Why donāt politicians trust Canadiansļ¼
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Summary
Candice Malan and Andrew Lawton discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada, and how the government is trying to cope with it. Plus, politicians in Ottawa and Toronto rule out ending the lockdown, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending time with her family.
Transcript
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Politicians in Ottawa and Toronto rule out ending the lockdown.
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Meanwhile, Quebec, Saskatchewan, many American states and much of Europe move to reopen their
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economies, which really begs the question, why don't politicians trust Canadians, especially
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Plus, Andrews share flip-flops, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending
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I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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We had been doing the True North update, where I was joined with Andrew Lawton.
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We're doing that every day to keep you up to date during the pandemic.
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Well, things have slowed down a little bit news-wise in terms of the pandemic, so we're
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back to a regular schedule of doing The Candice Malcolm Show plus The Andrew Lawton Show, so
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you can catch that every day as we used to do it before.
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There is a lot I want to get to today, so let's jump right into it.
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I think the big story that is now upon us here in Canada is, look, we have been in lockdown
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for weeks, coming on two months now, where we have been at home.
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We have been told that we have to work from home.
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And a lot of people, frankly, can't work from home, which is why we have millions upon millions
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of Canadians collecting the new emergency benefit.
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We have countless small businesses, particularly restaurants and businesses in the hospitality
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industry going bankrupt, going out of business, a wage subsidy that's sort of too little,
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True North has been covering it, and I really encourage you to check out the work of my colleague,
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She has been interviewing small business owners and doing a lot of work just trying to understand
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how business owners are getting through this really tough economy, given all the government
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We've started to learn a lot more about the coronavirus.
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I fully admit at the beginning of this all, it was an unknown virus.
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It was an unknown, mysterious virus that originated out of China.
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China is a repressive communist authoritarian society.
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We just didn't really know what we were dealing with.
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And so politicians were acting out of an abundance of caution.
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I was one of the people at the beginning saying, hey, look, I don't think that we should be going
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I think that the Canadian government took way too long to take action, particularly when it
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came to closing our borders, when it came to really alerting the Canadian public of the
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dangers of this coronavirus and encouraging people to stay indoors.
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I think that we've learned that the coronavirus isn't nearly as deadly as we had originally
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It reaches a lot of people, but it doesn't kill nearly as many people as we originally
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Recall that the World Health Organization had originally said that the death rate for this
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It's now looking like it might be more like point three percent, which is still deadlier than
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And given the fact that it spreads a lot faster, it is a deadly thing.
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However, not to the point where we have to shut down our entire economy and our entire
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Everyone just cowering at home, not allowed to leave their house out of fear of either
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catching the disease or getting arrested or getting fined by these ridiculous bylaw officers
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that seem to be picking on Canadians just going about their daily routine, trying to have
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our daily routine anyway, in terms of getting fresh air, getting exercise, getting out of
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the house and not trying to get too close to other Canadians.
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And really, we've just created a society where everyone's at home and we're living in complete
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We're living in fear and our politicians are reinforcing that idea.
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I think that there are some differences across the country.
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I used to point this out on the True North update almost every day.
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So many of the provinces across Canada have barely been affected by the coronavirus.
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I mean, Prince Edward Island is the example that I like to point to, where there have been
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And given that it's an island, given that Prince Edward Island could easily lock down security
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and control who comes and goes from the island, it makes no sense to me as to why they ever
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Why they would ever shut down small businesses and restaurants and hair salons and force business
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owners to make really, really tough economic decisions about their livelihood.
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So given all that, we're at a situation now where things have started to turn.
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People are starting to say, hey, you know, why is it that we're so paranoid over something
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that really, I mean, it's bad, but it isn't as bad as we thought it was originally.
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And one of the other things I find really, really interesting, it's highly underreported
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in my opinion, is the fact that here in Canada, of the deaths, of the cases, of the deadly
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cases of coronavirus, 79 percent of them have taken place at long-term care facilities
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and at senior centres, 79 percent, so nearly eight in ten deaths in Canada have been related
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Which again, begs the question of why do all Canadians need to stay indoors?
