00:00:00.600Hey everyone, welcome to another exciting True North report. My name is Andrew Lotton, a fellow with True North, and with you here for the next little while as we talk about things that are happening in the world, in the country, things that are happening where there is a perspective that the mainstream media is missing out on.
00:00:18.380Now, unfortunately, it doesn't take much to elude the, what's the opposite of eagle eye, to elude the sparrow eye of the mainstream press, but we're here for you. I'm here for you. I've got your back. Thanks very much for tuning in.
00:00:31.820Depending on where you are in the country right now, you might actually be hunkered down in a secret bunker not wanting to go outside at all.
00:00:40.380I won't bother turning my camera because I have enough of a hard time getting it to work under normal circumstances, but I'm surrounded by snow right now.
00:00:50.600I've shut down the windows, obviously, but I want to give you fair warning. There is a slight possibility that at some point during this broadcast, you'll hear like the loud thuds and scrapes and beeps of snow plows.
00:01:03.080It looks like it's plowed on my street, but I can't make any guarantees. I think they were out there at like 4 a.m., which, let me tell you, was absolutely lovely for my wife and I, sound asleep, and then hearing the giant backup sirens, because that's really what they are, of snow plows.
00:01:20.200But that is the price you pay for living in Canada. So, regardless of where you are and how bad or not bad the snow is, I'm sure like BC is fine, but I think like all of Ontario, Quebec, everything like that is all pretty screwed up right now.
00:01:33.860So, maybe you are stuck at work or maybe you were stuck at home and didn't have to go to work. Either way, what you probably weren't doing is stuck with your channels set to CBC.
00:01:44.160If you were, though, you would have noticed that CBC had a bit of a weird story. And I say weird because the state broadcaster tended to think that it was a bombshell, but I'm failing to see what the actual bombshell part of it was.
00:02:02.720And this is from Mike Crawley, who's their chief legislative correspondent for Ontario politics. But this is a story that everyone will be interested in.
00:02:11.960The bombshell report, bombshell report from Mike Crawley at CBC is that Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, had a meeting, a secret, off the books, no one could know about meeting in October with Jordan Peterson.
00:02:28.440I know, cue shocks and gasps and all that. Yeah, so let's back up on a couple of things.
00:02:35.420The implication in this is that this meeting was somehow being hidden. In actuality, Doug Ford just doesn't publish his daily schedule.
00:02:42.620I mean, prime ministers, premiers, they get to decide whether they want to publish their whole schedule, a part of it or none of it.
00:02:48.560He doesn't publish a daily update, accounting for every single meeting he's had.
00:02:53.100But one of the meetings that Doug Ford had back in Ontario's legislative chambers in October was with Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto professor who's become an internationally renowned free speech crusader, academic, and advocate for open inquiry.
00:03:12.440That's the story. If you're waiting for more information, that's the story.
00:03:18.020And CBC ran like a 900-word piece that says nothing more than that, that Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, met with Jordan Peterson, a world-renowned academic and scholar.
00:03:33.720Well, this is where we get into the CBC bias.
00:03:37.080Now, I'm going to read elements of this story because it's hilarious how far they go to try to make it seem like there's something bigger here than there actually is.
00:03:47.700For starters, because there isn't a public agenda that's put forward by Doug Ford's office, they had to file a Freedom of Information request.
00:03:55.400And the government gives them, in response to that, the day-by-day accounting of his calendar.
00:03:59.300So they got the information. I mean, there was no whistleblower. No one was, you know, water-gating this.
00:04:05.720They just asked, and the government said, all right, here you go. Here's Doug Ford's schedule. You just have to file the request.
00:04:11.120But this is it. Ontario Premier Doug Ford held a one-on-one meeting with Jordan Peterson a week after the controversial university professor publicly urged Ford to abolish the province's Human Rights Commission.
00:04:55.860This is the question that CBC is saying, because this is the next paragraph.
00:04:59.560Ford tweeted about several of his other private meetings around that date with Diane Martin, CEO of the Registered Practical Nurses Association, with Susan Lejeune, the British High Commissioner to Canada, with Tim Hudak, the former PC leader who's now the CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association.
