Juno News - What on Earth does Justin Trudeau have planned？

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Hi, welcome to a live edition of True North Update. I'm your host, Candice Malcolm, joined by True

00:01:06.620 North fellow, Andrew Lawton. Andrew, how's it going? Thank you so much for joining me today.

00:01:10.600 It is another Friday in the final few weeks of summer, so I can't complain to you too much.

00:01:15.260 Yeah, I guess summer's officially over now. We're into Labor Day Long Weekend, which came

00:01:19.380 a little late this year. But, you know, given the fact that we've kind of been at a standstill

00:01:24.980 for the past six months it's like you know finally we're going to get back to something

00:01:29.300 I don't know if schools are going back or you know we're going to have parliament back in September

00:01:32.940 but uh you know it's kind of just been like one long slow news cycle for the last six months

00:01:38.000 yeah exactly it is so much so that I don't really know when the point was where we flip to kind of

00:01:43.820 normalcy if we're even there yet so I think we're in somewhat of a weird hybrid hodgepodge of it and

00:01:48.900 who knows I know we'll be talking later on about the possibility of a fall election so maybe we

00:01:53.400 should be be careful what we wish for in that sense of trying to get out of the indefinite

00:01:58.060 vacation or indefinite slump or indefinite news cycle whatever we want to call it yeah exactly

00:02:02.820 we might be catapulted into like you know busy busy weeks for working non-stop but i would be

00:02:08.000 okay well andrew there's a lot to get through in the show today just because uh it seems like

00:02:12.320 there's a lot of things going towards hinting towards what's to come with justin trudeau and

00:02:17.540 his big throne speech that's happening later in september there's been a lot of sort of leaked

00:02:22.700 stories and experts promoting different theories and all this kind of stuff. So let's get to it

00:02:29.280 all because it's really, really interesting. So before we get to this sort of speculation about

00:02:35.120 what's to come in that throne speech, let's go through the job numbers. We learned that according

00:02:39.660 to StatsCan, unemployment has dipped. So the Canadian economy added about a quarter of a

00:02:45.720 million jobs in August, which was sort of a slower pace given that we added 400,000 jobs

00:02:51.340 in July, looks like unemployment rate fell to 10% in August, down from 11% in July. At the height

00:02:58.420 of COVID, the unemployment rate was almost 14%, 13.7. And then if we go back before that, so

00:03:05.660 pre-COVID in February, the unemployment rate was all the way down at 5.6, I think it was. So,

00:03:12.340 you know, our unemployment rate is still double what it had been, but it looks like things are

00:03:15.860 slowly but surely getting back to normal and i wanted to note this this came from a globe and

00:03:22.660 mail store it was sort of buried in but you know you you think about what happened in canada with

00:03:28.300 the canadian economy throughout the covid right we had the covid uh pandemic we're told that we

00:03:33.720 had to shut down the economy true to shut down the economy and said hey look uh because we're

00:03:39.340 forcing you to lose your livelihood essentially forcing you to shut down your business shut down

00:03:43.860 your store, not go to work, will compensate you with CERB, with other kind of benefits.

00:03:50.580 Well, it turns out that in that quarter, so the Canadian households lost a combined $21 billion

00:03:57.640 in employment compensation. And in the same quarter, they received $54 billion in government

00:04:05.360 transfers. So Trudeau's compensation for making people not go to work and shutting down the 0.87

00:04:12.220 economy was almost three times what Canadians lost in income, which is just absolutely staggering

00:04:20.000 number and sort of a recipe for fiscal disaster. I mean, I can't believe this isn't a bigger story,

00:04:26.580 Andrew, when you just think about those numbers. We lost $21 billion in work money, money that we

00:04:32.420 would have earned, and that the government spent $54 billion transferred back to individual

00:04:37.440 Canadians. So, you know, it makes it seem like it's, you know, no problem in Canada. It's better

00:04:42.220 to be unemployed and getting almost three times as much as what you would have earned if you were

00:04:47.680 out there working hard. What did you think about that? Yeah. And one thing that I'd be really

00:04:53.460 interested in seeing, and I don't even know if it's possible to break down the numbers in this

00:04:57.300 way, is see the imbalance of who was getting that 50 some odd billion dollars. And the reason I say

00:05:04.560 that is because I've heard continuously since the very beginning of the federal government's

00:05:09.040 relief program rollout that a lot of employers and businesses were just completely losing

00:05:14.680 a hand over fist, not able to apply or not able to be eligible for some of the programs. And

00:05:20.080 even the ones that they were, they were only really giving a band-aid, if that, on what they

00:05:24.520 were dealing with. And conversely, we've all heard stories of people that were never working

00:05:28.760 that started getting CERB or people that were getting CERB while also taking in money or people

00:05:33.960 who are getting CERB and not really quite clear on whether they were actually eligible,

00:05:38.960 but they were doing it anyway.