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Why do all Canadians need to practice such heightened levels of quarantine and self-isolation
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When we know that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of cases target one very small, very
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vulnerable section of the population, instead of having everybody locked down, why don't
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we take all the extra precautions to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, the
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ones that we know will be the most affected and impacted?
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And part of the problem is that this conversation that I'm trying to lead, this conversation
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The mainstream media is not having this conversation.
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Politicians basically refuse to acknowledge it.
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And when I say politicians, I mean the handful of people that are leading the efforts,
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, and people in their government.
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Because Quebec has had the worst number, the most number of cases with coronavirus, and
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yet their attitude is totally different than Ontario's.
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So in Ontario, Doug Ford announced sort of a plan, supposedly, to be reopening the economy,
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On Monday, Premier Doug Ford revealed Ontario's plan to reopen the province and ease coronavirus
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restrictions currently in place, but they didn't really announce anything.
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The framework is about how we're reopening, not when we're reopening.
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They didn't give any concrete dates, they just sort of released this framework idea of how
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they might reopen the economy eventually when it does get reopened.
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Ford said, progress doesn't mean we can quit now, and that's why I won't set hard dates
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until we're ready, because the virus travels on its own speed.
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The Premier emphasized the government will be basing their decisions on the advice of the
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But we know that Doug Ford has no interest in reopening society, reopening the economy,
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because over the weekend, there were a group of protesters who went to Queen's Park.
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Now, these protesters were harshly maligned in the mainstream media, and not just in the
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Doug Ford slammed this group of people for protesting.
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He said that they were a bunch of yahoos, and he said that they were reckless and what they're
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OK, first of all, I just want to note, just because we have coronavirus doesn't somehow
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mean that we have given up all of our democratic freedoms.
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We still live in a free democratic society where people have the right to protest.
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They have the right to protest against their government, particularly when the government
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is taking tyrannical steps to shut down the economy in defense of something that's basically,
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by all accounts, by most accounts, an overreaction, a massive overreaction.
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I think we'll look back at the early spring of 2020 for years, for decades, and sort of
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scratch our heads as to what we were thinking when we shut down the global economy because
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we were afraid, because we're afraid of a mysterious virus and we massively overreacted.
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Just listen to the way that he condemns people who are exercising their democratic rights.
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These people that are absolutely irresponsible, it's reckless to do what they're doing.
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We have, you know, a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen's Park, sitting there protesting
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that the place isn't open as they're breaking the law and putting everyone in jeopardy, putting
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themselves in jeopardy, putting the workers in jeopardy, and God forbid, one of them end
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So Doug Ford thinks it's absolutely irresponsible and reckless, even though these protesters,
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from best I can tell, were practicing their own social distancing.
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They were following, generally, the medical health guidelines as to what you should do when
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I won't defend all of them because I know any time you have a group of protesters, it
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does attract fringe people who, you know, promote ideas that I don't necessarily believe
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For instance, you know, there might be people who are opposed to vaccinations.
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But that said, in a democratic and free society, not only should we allow space for people who
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want to protest, but we shouldn't outright condemn them as being reckless and yahoos and really
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We still, again, promote the idea of a diversity of opinions and thoughts.
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That's what makes for a wholesome civil society where we can come to, you know, where we can
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reach a consensus on ideas that we disagree with.
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So outright condemning people just because they are protesting is not something that you
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I have a lot of time for Doug Ford, but I don't understand his really, his massive overreaction
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on this and condemning peaceful protesters and also his, his sort of resistance to any
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said this week, he said on Monday that life won't return
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to normal until we have a vaccine, not until we have, you know, flattened the curve, not
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until we've gotten past sort of the worst of typical flu season, which is when the weather
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No, he says that we won't return to normal until a vaccine is developed, which he says
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First of all, there, there's no guarantee that we will ever develop a vaccine.
