Juno News - True North’s Investigative Reporting EXPOSES Critical Race Theory in Canada

00:00:00.000 True North has been sounding the alarm bell about critical race theory, its presence in our schools

00:00:04.540 and the threat posed by the woke left for a very long time. Today we'll talk to one of the reporters

00:00:10.020 on the front lines of this issue. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:19.440 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to The Candice Malcolm Show. I hope everybody is

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00:00:55.960 to The Candice Malcolm Show. And if you're on Google or Apple Podcasts, please leave us a five-star

00:01:00.500 review if you enjoy the show. Okay, today I am pleased to be joined by one of the star reporters

00:01:06.260 here at True North, Sue Ann Levy. Sue Ann is an investigative journalist and reporter with True

00:01:11.360 North. She recently retired after 30 years of investigative reporting and writing columns for

00:01:17.340 the Toronto Sun and Post Media. Sue Ann is a two-time investigative reporting award winner and a nine-time

00:01:24.660 winner of Toronto Sun's Reader Choice Award for news writing. Sue Ann Levy made a name for herself by

00:01:30.860 advocating for the poor, the homeless, the elderly and long-term care facilities and others without a

00:01:36.500 voice and for fighting against the rise of anti-Semitism and the BDS movement across Canada.

00:01:43.080 Sue Ann, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Candice.

00:01:47.120 So we were talking before air and you informed me that you joined True North in July. I have to say,

00:01:53.160 I thought it had been longer. It feels like you've been with us for much longer, Sue Ann,

00:01:56.920 but you're such a great addition to our team and we really are fortunate to have you reporting for

00:02:02.220 us. So let's talk about the last six months that you have been on staff with True North and reporting

00:02:08.780 and doing your investigations for us. Let's go through some of the biggest stories that you have

00:02:13.360 broken. So from your perspective, Sue Ann, what has been the biggest thing that you've uncovered for

00:02:18.360 True North since joining our team? Well, I think the explosion of anti-Black racism initiatives has

00:02:24.960 taken even me by surprise. The selective, we'll call it racism, where Black students are singled out,

00:02:34.300 even though they comprise a very small part of the populations of the school boards in the

00:02:41.600 greater Toronto area. We're talking about Toronto School Board. We're talking about the Peel School

00:02:46.800 Board and all the initiatives and all the pandering that has occurred and all the time and resources

00:02:53.980 that have gone into developing special woke initiatives to deal with Black students and Black

00:03:01.860 staff. So that has actually really surprised me, but I shouldn't be surprised because during COVID,

00:03:08.220 during the pandemic, a lot of these things were percolating behind closed doors. And, you know,

00:03:14.860 and then I guess parents, a lot of parents and a lot of people in the public have just woken up to

00:03:21.780 the fact that this is occurring now that kids have gone back to school this fall.

00:03:27.280 Well, it's interesting because it was all, from my perspective, it was all in response to the killing

00:03:32.060 of George Floyd in the U.S. the previous summer. And that sort of launched this huge social movement

00:03:38.040 across the U.S. and it spilled over into Canada, into the U.K., into Europe, probably into Australia as well,

00:03:43.220 where, you know, we were having discussions about police brutality and some of the issues around

00:03:48.840 that. And it just seems like this thing has taken on a life of its own, where it's the new trendy

00:03:53.860 leftist thing, critical race theory, you know, this teaching in critical race theory, this idea

00:03:59.520 that somehow if you're Black, you deserve different treatment, which, to your point,

00:04:06.000 that's the definition of racism, to single out a group of people. You know, Canada is an incredibly

00:04:10.340 diverse country. Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the entire world. And here we are

00:04:16.100 cutting out different policies, different rules, different treatment for one group of people. I

00:04:21.400 can't imagine it's going to end well. I can't imagine it's good for anyone. It's certainly not

00:04:24.800 good for Black students who are told that they live in an oppressive system that's against them.

00:04:30.960 What are some of the specific things that you've uncovered here at True North? And, you know,

00:04:36.340 I know it makes your head shake, but maybe you can sort of walk us through some of the crazy

00:04:40.560 things that they're doing.

00:04:42.100 Well, Peel School Board, for example, only teachers who have, I guess, intervened in some

00:04:50.060 act of oppression, and who have studied equity and diversity, specifically anti-Black racism,

00:04:59.480 are being promoted to principal and vice principal. So there's a specific, selective view

00:05:05.840 view of what comprises leadership, rather than academics, mentoring, that kind of thing.

