario MPP that we've talked to on this show,
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tweeted a picture of a gathering that he had on Christmas or Boxing Day that OPP are, by the way, now investigating.
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OPP are investigating Randy Hillier's Christmas.
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So when Randy Hillier posts that, I'm like, you know what?
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Power to him because he is an anti-lockdown advocate.
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He is being actually a practitioner of what he preaches because he's not telling everyone else that they shouldn't be doing that.
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Much like the mayor of Vancouver, Kennedy Stewart, who as well was sitting at a West End patio with seven other people,
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this was earlier in the summer, two more than the per table limit for BC restaurants.
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Now you may be saying, well, Andrew, I thought you were a freedom-loving guy.
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Why do you care how many people are at a restaurant table in Vancouver?
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But they're also the ones that don't feel the rules apply to them.
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Remember when Lori Lightfoot, I'm going to go outside of Canada for a moment,
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the mayor of Chicago decided she should be able to get a haircut, but no one else should?
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And her explanation, well, she has to, you know, get up there and give press conferences.
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So, you know, that's why it's important for her to get a haircut.
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So, this sort of stuff is going to continue because there is no real accountability.
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And it shows that there are political leaders who are insulated from the consequences of
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their decisions that the rest of us must abide by.
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Insulated to such an extent that they don't want to live by them.
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If you have money, it's a lot easier for you to sort of fly above, literally and figuratively,
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Again, if you don't want to deal with the Ontario lockdown, you can just, you know,
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If you don't want to live with the restrictions on any other number of businesses,
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you could probably find a way to pay to get it done.
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But that's the whole point of this, is that if politicians are not themselves able to live
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in the provinces or country that they are setting out for the rest of us to live in,
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If they can't even tolerate it or don't want to, or at the very least are making these rules
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knowing that, oh, well, you know, it's not going to bother me anyway because I'm going
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When I'm on a Zoom call with worship leaders who, by the way, are not even allowed to gather
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and I can hear waves crashing in the background, what better message is there for I don't really
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And I don't know what the answer is because the system itself has a corrupting power to
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Good people go into politics and they get very much consumed by this.
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And I'm honestly saying when I ran in 2018, I could have been an MPP in the Ontario government
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I'm so glad I did not have to be a lawmaker during this period because I don't suspect it
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would end well because I couldn't in good conscience shut down people.
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I could not in good conscience shut down people whose livelihoods depend on their businesses
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being open and whose personal happiness, whose personal mental health depends on being able
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What I would hope people take away from this episode is that, hey, if the finance minister,
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if the highways minister in Saskatchewan, if Quebec MNAs, if MPs are all finding that there's
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a safe and enjoyable way to live your life that involves travel, that involves, you know,
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maybe not always being masked in public, that involves having a few people on a patio, if
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So someone else can do the legal drafting of it.
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If you are good at drafting legislation and you enjoy doing it in your spare time and you
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want to help over the holidays, this is an idea that I would love you to do.
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This is something that every province can and should embrace, and I would say should be
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Any rule or public health restriction pertaining to COVID-19 that a member of a government that's
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enacted the restriction breaks is automatically stricken.
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That is the proposed law that we need going into 2020.
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In other words, if a member of your government put a rule forward and doesn't follow the rule,
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Maybe it's not the way that we normally pass legislation.
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But at this point, I think it's the best way to do it.
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Instead of the punitive snitch culture where everyone's trying to figure out who's in the
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Bahamas and who's in Barbados and who's in St. Barts, let's just say any rule that they
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don't think is worth following in their own lives, the rest of us don't have to follow
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It's going to be a heck of a lot happier a 2021 if this is the way we go forward.
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On that note, we'll be back in a couple of moments for a look at what the year ahead
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may bring with True North founder Candace Malcolm.
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Everyone has turned 2020, I think, very deservedly into a punchline.
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But for people in media, the silver lining has been there's been no shortage of things
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So for True North, it's been certainly a busy year.
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And I'd say a challenging year like it has been for everyone.
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So I wanted to take this opportunity as we are nearing the end of the year here in the
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next day or so to chat with my friend and colleague, Candace Malcolm, who I will say,
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despite all of the love and adoration I get from my viewers here, the one question I always
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get is, you're great, your show's great, but where's Candace been?
