00:00:00.000You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:06.340Everyone has turned 2020, I think, very deservedly into a punchline.
00:00:10.660It's been a very bad year in a lot of ways.
00:00:13.140But for people in media, the silver lining has been there's been no shortage of things to talk about.
00:00:18.180So for True North, it's been certainly a busy year and I'd say a challenging year like it has been for everyone.
00:00:23.820But there's also been a lot that we have done.
00:00:25.860So I wanted to take this opportunity as we are nearing the end of the year here in the next day or so to chat with my friend and colleague, Candice Malcolm,
00:00:34.080who I will say, despite all of the love and adoration I get from my viewers here,
00:00:39.280the one question I always get is, you're great, your show's great, but where's Candice been?
00:00:42.980So, Candice, thanks for coming. Where have you been?
00:00:45.500Well, first, Andrew, thank you so much. Merry Christmas.
00:00:48.040I hope you had a wonderful holiday and same to all of your viewers.
00:00:51.920Yeah, so I've been sort of under the radar for the last few weeks.
00:00:56.060I had a baby in November and so I've been taking the time to spend time with my family and focus on the newborn and the family.
00:01:05.640So I've been away a little, but luckily we did a whole bunch of sort of pre-recorded content.
00:01:10.680So we released a documentary. We had the speaker series.
00:01:13.760We were doing a lot and hopefully I'll be back in no time at all in the new year to produce new content.
00:01:21.920Well, I know everyone is very happy for you.
00:01:24.940I know certainly everyone on the True North team, myself included, is very much.
00:01:29.140But let's talk about how this year has been because I remember at the very beginning of the pandemic when no one knew what was going on.
00:01:36.640We were seeing these terrible stories coming out of China and then Iran and then Italy.
00:01:41.240And you and I, I think with the whole team, really said, OK, we need to be on the front lines of this.
00:01:46.840We know the mainstream media often gets things wrong.
00:01:49.160And we did, I remember the daily True North update shows.
00:01:52.700We were watching Justin Trudeau's daily press conferences so our viewers didn't have to and talking about what was happening.
00:01:59.460And, you know, it was interesting when we first started doing that.
00:02:11.960I mean, it was sort of one of those bizarre things where the narrative was constantly shifting, constantly changing.
00:02:18.040I remember at the very beginning of the pandemic when it was sort of more conservatives that were arguing in favor of wearing face masks.
00:02:25.020And so that was so that we wouldn't have to shut down the entire economy.
00:02:28.000The idea was like, you know, if we just take a few precautions like social distancing and not wearing face masks, then we can keep the economy open and keep going.
00:02:37.040And now, you know, because of the sort of changing message and the much more, I would say, draconian tone behind some of these demands, you know,
00:02:45.460you see more and more conservatives opposing things like like wearing face masks.
00:02:49.920But we've come a very long way, Andrew.
00:02:52.000And looking back at those early days, you know, it was it was really frightening, really concerning watching the government sort of just go back and forth, contradicting itself, flip flopping, you know, changing its mind.
00:03:05.140And it was sort of like a bizarro world, the idea which we live through again during the U.S. federal election, where you had a liberal like Joe Biden saying that he would have done better than Trump did in shutting down the economy faster.
00:03:21.880Well, you know, doesn't take too much of a memory to look back and think, hey, it was January when Trump shut flights down from China.
00:03:29.660And Trudeau refused to do that. And, you know, it wasn't until three months later that Canada took any measures to lock down travel.
00:03:36.760So, you know, we've had we've had a crazy year in terms of the government messaging and the things that we've been told, the back and forth.
00:03:43.700I think I think trust in institutions like the government and like the media is at an all time low just from just from my perception.
00:03:52.760I don't know if there's any polling that backs that up, Andrew, but I think that really this idea that we need to trust experts when those experts are just constantly changing their mind is ridiculous.
00:04:04.260And I think that in that it has created an opportunity for independent journalists like you and I at True North, because, you know, we're not so obsessed with with parroting the talking points and and enforcing this idea that that every expert must be correct.
00:04:19.920And we must, you know, turn off our minds and just listen to whatever the edict is of the day will know, you know, there still needs to be scrutiny.
00:04:28.080There still needs to be questioning just because someone's an expert doesn't necessarily mean that they know any better when it comes to, you know, a mysterious virus from China.
00:04:36.440And I think a lot of people are just completely fed up and sick of these of these orders that we're getting without necessarily the evidence and the data backing it up.
