Juno News - December 16, 2023


Trudeau’s feminist foreign policy doesn’t apply to Hamas


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

168.94562

Word count

2,537

Sentence count

180

Harmful content

Misogyny

16

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

When else do you need a feminist foreign policy, but when sexual violence is taking place in a foreign conflict? And this is oddly where our foreign affairs minister was suddenly absent for two months. Brian Lillie explains why.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:01.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by TrueNorth.
00:00:12.000 But we go back to what Justin Trudeau has articulated as the essence of Canada's foreign policy,
00:00:18.840 which is that it's not a foreign policy rooted in Canada first. It is a feminist foreign policy. 0.99
00:00:24.820 And when else do you need a feminist foreign policy but when sexual violence is taking place in a foreign conflict? 1.00
00:00:32.760 And this is oddly where our foreign affairs minister was nowhere to be found for two months.
00:00:37.300 Brian Lilly had a great piece about this in the Toronto Sun.
00:00:40.920 Jolie proves Trudeau's feminist foreign policy, just empty words. He joins me now. 0.83
00:00:45.940 Brian, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
00:00:48.600 Thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:00:50.020 I mean, I don't know if you were in this boat.
00:00:51.880 But I sort of mocked this idea of a feminist foreign policy when it was first announced 1.00
00:00:56.260 because it just didn't seem to be coming from anywhere and rooted in any practical manifestations of what this would be.
00:01:03.400 But the government was committed to it.
00:01:04.840 They said we're going to apply a gender lens to everything and they do this in their dealings in government. 0.99
00:01:10.640 And here we have one case where you'd think the feminist perspective is pretty ironclad and pretty clear cut. 1.00
00:01:17.100 And oddly, our foreign policy was not interested in that.
00:01:19.660 No, they weren't. But look, this goes back to every issue that Trudeau's dealt with on this front.
00:01:27.800 You recall that when he was first elected, he said he'd have a gender balance cabinet.
00:01:33.480 And I'm going off memory here. So if I'm off by one or two, forgive me.
00:01:37.980 But 2015, he announces the gender balance cabinet. And why?
00:01:42.720 Because it's 2015. And then we get the order of precedence, which, you know, details which cabinet ministers are considered most senior,
00:01:51.320 which ones would take over in the event something happens to the prime minister.
00:01:54.900 And it's all old white men at the top. And then we find out that five of the 15 cabinet ministers in that first cabinet are all junior cabinet ministers. 0.87
00:02:06.160 They're not even full ministers. So they make less money.
00:02:08.820 They have less seniority. They have fewer, you know, a lesser department.
00:02:13.160 And they were all women. So, you know, that was pointed out.
00:02:16.740 And they said, oh, well, that's just a mistake. And then they fixed it.
00:02:19.840 Time and again, you can look at their feminist credentials and Trudeau fails on every front. 1.00
00:02:26.620 Groping a reporter, elbowing, you know, a female MP in the breast just because things were being delayed and he was frustrated. 0.52
00:02:34.680 Time and again, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, Cesar Sivana, Selena.
00:02:42.500 Selena Cesar Chavans, CCC.
00:02:44.360 Yes, yes. You know, just look at the way that women who have dealt with him describe how he talks to them.
00:02:51.700 So it's no surprise that when it comes to a feminist foreign policy, it's just about words as well. 1.00
00:02:58.240 Empty words. This government is about the announcement.
00:03:01.420 It's not about governing. It's not about the policy.
00:03:04.880 It's just about putting out a press release.
00:03:08.240 Yeah. And I mean, this is not to broaden the discussion unnecessarily here,
00:03:13.000 but we've seen a tectonic shift in the last five years, the last six years in how we view sexual violence and how we view sexual assault.
