Juno News - April 28, 2020


Why donā€™t politicians trust Canadiansļ¼Ÿ


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

175.34398

Word Count

5,603

Sentence Count

276

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.320 Politicians in Ottawa and Toronto rule out ending the lockdown.
00:00:04.320 Meanwhile, Quebec, Saskatchewan, many American states and much of Europe move to reopen their
00:00:10.320 economies, which really begs the question, why don't politicians trust Canadians, especially
00:00:16.080 Canadians in Ontario?
00:00:17.880 Plus, Andrews share flip-flops, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending
00:00:23.940 time with her family.
00:00:25.840 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:30.000 Hi, everyone.
00:00:34.580 Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:00:36.200 We are back to doing a regular show.
00:00:38.280 We had been doing the True North update, where I was joined with Andrew Lawton.
00:00:41.640 We're doing that every day to keep you up to date during the pandemic.
00:00:45.320 Well, things have slowed down a little bit news-wise in terms of the pandemic, so we're
00:00:48.720 back to a regular schedule of doing The Candice Malcolm Show plus The Andrew Lawton Show, so
00:00:53.400 you can catch that every day as we used to do it before.
00:00:56.940 There is a lot I want to get to today, so let's jump right into it.
00:01:00.520 I think the big story that is now upon us here in Canada is, look, we have been in lockdown
00:01:06.780 for weeks, coming on two months now, where we have been at home.
00:01:10.780 We have been told that we have to work from home.
00:01:13.260 And a lot of people, frankly, can't work from home, which is why we have millions upon millions
00:01:17.200 of Canadians collecting the new emergency benefit.
00:01:20.440 We have countless small businesses, particularly restaurants and businesses in the hospitality
00:01:26.180 industry going bankrupt, going out of business, a wage subsidy that's sort of too little,
00:01:31.080 too late for so many businesses.
00:01:32.780 True North has been covering it, and I really encourage you to check out the work of my colleague,
00:01:37.080 Lindsay Shepard.
00:01:38.080 She has been interviewing small business owners and doing a lot of work just trying to understand
00:01:43.080 how business owners are getting through this really tough economy, given all the government
00:01:48.860 imposed lockdowns.
00:01:49.860 Well, I think things have started to turn.
00:01:52.360 We've started to learn a lot more about the coronavirus.
00:01:55.180 I fully admit at the beginning of this all, it was an unknown virus.
00:01:59.400 It was an unknown, mysterious virus that originated out of China.
00:02:03.380 China is a repressive communist authoritarian society.
00:02:07.300 So information is so tight.
00:02:08.960 We just didn't really know what we were dealing with.
00:02:11.300 And so politicians were acting out of an abundance of caution.
00:02:14.860 I was one of the people at the beginning saying, hey, look, I don't think that we should be going
00:02:19.880 about business as usual.
00:02:21.360 I think that the Canadian government took way too long to take action, particularly when it
00:02:26.000 came to closing our borders, when it came to really alerting the Canadian public of the
00:02:32.180 dangers of this coronavirus and encouraging people to stay indoors.
00:02:37.680 That was two months ago now.
00:02:38.860 And I think that things have really changed.
00:02:40.300 I think that we've learned that the coronavirus isn't nearly as deadly as we had originally
00:02:46.680 thought.
00:02:47.680 It certainly is communicable.
00:02:48.680 It's fast spreading.
00:02:49.680 It reaches a lot of people, but it doesn't kill nearly as many people as we originally
00:02:54.620 suspected.
00:02:55.620 Recall that the World Health Organization had originally said that the death rate for this
00:02:59.340 thing was three to four percent.
00:03:02.360 It's now looking like it might be more like point three percent, which is still deadlier than
00:03:06.260 the flu.
00:03:07.260 And given the fact that it spreads a lot faster, it is a deadly thing.
00:03:11.360 However, not to the point where we have to shut down our entire economy and our entire
00:03:15.560 society waiting.
00:03:17.560 Everyone just cowering at home, not allowed to leave their house out of fear of either
00:03:21.180 catching the disease or getting arrested or getting fined by these ridiculous bylaw officers
00:03:27.160 that seem to be picking on Canadians just going about their daily routine, trying to have
00:03:33.080 our daily routine anyway, in terms of getting fresh air, getting exercise, getting out of
00:03:37.300 the house and not trying to get too close to other Canadians.