00:05:40.540 And remember, at the height of things, we heard that 8 million people had applied, and

00:05:44.860 we don't know how many of those reapplied and got it for multiple months.

00:05:48.540 But even in one single month that had 8 million CERB recipients, that would work out to be

00:05:53.180 about $16 billion.

00:05:55.220 So that right there is about a third of this total amount that we're talking about here.

00:06:01.360 And a lot of it that my concern really rests on is that of that money that outpaces how much people lost in employment compensation, I don't think much of it actually went to employers who were shouldering the burden of a lot of the costs due to the shutdowns.

00:06:16.580 Right. I mean, some of it was there, like deferred mortgages and that kind of thing, but that's still presumably the debt that belongs to the business owner.

00:06:23.400 It's not free cash from the government. So that's a really good point. And with any government scheme, it's going to benefit some people a lot more than others. So I think you're right in imagining that some people were much, much better off given COVID and the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit or CERB, whereas other people obviously lost their business, lost their livelihood, had to go bankrupt, lost their homes, lost everything.

00:06:48.220 So it's not equally distributed, but, you know, it does sort of give you an indicator of, you know,

00:06:55.280 Trudeau came to the Canadian public and said, we're going to shut down the economy, but don't worry,

00:07:00.660 we're going to give you these emergency relief payments.

00:07:04.140 But instead of just covering the lost income, the Trudeau government went on like, you know,

00:07:08.860 a spending bonanza and just racked up record debt.

00:07:12.260 I think our current deficit is approaching $400 billion at this point.

00:07:16.360 And so much more is to come.

00:07:19.440 You know, every pet project that any liberal could ever dream of is now either in the works or being written up as we speak for the throne speech.

00:07:28.080 So I think what we're seeing is just an incredible case study, Andrew, in a government acting without any restraints whatsoever and just basically spending any money that it can think of, which kind of makes you think that they're gearing towards an election.

00:07:43.820 The more that I see Trudeau and all of these spending proposals and promises, it really feels like we are heading towards an election and Trudeau is doing the thing that politicians love to do, which is bribing the public with their own money.

00:07:57.560 So John Iverson, a columnist over at the National Post, had a story really interesting.

00:08:03.720 The headline was Trudeau's literally frightening spending plan has some liberals and bureaucrats very worried.

00:08:10.080 If you have liberals and bureaucrats worried about federal spending, then I think, you know, you're going above and beyond, even for Justin Trudeau.

00:08:19.020 But basically just a bunch of quotes from civil servants and liberal insiders saying that, you know, whatever the liberals do have planned, it's something that is extraordinary, that they're embarking on a major policy shift, that they're not at all worried about deficits, that there's going to be structural changes in the way that government operates.

00:08:38.260 basically sounds like they're going to unleash some kind of a utopian socialist plan, Andrew,

00:08:44.620 where we remake our entire economy, snap our fingers and turn it green and, you know,

00:08:50.880 built with pixie dust and rainbows. But, you know, the more I read about it,

00:08:56.080 and there were several leaks, not just John Iveson. We saw something like this in a Bloomberg article

00:09:00.520 talking about how Chrystia Freeland has been tapped to basically reimagine the Canadian economy

00:09:08.160 and redesign all these fiscal programs,

00:09:10.880 it feels like something big is coming down the pike.

00:09:14.860 And I don't know, judging from these leaks,

00:09:17.200 it sounds pretty terrifying.

00:09:19.020 Trudeau, you know, he was pretending

00:09:20.720 to at least be modest all this way.

00:09:22.800 And now suddenly, you know,

00:09:24.380 we're getting the full socialist,

00:09:27.080 you know, no more liberals, you know, taking it slow.

00:09:31.460 We're going full speed ahead

00:09:32.680 down that fiscal ruinous path towards socialism.

00:09:35.800 What do you make of all this?

00:09:36.740 If so, it would really explain why that relationship between Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau got as fractured as it did, to such a point that Morneau left to take on an international role with the OECD.

00:09:48.800 And listen, I mean, the nature of politics is that we'll know when we know.

00:09:52.220 I do think that Justin Trudeau has typically been hampered by some of the more centrist traditions in the Liberal Party.

00:09:59.560 And if you go back to 2015, it seems like gradually those people are being pushed further and further out.

00:10:05.660 And I mean, again, this is not calling people in the Liberals conservatives by any stretch, but you had people that were not socialists that were in there, people like John McCallum, Stéphane Dion, Bill Morneau, and more and more of these people are finding themselves on the outskirts, and it's the Freelands, the McKennas, the Trudeaus that are occupying a larger and larger share of the Liberal caucus and of the Liberal brand.