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There are many, many viruses that go around that simply don't have vaccinations against
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them that are too complex, that are too, you know, they change too much and we cannot
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So there's no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine for coronavirus.
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And even if we do, he says that it could take two or three years from now.
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What does that mean that life won't return to normal for two or three years?
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I mean, having the leader of a country come out and say that, this is what he said, what
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is normal life will take a long time to return.
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And even at that point, two, three years from now, even once a vaccine against COVID-19 is
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available, we will have changed our behavior, we will have taken measures as a society that
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will be different from what we used to do, Trudeau said in French on Monday.
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Again, while leaders all over the world are coming up with proactive plans to get workers
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back to work for allowing small businesses to reopen their doors and really getting the
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So while also, of course, being cautious about the spread of coronavirus and protecting,
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like I said, the most vulnerable people in Canada, our leaders are still stuck in this
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framework of we can't reopen because we can't risk a single case or a single death unnecessarily.
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Well, I think that the rest of the world has sort of moved past that.
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It's now a time to consider balancing, you know, the rights and freedoms of the entire
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society that's stuck at home, that harms their ability to provide for their families, to make
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money, to, you know, engage in the world, in society, and the health of the most vulnerable.
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I think that we can open up the economy to young and healthy people, allow them to go
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back to work, allow people that are very, very low risk of contracting coronavirus, or
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at least having a severe reaction to coronavirus, while also protecting and allowing measures
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to be maintained for people who are in that vulnerable situation.
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Like I said, 79 percent of deaths in Canada have occurred at long-term care facilities and
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To me, that is the big, big story, and that is what should be emphasized.
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We should not be imposing these rules over everyone.
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We should be, you know, protecting the most vulnerable people.
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And interestingly, other provinces in Canada seem to get this.
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So Quebec has announced that they will be reopening their economy.
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Premier Francois Legault said that the coronavirus pandemic is under control outside of long-term
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As long as that continues, the economy should be able to reopen gradually.
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Government already relaxed restrictions on some businesses that had been forced to shut
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Those included companies in mining, landscaping, gardening, as well as residential pool centres
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Residential construction was allowed to resume on April 20th, but only on projects that needed
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And then the big news was that Quebec will begin reopening its elementary schools and daycares
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So at the time, again, when the provincial government in Ontario and the federal government
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There you have Quebec really going ahead with their own plan.
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Saskatchewan has also been leading the curve in terms of reopening their economy.
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And again, there's no reason why Saskatchewan has to take the same precautions since there
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were very, very few cases and very, very few deaths so far.
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So Saskatchewan reopened its economy and services in five phases starting on May 4th.
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So Premier Moe said last week that the coronavirus curve had already flattened in its province
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and that reopening will be gradual and methodical.
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The first phase is reopening medical services that had previously been banned under the current
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And that includes dentistry, optometry, physical therapy, opticians, podiatry, occupational therapy,
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Also being rolled out in stages during the first phase is the resumption of low-risk outdoor
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activities with precautionary measures in place.
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So that includes fishing and boating, golfing, and other outdoor activities with maintaining
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The online reservation system for provincial parks will launch on May 4th with overnight
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Park access is restricted to Saskatchewan residents.
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So a little bit of common sense that we're seeing in Saskatchewan.
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Common sense that we're not really seeing in the rest of the country, unfortunately.
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I mean, the whole idea of the coronavirus and it being very contagious is that you shouldn't
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If you have to, you should wear a mask, which shows it really defies logic why we ever shut
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down outdoor parks, Canada's national parks, hiking trails, those kind of things, given
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You're not sharing the same air and having recycled air.
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And that should be the place where we're encouraged to go at a time where we can't go other places.
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But that's where we are with coronavirus policies these days.
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One of the other things that was pretty interesting, Ezra Levant over at The Rebel found this clip.