00:03:42.460 And really, we've just created a society where everyone's at home and we're living in complete
00:03:48.020 fear.
00:03:49.020 We're living in fear and our politicians are reinforcing that idea.
00:03:52.180 Yeah.
00:03:53.180 That's particularly the case here in Ontario.
00:03:55.400 I think that there are some differences across the country.
00:03:58.280 I used to point this out on the True North update almost every day.
00:04:01.760 So many of the provinces across Canada have barely been affected by the coronavirus.
00:04:05.780 I mean, Prince Edward Island is the example that I like to point to, where there have been
00:04:09.700 23 cases of coronavirus, 23 and zero deaths.
00:04:14.600 And given that it's an island, given that Prince Edward Island could easily lock down security
00:04:18.680 and control who comes and goes from the island, it makes no sense to me as to why they ever
00:04:23.100 locked down in the first place.
00:04:25.260 Why they would ever shut down small businesses and restaurants and hair salons and force business
00:04:29.940 owners to make really, really tough economic decisions about their livelihood.
00:04:35.460 So given all that, we're at a situation now where things have started to turn.
00:04:39.580 People are starting to say, hey, you know, why is it that we're so paranoid over something
00:04:45.160 that really, I mean, it's bad, but it isn't as bad as we thought it was originally.
00:04:50.200 A lot of places are starting to reopen.
00:04:53.260 And one of the other things I find really, really interesting, it's highly underreported
00:04:57.340 in my opinion, is the fact that here in Canada, of the deaths, of the cases, of the deadly
00:05:03.060 cases of coronavirus, 79 percent of them have taken place at long-term care facilities
00:05:09.920 and at senior centres, 79 percent, so nearly eight in ten deaths in Canada have been related
00:05:16.240 to long-term care facilities.
00:05:18.220 Which again, begs the question of why do all Canadians need to stay indoors?
00:05:23.760 Why do all Canadians need to practice such heightened levels of quarantine and self-isolation
00:05:29.300 and economic lockdowns?
00:05:30.960 When we know that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of cases target one very small, very
00:05:37.420 vulnerable section of the population, instead of having everybody locked down, why don't
00:05:42.060 we take all the extra precautions to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, the
00:05:46.740 ones that we know will be the most affected and impacted?
00:05:50.900 And part of the problem is that this conversation that I'm trying to lead, this conversation
00:05:54.440 I'm having right now, is not being engaged.
00:05:58.120 The mainstream media is not having this conversation.
00:06:01.340 Politicians basically refuse to acknowledge it.
00:06:03.240 And when I say politicians, I mean the handful of people that are leading the efforts,
00:06:07.180 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, and people in their government.
00:06:13.180 So those two governments specifically.
00:06:15.320 Because Quebec has had the worst number, the most number of cases with coronavirus, and
00:06:21.100 yet their attitude is totally different than Ontario's.
00:06:25.340 So in Ontario, Doug Ford announced sort of a plan, supposedly, to be reopening the economy,
00:06:32.780 but it's really not a plan.
00:06:34.580 It's really nothing.
00:06:35.580 The framework to reopen the economy.
00:06:38.180 On Monday, Premier Doug Ford revealed Ontario's plan to reopen the province and ease coronavirus
00:06:43.700 restrictions currently in place, but they didn't really announce anything.
00:06:47.140 The framework is about how we're reopening, not when we're reopening.
00:06:51.100 So they didn't really give a timeline.
00:06:52.780 They didn't give any concrete dates, they just sort of released this framework idea of how
00:06:57.180 they might reopen the economy eventually when it does get reopened.
00:07:02.080 Ford said, progress doesn't mean we can quit now, and that's why I won't set hard dates
00:07:06.760 until we're ready, because the virus travels on its own speed.
00:07:10.320 The Premier emphasized the government will be basing their decisions on the advice of the
00:07:14.820 Chief Medical Officer of Health.
00:07:16.780 But we know that Doug Ford has no interest in reopening society, reopening the economy,
00:07:21.460 because over the weekend, there were a group of protesters who went to Queen's Park.
00:07:25.540 Now, these protesters were harshly maligned in the mainstream media, and not just in the
00:07:30.860 mainstream media, by politicians themselves.