00:10:27.760 So I wouldn't be surprised with it. Remember, the Liberals were uninterested in reigning in the deficit when the economy was good because they said we could afford to spend. When the economy is bad, they say, well, now we need deficits because we need to spend to keep us out of ruin in families.

00:10:43.140 Trudeau has been very indignant when asked about debt by saying, well, I mean, the government can borrow cheaply, so it's really no issue, even though a low interest rate is still interest.

00:10:51.360 And we're talking about billions and billions that are going to be spent on servicing this debt with no end in sight whatsoever for getting rid of the deficit, let alone chipping away at the debt.

00:11:02.900 So there are big problems here, and these things are not theoretical issues.

00:11:06.500 But the problem is that the Trudeau government has always focused more on trying to sell what it's buying without having to worry about how they're actually paying for it or how they're pretending to pay for it.

00:11:18.220 Right. And in that regard, I mean, the fact that so right now, as it currently stands, I mean, Canada's debt is higher than it's ever been.

00:11:25.000 It's basically it's double what it was a decade ago.

00:11:27.380 And Trudeau seems to be dead set on doubling it again.

00:11:31.840 We pay about 9 percent of the total revenue to government towards servicing the debt.

00:11:36.160 And that's an environment with low interest rates and before Trudeau adds his next spending bonanza.

00:11:41.120 So you can only imagine what would happen if, you know, the economy shifts and we get plunged into a further recession.

00:11:48.560 If interest rates do go up, I mean, I mean, then you're talking about a much bigger percentage of the federal revenue going towards servicing the debt, which, again, is just a waste of money.

00:12:00.140 It's like money going to bankers and to into Bay Street instead of going towards social services for Canadians.

00:12:06.740 So you're going to end up with higher taxes or reduced spending or some kind of a combination.

00:12:10.980 It's like we've already been here. We lived through this. This happened in the 90s.

00:12:14.560 You know, Trudeau Sr. introduced massive new spending programs that were never reined in the 70s and 80s, just completely categorized by growth and spending with a slumpish economy.

00:12:24.960 And then by the 90s, Canada was almost bankrupt.

00:12:27.020 And the sort of lesson that everyone learned in all the parties was, you know, OK, we need to have a modicum of fiscal responsibility.

00:12:33.640 And Trudeau is just completely throwing that out the door.

00:12:37.660 And, you know, the way that they're speaking, the leaks that we're seeing in the media and the way that Trudeau himself is talking, it seems like this is just the beginning, Andrew, because they have something even more ambitious to come.

00:12:48.860 So here is a clip of Justin Trudeau alluding to just that.

00:12:52.860 And just note at the end of the clip, it's a two minute clip.

00:12:56.520 So, you know, he talks about why he's doing this, what he thinks that Canadians want, how he wants to rebuild the economy and make it more equitable, more green, yada, yada, yada.

00:13:06.680 But then he specifically says that he doesn't have a democratic mandate to do this, which I find very interesting.

00:13:12.300 Let's play that clip.

00:13:14.100 Prime Minister, you've been having virtual meetings today with business leaders in B.C. about the green recovery.

00:13:19.800 What specifics were discussed in these meetings and how will this green recovery help businesses recover from the COVID crisis?

00:13:30.320 Well, I think one of the things, you know, when we talk about a green recovery, what we're actually talking about is a long term recovery for our economy.

00:13:39.900 We know the world is going towards greater energy efficiency.

00:13:43.840 We know the world is going towards lower carbon.

00:13:46.380 We know the world is moving towards more renewable energy.

00:13:50.660 This is the way the world is going.

00:13:52.580 We need to make sure that we're leading the way, that we're part of that in a way that reassures people in existing industries,

00:13:59.940 people who have jobs now or are worried about their jobs because of COVID or have lost their jobs because of COVID,

00:14:06.060 that our plan for the future of the economy includes them.

00:14:09.480 So, yes, there's an awful lot we can and must be doing around improving our economy in many different ways, including in real steps towards fighting this other crisis that we're facing on top of COVID and the opioid crisis, which is the climate change crisis.

00:14:27.000 As we move forward in reimagining what the Canadian economy can look like in the coming years, we have an opportunity to go greener.

00:14:37.000 We have an opportunity to be fairer, to reduce barriers for women's participation, for Indigenous participation in the workforce.

00:14:44.000 There are so many things that we can look at as an opportunity through this tragedy of COVID to do bigger things.