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I hope you had a wonderful holiday and same to all of your viewers.
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So I've been sort of under the radar for the last few weeks.
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And so I've been taking the time to, you know, spend time with my family and focus on
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So I've been away a little, but luckily we did a whole bunch of sort of pre-recorded
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We were doing a lot and hopefully I'll be back, you know, in no time at all in the new
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I know certainly everyone on the True North team, myself included, is very much.
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But let's talk about how this year has been, because I remember at the very beginning of
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the pandemic when no one knew what was going on.
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We were seeing these terrible stories coming out of China and then Iran and then Italy.
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And you and I, I think with the whole team really said, OK, we need to be on the front
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We know the mainstream media often gets things wrong.
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We were watching Justin Trudeau's daily press conferences.
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So our viewers didn't have to and talking about what was happening.
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And, you know, it was interesting when we first started doing that.
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I certainly didn't have any idea that that would still be the story of the day 10 months
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I mean, it was sort of one of those bizarre things where the narrative was constantly shifting,
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I remember at the very beginning of the pandemic when it was sort of more conservatives that
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And so that was so that we wouldn't have to shut down the entire economy.
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The idea was like, you know, if we just take a few precautions like social distancing and
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not wearing face masks, then we can keep the economy open and keep going.
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And now, you know, because of the sort of changing message and the much more, I would
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say, draconian tone behind some of these demands, you know, you see more and more conservatives
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And looking back at those early days, you know, it was it was really frightening, really
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concerning watching the government sort of just go back and forth, contradicting itself,
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The idea which we lived through again during the U.S.
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federal election where you had a liberal like Joe Biden saying that he would have done better
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than Trump did in shutting down the economy faster.
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Well, you know, doesn't take too much of a memory to look back and think, hey, it was
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January when Trump shut flights down from China.
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And, you know, it wasn't until three months later that Canada took any measures to lock
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So, you know, we've had we've had a crazy year in terms of the government messaging and
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the things that we've been told, the back and forth.
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I think I think trust in institutions like the government and like the media is at an
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all time low just from just from my, you know, perception.
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I don't know if there's any polling that backs that up, Andrew.
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But I think that really this idea that we need to trust experts when those experts are
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just constantly changing their mind is ridiculous.
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And I think that in that it has created an opportunity for independent journalists like
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you and I at True North, because, you know, we're not so obsessed with with parroting the
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talking points and and enforcing this idea that that every expert must be correct and
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we must, you know, turn off our minds and just listen to whatever the edict is of the
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We'll know, you know, there still needs to be scrutiny.
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There still needs to be questioning just because someone's an expert doesn't necessarily
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mean that they know any better when it comes to, you know, a mysterious virus from
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And I think a lot of people are just completely fed up and sick of these of these orders
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that we're getting without necessarily the evidence and the data backing it up.
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There's a clip from the original Borat movie that I just remembered, and I haven't thought
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of that movie since it came out, you know, 10 or 12 or however many years ago when Borat
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is at the United Nations and he's just completely making a fool of himself doing things that
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make no sense and they keep cutting to the expert panel on TV where people who pretend
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to know exactly what he's doing talk about, oh, well, why he's doing this is because this
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And there's been a lot of that in the pandemic where we are all in unprecedented territory.
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But you take people that are paid to have an opinion.
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And I say this knowing full well what I do for a living, but I don't pretend to have the
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And this was something that True North started looking at long before COVID came along, which
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But this year, I really think that the circumstances have established why it's so dangerous to really
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And there's just some questions that beg being asked.
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I mean, when the virus first came out, you know, the epicenter was a basically unknown
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large city, large industrial city in China called Wuhan.
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One of the interesting things about Wuhan is it is the home to China's biological warfare
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And I remember raising that question just sort of, you know, kind of almost not casually,
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but just without having a lot of evidence connecting it, but just saying, hey, look, this
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And merely just for raising that question and making that observation, I started getting,
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you know, hit pieces written about me and people calling me a conspiracy theory, a theorist
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and sort of having this backlash against me just for just for asking the question.