00:07:34.720 Doug Ford slammed this group of people for protesting.
00:07:38.000 He said that they were a bunch of yahoos, and he said that they were reckless and what they're
00:07:42.440 doing is selfish.
00:07:43.440 OK, first of all, I just want to note, just because we have coronavirus doesn't somehow
00:07:48.340 mean that we have given up all of our democratic freedoms.
00:07:51.000 We still live in a free democratic society where people have the right to protest.
00:07:57.400 They have the right to protest against their government, particularly when the government
00:08:00.740 is taking tyrannical steps to shut down the economy in defense of something that's basically,
00:08:08.440 by all accounts, by most accounts, an overreaction, a massive overreaction.
00:08:13.120 I think we'll look back at the early spring of 2020 for years, for decades, and sort of
00:08:20.780 scratch our heads as to what we were thinking when we shut down the global economy because
00:08:26.260 we were afraid, because we're afraid of a mysterious virus and we massively overreacted.
00:08:32.060 And so I'll play this clip of Doug Ford.
00:08:34.220 Just listen to the way that he condemns people who are exercising their democratic rights.
00:08:40.120 These people that are absolutely irresponsible, it's reckless to do what they're doing.
00:08:47.480 And personally, I think it's selfish.
00:08:48.720 We have, you know, a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen's Park, sitting there protesting
00:08:56.380 that the place isn't open as they're breaking the law and putting everyone in jeopardy, putting
00:09:01.660 themselves in jeopardy, putting the workers in jeopardy, and God forbid, one of them end
00:09:06.960 up in the hospital down the street.
00:09:08.380 So Doug Ford thinks it's absolutely irresponsible and reckless, even though these protesters,
00:09:14.840 from best I can tell, were practicing their own social distancing.
00:09:18.440 They were staying six feet apart.
00:09:19.880 They were following, generally, the medical health guidelines as to what you should do when
00:09:24.940 you're outside.
00:09:25.940 I won't defend all of them because I know any time you have a group of protesters, it
00:09:29.840 does attract fringe people who, you know, promote ideas that I don't necessarily believe
00:09:34.480 in.
00:09:35.480 For instance, you know, there might be people who are opposed to vaccinations.
00:09:38.800 I am definitely not one of those people.
00:09:41.040 But that said, in a democratic and free society, not only should we allow space for people who
00:09:46.940 want to protest, but we shouldn't outright condemn them as being reckless and yahoos and really
00:09:52.920 trying to undermine them.
00:09:54.040 We still, again, promote the idea of a diversity of opinions and thoughts.
00:09:58.700 That's what makes for a wholesome civil society where we can come to, you know, where we can
00:10:05.340 reach a consensus on ideas that we disagree with.
00:10:07.580 So outright condemning people just because they are protesting is not something that you
00:10:12.140 should want to see.
00:10:13.140 And look, I like Doug Ford.
00:10:14.560 I have a lot of time for Doug Ford, but I don't understand his really, his massive overreaction
00:10:20.020 on this and condemning peaceful protesters and also his, his sort of resistance to any
00:10:25.840 idea of wanting to reopen the economy.
00:10:28.680 And he's far from alone.
00:10:31.020 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said this week, he said on Monday that life won't return
00:10:36.260 to normal until we have a vaccine, not until we have, you know, flattened the curve, not
00:10:42.760 until we've gotten past sort of the worst of typical flu season, which is when the weather
00:10:47.600 is cold.
00:10:48.600 No, he says that we won't return to normal until a vaccine is developed, which he says
00:10:53.000 will happen two to three years from now.
00:10:54.920 Now, now, now, let me just make a point.
00:10:56.920 First of all, there, there's no guarantee that we will ever develop a vaccine.
00:11:02.740 There are many illnesses.
00:11:03.980 There are many, many viruses that go around that simply don't have vaccinations against
00:11:08.980 them that are too complex, that are too, you know, they change too much and we cannot
00:11:13.980 create a vaccination.
00:11:14.980 So there's no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine for coronavirus.
00:11:19.320 And even if we do, he says that it could take two or three years from now.
00:11:22.240 What if it doesn't?
00:11:23.240 What if it takes five years?
00:11:24.240 Even if it does take two or three years?
00:11:26.500 What does that mean that life won't return to normal for two or three years?