00:03:21.400 And whatever people think of the Me Too movement, you know, the refrain that came out of this era was believe all women.
00:03:27.420 And now the number of people I see on social media, people that are very supportive of the government being slow to respond on this,
00:03:35.100 saying, well, I don't know.
00:03:36.900 Did did did the rapes actually happen? 0.99
00:03:38.940 And I don't know if we believe I mean, but they don't even care about this glaring gap in the rules they've established over the last six years and the rules as they pertain to Hamas terrorists. 0.53
00:03:51.360 Melanie Jolie was heritage minister when the Me Too movement started and she went on CBC on Q and did an interview all about that topic.
00:03:59.040 She was foreign minister when last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and as part of her feminist foreign policy, 1.00
00:04:07.420 stood there with Justin Trudeau denouncing the American Supreme Court, overturning abortion law, federal abortion precedent and returning that issue to state legislatures.
00:04:17.620 She always had things to say on that. 0.80
00:04:19.940 But on this issue where there was proof of Israeli women, Jewish women being raped as a weapon of war, she was silent.
00:04:27.420 She just couldn't be bothered talking about it.
00:04:31.180 But then compare, as I did in in the column in the Sun, October 17th.
00:04:37.300 And there is the claim by Hamas, a terrorist organization, puts out a claim that Israel has bombed the Al-Shifa hospital.
00:04:47.620 Melanie Jolie doesn't wait for proof.
00:04:49.800 She tweets that doing this is a war crime.
00:04:53.380 That tweet is still up.
00:04:55.100 She believed Hamas with no proof.
00:04:59.360 The international observers, the Israeli government, the Israeli defense forces, images put up by Hamas themselves to brag about what they did,
00:05:09.060 all point to the proof that women were raped on October 7th.
00:05:13.660 That this was a tactic they used.
00:05:15.780 The instruction manuals found on dead Hamas fighters detailed that, yes, this is part of what you should do.
00:05:24.180 And she couldn't bother denouncing it.
00:05:26.540 Now, I'll give the Trudeau government some credit.
00:05:28.800 From early on, they said the right thing about the October 7th attacks.
00:05:35.420 Justin Trudeau denounced it, said that Israel has a right to defend itself.
00:05:39.080 He was steadfast in that.
00:05:40.860 But as you alluded to, as the conflict's gone on, they've started to waver all over the place.
00:05:46.660 But for the foreign affairs minister of a feminist government implementing a feminist foreign policy not to come up with this, it is mind-boggling. 0.74
00:05:57.400 And I was writing on another issue today.
00:06:00.200 And I'm finding, you know, references to their feminist agenda on climate change.
00:06:04.960 You know, I don't think a lot of mothers who do shopping for their kids to feed them will be happy with what that leads to with a higher price for hamburger meat. 0.98
00:06:14.180 But, you know, this language is peppered all through the government's talking points and its agenda.
00:06:21.560 It's just not present in the actual reality of how they operate.
00:06:27.060 Yeah, I mean, anyone who's ever looked at ATIPS, government documents,
00:06:31.460 you'll see oftentimes these reports on the gender-based GBA+, gender-based analysis+,
00:06:37.280 and it's that you have to take anything and everything and somehow find a gender argument. 1.00
00:06:42.180 You want to talk about office chairs.
00:06:43.740 Well, let's do a gender-based analysis to make sure that, you know, gender needs are being met and, you know, all of this stuff.
00:06:49.100 And you're right.
00:06:49.780 It's a government that on paper claims it's doing this in every single facet of its existence.
00:06:55.040 And, you know, they're certainly bringing in diversity trainers to that end.
00:06:58.160 But when the rubber hits the road, it's nowhere to be found.
00:07:02.540 Yeah.
00:07:03.160 And it's one of the reasons this government is so frustrating is that the policy is the communications tool.
00:07:09.880 The policy isn't governing.
00:07:11.400 The policy isn't saying, you know what, we're going to go to the UN and we're going to raise issue with the fact that Iran is chairing the, 0.59