00:04:48.800There's a clip from the original Borat movie that I just remembered, and I haven't thought of that movie since it came out, you know, 10 or 12 or however many years ago, when Borat is at the United Nations and he's just completely making a fool of himself doing things that make no sense.
00:05:05.020And they keep cutting to the expert panel on TV, where people who pretend to know exactly what he's doing talk about, oh, well, why he's doing this is because this and why he's doing this.
00:05:15.180And there's been a lot of that in the pandemic where we are all in unprecedented territory.
00:05:19.660No one knew what we were dealing with.
00:05:52.160And there's just some questions that beg being asked.
00:05:55.120I mean, when the virus first came out, you know, the epicenter was a basically unknown large city, large industrial city in China called Wuhan.
00:06:05.120No one had really ever heard of Wuhan before.
00:06:07.420It was hardly ever mentioned in the media.
00:06:10.400One of the interesting things about Wuhan is it is the home to China's biological warfare labs.
00:06:16.600And I remember raising that question just sort of, you know, kind of almost not casually, but just without having a lot of evidence connecting it, but just saying, hey, look, this is the center of China's biological labs.
00:06:31.400Why isn't that being dug into? Why isn't that being questioned?
00:06:34.460And merely just for raising that question and making that observation, I started getting, you know, hit pieces written about me and people calling me a conspiracy theorist and sort of having this backlash against me just for just for asking the question.
00:06:49.060And, you know, last time I checked, the role of a journalist is to ask questions, sometimes uncomfortable questions, and sometimes the questions that you ask don't lead anywhere, and sometimes they do.
00:06:58.600But the idea that you shouldn't be able to ask certain questions, it just seems so out of line to me.
00:07:04.040And I think that that, again, really has been center in this entire COVID pandemic, all the government lockdowns, is that, you know, we're not really supposed to question the orders that are coming down.
00:07:16.340And yet, Andrew, as you know, sometimes they just make such little sense.
00:07:20.980And when you have so much on the line, you know, a small business owner, a restaurant owner, anybody who earns their living by going out into the world, and governments taking that livelihood away from them, it's incredibly serious.
00:07:33.700And, you know, it deserves pushback and scrutiny.
00:07:36.680I think, to me, one of the most disappointing things that's happened this year, and, you know, Justin Trudeau has been awful, but we expect that at this point.
00:07:45.180I've been really disappointed in Doug Ford and the sort of hysterical tone that has been taken.
00:07:51.460I mean, you know, the biggest story right now, and I know you've been talking about it on your show, is with the minister, Rod Phillips, being down in St. Barts.
00:08:00.120And, you know, the reaction to that from Doug Ford himself has been so over the top.
00:08:05.480I mean, yes, obviously, it's a contradiction when a politician is traveling after telling you and I not to travel.
00:08:12.360But if the government was really serious about a rule that we're not allowed to travel, why haven't they shut down the airports?
00:08:18.240Why are there still flights going in and out of Pearson, Toronto, daily?
00:08:22.320I mean, I'm down in the Bahamas right now.
00:08:26.140And I know there's daily flights that are coming in and out.
00:08:29.280So if the government truly does believe it's beyond the pale and terrible to get on an airplane and travel, why haven't they shut down the flights?
00:08:38.160Why haven't they shut down the airports?
00:08:53.820Yeah, and this was the point I raised earlier in the show, which is that I'm very much pro-travel, but I'm anti-hypocrisy.
00:09:00.560And when you have the government, on one hand, saying, don't go anywhere, make it the year of the Ontario staycation.
00:09:06.420And then, on the other hand, you know, buggering off to St. Barts and then not wanting to disclose where he was or when he was coming back and that sort of stuff.
00:09:14.880I'm, you know, very much in team, let's try to live our lives.
00:09:17.400And, you know, the reality is the politicians who keep talking about how dangerous things are in Canada right now,
00:09:24.140they shouldn't blame people that are going to vacation destinations that, in many cases, have fewer cases than exist in Ontario.
00:09:31.080So, I mean, that's the other irony of this, is that if someone is not breaking the law, they've made a decision,
00:09:36.420they're comfortable with the risk, which always exists when you travel, then I would say have at it.
00:09:41.340But this year, you are bang on that we are not supposed to ask the questions this year,
00:09:46.020whether it was Paddy Hajdu telling people that they were feeding conspiracies if they asked about China's numbers,
00:09:51.900people calling you a conspiracy theorist for talking about or asking about, rather, the biology lab,
00:15:13.060And I appreciate the kind words about the fireside chat.