00:05:16.700 That has totally been ignored, and that's happening this fall at the Peel School Board.

00:05:22.840 At the Toronto School Board, the new director who came from Peel and is a Black activist and

00:05:30.100 allies yourself with a Black Lives Matter movement, hired Desmond Cole to give a series of talks. In

00:05:37.280 September, four talks for which he earned $16,000 of taxpayer money, and during which he deviated into

00:05:48.180 a rant about Palestine, and a very anti-Semitic rant. He even brought up me that I was the most hateful

00:05:55.540 columnist in Canada, because I had covered other anti-Semitism at the board, and went on and on and

00:06:01.940 on to the shock and chagrin of many of the people who attended. The director never apologized to the

00:06:10.100 Jewish community. It was a terribly anti-Semitic rant. He did it on the Monday, September 20th, and then

00:06:15.780 was allowed to continue with the two talks on September the 23rd, which was shocking to me that

00:06:22.020 they didn't put a stop to it.

00:06:25.700 Yeah, I mean, that's wild, and I know that you and Desmond Cole have not quite seen eye to eye, but he seems a

00:06:31.940 little bit obsessed with you, Sue Ann, I must say. The fact that he just sort of randomly brought you up

00:06:35.940 there was a little bit strange. I think you live rent-free in his head. And so, Sue Ann, you've covered some

00:06:44.260 other big stories for us. The memorable one for me was this incredible story of the tent cities and the

00:06:51.060 squatters who really took over Toronto parks. And, you know, I understand that the pandemic was a

00:06:56.980 really rough time for a lot of people, and that a lot of people really struggled. The homeless

00:07:01.620 population did increase, and it just seemed like a terrible way to deal with it by allowing people 1.00

00:07:07.380 to live in parks. And as you reported, a lot of it devolved into crime. It wasn't even necessarily,

00:07:14.260 you know, the people who were showing up weren't necessarily even the homeless people themselves.

00:07:17.300 They were the hard-left activists that were just there for a fight against the police.

00:07:21.860 And you covered this issue in depth. So why don't you walk us through that story,

00:07:27.540 and then let us know what the latest development is with these tent cities.

00:07:31.700 Well, good news is that a number of the parks have been cleaned out for the winter. The bad news is that

00:07:36.340 they're still occupying several parks in downtown Toronto. What happens is they move from park to park.

00:07:42.660 And while I was, you know, with you, I had the fortunate occasion to go into Dufferin Grove Park,

00:07:51.380 where there was a group of Indigenous people who chased myself and our videographer out of the park,

00:07:57.460 screaming, you know, that we were filming their sacred fire. And for one thing, I didn't even know

00:08:04.980 there was a fire there. But for the other, it really showed how these people have taken control

00:08:11.380 of these parks and think they're their own. And they get very agitated because they, you know,

00:08:18.020 they're upset with us coming in and writing about it when in fact they're public parks.

00:08:22.980 The thing that concerns me is, aside from all the crime, the drug dealing, the unsafe conditions,

00:08:28.980 unsanitary, the rats, there are hotel shelters that have been put in place across the city

00:08:35.540 by the city of Toronto, costing $220 a night. There's one that has been very controversial

00:08:42.100 down on the Esplanade of Toronto, which is a tourist area, a top tourist area, in the Novotel. Now,

00:08:48.580 the owners of the Novotel, the Silver Hotel Group, have rented out several of their hotels,

00:08:54.900 leased them out to the city during COVID because they, of course, weren't getting tourists. And

00:09:01.300 those hotels have been turned into a crime scene. It's absurd. So first of all, there are hotels where

00:09:06.820 these people can go. And the fact that some are still in parks is just obscene in my view. But then

00:09:13.620 you've got these people in these upscale hotels, in tourist areas, in nice districts, law-abiding

00:09:21.460 communities, just wreaking havoc on the communities. There's been crime. There's a group of people

00:09:29.860 down by the Esplanade who live in, you know, very nice condo buildings attached to the Novotel,

00:09:35.860 who've documented weekly what's going on down there. Fires, arson, smash and grabs, bike. They have a

00:09:45.140 whole bike ring operating out of the hotel. Drug dealing. I revealed a couple of weeks ago that

00:09:51.220 they had found three long guns in the hotel. I mean, it's absurd, Candace, what is going on. And

00:09:58.740 the mayor and council seem to be turning a blind eye to all of it. They put on a few extra police

00:10:05.700 officers. But other than that, it's continuing. Well, the lawlessness is what is so striking, Sue Ann.