00:14:52.000 But that's why we're putting together a throne speech now that will set out this ambitious agenda before Parliament and parliamentarians can decide, because we're in a minority situation, whether this government has the support to move forward on this new agenda that, quite frankly, nobody ran an election on a year ago because we didn't know about COVID.

00:15:13.120 This was a completely different situation.

00:15:16.680 And laying that out, which includes an ambitious green agenda, is going to be what we're doing at the end of this month.

00:15:26.740 So, Andrew, Trudeau, by his very own admission there, says that he doesn't have the mandate to do this kind of thing.

00:15:33.120 That what he ran for and the world that we lived in and the election that he won in 2019 is not at all what he's proposing now.

00:15:40.320 So wouldn't that mean that he should call an election just out of the very principle of it?

00:15:45.520 I mean, all those things that he wants to do, all those things he wants to accomplish,

00:15:48.600 he hasn't really put that to Canadians.

00:15:51.180 And having parliamentarians vote on it is flawed because each party has its own sort of vested interests.

00:15:57.560 I think that what Trudeau is saying really leads Canadians to the conclusion that we should have an election

00:16:03.920 to decide whether or not we actually want to go forth with this truly reckless plan.

00:16:08.840 yeah and i think that there is a bigger ideological problem that is i think underpinning

00:16:14.920 this because i agree wholeheartedly with you that if you're going to do anything bold or anything

00:16:19.100 that is a departure from what you campaigned on in the previous election you have to seek another

00:16:24.300 mandate if you want it to be a legitimate course of action and i don't mean legally legitimate but

00:16:29.500 i mean morally legitimate in this particular case but the problem is is that the global elites right

00:16:34.940 now are hellbent on actually leveraging coronavirus to ram a lot of really radical things that they've

00:16:41.900 wanted to put in place for years down the throats of unwitting populations. I mean, just as one 0.98

00:16:47.500 example here, if you look at the Davos Forum, the World Economic Summit, the theme this year, the

00:16:52.700 title of their big virtual summit is The Great Reset. And the description is an opportunity and

00:16:58.780 an urgent need, to use their words, an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate and

00:17:03.780 simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the crisis to improve the state of the world.

00:17:09.700 They're launching the Great Reset Initiative and the number of stories that we saw even in March

00:17:15.060 when we didn't quite know the full scope of the pandemic. I'll just rhyme off a few headlines

00:17:19.620 here. LA Times, coronavirus offers opportunity on climate change. Al Jazeera, coronavirus crisis

00:17:26.160 offers big green opportunity. Time Magazine, what coronavirus means for the possibility of a

00:17:32.500 carbon-free economy. It doesn't matter how many people's lives have been destroyed, careers have

00:17:37.200 been destroyed, how many businesses have had to shut down. The fact that there has been a big

00:17:42.120 shock to the world and to the economy has given these people to them license to ram a lot of 0.87

00:17:48.980 things that would, under any other circumstances, be seen as radical. And they want to rebuild the

00:17:53.720 economy in their image, not what it was before we went down this road in the first place. And

00:17:59.080 that's a huge danger. That's a really important observation you made, Andrew, because this is

00:18:03.900 what they've been advocating for for a decade. This isn't anything new. And so now is just the

00:18:08.640 opportunity. It kind of echoes what Freeland, Chrystia Freeland, the new finance minister,

00:18:13.220 said in her sort of inaugural press conference there. She said that corona presented a fabulous

00:18:18.680 opportunity, which, you know, you don't really usually think of a huge global pandemic and

00:18:23.880 resulting recession that has destroyed you know trillions of dollars from the economy as a fabulous

00:18:30.360 opportunity yeah i learned i learned in my first year of university about the broken window fallacy

00:18:35.640 and now canada's finance minister doesn't seem to be familiar with the concept right and and just

00:18:40.360 even the the language that you would use it seems a little tone deaf to describe uh what we're going

00:18:45.240 through right now is something fabulous uh for the for your point there was a ctv headline that was

00:18:50.600 just for anyone who who watches my uh podcast knows this is like my biggest pet peeve when a

00:18:57.240 news headline does something like this but ctv reported over there they said the feds should

00:19:03.080 invest 50 billion dollars in green projects for post-pandemic stimulus experts so ctv has gone

00:19:10.280 out and found a bunch of left-wing activists and people who you know basically hate fossil fuels

00:19:16.360 and want to pull canada's uh resource economy out and build something totally different uh

00:19:23.320 and we're told that that's what the experts believe in that we should just now's the time

00:19:27.080 guys let's invest another 50 billion what's what's 50 billion when when the government's already

00:19:31.800 borrowing you know over a trillion dollars and plunging the country further and further into

00:19:37.000 debt so lots of that uh coming from from voices on the left lots of people saying that we should

