Juno News - What Trudeau’s hot mic comments really reveal

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. Thank you so much everyone for

00:00:11.520 joining us. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Hopefully you had a chance to reconnect to have

00:00:15.800 some downtime with your family and with your loved ones. Okay, we have a ton of news to get

00:00:20.700 to. I'm going to run through everything that's happening in the world of Canadian federal news.

00:00:24.540 We're going to talk about Justin Trudeau and his so-called hot mic moment on Friday. We'll

00:00:29.720 talk about Pierre Polyev's reaction, talk about Mark Carney and how he's gaining in the polls,

00:00:34.300 talk about the media reaction to everything that's happening, because I think a lot of it

00:00:38.440 is being manufactured to benefit the Liberal Party of Canada, to benefit Mark Carney,

00:00:42.740 and to make sure that we continue to have liberal rule in this country. And we're going to talk

00:00:49.120 about the liberal leadership race as well. And for this episode, I'm really pleased to be joined

00:00:54.400 by a friend of mine named Paige McPherson. Paige is the Associate Director of Education Policy at

00:00:59.460 the Fraser Institute. Prior to joining Fraser Institute, you might remember her. She was the

00:01:02.900 Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, went on to become the Atlantic

00:01:06.620 Director because her family moved from Alberta all the way out to the East Coast. And prior to

00:01:11.880 that, another Sun alumni joining the show, Paige McPherson was a TV host and a politics reporter 0.70

00:01:17.900 back in the day at the Sun News Network. So Paige, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.

00:01:23.440 Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

00:01:25.220 And, and Paige and I are part of a very special club because we are both moms of four kids,

00:01:30.080 four little kids as well. I think Paige, your, your newest is only three months old. So

00:01:34.080 congratulations on that. Yes. Thank you. It's the best club to be in.

00:01:38.920 It is. I know. I love being a mom. I think being a reporter, being a journalist is like

00:01:42.500 the best job, but being a mom is just like the most important thing that a woman can do. And 1.00

00:01:47.740 definitely the most important part of my life. So we'll get to that. We're going to talk about

00:01:51.300 mom stuff later in the episode. But let's start by talking about politics. So I'm going to start

00:01:55.540 by walking the viewers through what has happened. So Friday, we had our interview with Preston

00:02:01.500 Manning. Go check out that episode. It was really interesting to hear. I think Preston is like the

00:02:06.260 godfather of populism and the sort of grassroots conservative movement in Canada. So many of the

00:02:11.400 things happening in the US, I think have already happened in Canada, like a great populist awakening

00:02:15.580 happened in Canada in the 90s. And it's happening with Trump and the America Make America Great

00:02:20.680 again movement um so anyway interesting uh uh episode i encourage you to check that out uh yes

00:02:26.400 on the same around the same time as we were filming um justin trudeau was speaking to an

00:02:31.140 economic summit in toronto so he was speaking to nearly 200 business industry and union leaders

00:02:37.440 at one point during this conference or summit he told the media to get out of the out of the room

00:02:43.540 so he ushered media out and then he basically told the crowd what he really thought um and we call

00:02:49.900 there's a hot mic moment, even though I think that it was all deliberate. I think that he knew

00:02:53.640 that someone in the audience would be recording or that the media would find a way to continue

00:02:57.640 to record. And that's exactly what happened because pretty much every media outlet reported

00:03:01.580 it right away. They didn't have, you know, it perfectly on screen in a camera. We're going to

00:03:06.080 show it to you. But everybody got the audio. So Trudeau can be heard saying that when President

00:03:13.320 Donald Trump is talking about annexing Canada and making Canada the 51st state, it is not a joke.

00:03:18.520 he is serious. He actually really does want to absorb Canada. And the reason is his desire

00:03:24.900 to obtain our country's critical minerals. So here is how the CBC put it together. You'll see

00:03:32.660 Justin Trudeau up on stage, and you'll see how he tells the media to go. And then they have the

00:03:37.340 audio footage of what he said at that point. So let's play that clip.

00:03:41.300 Ask our friends from the media to please,

00:03:43.140 You could hear him say, and I know it was kind of hard to see, but he's basically saying that Trump is serious and in his conversations, he's serious about it.

00:04:10.200 says that i'd suggest that not only does the trump administration know how many critical minerals we

00:04:14.920 have but that may be very much a part of why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the

00:04:21.720 51st state and so you can see our friend j.j mccullough he uh commented about this on x and

00:04:29.400 he said this he said this is deranged conspiracy mongering from trudeau i expect i suspect he has

00:04:37.400 absolutely zero evidence for believing this and so you kind of have to wonder why is trudeau out

00:04:45.960 there talking about this all of a sudden because recall that over the last month whenever it came

00:04:50.440 to talking about trump he he would just kind of laugh it off he would say that trump isn't being

00:04:54.520 that serious um that this is just part of the negotiation and he didn't take it that seriously

00:04:59.160 and then here all of a sudden you know february 7th he's out there saying no no no this is actually

00:05:04.040 really serious and they want Canada because they want our minerals. I think that it has something

00:05:08.980 to do with Steve Bannon. So I mentioned this on my show with Preston Manning on Friday. On Thursday,

00:05:15.300 Steve Bannon, who was a former senior Trump advisor, sort of one of the main leading people

00:05:20.860 in the MAGA movement back in 2016, he's not really involved in the campaign from best I can tell or

00:05:25.480 in the administration at this point, but he was quite involved before. He was on Global News in

00:05:30.260 Canada, and he was talking about how Canada, especially the Arctic and the North, is what

00:05:35.660 it's all about. The geopolitical war or whatever we're shaping up here between the great superpowers

00:05:42.600 of the world, China, Russia, the United States, it's all going to be about access to the North. 0.87

00:05:47.940 And he was talking about the geopolitical importance, the strategic importance of the

00:05:52.580 North and about Canada. So I want to play this clip. This is from Thursday, February 6th.

00:05:57.100 China and Russia, the great powers and the United States fighting it out over the Arctic

00:06:03.860 with the vast resources of the Arctic is going to be the new great game of the 21st century.

00:06:08.980 Canada, you are thrust into the middle of that. And quite frankly, you are the greatest,

00:06:15.120 I don't know if target or prize. You're like asking, you're the great prize of that.

00:06:20.160 So that's Steve Bannon, we can cut it there. That's Steve Bannon talking about it. And it

00:06:24.220 was just the very next day, right, that Trudeau was out there saying that actually it's all about

00:06:28.220 minerals and we should take Trudeau, we should take Trump very seriously when he's talking about

00:06:33.460 annexing Canada. Now I think, personally, I think that this is all sort of manufactured and drummed

00:06:38.700 up. I think that the media would much rather be talking about Donald Trump, that, you know,

00:06:42.840 we're coming into an election, presumably an election is going to happen very soon,

00:06:45.960 and I think that the elites, the media, the liberals would all rather be talking about Trump

00:06:52.920 than talking about Canada, than talking about what has happened in our country over the last

00:06:57.220 10 years under Justin Trudeau liberal rule, whether it's crime, whether it's safety on our

00:07:03.120 streets, immigration, cost of living, inflation, whether it's talking about spending and balancing

00:07:08.520 the budgets and the outlook for our economy. I don't think that they want to talk about any of

00:07:12.560 that because on any of those issues, conservatives win. But if the issue of the election is about

00:07:19.220 Donald Trump is about who can stand up for Canada. Polls actually show us that Canadians trust the

00:07:25.780 Liberals more on this issue. So the Global Mail put out a piece on Friday saying that Canadians

00:07:30.200 believe that Mark Carney would be better than Pierre Polyev in dealing with Trump. And so that

00:07:35.680 was a poll conducted by Nanos Research in the field from January 31st to February 3rd. It showed

00:07:41.420 that about 40% of Canadians believe that Mark Carney is the most qualified to negotiate with

00:07:46.600 Trump, only 26% of Canadians consider Mr. Polly of the best for that role, and then 12% for

00:07:52.780 Chrystia Freeland. So it really makes you wonder that, is this whole thing just kind of manufactured?