00:07:22.160 I forget what the exact title is, but there's a gender council within the human rights realm at the United Nations. 0.99
00:07:29.400 And Iran's chairing that?
00:07:31.540 How is that feasible?
00:07:32.400 And why are we not complaining loudly?
00:07:34.220 I don't doubt that Bob Ray is.
00:07:36.180 You know, I disagree with Bob Ray on an awful lot of policy.
00:07:38.600 But he is a fundamentally decent man, especially on issues like this.
00:07:45.940 But he speaks for the government, but he doesn't set the policy.
00:07:50.080 But we should be banning our shoes on the table like the old Soviets at the UN, 1.00
00:07:56.080 demanding that something be done when you get Iran, who is oppressing women, beating them for not wearing their hijabs in public. 0.88
00:08:03.120 And they're in charge of a committee on gender rights? 0.90
00:08:09.460 You can't make it up.
00:08:11.240 That's the terrible part of this.
00:08:13.120 Okay.
00:08:13.780 Can I tell you something quick about these crazy bits?
00:08:17.580 Because back during the Harper government, there was something similar.
00:08:20.940 North Korea, as they're trying to build their bomb, is named the head of the Nuclear Disarmament Committee or something to that effect.
00:08:29.500 And I looked at John Wright, who was then the Foreign Affairs Minister, and I said, how does this happen?
00:08:34.280 He said, believe it or not, they go on an alphabetical order, and they were next.
00:08:40.140 And it's often how these things happen.
00:08:43.120 So then like Oman was next, and then Pakistan would have also been, you know, coming up there.
00:08:50.100 That's an alphabetical order.
00:08:51.640 Sure. Okay.
00:08:52.200 So when you're launching your new dictatorship, you want to call it like Ardvarkistan or something, and then you'll be like first on the order of precedence for all of these things.
00:09:02.300 For Peace and Democracy Council.
00:09:04.120 Yeah, exactly.
00:09:05.160 Let me just, I want to talk about one of your climate pieces.
00:09:08.260 But before, let me just ask you about the equivocation and the wavering of this government.
00:09:13.940 Do you think it is a government that is letting its, you know, inner desires come out, like they were only able to hold up the veneer for so long?
00:09:21.920 Or do you think they're responsive to a change in the climate that they're seeing?
00:09:26.700 And it's a bit more cynical in that sense.
00:09:28.940 I think that there are real divides within the Liberal Party, and I think there's real divides on the issue of how to, you know, what stands to take on the war that Hamas launched against Israel within Canadian society at large.
00:09:43.520 You know, I've taken what I believe to be the only correct moral stand, and that is that Israel has a right to defend itself and the true oppressors of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
00:09:53.140 Well, that's Hamas, and Hamas must be eradicated.
00:09:56.000 I'm glad to see Bernie Sanders in the United States saying that.
00:09:59.800 While we've got aggressive politicians up here saying, calling for ceasefire, Bernie Sanders is on TV explaining why that can't happen.
00:10:07.300 We need more of that.
00:10:09.420 But, so, I think the government, I think Trudeau was trying to please all people, and in the end, he's pleased none.
00:10:16.520 The Jewish community is livid with Justin Trudeau.
00:10:20.120 And for the most part, the Jewish community have been reliable Liberal voters.
00:10:24.040 Some did move over to the Conservatives during the Harper years.
00:10:26.920 But for the most part, most have still been reliably Liberal.
00:10:31.540 But the Muslim community, which has been courted by Trudeau, well, you saw the story the other day.
00:10:38.240 400 Muslim professionals who have been donors to the Laurier Club signed a letter saying they're leaving.
00:10:43.640 And then, on the weekend, there was a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Ottawa that marched to Langevin bloc, where Trudeau's office is, and were denouncing him as a terrorist, claiming he had blood on his hands for refusing to call for a ceasefire now.
00:10:59.580 And so, he's lost both sides.