00:11:30.560 I mean, having the leader of a country come out and say that, this is what he said, what
00:11:35.420 is normal life will take a long time to return.
00:11:38.580 And even at that point, two, three years from now, even once a vaccine against COVID-19 is
00:11:43.400 available, we will have changed our behavior, we will have taken measures as a society that
00:11:48.680 will be different from what we used to do, Trudeau said in French on Monday.
00:11:52.560 Again, while leaders all over the world are coming up with proactive plans to get workers
00:11:57.280 back to work for allowing small businesses to reopen their doors and really getting the
00:12:02.320 economy going as well.
00:12:03.740 So while also, of course, being cautious about the spread of coronavirus and protecting,
00:12:08.840 like I said, the most vulnerable people in Canada, our leaders are still stuck in this
00:12:12.460 framework of we can't reopen because we can't risk a single case or a single death unnecessarily.
00:12:19.000 Well, I think that the rest of the world has sort of moved past that.
00:12:22.120 It's now a time to consider balancing, you know, the rights and freedoms of the entire
00:12:28.660 society that's stuck at home, that harms their ability to provide for their families, to make
00:12:34.480 money, to, you know, engage in the world, in society, and the health of the most vulnerable.
00:12:41.080 I think we can probably do both.
00:12:42.000 I think that we can open up the economy to young and healthy people, allow them to go
00:12:46.620 back to work, allow people that are very, very low risk of contracting coronavirus, or
00:12:51.200 at least having a severe reaction to coronavirus, while also protecting and allowing measures
00:13:00.100 to be maintained for people who are in that vulnerable situation.
00:13:03.600 Like I said, 79 percent of deaths in Canada have occurred at long-term care facilities and
00:13:08.280 retirement homes.
00:13:09.280 To me, that is the big, big story, and that is what should be emphasized.
00:13:13.460 We should not be imposing these rules over everyone.
00:13:16.940 We should be, you know, protecting the most vulnerable people.
00:13:22.160 And interestingly, other provinces in Canada seem to get this.
00:13:25.460 So Quebec has announced that they will be reopening their economy.
00:13:30.960 Premier Francois Legault said that the coronavirus pandemic is under control outside of long-term
00:13:36.140 care homes and senior residences.
00:13:38.480 As long as that continues, the economy should be able to reopen gradually.
00:13:42.380 Government already relaxed restrictions on some businesses that had been forced to shut
00:13:45.960 down in March.
00:13:47.260 Those included companies in mining, landscaping, gardening, as well as residential pool centres
00:13:52.320 and body shops.
00:13:54.420 Residential construction was allowed to resume on April 20th, but only on projects that needed
00:13:58.900 to be delivered by the summer.
00:14:00.560 And then the big news was that Quebec will begin reopening its elementary schools and daycares
00:14:05.060 on May 11th, Legault announced on Monday.
00:14:08.860 So at the time, again, when the provincial government in Ontario and the federal government
00:14:13.600 in Ottawa are saying, no, it's not time yet.
00:14:16.220 There you have Quebec really going ahead with their own plan.
00:14:19.420 And they're not alone.
00:14:20.420 Saskatchewan has also been leading the curve in terms of reopening their economy.
00:14:24.800 And again, there's no reason why Saskatchewan has to take the same precautions since there
00:14:28.620 were very, very few cases and very, very few deaths so far.
00:14:33.040 So Saskatchewan reopened its economy and services in five phases starting on May 4th.
00:14:38.120 So Premier Moe said last week that the coronavirus curve had already flattened in its province
00:14:42.700 and that reopening will be gradual and methodical.
00:14:46.000 The first phase is reopening medical services that had previously been banned under the current
00:14:50.520 public health order.
00:14:52.400 And that includes dentistry, optometry, physical therapy, opticians, podiatry, occupational therapy,
00:14:59.040 and chiropractic treatment.
00:15:01.340 Also being rolled out in stages during the first phase is the resumption of low-risk outdoor
00:15:06.360 activities with precautionary measures in place.
00:15:08.880 So that includes fishing and boating, golfing, and other outdoor activities with maintaining
00:15:15.480 physical distancing rules.
00:15:17.800 The online reservation system for provincial parks will launch on May 4th with overnight
00:15:22.600 camping starting on June 1st.