00:19:43.640 rebuild the economy this way. I think now is the time for more prudent voices, more people to be

00:19:50.260 calling out this Trudeau government, and a really good opportunity, frankly, for Conservative leader

00:19:55.160 Erin O'Toole to carve a different path, to outline a different, you know, economic recovery for 0.62

00:20:01.920 Canada, one that's maybe perhaps more rooted in reality, and based on the restraints of, you know,

00:20:07.560 how much money do we actually have to spend, and let's not completely plunge our entire society

00:20:13.200 into endless debt. So Aaron O'Toole has done a couple of interviews. He's kind of coming out

00:20:19.380 strong, I would say, as new leader. But he did say that he would plan to raise the deficit in a

00:20:25.480 decade. So it would take him 10 years to do it, which sort of signals and indicates to me that

00:20:31.080 he's in no real rush, that he doesn't really have a plan to balance the budget. And in some ways,

00:20:35.840 you can't blame him, just given the scope of how much Trudeau has, how much debt has been created,

00:20:42.200 how much new spending programs have been created. Conservatives often get the reputation of being

00:20:47.320 sort of mean-spirited and cutting off programs. And so you can't just turn the taps off overnight,

00:20:52.900 although Trudeau did just turn them on overnight. But O'Toole's sort of coming across as trying to

00:20:59.700 be very moderate, which is probably wise, given that Trudeau is taking such a giant step to the

00:21:07.480 So, Andrew, what do you make of Aaron O'Toole's pledge?

00:21:11.200 How do you think he's doing so far in his first few weeks as leader here?

00:21:14.220 Well, I think there's, on the note of the deficit reduction,

00:21:16.560 I think there's a cautionary tale here on how difficult it is to undo big spending

00:21:20.720 because ultimately people get entitled to their entitlements.

00:21:24.060 And when you have deficits that are looking to be potentially as high as $300 billion

00:21:27.880 and even beyond that no reduction plan in sight,

00:21:31.280 he can't just say we're going to cut that deficit down to a balanced budget within four years

00:21:35.760 as you could if it were a bit more of a modest deficit.

00:21:39.200 And if you remember back in the federal election,

00:21:41.880 the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer put something forward

00:21:44.400 that I actually didn't like,

00:21:46.000 which was a law that would compel governments

00:21:49.020 to balance the budget,

00:21:50.360 but it wouldn't go into effect until after four years.

00:21:53.860 So the government would have basically been binding

00:21:56.640 future governments to a fiscal plan

00:21:58.520 that it wasn't prepared or didn't feel ready to enact

00:22:01.460 had Andrew Scheer been elected.

00:22:03.040 And I mean, we know that is kind of a moot discussion now,

00:22:05.760 But you have to be able to start making very tough calls, and you can't get a six- or nine-figure budget, I guess, down to a balance without making some of those tough calls.

00:22:17.260 And if Aaron O'Toole rather starts talking about doing anything too radical, we know what's going to happen.

00:22:23.680 Everyone is going to be coming out of the woodwork saying, you're going to cut this, cut this, cut that.

00:22:27.740 I mean, we know that he has pledged to defund CBC, so there's over a billion a year in savings potentially, or whichever portion of the CBC's funding is gone.

00:22:38.120 And I think there are other things as well that you could do to start bringing the books back into balance, but it's not going to be easy in, yeah, I mean, 10 years.

00:22:45.780 To me, as a Canadian taxpayer, I look at this and I say, that's just a horrifying reality, that this is basically the future of the country for the foreseeable future.

00:22:54.220 We know that governments never do things on time and on budget, so if they're promising 10, it could end up being 15, and that's assuming nothing happening between now and then that causes us to have to reset that with even more spending.

00:23:06.620 Right. I think it was Milton Friedman, an economist, who said there's nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.

00:23:13.180 Well, this was all presented to Canadians as a temporary measure to help us get through lockdowns.

00:23:19.180 And suddenly we went from a temporary measure to completely reimagining the economy, spending, you know, again, trillions of dollars to meet every pet project that a liberal can dream up.

00:23:33.440 And it looks like we're going to be stuck with it for a really long time.

00:23:36.200 And you kind of made this observation before the show started that it feels like Trudeau is in campaign mode.

00:23:41.800 He's doing all these sort of small-town interviews, radio interviews.

00:23:46.520 He's been doing lots of spending announcements.

00:23:48.960 We learned that the public sector unions and CRA employees just got a 10% pay raise,

00:23:55.460 plus a $2,600 non-taxable cash payment for the Phoenix debacle that happened.

00:24:02.480 Trudeau pledged $2 billion to the provinces to help get back to school initiatives going.