00:05:18.520They're saying, oh, well, he tweeted about some other meetings he had then.
00:05:21.680Why didn't he tweet about Jordan Peterson?
00:05:24.280And CBC doesn't come right out and say it, but you can tell that the network is trying to bring people to that conclusion that there was something being hidden about this.
00:05:34.460There was something secret about this.
00:05:36.760And truth be told, it's nothing of the sort.
00:05:38.700They asked the premier's office, what were they talking about?
00:05:41.220And the press secretary to the premier, Ivana Yelich, said they were talking about free speech on college and university campuses.
00:05:49.720First off, Jordan Peterson is one of the only reasons that a lot of people in Canada are talking about free speech on college and university campuses.
00:05:59.640And Doug Ford, for his part, has made it a mission to restore free speech and open inquiry to these institutions.
00:06:07.560There's a reason he put that policy in place that I've talked about in past editions of this broadcast that requires all publicly funded universities to have a free speech policy starting this month.
00:06:40.100They're upset because a week earlier, Jordan Peterson tweeted about Doug Ford.
00:06:45.480See, this is the only way journalism happens right now is journalists watching Twitter.
00:06:49.960Like, this is the only way they get their stories.
00:06:52.060They stare at Twitter all day and hope something happens.
00:06:54.660And if nothing happens, they find, like, the one obscure tweet by a protected account with an egg as its profile that says,
00:07:01.340well, I don't like this dancing by Alexander Ocasio-Cortez.
00:07:04.340And boom, headline news all over the world.
00:07:06.680But this was the tweet that Peterson made on October 10th.
00:07:09.960The faster the Ontario Human Rights Commission is abolished, the better, Ford Nation.
00:07:14.840There isn't a more dangerous organization in Canada, with the possible exception of the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education.
00:07:21.460Oh, I see. And they're saying that Peterson was taking on the Ontario Human Rights Commission's decision to join a legal challenge against Doug Ford's government.
00:07:32.100He was opposing it. And look, I think the Human Rights Commission should be abolished as well.
00:07:36.780But believing that, first off, is a completely justifiable position.
00:07:40.980And secondly, it doesn't disqualify you from meeting with a politician, even if that's not what they were talking about.
00:07:47.520And it sounds from the Premier's office like that wasn't even the topic of discussion.
00:07:52.160It was about free speech issues more broadly.
00:07:55.340But you wonder why this is newsworthy and why the story kept going on.
00:08:00.000And they dig into the background of, oh, Jordan Peterson once said this about the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
00:08:08.400Ford's calendar for October and November shows no one-on-one meetings with any other Ontario University professors.
00:08:15.580So they're saying, you know, the only way that it would have been justifiable for Jordan Peterson to get a meeting with Doug Ford is if Doug Ford also spoke to, like, the head of the gender studies department at Nipissing University that same week.
00:08:30.360Or, you know, the head of the conflict studies and Harry Potter literary analysis degree program professor from the University of Windsor.
00:08:38.520It's like, well, that's the only Ontario professor.
00:08:42.280So Jordan Peterson, in one context, is this, you know, evil global superstar.
00:08:47.540And in the others, he's just, you know, some Ontario university professor.
00:08:52.500It's hilarious because the media wants to fear him and delegitimize him at the same time.
00:09:02.000You have to either put someone up on a pedestal and say, this person's a big deal, they've got influence, they've got power, or this person's irrelevant and no one should pay attention to them.
00:09:12.260And you certainly don't get to do both in the same news story.
00:09:16.480And when you look at this story, they've tried to lump it into another controversy about the Ontario government buying an OPP vehicle.
00:09:24.580And they've tried to make it then about the appointment of Ron Tavener as OPP commissioner.
00:09:30.900And they've taken this non-story, which is Doug Ford had a meeting with an Ontarian.
00:09:38.100And they've made it about, you know, Doug Ford and the OPP and Doug Ford's calendar and transparency in government and freedom of information acts and all of this stuff.
00:09:47.300And it's laughable because the NDP view of things, and I'll get to that more in a second, but the CBC is taking here the NDP view of it.