00:07:59.360 It seems like it was pretty coordinated that Trudeau decided, hey, I'm going to make it about,

00:08:04.160 I'm going to talk about minerals. I'm going to talk about how the fact that the United States

00:08:07.400 are actually serious about taking us over. It just so happens that that's an issue that the

00:08:11.560 liberals do very well on. Now, I know, Paige, you focus on education policy at the Fraser Institute,

00:08:16.100 and probably, you know, I don't know if you want to comment on all of the politics behind it,

00:08:21.600 but what do you take about the idea that Canadians are heading to the polls, heading to election,

00:08:25.380 presumably? Like, what do you think the main issue facing Canadians should be?

00:08:29.560 Yeah, it's really interesting, you know, as sort of a policy wonk type observing this discussion

00:08:34.660 that's been going on and all the kind of hysteria over the sort of the trade issue

00:08:40.020 and the back and forth and how it's been covered in the media. And it's obviously no secret that

00:08:44.600 In Canada, we like to really heavily focus on what's happening in the US and focus on

00:08:49.600 Donald Trump.

00:08:50.600 We're so culturally influenced.

00:08:51.600 But when this trade tariff issue is going on, for example, I think there was a few of

00:08:55.600 us that were sort of banging our heads against the wall saying a number of things, you know,

00:08:59.600 wouldn't a pipeline be nice right now?

00:09:01.600 You know, pipelines that were not approved that would make us more energy independent

00:09:05.600 as a country and make it easier as well for us to export our product to other markets.

00:09:12.600 we're heavily dependent on the United States wouldn't that be nice right now but that goes to

00:09:18.040 you know years and years of regulatory policy around the oil sands around mining all of these

00:09:24.840 different projects you know that don't get off the ground because of government intervention

00:09:28.680 because it isn't really an investment friendly environment stuff like that there's also you

00:09:32.840 know supply management in Canada like wouldn't that be a nice thing to talk about the supply

00:09:37.160 management of our dairy products that makes dairy products for Canadian families so much more

00:09:41.640 expensive than families in the United States that have a more open market why

00:09:45.720 aren't we talking about that there's also interprovincial trade barriers I

00:09:49.140 mean it's pretty frustrating that we're talking about trade with the US which is

00:09:53.040 obviously extremely important it's our largest trading partner but we have you

00:09:56.700 know barriers that exist between our own provinces let's talk about tearing some

00:10:01.500 of those down and then of course the issue of taxes and just the fact that we

00:10:06.660 have a real challenge around economic growth in this country that we need to

00:10:11.320 get a hold of and you know we've got out of control inflation as a result of

00:10:16.300 government spending and and that really just has not been controlled and in a

00:10:21.760 number of years and that goes to all levels of government but there's also

00:10:25.480 the tax environment where we do see a really high tax burden relative to other

00:10:30.280 jurisdictions and that brings into question you know why would businesses

00:10:34.360 invest in Canada versus other places so there's all these different policy

00:10:38.140 issues that are happening you know here at home and you know the media covers often what's kind

00:10:44.340 of sexy and what's in your face but there are I think really important considerations that people

00:10:48.760 have here at home and ultimately what I think you know the people that we talk to in our lives but

00:10:53.600 also just looking I think it's pretty common sense here in Canada that that cost of living is the big

00:10:58.140 thing for Canadians whether it's housing or groceries or the tax burden you know at the

00:11:03.500 Fraser Institute, we look at the tax burden on Canadians and that being actually higher than

00:11:09.280 the necessities of life, that Canadians are actually paying more taxes than they're spending

00:11:12.520 on the other necessities of life. So those things have really snowballed out of control. And I think

00:11:17.600 there's a lot of politics, but that's really what I think it boils down to for the average family

00:11:22.080 around the country. I hope you're right. I think that when Canadians go to the polls,

00:11:27.280 and I think it might end up being sooner than we previously thought, and we'll get to that

00:11:30.940 in a minute. I hope that they go to the polls and vote based on who can make your life better in

00:11:37.360 terms of standard of living, in terms of all of the terrible economic policies that we've endured

00:11:42.020 for the last decade. I mean, it's remarkable for me, Paige, to look at. I think one of the Fraser

00:11:46.360 Institute reports showed all of the North American jurisdictions, so all of the states and all the

00:11:50.680 provinces. And the Canadian provinces are all taxed at a much higher rate than even the most

00:11:56.760 high-tax American jurisdictions. And then when you look at the sort of cost of living, the average

00:12:01.720 income, the average GDP per capita, the American states almost all do better than even the wealthiest

00:12:07.780 of the Canadian provinces. And it's just so sad to see what's happened to Canada over just a decade.

00:12:13.500 I'm not, you know, it wasn't that long ago when Stephen Harper was a prime minister that Canada

00:12:17.040 was lauded as this middle-class paradise. We had the richest middle class in the world,

00:12:20.620 and it seems like that slipped away. I hope that Canadians remember that when they go to the ballot

00:12:24.680 box but seeing you know specifically this one poll where where you know canadians do maybe perhaps

00:12:31.800 prefer someone like mark carney someone who has a lot of experience sort of in the top role uh the

00:12:37.480 governor of the bank of canada um and involved in the world economic forum i guess to 40 of

00:12:42.600 canadians that's a positive and that's the kind of person that they want uh negotiating with trump

00:12:47.400 now i want to show a ctv compilation this was put together by x user uh called government corrupt

00:12:53.960 And he put together this little compilation of CTV news, kind of promoting this idea that this will be the ballot box issue, who can best handle Trump and who can better negotiate a deal here.

00:13:04.040 And they also suggest that Mark Carney is going to be the one to pull the plug and force an election, that it's not going to, you know, we've been talking a lot on the show about theories that maybe Mark Carney will become prime minister, make a deal with Jagmeet Singh, try to govern for a year maybe before calling an election.

00:13:22.800 People on CTV are suggesting that's not what's going to happen.

00:13:26.680 Mark Carney is reading these polls.

00:13:27.900 He's seeing that this might be as good as it gets for him,

00:13:31.100 and we might be going into an election very soon.

00:13:33.740 So let's play this clip.

00:13:34.780 This is all from Sunday, February 9th, by the way.

00:13:38.000 I guess the question I have for you, Nick,

00:13:40.200 is you also did some polling on how Canadians view

00:13:42.760 who is best suited to handle Trump.

00:13:45.800 How much do you think that does end up being the ballot box question,

00:13:49.540 and how much does that depend on timing?

00:13:51.460 Well, I think it probably will be the ballot box question in the next federal election

00:13:55.560 because the thing is that for Canadians, they know that our relationship with the U.S. is critical.

00:14:00.540 And I think, who knows, maybe people in the next election are not going to vote for a party that they like,

00:14:06.040 might not vote for a leader that they trust or whatever,

00:14:08.480 but they just might vote for whoever they think might be best able to manage that situation.

00:14:13.320 The next Liberal leader will be elected on March the 9th may choose to take Canadians to the polls right away.

00:14:21.820 Okay, so you can see her saying they might choose to take her to the polls.

00:14:25.480 Right after that, Vassie said that she's also hearing that if Mark Carney wins and when he wins,

00:14:30.400 he is not even going to go back, not even going to reconvene the House of Commons.