00:24:08.120 It seems like a lot of these spending announcements are kind of campaign announcements.

00:24:13.860 And then, you know, you also have Erin O'Toole sort of posturing. 1.00

00:24:17.560 So I just want to ask you, do you think we're heading for a fall election?

00:24:20.840 I'm kind of of the opinion that we should have one, just given that if Trudeau wants to make this tremendous change in policy, he should bring it to the people.

00:24:29.240 And Canadians should give a democratic mandate on whether we want to become a green socialist economy or not.

00:24:35.520 But what do you think?

00:24:36.660 Do you think that that's where we're headed?

00:24:38.120 I've said it in the past, and I think it bears repeating here, that if you were to take the pandemic factor out of the equation, there is zero doubt in my mind that Justin Trudeau should go back to the polls and seek another mandate if he wants the changes that he's proposing.

00:24:52.300 The only thing that I think is making people leery about an election is the factor in play about how do you do an election safely and how do you run campaigns safely with all the public health questions.

00:25:04.640 And I think we'll get a little bit of a glimpse of that watching how things unfold in the United States over the next couple of months.

00:25:10.480 But I do believe that if you take that out of the equation, an election looks a lot more imminent.

00:25:15.600 So with that being said, I agree wholeheartedly.

00:25:18.420 I mean, he's going to be coming back with a throne speech, which by his own admission is going to be a reset of the government and its priorities.

00:25:25.060 So that means that Justin Trudeau is already pledging to come with a new list of promises, a new mandate, a renewed mandate, and a renewed focus and priority set from what he had when he took office in November in his second term.

00:25:41.040 So how do you do that without seeking a mandate for that from the voters and have a moral justification to lead?

00:25:47.520 I don't think you can.

00:25:49.120 I will say, though, on this, that I do think there's an aspect here that's a bit complicating

00:25:54.160 in that no one wants to be the one to send Canadians to the polls, and partially for

00:25:58.960 the public health reasons, partially because we had an election less than a year ago.

00:26:02.940 But I don't think Justin Trudeau wants to ask the governor general to call an election

00:26:07.000 because then it looks like he's being opportunistic.

00:26:10.040 Similarly, I don't think Aaron O'Toole wants to make one of his first acts as conservative

00:26:14.340 leader to be to aggressively pursue the downfall of the government.

00:26:17.520 because then he'll look opportunistic.

00:26:19.400 So I think that both of them want the other side to blink first, basically,

00:26:23.480 and send Canadians back to the polls.

00:26:25.340 And I don't know who is going to win that standoff.

00:26:27.820 Well, we know that if it's the Conservatives that are the ones that send Canadians to the polls,

00:26:32.260 we can expect an entire election cycle full of headlines

00:26:35.660 talking about how reckless and irresponsible it was because Canadians will be forced to.

00:26:40.680 Yeah, and I think that the Conservatives are keenly aware of that,

00:26:44.140 which is why they don't want to be the ones to do it.

00:26:46.080 Well, Andrew, speaking of public health concerns, I think Dr. Theresa Tam, the top health official of Canada, really outdid herself in embarrassing Canadians.

00:26:55.880 I think this headline sort of made its way around the world and for all the cringeworthy things that Dr. Tam has said and all the time she's flip-flopped and said, don't wear a mask, wear a mask, temperature checks don't work, do temperature checks, etc.

00:27:08.820 This one tops them all.

00:27:10.680 So this week, Teresa Tam tells Canadians, and this is not a joke, that they should wear masks while having sex.

00:27:19.640 So she said, like other activities during COVID that involve physical closeness, there are some things you can do to minimize the risk of getting infected and spreading the virus.

00:27:28.520 Canadians can always can find ways to enjoy physical intimacy while safeguarding the progress we have made in containing COVID.

00:27:37.760 So wearing a mask while you're having sex.

00:27:42.240 Okay, that's- 0.94

00:27:43.340 You know what?

00:27:43.960 That might work for some people.

00:27:45.340 That like, you know, I'm not one to tell anyone

00:27:46.780 that what they like is wrong.

00:27:48.280 I do think that right now we are in back to school mode.

00:27:51.240 A lot of people are gonna be heading back

00:27:52.800 into the classroom soon.

00:27:54.320 And when, you know, sex ed and student health offices resume,

00:27:57.320 I never thought the discussion would be,

00:27:59.020 hey, you know, don't forget to have protection.

00:28:01.780 A different kind of protection, I guess.