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And, you know, last time I checked, the role of a journalist is to ask questions, sometimes
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And sometimes the questions that you ask don't lead anywhere.
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But but but the idea that you that you shouldn't be able to ask certain questions, it just just
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And I think that that, again, really has been center in this entire covid pandemic, all the
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government lockdowns is that, you know, we're not really supposed to question the orders that
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And yet, Andrew, as you know, that sometimes it just make such little sense.
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And when you have so much on the line, you know, a small business owner, a restaurant
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owner, anybody who earns their living by going out into the world and governments taking
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that livelihood away from them, it's incredibly serious and, you know, it deserves pushback
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I think to me, one of the most disappointing things that's happened this year and, you
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I've been really disappointed in Doug Ford and the sort of hysterical tone that has been
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I mean, you know, the biggest story right now, and I know you've been talking about it on
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your show is with the minister Rod Phillips being down in St.
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Bart's and, you know, the reaction to that from from Doug Ford himself has been so over
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I mean, yes, obviously, it's a contradiction when a politician is traveling after telling
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But but if the government was really serious about a rule that we're not allowed to travel,
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Why are there still flights going in and out of Pearson, Toronto daily?
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I've been down here for for some time and I know there's daily flights that are that
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So if the government truly does believe it's it's it's beyond the pale and terrible to
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to get on an airplane and travel, why haven't they shut down the flights?
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So, you know, we're in a situation where you're allowed to travel.
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And yet somehow when you do it, it's it's it's this horrible offense.
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Yeah. And this was the point I raised earlier in the show, which is that I'm very much pro
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And when you have the government on one hand saying, don't go anywhere, make it the year
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And then on the other hand, you know, buggering off to St.
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Bart's and then not wanting to disclose where he was or when he was coming back and and that
00:27:26.020
And, you know, the reality is the politicians who keep talking about how dangerous things
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They shouldn't blame people that are going to vacation destinations that in many cases
00:27:39.700
So, I mean, that's the other irony of this is that if someone is not breaking the law,
00:27:44.040
they've made a decision, they're comfortable with the risk, which always exists when you
00:27:49.700
But this year, you are bang on that we are not supposed to ask the questions this year,
00:27:54.720
whether it was Patty Hajdu telling people that they were feeding conspiracies, if they
00:27:59.120
asked about China's numbers, people calling you a conspiracy theorist for talking about
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or asking about rather the biology lab and even with politicians conduct.
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I mean, this idea that politicians have put forward is that we're all supposed to be
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a united front, which sure may well be true, but that doesn't mean that you have to
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accept without scrutiny and without skepticism guidance from people that have demonstrably
00:28:24.140
Well, and Patty Hajdu is another example of someone who also was traveling all over the
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country north, broke the story of how many places.
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And the media outrage, nowhere nearly as strong as it was on her.
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And same with when she was caught in an airport not wearing a mask.
00:28:35.980
Well, supposedly there was a bag somewhere that was full of food, and so she was exempt from
00:28:40.680
But, you know, when it was happening to Andrew Scheer, there was no such exemption.
00:28:44.840
And look, yeah, for my case, you know, one of the reasons that we decided to come down
00:28:50.300
to the Bahamas was to get away from Ontario and the crazy governance up there, the hospitals
00:28:58.160
You know, like I said, I had a baby and my experiences going to the doctor's offices and
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the hospitals in Toronto were pretty outrageous, just given how slow everything was, how much
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they made you wait, how long everything took, you know, how kind of quickly they'd rush you
00:29:13.660
in and out of services, you know, the whole idea behind having a universal health care
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system is so that supposedly everyone gets good care, but it really felt like they were
00:29:22.680
skimping out and not giving the care that I that I needed and that I demand.
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And, you know, one of the other things is that being locked down in a cold climate isn't
00:29:35.360
So I think it's a great idea to go somewhere where you can be outside, where you can get
00:29:42.440
And then as far as as the whole government approach, I just think it's truly outrageous,
00:29:48.820
the idea that we're supposed to just say yes to everything and go along without question,
00:29:55.100
especially, Andrew, when there's such a strong ideological component behind it.