00:14:34.040 He's just going to call an election right away.

00:14:36.020 I think that they have been looking at the polls and seeing that, you know,

00:14:40.300 when it comes to this issue of negotiating with Trump, they trust the liberals more.

00:14:44.560 I want to take this to what Pierre Polyev had to say on Friday.

00:14:48.020 So shortly after that video of Trudeau happened, Pierre Polyev was on an interview with the Toronto Sun's Brian Lilly.

00:14:56.980 And in this interview, he said that he has always taken Trump seriously and that basically this is a real thing.

00:15:05.740 We really need to be concerned over the idea that Trump wants to annex Canada.

00:15:09.540 So let's play that clip.

00:15:11.180 Well, I've always taken it seriously and I've always clearly and consistently condemned it.

00:15:15.860 Canada will never be the 51st state. We will be a strong, independent, sovereign country

00:15:21.240 when I'm prime minister. That's exactly why it's so unfortunate that the Carney-Trudeau liberals

00:15:28.240 have made us so weak and reliant on the Americans. Their radical tax increases have driven a half

00:15:34.540 trillion dollars into the American economy out of Canada, including many of Mr. Carney's own

00:15:40.880 investments. The headlines coming out of that interview were the beginning part of that,

00:15:48.100 where Polyev says he's always taken Trump's threats seriously. And when I saw that, I thought,

00:15:54.160 okay, he's kind of playing into this narrative that the liberals and the media have so cleverly

00:15:58.520 created, that this election needs, the focus needs to be on Trump, needs to be on this annexing,

00:16:03.740 and not on the actual issues facing everyday Canadians with our pocketbooks in everyday life.

00:16:10.920 You can see in the second part of that clip, I think Pierre did quite well, where he was

00:16:14.280 emphasizing the cost of living and how the Liberals really hurt Canada and how that's

00:16:19.820 hurting our pocketbook and our bottom line.

00:16:22.020 But of course, the headline coming out, Pierre takes this threat seriously.

00:16:26.520 And I don't know that that is the best message for the Conservatives.

00:16:30.380 So Paige, I'll put it to you.

00:16:32.860 Like, how do you think that the Conservatives should be managing this?

00:16:36.880 I know you don't want to talk too much about politics, but what do you make of this whole

00:16:40.640 situation? I think so. Here's what I hear from people when I'm talking about, because obviously

00:16:45.600 this is dominating the news. Does Trump really want to take over Canada? Is this really going

00:16:50.240 to happen? How seriously should we take him? I've read The Art of the Deal myself, a book that Trump

00:16:56.480 wrote years ago on his sort of tactics that he uses in negotiations. I know you've talked about

00:17:00.960 that on the show before, Candice, and sort of that was my take on it as well, was this is a

00:17:05.520 negotiation. He's doing what in sort of the policy or advocacy world sometimes call, you know,

00:17:12.000 shifting the Overton window. Let's shift the goalpost of the conversation. I'm going to come

00:17:15.740 out way over here and we're going to meet somewhere in the center, but the center is going to have

00:17:20.340 shifted closer to what I really want the outcome to be. So it was sort of always my impression as

00:17:25.320 I'm observing Trump and seeing that situation going on. But what's funny to me when I talk

00:17:31.680 to people just, you know, who are also watching the news and trying to gauge whether or not they

00:17:36.780 should take it seriously is everyone's like, oh, gee, well, I really don't want to be a 51st state,

00:17:41.320 but gosh, those tax levels would be great. Or I, you know, I don't really want to be a 51st state,

00:17:45.680 but gosh, I'd love to be able to choose my kid's school or I'd love to, you know, have more choice

00:17:50.660 in grocery stores and stuff like that. Like those things where Canadians are cognizant of those

00:17:57.320 quality of life differences. The United States is so close to us. And, you know, just, you know,

00:18:03.640 the, some of the stats that you and I were talking about, you know, the, just a couple minutes ago,

00:18:08.760 you can see that, you know, there, the purpose in GDP is doing better. Their take-home pay is better.

00:18:14.360 Their taxes are lower, but their services are not impacted on so many different levels. And,

00:18:21.080 and so that to me is sort of the great irony in all of this is that, you know, when I think

00:18:25.400 Canadians are sort of thinking about the idea of our neighbor to the south and you know in sort of

00:18:32.040 a comparative way there are so many things that we could capture and accomplish here in Canada as

00:18:36.600 well while also having the added bonus of realizing that you know we are competing with our neighbor

00:18:42.600 for investment and creating a better environment for investment is going to create more growth

00:18:47.160 create more jobs bring more people to Canada who want to create those jobs and ultimately that's

00:18:53.240 going to be better for uh for everybody or or just allow people you know here in canada to

00:18:57.800 to create those jobs in ways that they may not be able to now because it's just too cost prohibitive

00:19:02.360 um so that's what you know i always i always obviously hope that policy is going to dominate

00:19:08.600 elections but it doesn't always a lot of times there is this kind of like heated rhetoric and

00:19:13.000 nationalism that gets um let's say trumped up and uh and that's what ends up being the dominating

00:19:19.800 issue but if you know politicians of all stripes can bring it back to the fact that we really are

00:19:27.240 facing very economically challenging times in Canada and there needs to be pretty significant

00:19:31.800 policy shifts on a whole bunch of fronts to bring that growth back because growth really is the big

00:19:36.680 challenge that's you know that's ultimately what I would like to see but here I am I don't know

00:19:43.320 that's what the outcome is going to be because you and I know politics very well and the sober

00:19:48.920 policy conversations are not always what wins the day well i think that this all just benefits the

00:19:53.800 liberal i'll say it again because there is sort of this like irrational like like you're talking

00:19:58.920 about how people at the end of the day might look at the united states and say wow there's a lot more

00:20:03.240 competition i could probably get a better cell phone plan i could probably get cheaper flights

00:20:07.240 if there was more competition like all of these different areas uh they're very much dominated

00:20:10.920 in canada by these sort of uh conglomerate or monopolies that are made up because they're

00:20:16.040 canadian uh we would have a lot more access to competition so when you're thinking kind of

00:20:20.360 rationally it's like oh having some kind of a deeper integration economically or an economic

00:20:25.000 union would be good but the irrational side is like the patriotism like the the like in your

00:20:30.840 heart in your soul like i love canada and i and it drives me crazy to hear this american president

00:20:36.120 talking about taking us over and i think that that's what the liberals are tapping into that

00:20:40.040 irrational side saying like how dare he we love canada so like forget about the actual

00:20:46.520 improvements that could happen if we had more economic union um you know think about i i don't

00:20:52.040 i don't know how many people are seriously thinking about the 51st state thing it is

00:20:55.320 interesting though page uh the true north did a poll and it found that especially young men

00:21:00.120 nearly half of young men said that they would take american citizenship if trump offered it to

00:21:04.360 him according to our poll there's been other polls um that have put that out there and it's interesting

00:21:08.760 because when i posted on social media a lot of the replies especially from people on the left

00:21:13.000 and liberals um they say oh these young men are traitors like how dare they turn their back on

00:21:17.880 their country um but i i think that that at the end of the day many people especially younger men

00:21:22.840 that younger demographic um are not thinking about it in the irrational like love of country

00:21:27.880 nationalism or patriotism sense they're literally just thinking how can i have a good life for

00:21:33.240 myself and my family and maybe looking around at the cost of living cost of buying a house

00:21:37.960 in toronto or vancouver is just not in the cards and so you think about the fact that hey if i

00:21:42.520 move to utah i could probably buy a house for like 300 000 i could get a job that pays me more

00:21:47.160 i'd have less taxes it might actually be good it'd be sad to leave canada um but at the end of the

00:21:53.080 day you know economics is a driver of a lot of um decisions so i do kind of wonder like you know i

00:21:59.880 think that the political wedge of trump in the 51st state is really good for the liberals and

00:22:04.280 and that's why the Liberals and the media are playing it up so much.