00:15:25.980 Park access is restricted to Saskatchewan residents.
00:15:28.980 So a little bit of common sense that we're seeing in Saskatchewan.
00:15:31.940 Common sense that we're not really seeing in the rest of the country, unfortunately.
00:15:35.100 I mean, the whole idea of the coronavirus and it being very contagious is that you shouldn't
00:15:41.140 get within six feet of someone.
00:15:42.840 If you have to, you should wear a mask, which shows it really defies logic why we ever shut
00:15:47.500 down outdoor parks, Canada's national parks, hiking trails, those kind of things, given
00:15:52.680 that you're outside.
00:15:54.480 You're outside.
00:15:55.480 You're not in a confined space with someone.
00:15:56.740 You're not sharing the same air and having recycled air.
00:16:00.160 You're out in nature.
00:16:01.400 And that should be the place where we're encouraged to go at a time where we can't go other places.
00:16:06.720 So again, kind of defies logic.
00:16:09.240 But that's where we are with coronavirus policies these days.
00:16:13.480 One of the other things that was pretty interesting, Ezra Levant over at The Rebel found this clip.
00:16:18.420 I guess it had been floating around online, but I saw it through his Twitter account.
00:16:23.360 So he posted a picture of Theresa Tam talking about pretty authoritarian measures to enforce
00:16:29.300 the quarantine.
00:16:30.300 Theresa Tam, of course, is Canada's chief medical officer.
00:16:33.160 She is sort of appointed from Justin Trudeau, and she's really taken the lead on providing
00:16:37.920 health advice to all Canadians.
00:16:40.180 She's part of the leading the charge as to why Canada shouldn't reopen their economy.
00:16:46.300 She's sort of one of the leading voices, encouraging us to maintain these really, really draconian
00:16:51.540 measures to keep Canadians inside to stop the spread of coronavirus.
00:16:55.300 Well, there was a 2000 video from the National Film Board in Canada, a documentary called Outbreak,
00:17:02.820 which was based on Professor Michael Bliss's history of Montreal's smallpox epidemic in
00:17:08.660 the 1880s.
00:17:10.160 So basically, what this documentary did was look at the historical outbreak that happened
00:17:16.840 in 1880 in Montreal.
00:17:17.780 It was a truly deadly story.
00:17:20.040 The book is called Plague, the story of smallpox in Montreal.
00:17:24.160 And then they juxtapose that with a hypothetical 21st century pandemic where they talk about what
00:17:30.840 might happen if there was something like this that happened today.
00:17:34.040 Really interestingly, it does feature Theresa Tam, Dr. Theresa Tam, and just listen to the
00:17:40.060 language that she uses.
00:17:41.060 Listen to how she talks about how a government could stop the pandemic and really impose
00:17:47.360 all of these, again, authoritarian measures to enforce a quarantine.
00:17:51.760 Let's play that clip.
00:17:52.720 I think the public has to know this is one of the worst case scenarios in terms of an infectious
00:17:58.360 disease outbreak in that their cooperation is sought.
00:18:02.100 If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers
00:18:10.120 that can quarantine people in mandatory settings.
00:18:15.000 It's potential you could track people, put bracelets on their arms, have police and other setups
00:18:22.340 to ensure quarantine is undertaken.
00:18:26.440 So you can hear Theresa Tam talking about how you could track people, put bracelets on them,
00:18:31.000 have police enforcing the quarantine to ensure that people stay at home.
00:18:36.520 That was sort of a hypothetical idea of how you would make sure that sick people remain quarantined
00:18:41.900 during a plague or a pandemic.
00:18:43.900 Whereas we've sort of applied some of those rules anyway to all of society, not just to
00:18:48.700 the sick, but to everyone.
00:18:50.560 I'm not talking about tracking people or putting bracelets on them.
00:18:53.380 But certainly the policing aspect, where you have police officers patrolling large public
00:18:58.760 parks, giving fines, basically trying to scare people into going back into their home, even
00:19:04.620 as we're getting sort of nice spring weather.
00:19:07.060 Again, it just sort of gives you a window into the mindset of these public health bureaucrats
00:19:12.960 and how they think, and really just the lengths that they're willing to go to prevent what could be the worst
00:19:21.000 case scenario, even though we know that the worst case scenario isn't going to happen.
