Juno News - True North’s newest contributor： Sue-Ann Levy

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show, and this is a very special

00:00:09.540 episode today because I am being joined by my friend, Sue Ann Levy, longtime colleague

00:00:14.340 over at the Toronto Sun, and she's joining me today because we have a very special announcement.

00:00:19.380 Sue Ann Levy left the Toronto Sun after 31 years of writing for that newspaper, and she's joining

00:00:24.740 True North as a contributor, and we are absolutely elated and so excited to have you as joining

00:00:30.420 our team, part of our team, Sue Ann. You're such a good reporter. You've got such a sense

00:00:35.380 and such an instinct for your investigative reports and following the story, following

00:00:40.040 scoops. So first and foremost, just welcome to the team and welcome to our organization.

00:00:44.420 We're so thrilled to have you. Thank you very much, Candice.

00:00:47.880 So first, before we get into sort of learning a little bit more about you and what you're

00:00:52.400 going to be working on True North, you have the nickname Scoop Levy. Maybe you can tell

00:00:56.080 us a little bit about how you got that nickname. Well, I had to get an email address many, many

00:01:02.620 moons ago. This is about 25 years old, this Scoop Levy address, and I guess I always prided

00:01:11.560 myself on being a head of the pack or not a part of the media pack and setting the agenda.

00:01:18.620 So the name has kind of stuck with me all these years because, you know, love me or

00:01:25.200 hate me. I do find the I have a nose for sniffing out the the stories that nobody wants to tell.

00:01:33.220 Well, you made a really good point there. You talked about the pack of the media, and

00:01:37.140 it's just such a pack mentality. It's really incredible to see. I think part of the reason

00:01:42.200 is because, well, especially the national news is because there's so many CBC reporters,

00:01:47.280 and they basically all have the same worldview. They're kind of given the same ideas of what

00:01:52.380 stories to cover, and everyone just kind of follows. There's not a lot of divergence. There's

00:01:56.760 not a lot of original thinking in these media packs. So how did you come to form your own

00:02:03.060 path? And how did you resist kind of joining that pack over the years?

00:02:07.580 It was hard. And I actually write about it in my book from 2016, Underdog, which we shamelessly,

00:02:14.900 we plugged our books together. And I remember at a federal convention years ago. And I write about

00:02:21.040 the fact that I was actually mocked over the years by City Hall journalists, because I didn't run with

00:02:29.000 the pack. And they would sort of isolate me when I was actually located at City Hall. It was quite

00:02:35.900 uncanny what happened. And then they'd secretly follow me, you know, a week or two later, because 0.52

00:02:42.640 the story wasn't really theirs until they got it. But yeah, it was hard. You had to be really, really

00:02:48.620 tough. And I observed a really lot of a lot of bad behavior. The difference in the last couple of years

00:02:56.100 is that they would make fun of me or whisper or whatever. But now it's become quite brutal with

00:03:03.720 the bullying on social media and the attempts to silence you on social media to dig out, you know,

00:03:11.400 dirt they think is dirt from 12, 14 years ago. It's, it's really, I mean, if these people spent as much

00:03:18.220 time actually chasing a story as they do trying to denigrate people who do real journalism, it would

00:03:25.040 be interesting, the world would be quite different, I think. Yeah, if only they could channel their 0.99

00:03:29.460 energy for good instead of what they choose to do. And we obviously get that a lot at True North,

00:03:34.300 Sue Ann. And it's sort of funny, sometimes, you know, True North will break a story. And then,

00:03:38.160 oh, all of a sudden, it'll show up in the mainstream media a week later. And, you know,

00:03:41.440 what, well, at the same time, you see journalists speaking off on Twitter, you know, they know,

00:03:46.420 they know a scoop when they see one. And a lot of times they do end up following us,

00:03:50.400 I think you've had a bit of a contrarian view on COVID. And I know that's something that here at

00:03:54.980 True North, you know, we're really critical of the lockdowns. And we've seen a lot of abuse of power

00:03:59.680 and a lot of, you know, the country going in really dark ways in some regards, just with regards to,

00:04:04.580 you know, giving up our liberties and saying that we would rather have safety than freedom.

00:04:10.080 Why don't you talk a little bit about some of your reporting on COVID?