00:22:07.440 But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the economics of it could become more compelling.

00:22:14.260 I'm going to keep going with the news here because I want to get to all of this.

00:22:17.360 So to add even more elements to this and to make it even more interesting, Donald Trump himself commented on this.

00:22:25.360 So yesterday was the Super Bowl. I don't know if you watch the Super Bowl page, but it was Super Bowl Sunday.

00:22:30.660 and the president did a special sit-down interview.

00:22:33.300 I guess it's been many years

00:22:34.300 since there was an actual Super Bowl Day interview

00:22:38.540 with the president.

00:22:39.460 Biden declined to do it.

00:22:40.920 And Trump went to the Super Bowl.

00:22:41.980 I guess he's the first president ever to go to the Super Bowl.

00:22:44.420 So it was kind of a fun cultural moment

00:22:46.100 happening down in the States.

00:22:47.740 But during this whole day of festivities,

00:22:51.260 Trump sat down with Fox News' Brett Baer

00:22:53.560 for a special pre-Super Bowl interview.

00:22:56.280 and bear asked trump specifically about trudeau about this comment that he made on a hot mic

00:23:02.880 and asked trump to respond to it so we're going to play that clip for you you know the prime

00:23:08.340 minister said this weekend to a group of canadian businessmen he was a private meeting he said

00:23:12.780 that your wish for canada to be the 51st state is a quote real thing is it a real thing yeah it is

00:23:20.220 I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada.

00:23:27.580 And I'm not going to let that happen.

00:23:31.640 Paige, Trump doubles down. I don't think he's going to walk away from the comments, right?

00:23:35.020 So Trudeau wants us to think that this is real. And Trump says, you bet it's real.

00:23:39.400 And then he goes back into his statement that he said many times that basically we lose $200 billion a year to Canada.

00:23:48.400 not going to let that happen it's too much why are we paying 200 billion dollars a year essentially

00:23:52.480 it's subsidies to canada now if they're the 51st state i don't mind doing it um so playing into

00:23:58.160 all this and then again it leads us to this idea like do we take this literally obviously we should

00:24:02.880 take it seriously because he keeps talking about it but does he literally want to take our country

00:24:07.520 uh senator a republican senator ted cruz waved it all off on a podcast over the weekend he's just

00:24:12.800 calling us an epic troll and he says all about yanking trudeau's chain meanwhile gave mark

00:24:18.320 carney the opportunity to swoop in and do apparently what canadians think he does best

00:24:22.960 he wrote on x saying uh what part of no don't you understand no we will never give in to a bully

00:24:29.520 canada will always be the true north strong and free and then while flying to the super bowl so

00:24:36.640 he's on the plane on air force one flying from uh i guess washington dc down to new orleans trump

00:24:42.160 again was asked about this question he talks about how the united states is about to get even larger

00:24:48.480 again alluding to this idea that they're going to take over canada let's play that clip we're making

00:24:53.920 our country larger we're making our country stronger and in the case of canada if this

00:25:00.320 should happen i don't know how they can do it without us because without the us canada really

00:25:05.760 doesn't have a country canada doesn't really have a country without the us i think he's talking

00:25:13.200 militarily i don't know exactly where he gets the 200 billion dollar subsidies i don't know if you

00:25:17.360 have any comment on that page i don't know i don't know i also am curious about that comment as well

00:25:22.720 i'm not really sure if he's talking about you know canada's maybe nato commitments not being met or

00:25:28.400 you know the us you know having the military might that canada certainly doesn't have and that's kind

00:25:33.360 of benefiting from that reliance in that relationship I'm not sure and again it's

00:25:37.620 you know I don't I'm not well suited to know if this is him negotiating and this

00:25:44.700 is a negotiation tactic and he's just gonna play it out until they're you

00:25:49.020 know because he knows that he's not ultimately going to be negotiating with

00:25:51.900 our current Prime Minister he's going to be negotiating with somebody else maybe

00:25:54.900 he's stretching it out to that I don't know but what I do know or what I you

00:25:58.680 know what would be nice is if this sparked a conversation about how you know how can we be

00:26:05.320 stronger as a country and ultimately you have to um can't save the world if you can't pay the rent

00:26:11.080 right so you you have to get your economic house in order and that's what i'm hoping that um

00:26:16.280 canadian policy makers of all stripes will take away from this is that if you want to be in a

00:26:20.040 position of strength if you're feeling that there's a bully in this situation then get your economic

00:26:24.600 house in order and get Canadians who have a large share of household debt as well that

00:26:30.380 are facing Canadian families, get them in a position of strength, allow them to feel

00:26:35.220 that strength as well and share the benefits of some economic growth by getting better

00:26:41.960 policies in line. Because right now, we're quite behind the times, you know, relative

00:26:47.580 to the US and especially, you know, as President Trump moves forward with, he's reducing the

00:26:53.260 sides of government in some ways you know he's he's reducing what he sees as sort of redundancies

00:26:58.860 in the bureaucracy or in government programs i'm talking about creating a better tax environment

00:27:04.380 i'm not exactly sure where he's going to go in terms of the mix between tariffs and other taxes

00:27:08.380 but certainly he's talking about reducing the tax burden on americans so these are things that you

00:27:13.900 know if canadians in this 51st state conversation um let's get our uh house in order let's let's

00:27:20.540 focus on some tax relief and policies that are going to better Canadians as well. If you're

00:27:26.700 feeling that there's a bully, that's a good response. Well, I just think that this is the

00:27:32.540 perfect wedge issue against the Conservatives that the Liberals have been hoping and praying for,

00:27:37.340 because you're right, Canada is basically at the weakest that I think we've been in a very,

00:27:42.380 very long time. And Trump senses that. So Trump sees a weak country, Trump sees a divided country,

00:27:48.060 Trump sees the drastic shift in cost of living and standard of living that we've been talking

00:27:53.340 about, Paige. And I think that he is picking up on that and tapping into it. And whether you call

00:27:57.820 that a bully or a wise, shrewd businessman and negotiator, whatever it is, I think he's tapping

00:28:03.980 into something. And the best thing for Canada that we can do to stand a chance in fighting off this,

00:28:10.060 you know, whether it's a real threat or not, I don't think it is. I think it's all part of

00:28:13.580 the negotiation um but whether it is the best thing we can do is create a stronger country

00:28:19.020 um but again just to go back to that idea that um with mark carney um with this one issue the

00:28:24.780 media is really really going into overdrive to make canadians think that this is a serious imp

00:28:30.860 impeding um threat that's going to happen that that kind of like canada is like czechoslovakia 0.81

00:28:37.260 and it's march 1939 and we're about to be invaded um and that and i think that that is the best

00:28:42.700 thing for the Liberals. And we see it. So if you just look at the recent polls, the Liberals have

00:28:47.980 risen. This is just since January. This is pretty incredible. So eight points, sorry, an eight-point

00:28:57.220 gain for the Liberal Party since January. And the Conservatives saw a five-point drop. So of course,

00:29:02.820 the Conservatives are still in majority territory, according to these polls, 41% and 28% for the

00:29:08.700 liberals. So it's not like the liberals would step in and win a majority. But, you know, that shift

00:29:15.540 that's happening, you know, whatever it is, a 13 point swing in just a month, like if those trends

00:29:20.440 continue, we very much might see another liberal minority government if we were to go to the polls