00:10:12.420 And I remember when you went down to that park, Dufferin Grove, and you filmed it. You know, the

00:10:17.700 attitude of the leftist thugs, they're so anti-democratic, anti-freedom that they didn't

00:10:22.900 think that it was your right to film them. It's like, hey, look, I'm a journalist. I do have a

00:10:27.220 right to be here. We're in a public park. Like, I can't imagine, you know, the alternative if a group

00:10:33.700 of right-wing activists, you know, physically stopped journalists from recording them and tried

00:10:39.220 to say that they don't have a right to do their journalism, what the response would have been. I know

00:10:43.220 it would have been the biggest story in the country, of course, when it happens to us.

00:10:47.620 The other journalists don't bat an eye. But yeah, you alluded to something else that I

00:10:53.300 think is a really troubling trend. And that is the enabling of hard drug use. And I know that this

00:10:58.900 is a story that you covered a lot. I know there was that crazy story out in Vancouver of a city

00:11:04.580 councillor actually helping to hand out heroin and other very, very serious drugs on the streets of

00:11:11.140 Vancouver. Where does this trend come from, Sue Ann? What is going on in the world where

00:11:17.460 politicians enable this kind of hard drug use? It's wild. It is all coming up from the states,

00:11:23.300 unfortunately. And our city, as I've pointed out in the past, is fast becoming like a Seattle,

00:11:30.020 like Portland, like San Francisco. Thankfully, there is a Conservative mayor who's been voted in

00:11:37.940 in Seattle, who has vowed to clean up these encampments and the drug use. But here, unfortunately,

00:11:45.620 we've got all these safe injection sites and harm reduction sites located in shelters, where homeless

00:11:52.500 people are allowed to take their drugs, their illegal drugs, but safely. And they go into rooms and

00:11:59.300 they're shot up with clean needles, then sent back out on the street, or in the case of the shelters,

00:12:04.500 they're allowed to roam the streets. And so they've taken their drugs, but safely. But what does this

00:12:10.420 attract? This attracts drug dealers to these sites. And I've actually physically been down to some of

00:12:16.020 these sites and seen where they operate. The drug dealers were operating out of a bus shelter

00:12:21.060 at Dundas and Sherbourne, as I discovered a summer ago. So it's increased drug dealing. Of course,

00:12:27.700 there's increased turf battles. And I take great exception to the enabling of drug addicts. They're

00:12:37.380 supposed to be a component of rehab that's not included. The drug harm reduction industry is in

00:12:43.620 just full throttle trying to intimidate those, including me, who speak up against this enabling

00:12:50.500 philosophy. And you asked about what to watch. Well, the Toronto Public, the Toronto Board of Health is

00:12:57.780 looking to get some sort of approval from the Government of Canada to make illegal drugs, you know,

00:13:07.380 to decriminalize illegal drug use in the city. So this is something we've got to watch over the next

00:13:13.620 couple of months. And knowing Trudeau and knowing his government, that could happen.

00:13:20.420 It's like they all outdo themselves to find out who can be the most progressive and the most insane.

00:13:25.220 I mean, the idea that we're enabling drug use and saying it's okay and facilitating it and creating

00:13:30.980 incentives for it, Sue Ann, what does that say about us as a society? I mean, wow. You mentioned that

00:13:36.980 Seattle elected a new mayor that was more on the conservative side. That's interesting. I know we

00:13:42.020 have a couple of elections coming up in Ontario in 2022. So I'm looking forward to your coverage

00:13:48.580 already, Sue Ann, but why don't you walk us through what those elections are and, you know, who's 0.99

00:13:53.220 running? Do we have any new candidates running for mayor in Toronto? Well, not at the moment, but we are

00:14:00.420 really crying for somebody to come in and clean up the city. I am not, as I've made it clear, a fan of

00:14:08.100 the current mayor or the current council. I think they've bent over backwards to the special interest

00:14:13.380 groups and the city has deteriorated immensely. The roads are a mess. We've got drug addicts roaming

00:14:21.620 the downtown core. We have, you know, as I've talked about, encampments and this whole enabling