00:28:04.120 Well, this goes, I had forgotten about this,

00:28:06.480 or actually when I first seen it I didn't think it was real but the British Columbia government

00:28:11.120 had said I guess this came out a couple of weeks ago but they likewise had some their own

00:28:16.900 recommendations for safe sex during coronavirus which was try to use something called a glory

00:28:22.920 hole which for those not familiar basically it's when you cut a hole into a wall 0.79

00:28:29.440 seriously so this is the kind of stuff that the Canadian government is recommending having sex 0.99

00:28:36.180 while using a mask or having sex through a wall 1.00

00:28:38.400 with something called a glory hole. 0.97

00:28:40.500 I wasn't sure how much of the description

00:28:42.860 you were going to go there.

00:28:44.000 So I was like preemptively laughing on your behalf.

00:28:47.200 I don't know if like you need to use the mask

00:28:49.560 if you use a glory hole or if it's an either or.

00:28:52.440 That part has not been made clear

00:28:54.340 from the public health guidance.

00:28:56.280 I did not know that a glory hole was a government word.

00:29:00.880 Like, you know, because typically governments

00:29:02.080 have a way of making everything sound overly technical.

00:29:04.220 So I guess there's no real way to describe that

00:29:06.960 apart from just using the Urban Dictionary term.

00:29:09.740 Right, which again, when I saw this on Twitter

00:29:13.340 and I thought someone was just making it up

00:29:14.840 because I didn't believe that the government

00:29:16.420 would actually go to that extent

00:29:18.820 to making these kinds of recommendations.

00:29:20.960 But the whole concept of the nanny state

00:29:24.140 and having governments in the bedrooms of Canadians,

00:29:27.800 I think are taking on a whole new level.

00:29:30.840 Pierre Trudeau would be rolling in his grave

00:29:33.580 because this was pretty much the opposite of what he wanted.

00:29:37.280 But under his son, Justin Trudeau,

00:29:39.180 the government now has no problem barging right into the bedrooms of the nation.

00:29:42.440 Yeah, he had fought tooth and nail to keep the state out of the glory holes of the nation.

00:29:46.260 And here we are.

00:29:48.360 All right, all right.

00:29:51.920 This happened since the last show, so we should talk about it,

00:29:54.680 even though it was last weekend now.

00:29:56.980 But, you know, this footage of a mob basically tearing down

00:30:00.940 a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Montreal.

00:30:03.900 It really, really irked a lot of Canadians.

00:30:06.660 It got myself really worked up,

00:30:09.320 really upset to see this kind of thing,

00:30:11.460 you know, the actions of the mob,

00:30:13.120 but not just that, you know,

00:30:14.840 seeing these people tear down a statue

00:30:16.720 of the person who literally Canada

00:30:19.160 wouldn't exist as a country

00:30:20.320 if it weren't for the efforts of John A. Macdonald.

00:30:22.700 Obviously, he lived in a different time.

00:30:24.380 Obviously, values and norms have changed

00:30:27.080 over the last 150 years.

00:30:28.740 But to try to completely erase her history or to go down this path of revisionism to say that somehow Sir John A. MacDonald oversaw a genocide and was this evil, maniacal leader, just simply not true.

00:30:43.700 And seeing that statue crash to the ground and the head pop off and all of the sort of angry mob cheering, it was just really distressing to see, to say the least, sort of trying to politicize it.

00:30:55.140 And then, you know, seeing people on social media justifying it and cheering it and saying that it was, you know, inevitable that it had to happen was just pretty, you know, unsettling.

00:31:05.560 I was actually happy to see Justin Trudeau come out and say that he was disappointed and say that that's not the right way to go about criticizing our history and trying to understand how to make society better.

00:31:20.280 Although he did, according to the Globe and Mail, sink a little bit when he said in French, sort of blamed it on the extreme right.

00:31:29.920 He said that I think we're seeing, particularly on the extreme right, that they're trying to start culture wars and divide Canadians on issues like this.

00:31:37.820 I don't know how you can blame a far left mob tearing down a statue of Sir John L. MacDonald and then flip it to say, well, it's the far right that's creating these culture wars.

00:31:48.000 That's just not what's happening.

00:31:50.240 And, you know, it takes quite the logical leap to see a left-wing mob destroying public property

00:31:55.060 and then flipping that to blame the extreme right.

00:31:58.980 What do you think, Andrew?

00:31:59.860 Well, it's that concept you had brought up, I think, on a couple of shows back

00:32:03.080 that I hadn't heard of before you said it, Republicans pounce,

00:32:05.980 where the media focuses more on the reaction to an act than on the act itself.

00:32:11.200 And I think that was what Trudeau did.

00:32:12.920 And I'm always leery whenever you see the prime minister, who does it quite a bit,

00:32:17.200 saying something different in English than he does in French.