00:30:00.140
And I'm talking about Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland and the whole green reset bragging about
00:30:06.140
the idea that this is an opportunity to somehow, you know, change our economy and move away from
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the driving forces of our economy, which are our energy and fossil fuel.
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They're trying to do whatever they said, a great reset to produce some kind of a green
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utopian economy, which is totally ridiculous and unfeasible as anyone who's looked into some
00:30:33.180
of the technologies that they're talking about knows.
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And we focused on that very thoroughly in the Green Hypocrisy documentary series, Andrew.
00:30:40.740
But, you know, of course, Canadians should question and of course, Canadians should push
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back against the rhetoric and against often really, really contradictory, hypocritical
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positions that the government has been forcing upon us.
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Yeah, and I do think the Green Hypocrisy documentary is great for two reasons.
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Well, for many reasons, but two chiefly right now.
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One of them is that it was putting a lot of these issues into a greater perspective in
00:31:09.340
a way that I even think an environmentalist would appreciate.
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If you're someone that cares about the environment, you care about climate, you might not agree with
00:31:16.500
everything that was in that series, but you would very much agree that what government's
00:31:20.000
doing isn't really dealing with the problems they say they're dealing with.
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And the other part is that for us, this year had its challenges.
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I know True North had a lot of projects that we wanted to do.
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I personally did that we just couldn't do this year because of the pandemic and travel
00:31:35.520
So it was really great for us to be able to produce a big, significant project like that
00:31:43.580
I know we did have other plans and they included, you know, we were supposed to do an entire
00:31:51.540
We had Douglas Murray, the British author and thinker.
00:31:55.080
He had already had his flights booked and we had this whole thing planned.
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And of course, we had to postpone that, potentially cancel that because of COVID and the restrictions
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But I think that we still had a very strong year.
00:32:09.020
I think that to me that the big things that stuck out were, you know, the launching of the
00:32:14.600
Independent Press Gallery, which you were a large part of, our inaugural event, which was
00:32:18.880
supposed to be a debate among all the conservative candidates.
00:32:21.320
And, you know, we sort of dealt with the circumstances.
00:32:24.240
You were on the ground last minute and turn that into really a wonderful fireside chat event.
00:32:30.480
And that was really the highlight of the year, Andrew.
00:32:32.860
And I give you all the kudos in the world for that.
00:32:36.800
I think that the speaker series was really fun.
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I did a lot of really, really compelling interviews.
00:32:42.880
I sat down with Rex Murphy, Pierre Polyev, you know, Conrad Black, Barbara Kay, Dave Rubin.
00:32:57.860
And I think that it shows, you know, how we were able to sort of pivot, how we were able
00:33:03.220
to, you know, change what we were focused on, because the idea of doing live events wasn't
00:33:09.540
So we started doing a lot more interviews, a lot more Zoom events, you know, testing out
00:33:16.260
And I think we found some successes that we're going to carry on into the new year.
00:33:21.680
And I appreciate the kind words about the fireside chat.
00:33:24.120
I don't know if I would, like, relive that day again, but it was still, in the end, one
00:33:30.120
And even in general, the conservative leadership race, I think, is a point of pride, because
00:33:34.380
so often these things are covered through the mainstream media's lens, and really in mainstream
00:33:43.140
And for us to actually provide a conservative, small-c conservative approach to the issues
00:33:48.940
at stake in the leadership was something that was just completely absent from that race.
00:33:52.720
And I mean, you and I have joked about it in the past, that live stream that we did of
00:33:56.940
the results show that was supposed to be, I think it was, you know, supposed to be like
00:34:00.360
45 minutes and ended up being over eight hours.
00:34:02.640
Again, another day that I wouldn't relive, but we can still be proud of.
00:34:06.020
So there was a lot of room for the perspective that we bring and the analysis that we bring.
00:34:14.140
Well, I think that we're going to build off the successes that we've had.
00:34:17.800
You know, you give a great example with the leadership race.
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I think a lot of Canadians just discovered True North and realized, wow, I don't have
00:34:24.380
to watch, you know, the party that I vote for, the party that I care about, through the lens
00:34:29.340
of the CBC, where they demonize everything and they make it seem controversial just to
00:34:33.380
hold very basic conservative values or Christian values or family values.