00:29:27.000 right away. I want to move on over to the liberal leadership campaign, because there was an

00:29:32.320 interesting story over the weekend that we learned that a Chinese linked malicious WeChat campaign

00:29:38.680 against Chrystia Freeland was alerted. This was also happening on Friday. So you can see the

00:29:44.320 National Post headline here, which is that China is basically trying to interfere with the liberal

00:29:50.400 leadership race. We've been warning about this potentially happening on the show for weeks now,

00:29:54.920 and here we see that it actually has happened. So the Canadian Ministry of Democratic Institutions

00:30:01.640 put out a statement on Friday as follows. It says, rapid response mechanisms Canada detects

00:30:07.660 informational operation targeting a candidate for the leadership campaign of the Liberal Party of

00:30:13.580 Canada. And then we learned that it was Christia Freeland, basically a bunch of targeted messages

00:30:20.300 that were seen by apparently millions of Canadians, three million Canadians, that were not true. I

00:30:25.740 don't know exactly what they were saying, but Freeland responded by saying, responding to the

00:30:30.780 revelation on X, she wrote, I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference,

00:30:35.100 having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes i know firsthand the importance of

00:30:39.020 defending our freedoms canada's democracy is strong my thanks to our national security agencies

00:30:44.460 for protecting it and then it gave mark carney the opportunity to jump in as well he wrote this on

00:30:49.980 x i fully support christia freeland and her campaign in light of this disturbing report

00:30:54.220 i am fully committed to defending the integrity of this race and stand firm against any attempts

00:30:59.100 to undermine our democracy my deepest gratitude to the national security intelligence officials

00:31:04.380 who lead this important work to sustain trust in our democratic process. Not really sure, Paige,

00:31:10.500 that this gives us a lot of hope in our democratic institutions and the process, but I will just

00:31:14.400 point something out, that this was happening in Canada during the 2021 election. We know that

00:31:20.180 there were coordinated WeChat campaign attacks against conservatives and against Erin O'Toole

00:31:25.940 that potentially even swayed the results of that election in 2021. And there was no rapid response.

00:31:32.640 there was no government pointing it out in real time saying hey we just caught the chinese trying 1.00

00:31:37.200 to do this um they just ignored it let it happen let the election play out and then we found out

00:31:41.360 about it later on in reports so it's kind of interesting that when it comes to a liberal

00:31:46.480 the federal bureaucracy is so willing to swing in um and and stop it in real time um and then also

00:31:52.800 sort of the broader issue that the chinese are actively trying to sway our elections um as a 0.56

00:31:59.280 As a Canadian, what do you think when you hear stories like this?

00:32:03.040 Yeah, I mean, honestly, this is pretty above my pay grade, but I do think that there are

00:32:11.740 just so many of these stories that I think that a lot of people are seeing this and it's

00:32:15.720 almost noise in the background and it's sort of disconnected from, these are larger geopolitical

00:32:22.160 issues, but it is a bit disconnected from I think what Canadians are experiencing every

00:32:27.360 day.

00:32:28.360 what you know I hope that there is just more of a focus like renewed focus it

00:32:34.220 does feel that in the last short while we have really there was a lot of talk

00:32:39.220 even from the Liberal leadership candidates about about things like cost

00:32:43.120 of living about the things that Canadians are facing day to day and the

00:32:46.420 conversation has shifted quite dramatically in the last few weeks and

00:32:50.020 I'm hoping that you know the former does not get lost in all of this but again I

00:32:55.060 probably comes down to you know what we were just talking about which is that

00:32:58.300 like we really need to get our house in order and we need to um regain strength as a country

00:33:03.260 um and that would give i think canadians some renewed faith in all of these different institutions

00:33:07.900 um but in terms of commenting on the specifics of this again a little bit outside my purview

00:33:13.180 well i mean it is kind of interesting that all of the stories in the news right now have something

00:33:17.020 to do with canada's uh integrity as a country and our sovereignty um and i think that really it's

00:33:24.620 a sad reflection on just how weak Canada is in so many ways. People on X and Canadians were also

00:33:32.380 quick to point out that Mark Carney himself has some ties to communist China and Xi. So almost

00:33:38.620 immediately after the hack story came out, this photo started circulating on X. Here is Stephen

00:33:44.620 Taylor, a conservative activist, reminding everybody that Mark Carney had met with Chinese

00:33:51.580 premier Xi Jinping so just for some more context that meeting happened back in March of 2024

00:33:58.620 back when Mark Carney was the governor of the Bank of England and they met during basically

00:34:05.660 some kind of a CEO retreat and so you know not a great look I think for Mark Carney when he's

00:34:13.900 trying to become a Canadian prime minister trying to sound tough on China trying to talk about how

00:34:19.500 you know he fully supports Christia Freeland as her campaign is being targeted by misinformation

00:34:24.540 or disinformation from the Chinese and that picture is circulating around not the best

00:34:29.260 look okay I want to move on Paige because I know that you focus on education in your day job

00:34:33.820 you've got four great little kids and so it's obviously a pressing matter for you

00:34:38.780 I saw this video circulating apparently it was a year old but still I think this the story still

00:34:44.300 remains kind of shocking um to see a bunch of canadian marxist teenagers um and and young 0.99

00:34:50.300 people just cheering and celebrating um the uh some kind of a marxist um school so uh let's

00:34:58.780 Let's play this clip for you.

00:35:28.780 Yeah, so I mean, on the one hand, they're pretty happy. It's nice to see optimistic young Canadians. You know, I hear from so many Canadians that are filled with sort of despair and grief about the future. So on the one hand, it's great to see some jolly young people in Canada. But on the other hand, I just can't believe how brainwashed these students are to be, you know, joyously celebrating Marxism. What do you make of all that, Paige?

00:35:55.640 Yeah, not the school that I would pick for my children, the Marxist school, but it's so, yeah, this is interesting because what we focus on at the Fraser Institute primarily is K-12 education or K-12, so kindergarten or primary to grade 12 education, but of course that is just the precursor and what feeds into post-secondary education.

00:36:15.640 And that's where you do end up seeing a lot of these types of wild videos or campaigns or things that go on at, you know, on university and college campuses in Canada.

00:36:26.280 And of course, this is the the everybody can relate to an extent to, you know, you're not quite got maybe one foot in the real world.

00:36:33.860 You're not quite there. You're not quite paying taxes yet. You maybe don't have that full reality check.

00:36:38.300 It might be, you know, the days when you are maybe most vulnerable to the messages of Marxism.

00:36:47.600 But there is, you know, politicization that happens at the K-12 level in Canadian schools as well.

00:36:55.220 And I think that really the central issue here is for parents, from the parent perspective, is do I have a way to avoid this?

00:37:04.800 do i have a way to choose some kind of an education that is just quite simply neutral

00:37:10.960 that you know sets my kid up for success in the basics so in k-12 that might be

00:37:15.440 you know reading writing math history history understanding that kind of those kind of core

00:37:21.040 foundational building blocks and then into university where they're going to choose a

00:37:24.480 more specialized stream where they're not just going to be kind of flushing their money down

00:37:27.840 the toilet something that really sets them up for life um or at the very least um isn't you know

00:37:33.200 structured in some kind of like a marxist indoctrination camp sort of a way um and i think

00:37:38.000 that you know what what we have seen at least at the k-12 level when we have done surveys at

00:37:43.360 the fraser institute for example we did a survey last year um 2024 with lege for the fraser institute

00:37:50.080 asking about how parents feel about controversial issues um so that might be responses to climate

00:37:58.240 change or things like like sex and gender those kinds of conversations how do you feel about those

00:38:04.640 issues in your kids k-12 schools 76 percent of parents believe that kids should be presented

00:38:11.520 both sides of controversial issues 91 percent of parents this is sort of a canadian average

00:38:17.600 say that the appropriate age-appropriate materials are the only things that should be taught in k-12

00:38:23.600 schools and 81% of parents believed that they should receive advanced notice if controversial

00:38:29.440 topics are being raised in their kids' schools. But we know that that doesn't always happen.