00:04:12.760 Yeah, I did a lot. And particularly the closure of our border, which we're going on, what,

00:04:19.120 15 months, 16 months, where we can't cross over into the United States. And I did a lot of stories

00:04:25.480 about having been down in Florida, I own a home down there. I did a lot of stories of people just

00:04:30.740 really fully vaccinated, trying to come back to Canada and cross the border and the hoops they had

00:04:37.660 to jump through, myself included, after being fully vaccinated. And the ridiculous use of resources

00:04:44.740 by the government, the federal government and using Switch Health and the absolute madness and chaos with

00:04:53.320 respect to tests, quarantine tests on day one and on day eight. I did a lot of that, the fines that

00:05:01.620 people were presented at the airport, really, by, I guess, most times, border guards or cops,

00:05:11.800 who decided selectively who would get a fine. And the fines went from $3750, if you refuse to go to

00:05:19.520 a COVID hotel, to $5,000. It was outrageous. And I know a lot of people are fighting those fines.

00:05:26.040 So that was one thing I really focused on. And, you know, finally, they've lifted the hotel quarantine,

00:05:35.700 which was absolutely a waste of time and ridiculous. And but we still can't cross the border,

00:05:41.360 which is another insane, absolutely insane part of this whole discussion. The other thing is that

00:05:50.800 we have leaders who set goalposts, like Rob, Rob Ford, may he rest in peace, Doug Ford, his brother,

00:05:58.620 our premier, who set goalposts, say you have certain number have to be vaccinated with one vaccine,

00:06:04.480 and a certain number have to be fully vaccinated. And we'll go to what they call stage three,

00:06:08.960 where you can engage in indoor dining, gyms can open, that kind of thing. Well, we've reached those

00:06:15.900 goalposts, but he's saying for two more weeks, July 23, the earliest, can we go into restaurants,

00:06:23.640 we can actually sit inside restaurants. Now, Candace, I was down in Florida in April, and I was

00:06:28.400 dining inside. Most provinces in Canada, not only have indoor dining at this point, but they've

00:06:36.160 relieved their mask laws. Here in Toronto, our medical officer of health, who was really slow off the

00:06:43.000 mark to actually clamp down and get measures put in place and didn't recognize community spread is

00:06:50.220 now telling us we have to wear masks till October 1st in Toronto, if we want to go inside any location.

00:06:57.360 It's wild. And I read that, well, I read on True North, actually, that Ontario is the only jurisdiction

00:07:02.640 in all of North America right now that still requires masks inside. And I think one thing that

00:07:08.360 maybe some viewers across the country don't really realize that Toronto has had the strictest

00:07:14.700 lockdowns, the most intense measures. It's also the densest, most urban place in the whole country.

00:07:20.480 So, you know, while other Canadians might be able to, you know, go to a park or go enjoy,

00:07:25.440 you know, some time outside, so many people in Toronto are stuck in these tiny little

00:07:29.400 condos or townhouses where they don't really have backyards. It's been incredibly tough on people

00:07:35.540 in Toronto, you would think that the mainstream media would be onto that story because so many

00:07:40.400 of them live in Toronto. And yet, that's not really the narrative that you see at all.

00:07:45.380 The narrative is, these lockdowns are good for you. And the mainstream media perpetuates this

00:07:51.200 narrative. And I was appalled to see that, you know, when I've tweeted or gone on social media to

00:07:58.140 say enough with the masks, enough with the lockdowns. I don't understand why people are

00:08:05.740 jogging outside and biking with masks on. I got such pushback from people who've been totally

00:08:14.200 indoctrinated by our political, I use quotations, leaders. They've been totally indoctrinated.

00:08:20.760 And they think that this is good for them, that they're protecting other people, even though doctors

00:08:26.940 and medical experts have said that you can't spread anything outside. And besides, I'm vaccinated.

00:08:33.420 So I'm not going to be jogging with a mask on. And I'm not going to be biking with a mask on.

00:08:39.180 I'm sorry. And I look at people who are and I think, my God, is this like a comfort blanket or

00:08:45.080 something? You know, like when you were little and you had a little teddy and a blanket,

00:08:48.240 they can't let it go or have our leaders instilled incredible fear, incredible fear in these people.