00:19:24.480 To me, it fundamentally comes down to a question of trust.
00:19:27.960 Do our politicians, do authorities in Canada, do those public health bureaucrats trust Canadians to be responsible,
00:19:35.280 to socially distance, to wear masks if they have to, if they have to go into a confined space?
00:19:41.080 They trust Canadians to keep their distance, to wash their hands, to stop the spread on
00:19:46.360 their own.
00:19:47.400 If the lockdowns were going to be let up, if they were going to be ending tomorrow, it's
00:19:52.980 a fundamental question.
00:19:54.180 Do they trust Canadians?
00:19:55.180 I think that you're seeing in some parts of the country, some politicians like Francois Legault
00:20:00.600 ago in Quebec, like Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, are exercising some level of trust, saying,
00:20:06.900 you know, we want you to get out, we want you to go outside, but we also want you to
00:20:10.300 be safe and we trust you.
00:20:11.720 So here's a framework for you to go back into society.
00:20:15.720 Whereas the other politicians like the Doug Fords and the Justin Trudeau's, Theresa
00:20:19.700 Thames, who just don't trust Canadians.
00:20:21.560 They think that government, heavy handed government measures are absolutely necessary, as Doug Ford
00:20:25.840 calls them.
00:20:26.840 He's going to realise these yahoos are going to be reckless and irresponsible and undo sort
00:20:31.280 of all of the public health measures that his government has imposed over the past several
00:20:35.760 weeks and months.
00:20:37.500 So I ask this question to my audience on Twitter, to my followers and readers over there.
00:20:43.780 Do you trust Canadians to be responsible and socially distanced if the lockdowns were to
00:20:49.180 end?
00:20:50.180 Of the people who voted, which so far there's been 4,300 votes, 80 percent said yes, people
00:20:55.540 can be trusted, whereas 19.5 percent, basically 20 percent say no, we need government lockdowns.
00:21:02.780 I think that's a really interesting mix.
00:21:04.460 Obviously, it's not a scientific poll by any means, but it does show you that the people
00:21:09.260 following me on Twitter anyway think that Canadians should be trusted and therefore it might be
00:21:13.980 time to let up on some of these lockdowns and let people get back to work regardless of
00:21:19.300 what Dr. Theresa Tam may say.
00:21:22.840 And well, speaking of Dr. Theresa Tam, last week I thought this was just a really frivolous,
00:21:27.800 ridiculous news story.
00:21:29.480 The story of a Conservative leadership candidate and MP Derek Sloan, he released a tweet criticizing
00:21:36.980 Theresa Tam and released a video sort of talking about how the World Health Organization has
00:21:42.260 really dropped the ball.
00:21:44.080 Chinese Communist government has been unduly influencing the World Health Organization and
00:21:48.380 they have both had an undue influence on Canada and therefore he believed that Dr. Theresa
00:21:53.140 Tam should be fired.
00:21:54.640 Now this was kind of misconstrued in the media or misinterpreted or maybe properly interpreted.
00:22:01.460 If you think that Derek Sloan is a bad person and a racist person, I don't think that there's
00:22:05.820 evidence for that, but again, you know, it depends on how you view him as an individual, I guess.
00:22:12.860 But anyway, the media and all of Liberals, all the Liberals and many Conservatives deemed that his
00:22:19.580 criticism of Dr. Theresa Tam was malicious and racist and it was really driven by her ethnicity
00:22:27.180 as a person who is of Chinese ethnicity and not based on her competency as a public health official.