00:38:33.600 I'm sure that your viewers and listeners remember not too long ago, it made headlines that there

00:38:40.240 were Toronto area schools where kids were shipped to a protest that turned into, was supposed to be

00:38:46.000 kind of like an indigenous rights protest or rally and it turned into an anti-Israel rally.

00:38:52.800 there were Jewish students there who reported being very uncomfortable, but were made to stay.

00:38:57.920 This is the kind of stuff that parents are sometimes finding out after the fact. We know

00:39:02.720 that this is happening, you know, obviously at the university level, students have more autonomy, but

00:39:07.440 what are the sort of the building blocks? What are the foundation stones of this? And do parents have

00:39:12.000 a choice to opt out? And the reality is that, for example, in that case in Toronto, where there was

00:39:16.960 that that protest that the kids were taken to no not really like unless you

00:39:21.480 are of financial means you have some choice within the public system in

00:39:25.580 Ontario you could choose to attend an English or French public school or

00:39:28.940 English or French public Catholic school but outside of that unless you can

00:39:32.080 afford to pay the full tuition at an independent school or have one parent

00:39:36.020 stay home and homeschool your kids there really isn't an opt-out option and I

00:39:40.960 think that's the real challenge here for Canadian families at least in terms of

00:39:45.680 how our surveys reflect this because this is really the concern you're

00:39:49.820 setting kids up with this politicization in schools instead of just teaching them

00:39:54.080 the basics of reading writing math where we know kids are actually falling behind

00:39:56.840 right across the country what is that setting them up for then in university

00:40:01.100 and it's certainly at the very least makes these kinds of videos less

00:40:03.920 surprising to see well there's so much to unpack their page okay so like what

00:40:08.480 when I look at the universities like just my high-level reaction is that

00:40:12.380 these students are being brainwashed and i don't understand why we're subsidizing them like you

00:40:17.680 know i it's been 15 years since i was in university but when i was there it was overwhelmingly marxist

00:40:23.040 like the professors in the political science department the university of alberta were

00:40:26.440 overwhelmingly pushing marxism if they weren't outright marxist i can't imagine how much that's

00:40:32.040 increased intensified in the last 10 or 15 years um i guess it's been 10 years since i was in

00:40:36.800 university. But still, the idea that our taxpayers are funding these students to go get a higher

00:40:44.300 education that we believe is necessary to have a career and a successful life in Canada. But a lot

00:40:50.920 of times, especially if they're studying in the liberal arts in areas like political science or

00:40:56.620 humanities, they're actually just getting brainwashed. And I don't understand why we're

00:41:01.400 funding it. Is there any movement or any political talk or any sort of think tank work pointing

00:41:07.560 towards the idea that we just shouldn't fund these universities? I think that that conversation is

00:41:12.120 happening more in the United States. I think it should happen in Canada. I think that individual

00:41:17.660 young Canadians should get some kind of a grant from the government, whether they want to go into 0.67

00:41:23.460 trade school, whether they want to start a business, whether they want to go get an academic

00:41:26.960 education. That's up to them. But to me, I don't understand why we're choosing one area to

00:41:31.640 subsidize. We're helping them pay for their university, but we're not helping them in other

00:41:36.340 areas. And so I want your thoughts on defunding the universities, and then we'll get into some

00:41:41.040 of the other K-12 issues. Right. So I do think that is a conversation that is definitely happening

00:41:46.900 much more in the United States than it is in Canada. But what I can say is that there is a

00:41:51.420 demand for different ideas that is perhaps not being met by traditional universities, which are

00:41:56.800 very heavily subsidized in Canada. So at the Fraser Institute, we run education programs

00:42:02.400 and those education programs are often focused on sort of just like a basic education and economics

00:42:08.780 and public policy. So you'll hear from people like myself and other staff and senior fellows

00:42:15.100 that are associated with the Fraser Institute that give you an understanding of like, you know,

00:42:19.460 I would talk about education policy. There might be specific policy topics, but also just that kind

00:42:23.760 of like basic understanding of economics um that really is a prerequisite to understanding

00:42:30.960 the kind of broader political conversations that we just had you can't really put those things in

00:42:36.000 context unless you have an understanding of economics unless you have an understanding of

00:42:40.320 how the economy works you know and all these sort of different areas and that's what the education

00:42:44.640 programs at the Fraser Institute seeks to provide students and also teachers um and and there is a

00:42:51.440 demand for it you know there are lots of students out there um that that want to have that kind of

00:42:56.560 an education that just are not accessing that kind of educational material through their

00:43:00.960 traditional universities so you know take from that what you will um should there be some more

00:43:07.200 diversity you know in how things are funded i think that's a really interesting question

00:43:11.280 but i can tell you that for sure the demand is there for some diversity of ideas well i hope i

00:43:16.640 hope the next government whoever it is will will take this on because again like university is

00:43:21.680 not for everyone and i think more and more it's it's not only not beneficial but it's actually

00:43:26.960 harmful um to having a happy successful life um i want to go back to what you're talking about a

00:43:32.400 little bit with sort of radical ideologies taking over k-12 education i know at true north we cover

00:43:38.240 a lot of these kind of stories and i'm constantly blown away by some of the stuff that's happening

00:43:42.800 especially in ontario especially in around toronto and i always kind of wonder like why do parents

00:43:47.440 put up with this like why is it like how is it especially in some of these areas paige where

00:43:52.480 when you look at the the photos that are taken or things that leak out of classrooms a lot of

00:43:56.560 the kids in the classroom are um from immigrant families and and they're they're they're like

00:44:01.200 people who probably have much more conservative political values um than than we do in canada

00:44:07.280 and i i don't understand why there's just so much radical ideology and i'm talking about

00:44:11.760 the gender confusion that's pushed on kids, this idea of like that Canada is somehow like a racist 0.97

00:44:18.120 genocidal country or that white people are inherently bad and evil. I just, I see so much 1.00

00:44:22.660 of it and it kind of blows me away. Like what, what, what can be done? You know, you talked about

00:44:27.640 how parents can choose to pull their kids out. But if we're looking at like really trying to

00:44:34.020 rid this ideology out of schools, like where would we even begin? Well, so part of the reason that we

00:44:39.620 conducted the survey that we did last year in the first place is because we were hearing so many of

00:44:43.860 these stories right there was a story out of New Brunswick I live in Nova Scotia so next door to

00:44:48.580 where I am where parents found out after the fact that an outside group had come to present to the

00:44:54.820 kids it was about sort of gender and sex that was like the dominating ideas in this assembly and

00:45:03.060 that just a lot of parents and I think very reasonably believe that it was not age-appropriate

00:45:08.420 material um that was being delivered to their children but they had no advance notice so i

00:45:12.900 think that you know that's why we started asking these questions you know should you have advance

00:45:16.100 notice should you be able to pull your child out um if you you don't agree with the material being

00:45:23.140 presented after you've received this advance notice and the majority of canadians do you know

00:45:27.540 there is support um for for these things should the material be um age-appropriate and should

00:45:33.860 both sides be presented so that's what most canadians want um canadian parents with k to

00:45:39.380 kids in k-12 specifically want um and of course parents can go to their schools and they can say