00:34:41.260
And again, just growing off of that, I know we have a lot more sort of hard-hitting interviews,
00:34:46.280
other documentary series we're looking to expand.
00:34:49.740
We've still got our investigative journalism team.
00:34:53.560
We're digging out new stories, putting pressure on politicians in Ottawa in ways that the
00:35:00.820
The Parliamentary Press Gallery, we're sort of challenging them.
00:35:03.640
I mean, the idea that they have complete reign over Ottawa and that no one else has any right
00:35:10.720
We're challenging that, not just through True North, but also through the Independent Press
00:35:14.520
Gallery, the idea that journalists can get accredited without being part of that establishment
00:35:19.540
media, that sort of dying breed of big corporations running these media companies.
00:35:27.220
I think we saw a bit of a preview, Andrew, of what's possible during the U.S. election, where
00:35:32.320
big, high-paid journalists on CNN didn't have the influence that they used to.
00:35:40.520
You saw the rise of a lot of independent journalists, a lot of independent outlets outshining the
00:35:47.100
More people get their news from Joe Rogan and his podcast on Spotify or Ben Shapiro and his
00:35:53.840
Daily Wire show on YouTube than do watch the mainstream media.
00:35:59.200
And I think that that same thing is possible in Canada, and we're carving the path towards
00:36:04.820
So I think we've got a lot of really exciting projects and ideas and a lot of momentum that
00:36:14.420
And a lot of the things that I wanted to do in 2020, I haven't forgotten about.
00:36:19.140
So maybe I'll have twice as much on my plate this year.
00:36:24.560
And I'm so grateful still that you founded True North and continue to see this organization
00:36:28.960
through all of the different turns and pitfalls and highs and lows of 2020 and beyond.
00:36:39.680
And thank you for coming on and giving us an update on what's happening for you and for
00:36:45.980
You know, I think family is just so important, and I'm enjoying every moment of staying home
00:36:54.540
But I haven't forgotten about True North, Andrew.
00:36:56.760
And, you know, I just want to quickly say to the viewers, you know, it was a really
00:37:03.540
There was really a lot of people losing their job, losing their livelihood, and we didn't
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really know what was going to happen with True North.
00:37:11.920
We stopped fundraising because we just didn't feel right asking people for money.
00:37:16.120
We instead encouraged everyone to donate to their local food bank.
00:37:19.040
We even created a map for Canadians to find their closest food bank so that they could go
00:37:29.140
You know, once the economy sort of started to open back up again in the summer, we started
00:37:35.820
And I was just floored by the support and generosity of our viewers, of our fans out there, because,
00:37:43.060
you know, really, they're the ones that keep us going, Andrew.
00:37:45.260
And it was like they appreciated what we were doing more than ever.
00:37:48.180
And we actually saw increases in the amount of money that we were making, which helped
00:37:53.000
us, you know, hire new journalists and do new projects.
00:37:55.100
So I really just want to say thank you so much to everyone watching, everyone who supports
00:38:01.780
our work and helps keep independent journalists and journalism alive in Canada.
00:38:09.040
And again, we've got a lot more in store for the new year.
00:38:12.700
And Andrew, I know, you know, when I'm away, you're doing a lot more.
00:38:15.880
You're covering a lot of the editing and overseeing the team and the work and everything.
00:38:23.300
You're really, really a core part of sure if we would never have the success that we
00:38:28.480
So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for that.
00:38:32.920
And I certainly echo that gratitude to the viewers.
00:38:35.520
Thanks very much, Candice, and happy new year to you and the family.
00:38:42.160
The show, as I mentioned earlier, actually started in January of 2020, the show on this
00:38:49.120
But truly, to have made it through a year wouldn't be possible without your support
00:38:53.660
financial and your support by sharing it and even just the messages of encouragement and
00:39:03.020
And I know Candice and the whole team do as well.
00:39:05.100
So with that, my thanks to all of you for tuning in today and over the past 12 months.
00:39:13.500
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:39:15.400
Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.