00:22:34.460 So at the time, the Conservative leader Andrew Scheer basically said that he wasn't going to engage
00:22:41.100 in this line of reasoning. I really thought it was just a slow news day and that people were looking
00:22:47.980 for basically, it was almost like they hadn't had cancel culture. Cancel culture hadn't taken into
00:22:55.020 effect. You know, the mob hadn't rightfully chased anyone from their position in a couple of months
00:23:00.140 because we've all been so distracted by the coronavirus. And this was like an opportunity
00:23:04.860 for the mob to jump back on their high horse and engage in cancel culture and basically call out
00:23:11.980 a Conservative for supposed racism, which is one of their favorite activities of the left and particularly
00:23:18.220 the woke mob on social media. So at the time, Mr. Scheer, Andrew Scheer said that he wasn't going to
00:23:24.700 engage. He says, as a rule, I don't comment on leadership candidates or on policy announcements
00:23:30.220 or positions that leadership candidates have taken. Scheer said, ultimately, it will be up to
00:23:35.020 Conservative members to select the next leader of the party. So basically, Scheer just didn't engage
00:23:41.020 and he said, I'm not going to dignify this. It's up to Conservative members to decide who their leader is
00:23:46.700 going to be. Well, on April 28, Andrew Scheer had a decisive flip-flop reminding us of why he didn't
00:23:55.100 win the election in October, why he's not the Prime Minister of Canada. Basically, every time he's pushed
00:24:02.060 on an issue, every time there's a tough situation in front of him, he basically folds to left-wing
00:24:07.500 pressure. And so that is what happened. Let's play that clip of Andrew Scheer.
00:24:11.020 I do not agree with his position, with what he said. That is not the position of our caucus. And I
00:24:16.220 believe it is not appropriate to question someone's loyalty to their country. I believe
00:24:20.860 that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make.
00:24:27.660 Okay. Now, I'm not going to go too far in my way to defend Derek Sloan because I think that the argument
00:24:32.300 that he was making, while part of it was really accurate and dead on, I think that he was a little
00:24:37.820 bit sloppy in the way that he was criticizing a public health official and not the political
00:24:43.660 partisans who appointed them. And I also don't know Derek Sloan well enough to know whether he's
00:24:49.180 operating in good faith or bad faith. But just on the surface, the idea that you shouldn't criticize
00:24:54.380 someone just because they happen to be ethnically Chinese in this case, like you can't say something
00:25:01.100 that is true. What is true is that Theresa Tam has been incompetent, that she has been taking her
00:25:08.220 marching orders from the World Health Organization, which is lockstep, you know, shoulder and shoulder,
00:25:13.260 shoulder, shoulder with the Chinese communist government. I think that there's so much corruption
00:25:17.100 and so much wrong with that relationship between the Chinese communist government and the World Health
00:25:21.420 Organization that all Canadians should be questioning why we are part of the World Health Organization.
00:25:27.180 And that organization massively, massively needs to be held accountable for the terrible decisions that
00:25:32.380 they have made throughout the course of this pandemic. And we should also be able to question
00:25:37.260 why Canada is taking such orders and doing so much to defend the World Health Organization
00:25:43.820 and ensuring that our policies are aligned when really our interests are not aligned. I think that's all
00:25:49.900 well and fair. So the idea that we can't criticize a public health bureaucrat who has been incompetent
00:25:56.060 and done a lot of things that put Canadians in danger. And the fact that she has a relationship
00:26:01.820 with this really, really corrupt institution, the World Health Organization and its relationship with
00:26:07.500 China, I think that's all well and good. And the fact that we now live in a society where you can't
00:26:11.980 criticize someone because we all have to walk on eggshells and be so sensitive and be so nervous about
00:26:16.940 the accusation of potentially someone misconstruing what we're saying, even if it's intentional,
00:26:22.220 even if they're acting in bad faith. Basically, we live in a society where we can't have free
00:26:27.180 discourse. We can't actually discuss ideas. We can't actually hold politicians accountable because
00:26:31.900 we're so afraid of political correctness. That is a dangerous place to be. And I have no expectation
00:26:36.860 of Andrew Scheer to be the person that sort of rises above that and condemns it and calls it out.
00:26:41.980 But it's pretty disappointing to see him, you know, on April 23, saying, I'm not going to get involved.