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I guess it had been floating around online, but I saw it through his Twitter account.
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So he posted a picture of Theresa Tam talking about pretty authoritarian measures to enforce
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Theresa Tam, of course, is Canada's chief medical officer.
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She is sort of appointed from Justin Trudeau, and she's really taken the lead on providing
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She's part of the leading the charge as to why Canada shouldn't reopen their economy.
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She's sort of one of the leading voices, encouraging us to maintain these really, really draconian
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measures to keep Canadians inside to stop the spread of coronavirus.
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Well, there was a 2000 video from the National Film Board in Canada, a documentary called Outbreak,
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which was based on Professor Michael Bliss's history of Montreal's smallpox epidemic in
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So basically, what this documentary did was look at the historical outbreak that happened
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The book is called Plague, the story of smallpox in Montreal.
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And then they juxtapose that with a hypothetical 21st century pandemic where they talk about what
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might happen if there was something like this that happened today.
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Really interestingly, it does feature Theresa Tam, Dr. Theresa Tam, and just listen to the
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Listen to how she talks about how a government could stop the pandemic and really impose
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all of these, again, authoritarian measures to enforce a quarantine.
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I think the public has to know this is one of the worst case scenarios in terms of an infectious
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disease outbreak in that their cooperation is sought.
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If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers
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that can quarantine people in mandatory settings.
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It's potential you could track people, put bracelets on their arms, have police and other setups
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So you can hear Theresa Tam talking about how you could track people, put bracelets on them,
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have police enforcing the quarantine to ensure that people stay at home.
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That was sort of a hypothetical idea of how you would make sure that sick people remain quarantined
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Whereas we've sort of applied some of those rules anyway to all of society, not just to
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I'm not talking about tracking people or putting bracelets on them.
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But certainly the policing aspect, where you have police officers patrolling large public
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parks, giving fines, basically trying to scare people into going back into their home, even
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Again, it just sort of gives you a window into the mindset of these public health bureaucrats
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and how they think, and really just the lengths that they're willing to go to prevent what could be the worst
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case scenario, even though we know that the worst case scenario isn't going to happen.
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To me, it fundamentally comes down to a question of trust.
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Do our politicians, do authorities in Canada, do those public health bureaucrats trust Canadians to be responsible,
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to socially distance, to wear masks if they have to, if they have to go into a confined space?
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They trust Canadians to keep their distance, to wash their hands, to stop the spread on
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If the lockdowns were going to be let up, if they were going to be ending tomorrow, it's
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I think that you're seeing in some parts of the country, some politicians like Francois Legault
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ago in Quebec, like Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, are exercising some level of trust, saying,
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you know, we want you to get out, we want you to go outside, but we also want you to
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So here's a framework for you to go back into society.
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Whereas the other politicians like the Doug Fords and the Justin Trudeau's, Theresa
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They think that government, heavy handed government measures are absolutely necessary, as Doug Ford
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He's going to realise these yahoos are going to be reckless and irresponsible and undo sort
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of all of the public health measures that his government has imposed over the past several
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So I ask this question to my audience on Twitter, to my followers and readers over there.
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Do you trust Canadians to be responsible and socially distanced if the lockdowns were to
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Of the people who voted, which so far there's been 4,300 votes, 80 percent said yes, people
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can be trusted, whereas 19.5 percent, basically 20 percent say no, we need government lockdowns.
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Obviously, it's not a scientific poll by any means, but it does show you that the people
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following me on Twitter anyway think that Canadians should be trusted and therefore it might be
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time to let up on some of these lockdowns and let people get back to work regardless of
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And well, speaking of Dr. Theresa Tam, last week I thought this was just a really frivolous,
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The story of a Conservative leadership candidate and MP Derek Sloan, he released a tweet criticizing
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Theresa Tam and released a video sort of talking about how the World Health Organization has
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Chinese Communist government has been unduly influencing the World Health Organization and
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they have both had an undue influence on Canada and therefore he believed that Dr. Theresa
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Now this was kind of misconstrued in the media or misinterpreted or maybe properly interpreted.