00:32:19.820 It's like he's very much calculating his audience,

00:32:22.720 and he knows in Quebec he can get away with saying one thing,

00:32:25.600 and to the broader Canadian population he might not be able to or might not want to.

00:32:30.580 Listen, I've got to say, I was angered by this as well,

00:32:33.600 but I was really moved to see—and I don't want to put you on the spot here—

00:32:36.760 but to see your husband speak out about this,

00:32:39.020 because he is himself an immigrant to Canada,

00:32:41.400 and he has a greater appreciation and respect for Canada's founding

00:32:44.980 than so many of these, you know, thuggish mobbers that were taking down the statue and continue to.

00:32:51.140 And I think there's a real lesson in that to people that, you know,

00:32:54.680 the people that are claiming to be spoken up for by the mob actually aren't

00:33:00.120 and actually believe the opposite of what it is that the mob seeks.

00:33:03.260 Yeah, and interestingly, after Kaz, my husband, he posted a lot of things on social media

00:33:07.620 about Sir John A. and the statue, I myself got a lot of messages from people,

00:33:12.340 including a lot of immigrants to Canada, thanking him and thanking me for standing up for Canadian

00:33:17.980 traditions and values in history, saying, you know, look, we moved to Canada because of these

00:33:22.160 institutions that you have, because of your history. And it's so disheartening to see this

00:33:26.740 sort of mob mentality of people trying to destroy it. You know, look, it's one thing to look at our

00:33:33.220 own history critically, you know, try to improve as a country, try to say we should do better,

00:33:37.640 acknowledge past injustices, that's totally different than saying, you know, we must erase

00:33:43.560 our history. Canada's illegitimate. Canada's a racist society built on racist principles.

00:33:48.480 I mean, I think that really the left is jumping the shark when they try to do that. They lose

00:33:53.760 so many people in the middle and, you know, so many people who otherwise might be open to their

00:33:59.300 message. You know, people on the left are supposed to be, you know, standing up for disenfranchised

00:34:04.060 people and and and people who are marginalized well in this case i think that they're alienating

00:34:09.380 a lot of those people and and not doing a service to anyone so if there's any good that's come out

00:34:14.560 of that hopefully andrew it's that more and more canadians are united against the sort of mob

00:34:19.780 mentality that's saying like hey you know something interesting is happening in the u.s let's let's

00:34:25.060 create our own bandwagon movement and start destroying uh property up here it's uh not not

00:34:30.260 a very, not a very good look. Well, Andrew, we'd like to end the show on a positive note. And this

00:34:35.580 was a really uplifting story that we came across this week. A veteran, a 99 year old veteran walked

00:34:43.100 100 kilometers to raise money for COVID research. So this guy was a second, a World War II veteran

00:34:49.520 from Newmarket, Ontario. He hit a new milestone. He walked 100 kilometers. It's a heck of a long

00:34:55.320 way, 100 kilometers. So George Markar, who lives in the Roxborough Retirement Residence,

00:35:02.280 have been walking a path in the garden at his home since April to raise funds. He's raised around

00:35:07.600 $43,000 to date. He's vowing to keep going. And he has a GoFundMe campaign. So he finished his

00:35:17.040 fundraiser and reached that 100 kilometer mark on Wednesday. So if you're so inclined and able,

00:35:25.320 Definitely support George in that effort.

00:35:28.400 It's really, really inspiring when people do that.

00:35:30.880 I mean, for a 99-year-old to be able to walk

00:35:33.300 and stay that active is really amazing and inspiring.

00:35:36.480 Yeah, reminds me of Tom Moore,

00:35:39.000 or now Sir Tom Moore,

00:35:40.180 who we talked about in the UK a few months ago,

00:35:42.580 who did something very similar.

00:35:43.820 And remember, you can just be even in a retirement home,

00:35:46.580 but if you have the ability and the energy

00:35:48.560 and the will to do this,

00:35:49.880 heck, I don't even know if I could do 100K

00:35:51.260 as easy as this 99-year-old did.

00:35:53.780 So maybe I have to get to it after the show.

00:35:56.420 Yeah, you got to catch up, Andrew.

00:35:59.200 But yeah, really, really inspiring.

00:36:01.020 And it's great to see Canadians doing their best to try to make a difference and doing it even in your own individual way.

00:36:08.120 Well, that's it for us here.

00:36:09.980 It's Labor Day.

00:36:10.680 So hopefully everyone has a wonderful final weekend of summer.

00:36:14.660 And thanks so much for tuning in.

00:36:16.280 We will be back again next week.

00:36:23.780 Thank you.

00:36:53.780 Thank you.

00:37:23.780 You

Juno News - September 04, 2020

What on Earth does Justin Trudeau have planned？

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