00:15:15.560I don't know if I would, like, relive that day again.
00:15:17.640But it was still, in the end, one that we can be very happy and very proud of.
00:15:21.480And even in general, the conservative leadership race, I think, is a point of pride.
00:15:25.420Because so often these things are covered through the mainstream media's lens and really in mainstream media terms and context.
00:15:34.520And for us to actually provide a conservative, small-c conservative approach to the issues at stake in the leadership was something that was just completely absent from that race.
00:15:44.080And, I mean, you and I have joked about it in the past, that live stream that we did of the results show that was supposed to be, I think it was, you know, supposed to be like 45 minutes and ended up being over eight hours.
00:15:53.940Again, another day that I wouldn't relive, but we can still be proud of.
00:15:57.380So there was a lot of room for the perspective that we bring and the analysis that we bring.
00:16:03.300What do you want to do with that in 2021?
00:16:04.780Well, I think that we're going to build off the successes that we've had.
00:16:09.180You know, you give a great example with the leadership race.
00:16:11.520I think a lot of Canadians just discovered True North and realized, oh, wow, I don't have to watch, you know, the party that I vote for, the party that I care about, through the lens of the CBC, where they demonize everything and they make it seem controversial just to hold very basic conservative values or Christian values or family values.
00:16:29.100So we provided that alternative. And again, just growing off of that, I know we have a lot more sort of hard-hitting interviews, other documentary series we're looking to expand.
00:16:41.100We've still got our investigative journalism team. We're digging out new stories, putting pressure on politicians in Ottawa in ways that the mainstream media just doesn't, the parliamentary press gallery.
00:16:53.400We're sort of challenging them. I mean, the idea that they have complete reign over Ottawa and that no one else has any right to ask questions.
00:17:02.080We're challenging that not just through True North, but also through the independent press gallery, the idea that journalists can get accredited without being part of that establishment media, that sort of dying breed of big, big corporations running these media companies.
00:17:18.320I think we saw a bit of a preview, Andrew, of what's possible during the US election, where, you know, big, big, you know, high-paid journalists on CNN didn't have the influence that they used to.
00:17:32.120You saw the rise of a lot of independent journalists, a lot of independent outlets outshining the mainstream media.
00:17:38.320You know, more people get their news from Joe Rogan and his podcast on Spotify or Ben Shapiro and his Daily Wire show on YouTube than do, you know, watch the mainstream media.
00:17:50.520And I think that that same thing is possible in Canada and we're, you know, carving the path towards that.
00:17:56.300So I think we've got a lot of really exciting projects and ideas and a lot of momentum that we're going to carry on into 2021.
00:18:04.160Yeah, very much so. And a lot of the things that I wanted to do in 2020, I haven't forgotten about.
00:18:08.840We just had to move them back. So maybe I'll have twice as much on my plate this year.
00:18:13.160Who knows? But you know what? It's all fun stuff and I love doing it.
00:18:15.940And I'm so grateful still that you founded True North and continue to see this organization through all of the different turns and pitfalls and highs and lows of 2020 and beyond.
00:18:26.380So, Candace, thank you very much. Congratulations again on the lovely new baby.
00:18:30.640And thank you for coming on and giving us an update on what's happening for you and for the organization.
00:18:36.200Well, thank you so much. You know, I think family is just so important and I'm enjoying every moment of staying home with my with my baby and focusing on that right now.
00:18:45.900But I haven't forgotten about True North, Andrew.
00:18:48.360And, you know, I just want to quickly say to the viewers, you know, it was it was a really uncertain year.
00:18:54.640There was really a lot of people losing their job, losing their livelihood, and we didn't really know what was going to happen with True North.
00:19:00.980We paused all of our donation attempts. We we stopped fundraising because we just didn't feel right asking people for money.
00:19:07.480We instead encouraged everyone to donate to their local food bank.
00:19:10.520We even created a map for Canadians to find their closest food bank so that they could go and volunteer and donate and help.
00:19:17.440And I was just sort of floored, you know, once the economy sort of started to open back up again in the summer, we started doing our donation pitches again.
00:19:27.080And I was just floored by the support and generosity of our viewers, of our fans out there, because, you know, really, they're the ones that keep us going, Andrew.
00:19:36.520And it was like they appreciated what we were doing more than ever.
00:19:39.540And we actually saw increases in the amount of money that we were making, which helped us, you know, hire new journalists and do new projects.
00:19:46.820So I really just want to say thank you so much to everyone watching, everyone who supports our work and helps keep independent journalists and journalism alive in Canada.