00:08:55.500 Well, it's so it's so funny, Sue, because I think for years, people on the right,

00:08:59.920 conservatives who are afraid or at least, you know, ringing the alarm bell, showing some concern

00:09:04.540 for policies surrounding immigration, mass migration, specifically immigration from war zones

00:09:11.120 where people have the ISIS ideology and they might be coming to Canada. You know, we were spreading 0.97

00:09:15.580 or, you know, we were sending a message that this should be a policy that should be thought

00:09:21.340 through. And, you know, we should we should spend some time thinking about it before we just open

00:09:25.060 our borders. And the sort of mainstream media and left wing activists accuse people like you and I

00:09:29.900 of fear mongering and scare mongering and creating a moral panic around these issues. And it was so

00:09:35.720 rich and so ironic for me to see how they've all reacted with COVID, because the things that they

00:09:40.760 accused us of doing, which we weren't really doing, is exactly what they're doing when it comes to

00:09:45.420 COVID. They're fear mongering, they're insisting that, you know, this is the end of, you know,

00:09:49.640 end of civilization. This is, this is a collapse. And if we don't follow all of their very strict

00:09:53.640 edicts, you know, we'll all die or something like that. It's, it's so rich and so hypocritical. 0.99

00:09:59.460 But you mentioned, you mentioned Rob Ford, and I know you've been critical of his brother, Doug, 0.89

00:10:06.060 but you've, you've covered four mayors in Toronto over the years. And I wonder, you know, maybe you

00:10:12.260 can you can tell us what some of your favourite moments covering those mayors and, and maybe who

00:10:16.520 is your favourite mayor out of all the all the Toronto mayors that you've covered?

00:10:20.380 Well, I had the most empathy for Rob Ford, because I thought that the pack mentality, the bullies,

00:10:26.020 you know, just descended on him, and, you know, criticised him for his addictions. I think he

00:10:33.120 actually did a tremendous amount of good for the first year and a half, until he got derailed.

00:10:38.200 These are the same people who propose, who purport to support or support safe injection sites. In other

00:10:45.740 words, enabling drug addicts to continue to take their drugs, but with safe and clean needles. And we've

00:10:53.560 got nine of those in Toronto. It's ridiculous. But, but it was, it wasn't okay. This horrible, 0.91

00:11:00.600 this man was horrible for having, being human and having addictions. And, you know, so the, the,

00:11:07.960 the mob mentality just made me sick. So that was one time when I was completely bullied for

00:11:14.380 supporting him and understanding. I think my favourite mayor, though, was Mel Lastman. He was a

00:11:21.020 character. He was a showman. He really did love Toronto. And he had a massive job to do to bring

00:11:27.620 together six cities and a metro regional jurisdiction into one. And there was a lot of chaos. I was at

00:11:36.140 City Hall from 1998, when amalgamation was first announced. And I think he did a tremendous job,

00:11:42.860 all things considered. Unfortunately, when you brought the seven jurisdictions together, the city

00:11:50.140 of Toronto mentality Toronto proper has dominated for the last well since 1998. The free spending,

00:11:58.700 the leftist mentality, the safe protection sites, enabling the vulnerable, not giving them a hand up,

00:12:06.460 giving them a hand out, giving and not giving them a hand up. So I mean, I think Mel's instincts were

00:12:14.780 terrific. He, you know, he tried to promote Toronto as best he could. He was very aware of tourism and

00:12:21.820 the need to bring people to Toronto. He had a little trouble during SARS. And when he got up, I mean,

00:12:28.140 one of my favourite moments is when he got on CNN and said, who's the who? I remember all those things,

00:12:33.900 or the boiling pot. When he talked about, you know, in Mombasa, when they were bidding for the Olympics,

00:12:40.460 and they were he had to go to Mombasa, and he didn't want to go because people were boiled in 0.99

00:12:45.260 pots. I mean, he was indicative of his era. Let's put it that way. And he also accused me of not loving

00:12:51.580 Toronto one time when I asked him a hard question. I mean, quite the opposite. David Miller probably was

00:12:59.020 my best time because he was a leftist. He didn't pretend to be anything else.