00:45:45.620 you know this is this is what i want and and hope for the best but if you don't have if you don't

00:45:52.340 have the the kind of influence that you want to have over um your kid's school if you don't have

00:45:58.260 a system that facilitates parents of all income levels to be able to be informed customers of

00:46:05.140 their kids education right so be involved in their kids schools be an active participant know what's

00:46:09.860 happening if they want to um and and ultimately be able to leave the school if it's not aligned with

00:46:16.020 what they want and have their tax dollars follow or at least a portion of their tax dollars which

00:46:20.900 is how it works in five out of ten canadian provinces follow their child to a different

00:46:25.860 school of their choice. So British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec

00:46:30.900 all allow parents to send their child to an independent school and a portion of their tax

00:46:35.940 dollars will follow their child to that school. That at least, you know, it doesn't make it

00:46:40.020 accessible for every family, but it at least gives parents some ability to move their child

00:46:44.500 and their child's tax dollars that are associated with that kid to a different school. So having

00:46:49.220 those kinds of policies in place I think really helps. That's of course the opt-out option in

00:46:53.860 terms of the you know do i stick with it and and make my voice heard within um the school um i

00:47:00.420 think you know parents are doing their best at the local level and and obviously that's why we think

00:47:05.540 it's important to ask these questions and sort of broadcast this information from a public education

00:47:10.580 point of view at the national level to remind schools um and provincial um education ministries

00:47:16.420 and school boards that these things actually matter to parents and that it is your role to

00:47:21.300 teach kids the basics you know in education it's not your role to have a political point of view

00:47:26.980 um but often times that is so lost i i remember there was a post once by chanel faff who's a great

00:47:33.460 uh she's she's a former um educator and now she's sort of a whistleblower at all and she she showed 0.98

00:47:39.060 i think it was a grade three or grade four classroom exposing a teacher really just

00:47:43.060 promoting radical ideology and i i i shared the post and the thing that i was most outraged by

00:47:48.180 obviously i was outraged that they were teaching eight and nine-year-olds about sex which is i

00:47:52.260 think very inappropriate um but the the math that was on the board was like so basic that my four

00:47:58.580 and five-year-old could do it it was like basic addition and i'm like why are they doing this

00:48:02.580 in grade four um that that's outrageous that the academics are just not keeping up i want to tie

00:48:08.180 it into this news story that true north is covering um also on your neck of the woods uh page just

00:48:13.860 next door in Prince Edward Island. So a PEI councillor was sanctioned for putting up a mass

00:48:19.300 graves is a hoax lawn sign, and the court is seeking the review. Now, if you look at the sign

00:48:24.840 that they put up there, Sean, if we could just leave that back on, it says, truth, mass graves

00:48:30.420 hoax, reconciliation is to redeem Sir John A's legacy, or sorry, integrity, redeem Sir John A's

00:48:38.760 integrity. And I think that's such an interesting point, like good, you know, first of all, good for

00:48:42.140 this councillor for speaking up and, you know, maintaining his freedom of speech in the Canadian

00:48:47.000 Constitution Foundation for representing him in the Supreme Court right now. But to get to the

00:48:52.380 issues he's talking about, part of the major irony of hearing the Liberals and the left right now

00:48:59.060 celebrate Team Canada and talk about their deep and unabiding, you know, unwavering love of Canada

00:49:05.160 is in the wake of the last five years when they've done everything they can to shame Canadians to try

00:49:09.780 to erase our history, shame us about our legacy, and try to take away Sir John A. Macdonald's

00:49:16.180 accomplishments, particularly in school. So now young Canadians are taught that Sir John A. is

00:49:20.620 the villain and the bad guy. So I think that, you know, part of this conversation really does need

00:49:26.360 to be like, what can we teach our kids? What should kids know about Canada? That Canada is not

00:49:32.820 this irredeemably racist country. Canada is actually a great country, and we should be celebrating that.

00:49:37.360 Right. Yeah. So one of the projects that we did last year or the year before at the Fraser Institute was undertake a review of the curricula, the history curricula from K to 12 in Ontario and British Columbia and just see how much mandated content was in there.

00:49:54.440 So content being names, dates, facts, providing, you know, context around historical events, just simply teaching kids what happened in a way that makes sense, chronological sense that kids can conceptualize it.

00:50:09.060 Right. And what we found is that there is shockingly little mandated content in social studies curricula in both B.C. and Ontario.

00:50:19.200 In B.C., really the only consistent theme of the history content that was taught was Canadian wrongdoing, essentially was a was a theme that came up.

00:50:30.720 So so different points of history in which the Canadian government has done something wrong, which don't get me wrong.

00:50:36.060 the Canadian government has done something wrong laws.

00:50:38.600 That's an important part of history,

00:50:40.600 but there were not a lot of other kind of mandated names,

00:50:44.140 dates, facts, things that kids need to learn.

00:50:46.560 So why does this matter?

00:50:48.240 Because if you ask a child about Sir John A. Macdonald

00:50:52.880 and you ask, should we be protesting him?

00:50:55.900 Should we be tearing down his statue?

00:50:58.660 Should we be doing these things?

00:51:00.620 Do they know who he is?

00:51:01.900 Do they know what he did?

00:51:03.100 Do they know the context in which, you know,

00:51:05.120 the time in which he lived? Do they know what other people were doing? What historical events

00:51:09.040 led up to the things that he did? What historical events followed? If you don't know this information,

00:51:14.060 then you are not able to properly put it into context and understand it. So then you don't

00:51:19.800 really have any understanding and you don't really have an informed answer to those questions around

00:51:23.940 what should be done with Sir John A. And any of those policies that have, you know, anything that

00:51:29.680 we're dealing with today, how it reflects the policies of that time. And so that's why, you

00:51:34.940 know, it's really unfortunate that curricula in Canada have moved away from those really

00:51:41.360 foundational building blocks of understanding, you need to know how to do the basics, you

00:51:45.960 need to know how to do your time stables, for example, until and then you can move on

00:51:49.840 to more complex math, you need to know the names and dates of things. And then you can

00:51:54.800 write a critical essay, you know, saying that Sir John A was a horrible person for such

00:51:59.580 and such a reason. But you need to know what happened first if you know, and that's what

00:52:03.300 we've moved away from. And I want to just also, just on that note, circle back to something that

00:52:07.380 you mentioned right before you brought up this issue, which was around the math that was on the

00:52:12.380 chalkboard. So from 2003 to 2022, 2022 being the most recent year that we have programmed for

00:52:20.420 International Student Assessments, which is sort of the gold standard skills standardized test

00:52:25.400 internationally speaking, and Canadian students at 15 years old write this test. Canadian students

00:52:31.400 math the average from 2003 to 2022 has dropped by almost two years of learning so so basically the

00:52:42.360 PISA equivalent of two years of learning have been lost in that period so Canadian students in terms

00:52:47.320 of their math competency at age 15 are you know like two years behind where they were in 2003

00:52:54.920 and in reading about one year behind so when you ask these questions about you know how much of

00:53:00.120 the day is being spent on this kind of like politicized content in schools even if you're

00:53:05.800 going to teach that kind of stuff which canadian parents don't seem to really agree that you should

00:53:10.200 be um why aren't you spending more time bolstering canadians kids knowledge of math and of reading

00:53:17.320 and all of these skills that are so critical and what school is supposed to be about where we're

00:53:21.240 actually falling so far behind it's so unbelievable i just i can't even i i mean one of the saving

00:53:27.560 kind of graces about there there is a massive political politicization um of school but when

00:53:33.160 you look at canadian students academics they're still stronger than so many other g7s and i can't 1.00