00:26:46.940 And then on April 28, you know, jumping over to the Liberal side and basically groveling and apologizing
00:26:54.860 for a Conservative who expressed their opinion. But that's, you know, that's the Canadian media
00:27:00.220 landscape that we live in today. One more story. This is This Week in Fake News. I want to talk about
00:27:07.580 is a story in the Toronto Star that's making the rounds about Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner,
00:27:14.220 who is working from Oklahoma during the pandemic. So prominent Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner,
00:27:20.620 who's the MP for Calgary Nose Hill. We learned that she has been working remotely from Oklahoma
00:27:27.260 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rempel-Garner said she traveled to Oklahoma where her husband and
00:27:33.660 stepchildren live on an unexpected and urgent private personal matter before Canada and the US
00:27:40.220 imposed travel restrictions at the border. In a statement to the Toronto Star, Rempel-Garner said,
00:27:46.140 she has been in constant contact with Conservative Party whip Mark Strahl and the party has advised her
00:27:52.300 to shelter in place and work remotely like all other MPs. So Toronto Star journalist Susan Delacour
00:27:59.820 tweeted, news to me, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel has been living in Oklahoma throughout the COVID-19
00:28:07.980 crisis. Any other MPs working, living abroad, I wonder. So to me, this is totally a manufactured
00:28:15.020 crisis and a fake news story. We know that just about every single member of parliament has been
00:28:21.180 working remotely, working from home since the start of the crisis. A select few people from each party
00:28:27.180 have gone to Ottawa to create the sort of shell parliament so that they can still pass legislation,
00:28:32.620 the emergency legislation. And basically the media were the ones that were saying a couple of weeks
00:28:37.740 ago when the Conservatives were pushing for the government to come back to have parliament have
00:28:43.420 full sittings. The media were the ones saying, wow, it's so reckless, it's so irresponsible. MPs should
00:28:49.340 not be traveling. MPs should not be in Ottawa. They should not be having to go into the House of Commons
00:28:53.740 to vote, encouraging everyone to stay with their families, work remotely, work from home.
00:28:58.940 And now we learned that a Conservative is in Oklahoma, which is where her husband
00:29:02.860 and her stepchildren happen to live. It literally makes no difference whether she is in Alberta,
00:29:09.260 where her constituents are. She's not allowed to see them. She's not allowed to go to her office.
00:29:13.900 She's not allowed to go and meet with people. So again, why does it matter where she is? She's
00:29:19.420 pretty much in the same time zone, maybe an hour different than where she was. And she's with her
00:29:23.980 husband and her stepchildren. I'm old enough to remember like three weeks ago when Justin Trudeau
00:29:30.300 broke his own social distancing rules to go see his kids and his wife who were staying in a different
00:29:35.820 province. And the mainstream media said absolutely nothing to see here, no big deal whatsoever.
00:29:41.500 The prime minister and his personal life and his time with his children should be off limits and
00:29:46.540 journalists and Canadians shouldn't be asking questions or covering it. And yet here we have
00:29:51.420 a Conservative MP who is more or less doing the same thing, except for she hasn't traveled. She's
00:29:55.820 remaining sheltered in place. She just happens to be in Oklahoma. And supposedly this is some horrible
00:30:02.060 scandal that requires a news piece. Well, why is it that the prime minister's life, personal life with
00:30:08.300 his kids is off limits, but a Conservative MP spending time with her kids and her husband, that's,
00:30:14.380 you know, fair game for the media to speculate about for journalists to mock on social media. I think
00:30:21.020 this is just shows the underlying bias that left wing Canadians have against America. Frankly, there's
00:30:26.220 a whole part of this article talking about how Oklahoma, I'll read right here, Oklahoma Governor
00:30:32.620 Kevin Stitt announced plans to reopen the state's economy last week, indicating the state has successfully
00:30:37.580 flattened the curve beginning May 1. Restaurants, sporting events, sporting venues, gyms, movie theaters,
00:30:43.580 and places of worship will be permitted to reopen as long as they follow certain precautions. According
00:30:48.460 to the local NBC affiliate, Oklahoma has reported 3280 cases of COVID-19, including 197 deaths. So
00:30:57.580 why is that relevant? Why is what the political decisions of Oklahoma to reopen their economy have
00:31:03.340 to do with the fact that Michelle Rumpel is there? Well, again, they're just sort of showing the fact
00:31:08.460 that they disagree with probably Oklahoma's policies to reopen their economy, perhaps. It's just the
00:31:15.660 whole story is just a non-story. The fact that Michelle Rumpel is with her family isn't really
00:31:21.420 our business. If you want to say that where Justin Trudeau is and where he's staying isn't really any of
00:31:27.260 our business. And just because she happens to be on the other side of the border, she's still in the same
00:31:32.060 time zone. She can still potentially get to Ottawa if she needs to. This is, to me, fake news. All right,
00:31:39.820 guys, thank you so much for tuning in to an episode of the Candace Malcolm Show with Candace Malcolm.
00:31:45.660 Thank you so much, and we'll be back again later this week.