00:09:58.140The NDP view of Jordan Peterson is that just because we say that he's a bad guy, he's a bad guy.
00:10:36.760We're talking about a legitimate voice here.
00:10:40.260And I got into a discussion with an NDPer last week or two weeks ago on Facebook.
00:10:45.100And we were talking about hate speech on campus, free speech on campus.
00:10:48.400And that discussion that has really become quite central to a lot of the work that I do.
00:10:53.740And he's a believer that, you know, these things like safe spaces and all of that are not inherently bad things.
00:11:00.540And I said that, look, when you start defining or redefining hate, you are getting to this very dangerous territory.
00:11:08.300And I said, look at Jordan Peterson for an example, thinking that he would agree with me that Jordan Peterson is an example of a legitimate voice.
00:11:15.120I said, here's a guy, he's a professor, he's respected, you know, people may not like him, but he's not a hateful person.
00:11:22.660And he said, yes, Jordan Peterson is a great example of the type of speech that shouldn't be allowed.
00:12:14.320They're like, oh, well, he's, you know, going after you on Twitter.
00:12:16.480And I'm like, all right, well, I'll play ball here.
00:12:19.060And the person she was talking about is named Terrence Kernaghan.
00:12:23.760And Terrence Kernaghan is a member of provincial parliament.
00:12:27.380So if you're from Ontario, an MPP is a provincial legislator.
00:12:31.660If you're not from Ontario, it's the equivalent of an MLA.
00:12:33.920So a member of the provincial legislative assembly in Ontario.
00:12:37.880And he was elected in the riding next door to the one that I ran in.
00:12:42.440London North Centre is where Terrence Kernaghan is now the MPP in the New Democratic Party caucus.
00:12:48.240And he linked to the CBC story about Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson.
00:12:53.340And this is what he wrote, Ford is personal friends with known homophobe Charles McVitie and endorsed Andrew Lawton as his candidate in London.
00:13:04.900It's no surprise that he's now taking advice from a far right figure like Peterson.
00:13:11.560So, again, so here we have the worldview of the NDP because Terrence Kernaghan is speaking for the NDP.
00:13:21.800When you're an NDP member of provincial parliament and you speak out like that, you are speaking on behalf of your party until the party says you're not.
00:13:30.440So Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson meet.
00:13:33.920He meets Jordan Peterson as far right.
00:13:35.940And then it becomes this conspiracy, this far right conspiracy of all the other far right hate-a-phobes that, you know, are meeting with Doug Ford.
00:14:36.260But it's that the NDP and clearly the CBC think that that club is in and of itself disqualifying of you.
00:14:44.720They think that that is basically the thing that just pulls you out of the running from being a part of society when they frame a society in their terms.
00:14:53.960And, you know, I want to talk about Peterson for a second because I know Jordan Peterson on a, some, on a, I wouldn't say he's a friend, but I know him on a partly social level.
00:15:07.180I've crossed paths with him a number of times.
00:15:18.380One is that the people that hate him, hate him.
00:15:21.660And the other is that the people that love him want him to be everything to everyone.
00:15:27.460And this has been one of the big, I don't want to say frustrations with Peterson, but frustrations with Jordan Peterson's fans.
00:15:33.580Is that because people like him and respect him and value him and admire him so much, and because he is such a thoughtful and smart person, people want to hold up his view on pretty much everything as being the gold standard.
00:15:48.120So, you know, they'll have him talk about gun control.
00:15:50.700They'll have him talk about provincial politics.
00:15:53.020They'll have him talk about free speech.
00:20:03.640But with this one, I responded because I know that he's a big boy, and he can handle it.
00:20:08.460I don't want to do what, you know, people like Michael Corrin do and whatnot, which is just find some random on Twitter with three followers and try to ruin their life.
00:20:15.840But if you find, you know, people that you disagree with that you know can take it, sure, I'll get into a back and forth with them.
00:20:35.820It's embarrassing when you are, first off, that thin-skinned.
00:20:39.500But, secondly, when you believe that the Premier of Ontario, who believes in free speech, should not talk to someone else who believes in free speech.
00:20:47.760And when you believe that that belief makes you far right, how do we get out of that hole?