00:53:38.840 or g20 and i kind of almost wonder if that is because of immigrant kids coming here that still

00:53:44.280 put that emphasis you know chinese and indian families put that emphasis on math in their own

00:53:48.840 homes and it's not necessarily the canadian schools when you hear data like that it's it's

00:53:54.120 kind of scary like the whole point of school should be making sure that kids understand the

00:53:58.920 basics math and literacy and the fact that we're getting away from that is a concern well patriots

00:54:03.640 have a few minutes left on the show here and i want to uh talk about what's happening in states

00:54:09.720 i know we talked a little bit more um earlier in the show about trump and how you know when it

00:54:14.520 comes to conservatives or even just canadians there's a lot of things that are happening down

00:54:18.120 there that we're excited about that we think are good like taking a zero-based budgeting approach

00:54:22.200 to the government and cutting all kinds of wasteful programs. I know Pierre Polyev was up in

00:54:27.160 up in the north today and he was taught he was asked about foreign aid and he talked about how

00:54:31.800 we should be spending our money in Canada and not abroad. One of the things I'm most excited about

00:54:37.240 when it comes to what the Trump administration is doing is the Make America Healthy Again movement

00:54:43.000 and the involvement of Robert F Kennedy Jr. or of KJ. I think there's a big awakening happening

00:54:49.320 in the culture so not just in the united states but across canada too where uh people are being

00:54:54.520 a lot just a lot more aware of what we're eating the things that are in our food the things that

00:54:59.640 we're giving to our kids like the dyes that are put in so many of the kids foods the amount of

00:55:03.580 sugar and processed grains and seed oils in kids foods um you know questions about vaccines

00:55:08.920 questions about schools it's really making a lot of people aware of what is happening and i know

00:55:14.680 you're sort of interested in this topic, along with myself. Do you see a movement like Make

00:55:19.660 America Healthy Again happening in Canada? Did you hear a lot about these issues from your mom

00:55:25.220 friends? I hear a lot about it from my mom friends, especially, well, a lot of things,

00:55:30.800 you know, the health stuff, but also concern about the radical left-wing woke ideology that's

00:55:35.820 being inserted into schools. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this movement.

00:55:41.140 I do think that there is a shift that does seem to be happening where people are just wanting

00:55:46.260 information. So on the school side, I think it actually started during COVID lockdown, schools

00:55:52.740 being shut down for such a long period of time in Canada, which by the way is likely accounts for

00:55:59.700 why kids have been, or at least partially why kids are so set back in Canada, but also in

00:56:05.780 the other countries that you're talking about, other developed countries, which we compare our

00:56:10.260 test scores but basically what happened was schools shut down people were at home with their

00:56:15.700 kids they were watching what their kids were learning on screens right when you had this

00:56:20.500 sort of virtual school which didn't go very well for for a large number of children and parents

00:56:26.020 kind of started to clue in and realize gee like i don't really i can't believe that you're you're

00:56:31.940 not sort of hitting these sort of basic foundational building blocks in your education and started to

00:56:37.060 kind of wake up a little bit to maybe what their kids were learning in schools and where

00:56:40.820 the deficits were.

00:56:42.940 Since then I do think that there has been sort of a growth in I guess you could call

00:56:48.320 it an awakening right where certainly my mom friends and what we hear from people on the

00:56:54.140 ground is that I really didn't realize that it was like this in school and now I want

00:56:58.900 to be a much more informed customer.

00:57:01.820 not exactly maybe it was the same thing that triggered this movement um in the us um around

00:57:07.100 this sort of make america healthy again movement and and the similar movements that we're seeing

00:57:11.420 in canada where people are realizing like gee i didn't really realize that um these products were

00:57:17.420 so unhealthy um and then it's just so difficult to find products on the shelves that don't have

00:57:22.620 these ingredients these additives in them um whether it's dyes or seed oils or whatever it is

00:57:27.260 right and just parents and even if people you know are fine with consuming those i do think that

00:57:31.980 there is sort of a shift where people wanting to know just i just would like to know the ingredients

00:57:36.540 please um and and that is certainly something that um is different i mean i have always been

00:57:43.260 the uh a read the ingredients mom but but i do think that that i i feel less um less fringe in

00:57:51.020 that regard um as of late i feel almost helpful helpless when i go into a grocery store like just

00:57:56.860 even for instance trying to buy bread i remember once i was walking through the grocery store

00:58:01.500 all i wanted was bread that had like less than 10 ingredients and i literally i i was at a healthy

00:58:06.940 grocery store uh just outside toronto and i picked up like 40 different loaves of bread

00:58:12.620 and i couldn't find anything that didn't have a bunch of additives that i couldn't pronounce i

00:58:16.540 didn't know what they were and that that was some point where i'm like okay i guess i have to bake

00:58:20.620 my own bread and i do i have my own sourdough starter on the counter i do it with the kids

00:58:25.660 they love to get involved and it's a lot of work uh but it's fun and i like it um and and it just

00:58:30.060 it got to that point where i'm like you know so many of the things that we assume are kind of

00:58:33.980 healthy aren't and if you don't want to give those things to your kids it's it's harder to i'll tell

00:58:39.180 you what radicalized me um i know we just have a minute left here um you might not want to comment

00:58:44.060 on this but i was always very high trust when it came to my doctor and my hospital i really you

00:58:49.260 know when it came to my labors and pregnancies i put a lot of trust into my ob my doctor and it

00:58:54.140 And it was after COVID when they were recommending that my three-month-old baby get the COVID

00:58:58.720 vaccine.

00:58:59.960 And that was like a moment of like, well, wait a minute.

00:59:03.000 I, as a journalist, I report a lot on this.

00:59:05.500 I've read the research.

00:59:06.360 I understand the data.

00:59:07.580 Little kids don't get COVID.

00:59:09.100 And if they do, it doesn't harm them.

00:59:10.760 Like the risk of death is so small for a child to get COVID.

00:59:14.480 The fact that you're recommending that I get this COVID vaccine for my child, which now,

00:59:18.860 you know, the Alberta government put out that report last week that said that they don't

00:59:22.340 actually recommend it for kids.

00:59:23.380 But the fact that my own doctor and my hospital were recommending that really made me stop and think like, if I don't trust you on this, and I think you're giving me bad advice on this, like what else should I not trust you on? And I think that that is maybe what led a lot of parents to say, I have to take my health and my kids' health into my own hands. And I'm optimistic that they'll make some positive changes in the US and hopefully that'll have a downstream effect on us in Canada as well. Did you have any last words on that one, Paige?

00:59:52.360 I just think it was the same with schools, right?

00:59:54.540 When people were saying you can't have your kids in school because of this,

00:59:57.960 there was a lot of people maybe like you and like me who work with data all the time

01:00:01.480 and we're looking at it and thinking the risk to my kids of this many years of lost learning is high.

01:00:07.840 The risk to my kids of this virus seems low.

01:00:11.540 And unfortunately, a lot of people came to that realization after the fact.

01:00:15.980 But here we are.

01:00:17.440 And I do think that was the springboard.

01:00:19.320 you know those little moments for each family might have been different specific issues

01:00:23.640 whether it was schools or health products or whatever um but just you know wanting to become

01:00:29.160 more informed and uh and just a more informed consumer excellent well paige mcpherson such a

01:00:35.640 pleasure thank you so much for joining us on the show today really appreciate the conversation

01:00:39.480 yeah thank you so much all right and thank you so much for tuning in i'm candace malcolm this

01:00:44.040 has been the candace malcolm show we'll be back again tomorrow with all of the news thank you and

01:00:48.360 and God bless.

Juno News - February 10, 2025

What Trudeau’s hot mic comments really reveal

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