00:11:02.900 By trying to make everybody happy, he's made nobody happy.
00:11:06.420 And I think it's going to have a real, lead to a real shift in Canadian politics.
00:11:11.720 Exactly how, I think we're still seeing that, you know, shake out.
00:11:15.700 Yeah, very well said.
00:11:17.020 Just before I let you go, Brian, I have to ask about this piece you had this morning in the Toronto Sun.
00:11:22.140 Trudeau targets cow burps and your ability to afford beef.
00:11:26.920 What is going on?
00:11:29.660 Okay, let me just switch my browser window here to, this is the Government of Canada announces new economic incentive to reduce methane emissions from beef cattle.
00:11:39.780 It is the protocol called reducing enteric methane emissions from beef cattle.
00:11:47.340 Cows burp a lot, and they want that to change.
00:11:50.640 They don't want as many cow burps. 0.92
00:11:52.640 They want better handling of manure on farms.
00:11:54.840 Look, this is, these are all good things.
00:11:57.160 And farmers are some of the most environmentally conscious, actually environmentally conscious people you will ever meet because it's their livelihood.
00:12:06.020 But what the Trudeau government wants to do is try and get farmers to use more expensive feeds.
00:12:11.700 Right now, most cattle in this country, they are raised on a, from calf to, to stock.
00:12:17.920 They're raised on a diet of grass or hay, and they might be finished with corn at the end, but they're going to be raised on, mostly on that.
00:12:26.880 They're going to be out in the pasture in the winter.
00:12:28.680 They're going to eat from those big round bales of hay that we see going by on trucks all the time.
00:12:32.860 Going to a corn-based island, corn silage, or adding red seaweed apparently can help reduce the methane, or adding chemicals.
00:12:41.860 This has potential to change the composition of the beef, but also it's going to be more expensive.
00:12:48.820 It's going to be more expensive.
00:12:50.060 Now, they say, well, we're going to be able to allow farmers to sell offsets, and that'll make them more money.
00:12:56.120 Well, just like the carbon tax, though, it's going to drive up prices.
00:12:58.820 And so you and I are going to have to pay more.
00:13:01.100 We're all going to be like Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon saying, I don't know how to call it hamburger helper.
00:13:05.900 Tastes just fine on its own, because we won't be able to afford the hamburger.
00:13:10.560 Now, here's the other funny part is for years, we've had consumers who can afford it moving towards grass-fed beef, and you see grass-fed milk.
00:13:20.220 Why?
00:13:20.560 It's supposed to be healthier, less saturated fats, more omega-3 fatty acids, more nutrients.
00:13:25.280 Well, guess what?
00:13:26.020 You're going to have less of that if you follow the government's plan, because, you know, the beef will be better for the planet, but not as good for you.
00:13:33.660 So it's a bizarre situation, but climate change policy comes before everything, including you having a healthy diet, Andrew.
00:13:43.140 Yeah, so coming soon is going to be like the bovine flatulence tax, where, you know, cows just basically have to pay a levy any time they, you know, let a bit of gas out.
00:13:51.300 One dollar out the front, two dollars out the back.
00:13:53.300 I think that's how it's going to be calculated.
00:13:54.900 Jacinda Erd-Hearn's government, New Zealand, brought in one of those.
00:13:58.060 Now, they've just lost power, and they've brought in a conservative government who's put that on pause for now.
00:14:02.820 They'll probably scrap it. 0.53
00:14:04.560 But, yeah, they brought in a cow burp tax and a sheep burp tax.
00:14:08.280 So, you know, don't give them ideas.
00:14:10.240 These things are out there, and we don't want to encourage them.
00:14:14.560 All right, fair enough.
00:14:16.360 Brian Lilly from the Toronto Sun, always a pleasure.
00:14:18.840 We should do this again sooner rather than later.
00:14:20.620 Thank you very much.
00:14:22.220 Thank you.
00:14:23.100 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:14:25.580 Support the program by donating to TrueNorth at www.tnc.news.
00:14:31.020 TrueNorth at www.tnc.news.