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If you think that Derek Sloan is a bad person and a racist person, I don't think that there's
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evidence for that, but again, you know, it depends on how you view him as an individual, I guess.
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But anyway, the media and all of Liberals, all the Liberals and many Conservatives deemed that his
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criticism of Dr. Theresa Tam was malicious and racist and it was really driven by her ethnicity
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as a person who is of Chinese ethnicity and not based on her competency as a public health official.
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So at the time, the Conservative leader Andrew Scheer basically said that he wasn't going to engage
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in this line of reasoning. I really thought it was just a slow news day and that people were looking
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for basically, it was almost like they hadn't had cancel culture. Cancel culture hadn't taken into
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effect. You know, the mob hadn't rightfully chased anyone from their position in a couple of months
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because we've all been so distracted by the coronavirus. And this was like an opportunity
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for the mob to jump back on their high horse and engage in cancel culture and basically call out
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a Conservative for supposed racism, which is one of their favorite activities of the left and particularly
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the woke mob on social media. So at the time, Mr. Scheer, Andrew Scheer said that he wasn't going to
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engage. He says, as a rule, I don't comment on leadership candidates or on policy announcements
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or positions that leadership candidates have taken. Scheer said, ultimately, it will be up to
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Conservative members to select the next leader of the party. So basically, Scheer just didn't engage
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and he said, I'm not going to dignify this. It's up to Conservative members to decide who their leader is
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going to be. Well, on April 28, Andrew Scheer had a decisive flip-flop reminding us of why he didn't
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win the election in October, why he's not the Prime Minister of Canada. Basically, every time he's pushed
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on an issue, every time there's a tough situation in front of him, he basically folds to left-wing
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pressure. And so that is what happened. Let's play that clip of Andrew Scheer.
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I do not agree with his position, with what he said. That is not the position of our caucus. And I
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believe it is not appropriate to question someone's loyalty to their country. I believe
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that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make.
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Okay. Now, I'm not going to go too far in my way to defend Derek Sloan because I think that the argument
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that he was making, while part of it was really accurate and dead on, I think that he was a little
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bit sloppy in the way that he was criticizing a public health official and not the political
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partisans who appointed them. And I also don't know Derek Sloan well enough to know whether he's
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operating in good faith or bad faith. But just on the surface, the idea that you shouldn't criticize
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someone just because they happen to be ethnically Chinese in this case, like you can't say something
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that is true. What is true is that Theresa Tam has been incompetent, that she has been taking her
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marching orders from the World Health Organization, which is lockstep, you know, shoulder and shoulder,
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shoulder, shoulder with the Chinese communist government. I think that there's so much corruption
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and so much wrong with that relationship between the Chinese communist government and the World Health
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Organization that all Canadians should be questioning why we are part of the World Health Organization.
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And that organization massively, massively needs to be held accountable for the terrible decisions that
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they have made throughout the course of this pandemic. And we should also be able to question
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why Canada is taking such orders and doing so much to defend the World Health Organization
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and ensuring that our policies are aligned when really our interests are not aligned. I think that's all
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well and fair. So the idea that we can't criticize a public health bureaucrat who has been incompetent
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and done a lot of things that put Canadians in danger. And the fact that she has a relationship
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with this really, really corrupt institution, the World Health Organization and its relationship with
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China, I think that's all well and good. And the fact that we now live in a society where you can't
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criticize someone because we all have to walk on eggshells and be so sensitive and be so nervous about
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the accusation of potentially someone misconstruing what we're saying, even if it's intentional,
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even if they're acting in bad faith. Basically, we live in a society where we can't have free
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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
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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
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crisis. Any other MPs working, living abroad, I wonder. So to me, this is totally a manufactured
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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.
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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.
0.75
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
0.98
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.