00:20:56.420And I don't think they want to get out of the hole.
00:20:59.720And I've long said that it used to be, it absolutely used to be, where if a policy or a decision or a story or whatever was threatening somehow free speech,
00:21:13.320that was an argument that could sell people.
00:21:15.820You could say, well, actually, this thing that Person X said is not good because it threatens free speech.
00:21:21.860Now the audience that you're saying that to does not necessarily agree that free speech is a good thing.
00:21:28.660So if you say, well, Person X says this thing and that's anti-free speech, they're going to say, so what?
00:21:34.640And you're going to have to go back a step and start selling them on whether free speech is a good thing.
00:21:40.960And you won't get an agreement because now we've created this culture.
00:21:45.660And I saw Jonathan Haidt, the professor who wrote the book, The Righteous Mind, is coming to Toronto in a few weeks.
00:21:51.040And I'm going to try to go to that because he's a great guy.
00:21:53.880But you look at this discussion that we're having about free speech, which shouldn't be a left-right issue.
00:22:00.700And I know a great many people on the left that are unequivocally in support of free speech.
00:22:05.340But they are part of that old guard of the left.
00:22:08.300They're very much part of that old guard of the left, the people that were in that Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien era or even before of the Liberal Party or the NDPers even that were the actual countercultural activists of the 1960s that were fighting for freedom.
00:22:25.140They were fighting against authoritarianism and they have little to no patience for the culture against free speech that we have now.
00:22:32.040But the free speech question should not be left versus right.
00:22:37.940And the number of people on the left that stand up for free speech is dwindling.
00:22:43.220And the ones that do very quickly are pushed over.
00:22:47.380And you look at Frances Widowson as a great example.
00:23:04.040And Lindsay Shepard, again, a self-professed leftist, believes all the things liberals believe, still believes a lot of the things that liberals believe.
00:23:11.880But because of her belief in free speech, she's a white supremacist.
00:23:14.600Jordan Peterson, who, if you listen to his views, preaches personal responsibility, preaches against toxic masculinity, the real toxic masculinity, preaches about the importance of family, preaches about the importance of charity and compassion, all of these things.
00:23:32.260And he's far-right and white supremacist because he believes in free speech.
00:23:36.600The left has prioritized its hatred of free speech above its love of all other things.
00:23:42.420I don't think if Tommy Douglas, the father of Medicare, were to come back from the grave and say, you know, I don't like censorship, I feel like he would be cast aside as being a white supremacist racist now.
00:23:55.720And the same as anyone else that the liberals have lionized.
00:24:11.000But CBC published this story, and you could tell they wanted to lead people to that conclusion.
00:24:17.700Because by publishing this story, they're saying that it is newsworthy that Doug Ford met with Jordan Peterson, and it's newsworthy that neither tweeted about.
00:25:22.640At first, I didn't even read the story.
00:25:24.520I didn't even read the story because I didn't realize how much this might actually have been news worth.
00:25:29.760And I, interestingly enough, last week, I think it was last week, it might have been two weeks ago, someone was sending me photos from some big public party.
00:25:39.600It might have been Ford Fest that Doug Ford had in his backyard, or, no, it wouldn't have been Ford Fest because that was off-site, but some party, some big backyard barbecue Doug Ford had.
00:25:49.240And there were pictures posted everywhere.
00:25:50.840People were getting pictures with Doug Ford.
00:25:52.560There were students there, and Jordan Peterson was there.
00:25:55.080And I saw that, and I was like, oh, cool, Jordan Peterson went to Doug Ford's party.
00:25:58.100I didn't, little did I know that could have been a news story.
00:26:02.400If I just saved that picture, which was public, and posed it, and I said, Jordan Peterson photographed in the same country as Doug Ford, that would have been a story.
00:26:13.700That would have been a story because two people that the left hates got in a room together, and the left cannot contain that much hatred.
00:26:50.720And you can click and join our Heritage Club.
00:26:53.740It's just a few bucks a month, and it keeps the lights on here and lets the work that we're doing continue to shine because we know the mainstream media is not going to be on your side.
00:27:02.400So if you can help us out, really do appreciate it.