00:13:04.220 Union backed. And I got, as they say in the business, brown envelopes, you know what brown

00:13:09.260 are. I got a lot of stories slipped to me because I became the official opposition. I had a great

00:13:15.340 number of years with him. And the the the bullying we talked about really occurred during those years,

00:13:20.780 because I didn't run with the pack. And, and Rob Ford, we talked about indeed. And John Tory

00:13:27.180 has been a huge disappointment to me. I on my son departure video, I said no comment,

00:13:34.220 but I can be a little more open with you. I think he proposed he promoted himself as a conservative.

00:13:42.220 This term, he swung totally to the left. He's terrible at making decisions. He puts his finger

00:13:48.220 to the wind. But he's been totally dominated by the leftist mentality downtown. And I think

00:13:53.580 the city has not been better for his mayoralty. I think the city has really gone downhill. And

00:13:57.900 I grieve that every day when I see the city around me.

00:14:01.740 Well, especially under COVID. I mean, it's just been tremendous to sort of is becoming a ghost town

00:14:07.260 because no one wants to be there. And it just makes no sense and the stuff they're doing.

00:14:11.580 Right. I was just downtown yesterday on Queen Street. And the shops are sort of open or a lineup

00:14:18.780 to get into some of them. Some are closed. Every third one has a release sign every third storefront.

00:14:24.300 And there are people lying on the sidewalk. The first, my first thing, when I parked my car,

00:14:30.620 and I do mostly bike downtown, I have to tell you, my new e-bike, but I took the car because it was a

00:14:37.100 rainy day. And I got out of the car and there was a drugged out young man, it was so sad, talking to a

00:14:44.460 hydro box. And this is what we see more often than not in downtown Toronto now. And it's,

00:14:50.860 it's, it's very sad. It's really sad. And I can't believe that tourists won't notice this. And it's

00:14:57.740 been escalating over the last couple of years. That's so sad. Well, let's, let's talk a little

00:15:02.220 bit about True North and what our audience can expect from you or what kind of stories you're going

00:15:08.060 to be working on for us. Well, I'm starting off the mark with, you know, just what we've talked about,

00:15:15.020 how COVID has affected business in Toronto and how our politicians and our mayor is totally tone

00:15:22.220 deaf when it comes to the fact that their every third storefront is, has a for lease sign and has

00:15:28.540 spent more time cheerleading to tell people to get vaccines than really being concerned about the

00:15:34.460 Toronto around him. So that's one of them. The other thing is statue, statue, statue. So we talk about

00:15:40.780 taking down statues. All we've heard lately, Candace, is Sir John A. McDonnell is terrible.

00:15:46.860 Uh, you know, uh, Ryerson, uh, Egerton Ryerson, excuse me, Egerton Ryerson, the terrible thing they did,

00:15:57.500 uh, the activists did here in Toronto where they took off his head and totally defaced the statue.

00:16:03.420 Really a vandalism, an act of vandalism, no one was charged, trotted the head off to Lake Ontario, dipped it

00:16:10.380 in Lake Ontario. I mean, it was just such a puerile act. So they're taking statues down, all the

00:16:16.860 activists, but the left have decided to put a statue up of one of their own. A councillor in downtown

00:16:24.140 Toronto, Pam McConnell, who was a councillor for many, many years, 30 years plus, um, is having a statue

00:16:31.980 erected in her honour. She passed away in 2017 and they're going to be spending money on erecting a

00:16:39.820 statue of her during this time when we really need the money for so many other things. By the way,

00:16:46.620 no statues proposed for Rob Ford. Well, that's no surprise given who, uh, you know, who controls

00:16:53.340 the purse strings over at, uh, City Hall. Well, Sue Ann, you're such a huge asset and you're so

00:16:58.940 important to the world of journalism. Uh, I know you're retiring and you're retired now, so we promise

00:17:04.300 not to work you too hard, but I think that, you know, you still have so much to offer and True North is

00:17:08.940 just so pleased to have you as part of our team. Oh, thank you very much. And I, I think I will

00:17:13.660 really enjoy, um, you know, doing the real journalism, as they say, not that I haven't practiced it over

00:17:21.100 the years, but you know, I, I'm really looking forward to it. Great. Well, I think we're all

00:17:25.980 looking forward to, uh, what you do for us for True North. Thank you so much for joining the Candace

00:17:29.820 Malcolm show. I am Candace Malcolm.

Juno News - July 08, 2021

True North’s newest contributor： Sue-Ann Levy

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