00:14:28.580 philosophy has just taken Toronto down a very dark path and there are a lot of people who would agree

00:14:33.540 with me. But it sounds like John Tory is thinking of running again and I think he needs a strong

00:14:40.500 conservative to come up against him. Someone like the gentleman in Seattle who came and I think people

00:14:47.380 are crying for that kind of change. So I'm hoping to see over the next couple months someone come out

00:14:53.460 of the woodwork. I'm calling for candidates. As far as Ontario is concerned, this is going to be,

00:15:00.980 and I'll just backtrack to John Tory for a minute because here he is spending his time pushing

00:15:07.220 vaccines for small children instead of dealing with the real issues of the city. The man has become

00:15:13.860 a vaccine cheerleader. It's actually sickening to watch his social media feed and they've all succumbed

00:15:20.980 to this pandemic. I don't know. They so absorbed by the pandemic that nothing else matters. And the same for

00:15:32.340 Doug Ford, although he's a little bit better with some other things. And I think that the election,

00:15:38.660 the Ontario election is going to be a real test of how he's dealt with the pandemic, how he's dealt with

00:15:45.220 leadership. Of course, what's haunting him is how terribly the long-term care homes were afflicted

00:15:53.460 by pandemic. I myself lost my father to COVID in a facility, not one of the worst ones, one of the

00:16:04.020 better ones. But I mean, how many people lost their lives? It was thousands of seniors lost their lives in

00:16:12.020 these terrible long-term care facilities. And I don't see much movement, frankly, in terms of how

00:16:19.780 they've improved over the last year. Lots of talk, not a lot of action. That should be one of the top

00:16:26.820 issues. I'm not sure it will be because, you know, seniors don't really matter. It'll be, you know, how

00:16:32.500 many crumbs he provides in terms of daycare, whether he appeals to the woke crowd, you know how it works.

00:16:39.220 Absolutely. Well, Doug Ford is usually pretty good about not going down that path, although

00:16:46.020 when it comes to policy, he's much more susceptible to flip-flopping where he'll, you know, he came out

00:16:52.500 and he said no to the vaccine passports. He said he didn't want to divide society up that way. And then

00:16:56.900 a few weeks later, he kind of came around to the expert opinion that that was the only way to go.

00:17:02.180 And, you know, that's just one example. It has happened many times. So who are the major contenders

00:17:09.860 against Doug Ford? Because, you know, he's got the name recognition. He's done a pretty good job,

00:17:14.660 you know, just generally speaking. And, you know, we have a new liberal leader that's perhaps not as

00:17:20.820 well-known and an NDP leader that's a little bit stagnant. So what do you think that either of

00:17:27.460 those contenders have a real shot against Ford? No, I don't think so. I actually don't think so.

00:17:33.300 I mean, the unions will try. They've always tried to rule Ontario, particularly the teachers unions,

00:17:39.300 but I see their pushback very weak in terms of on social media and things like that. Andrea Horvath

00:17:46.900 really should step down at this point and find a more inspiring leader. She's run a couple of 1.00

00:17:52.660 elections. And I mean, last election was the election she was supposed to win or come close to winning.

00:17:58.900 She didn't even come close. She's not inspiring. Steven Del Duca is just, I don't know where he is.

00:18:07.620 He is just totally uninspiring, uncreative. He's not leadership material. And look at,

00:18:14.180 they have a caucus of what? I don't know, six people, maybe. Kathleen Wynne is going to call it

00:18:20.900 quits. Thank goodness she's not running again. And, you know, who do they have? Who is going to run?

00:18:30.100 It boggles my mind that the federal liberals did so well in Toronto, really, when the provincial

00:18:37.300 liberals were just basically shut out. I can't understand. It's a great disconnect.

00:18:44.260 Well, it's all that conventional wisdom that people in Ontario are so middle of the road that

00:18:49.220 they're happy to vote. You know, if they vote federally for the liberals, they're going to vote

00:18:52.580 provincially for the Tories. Or maybe it's because all the talented politicians for the liberals have

00:18:58.180 gone federal because they have a better shot at winning there. Well, Sue Ed, thank you so much for

00:19:02.820 joining us at True North. It's so great to have you part of the organization, part of the team. And I know

00:19:08.340 you're going to do great things for us in 2022. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Candice.

00:19:14.260 All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - December 13, 2021

True North’s Investigative Reporting EXPOSES Critical Race Theory in Canada

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