00:04:29.380And Canadians have always had a tendency to like multiculturalism even more, I think, because it wasn't American.
00:04:36.920Anyway, newcomers to Canada, whether they be immigrants or refugees, or the Canadian-born children of immigrants or refugees,
00:04:44.860were encouraged to preserve their unique cultural traditions here, whether, you know, it's waving around a Palestinian flag or whatever.
00:04:53.500We were such believers in multiculturalism.
00:04:55.720In fact, we supported using government money to fund it.
00:04:59.380And for years we've done that, under liberal, NDP, conservative governments, all levels.
00:05:04.800And some of the multi-cult projects that governments have funded caused scandals.
00:05:09.500Like, for example, the formerly governing B.C. liberals were caught spending millions on multicultural events that leaked documents showed.
00:05:17.460We're actually designed to be quick wins for the party, paid for by taxpayers.
00:05:22.880And that became the suspicion that I think a lot of people had about multiculturalism that was designed to help out political parties, not people.
00:05:31.340In exchange for supporting multiculturalism, however, in exchange for funding it, the likes of me asked for just one thing.
00:06:30.980They were murdered, a bunch of investigations concluded, by some madmen who had come to Canada and brought black hate in their hearts.
00:06:42.380They were Sikhs, but it wouldn't have actually mattered if they were Catholics, Hindus, Seventh-day Adventists.
00:06:48.060All that mattered is they came to the multicultural paradise that is Canada, and they commenced the process of destroying multiculturalism.
00:06:58.880And others have followed in their foul wake.
00:07:02.000Others from other places have hacked away at the multicultural dream.
00:07:06.540And by 2023, there wasn't much left of it.
00:07:08.860And then on October 7th, multiculturalism breathed its last, I think, sadly.
00:07:15.560As word spread, as we learned that Hamas terrorists had invaded progressive farm communities in Israel and raped and tortured and killed hundreds of innocent people and kidnapped scores more, something else happened here in Canada.
00:07:29.980In Mississauga, Ontario, people, who are newcomers to Canada, it looked like, but definitely people who don't deserve to call themselves Canadian, celebrated.
00:07:42.680At the intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Eglinton in Mississauga, a large crowd of all ages gathered to celebrate the barbarity of October 7th.
00:07:52.980They honked horns and cheered for Hamas' mass murder, they waved Palestinian flags, they handed out sweets.
00:08:04.420In the days since, there have been many, many other such displays of inhumanity and cruelty, almost entirely aimed at Canada's puny Jewish community.
00:08:15.000There have been crimes, like firebombing of synagogues and shooting at schools and attacks on Jews, but there have been other things, too, which don't amount to crimes, possibly, but are specifically designed to make Jews feel just as unwelcome and isolated and scared.
00:08:35.640Epithets screamed at the elderly Jews who lived there.
00:08:38.540blocking access to hospitals that Jews support, chanting calls for genocide and violent revolution, demanding that references to Jewish traditions be erased in universities and elsewhere and replaced by that of others.
00:08:54.540And now, hundreds cheering on Iran's attack on Israel, right out in the open, proudly.
00:09:03.120Have these terrible things been done in the name of multiculturalism?
00:32:32.220But, you know, there is good news out of the terrible events of last night.
00:32:38.220There were no fatalities that we're aware of.
00:32:41.46099% of the missiles, whether they were drones or cruise missiles, did not hit a target in Israel.
00:32:52.040And to me, one of the most encouraging things is that Jordan and Saudi Arabia actively were involved in defending Israel.
00:33:04.220And that, you know, for everybody, should be an indication that Iran has already lost this war,
00:33:11.780either directly or through its proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.
00:33:15.640That is, you know, the powers in the region, not just Israel, saying, we will not let you prevail.
00:33:23.780You have done these terrible things to Israel on October 7th and afterwards, but we will not let you win.
00:33:32.760And so that was a good thing, you know, when the United States and the French and the British were involved in shooting down those missiles.
00:33:40.800Canada, you know, it kind of made me sad.
00:33:43.740But Pierre Polyev had a statement out that was excellent before Trudeau.
00:33:47.700Trudeau's statement was good, but he should have been out first.
00:33:52.760And I guess what was brought home to me, you know, when I looked at his statement, is, geez, have we ever become irrelevant?
00:34:00.320You know, really, nobody inside the country or outside the country, I think, cares what we have to say about this or any other international matter.
00:34:35.600I maybe I'm not as optimistic as Warren.
00:34:37.920I think that there are other actors at play here behind the scenes and sort of axis of Iran, China, Russia, that this is not going to be the last attack.
00:34:49.620The fact that, yes, Jordan and Saudi were in in the fold, so to speak, Jordan saying it would it would defend its airspace.
00:34:57.980But I think that is also self-interest.
00:35:02.860Nobody there, those countries, they want a larger war in the Middle East.
00:35:11.440And do the actors, the other two actors I mentioned, who are essentially behind the scenes and it's been found, the Washington Post reported Chinese weapons have been found in Gaza.
00:35:24.260So I don't think we've seen the last of it.
00:35:25.880And it's sort of like that tinderbox feeling, an excellent piece I read by a sub-stacker, Noah Smith, about how World War II, in the lead up to World War II, not to be alarmist, but there were many regional and smaller conflagrations before the big one between the big powers hit.
00:35:42.640And we feel sort of that sort of same tension.
00:35:44.640So, yeah, we have to diffuse it at all costs.
00:35:47.240Trudeau's statement, it's interesting, Warren said that, you know, we've lost our place in the international stage.
00:35:51.580When I was reading news reports about the aftermath of the strikes, none of them that I saw quoted Canada as standing up.
00:35:59.900They quoted, obviously, the countries that were engaged in repelling the drone and the rocket attacks.
00:36:05.560But they also quoted other leaders around the world who made statements.
00:36:11.400I've seen that, actually, just to your point, I've seen that happen a couple of times recently, where someone like Australia, who's a very close partner to ours, will be named in something where Canada is involved, but we're just kind of put to the wayside.
00:36:21.860So I guess kind of similar to what Warren's saying, just from your perspective, Tasha, do you think Canada is losing some kind of, I guess, standing in the international realm?
00:36:29.700And if so, do you have any particular guesses as to why?
00:36:36.200I mean, our prime minister, apart from having some disastrous foreign trips that, you know, go back years, think of India and others, has also shown himself really to not be adept at foreign relations.
00:36:48.040Mentioning India again, his, you know, his calling out of Modi over the alleged murder of a Kalistani terrorist in British Columbia by the Indian government was done in such a clumsy way.
00:37:01.080It, you know, it torpedoed the entire Indo-Pacific strategy that we had built up as a country to get closer to India as a bulwark against China.
00:37:09.500So that was one, you know, more recent incident.
00:37:11.940The handling of the two Michaels with China, we, I mean, now the Canadian government's essentially paying the Michaels because they allege that, you know, this should not have been, this should not have happened, it should not have dragged on the way it did.
00:37:25.940And I think the foreign interference inquiry happening right now shows also how our country doesn't take foreign interference seriously.
00:37:33.120So why should other countries take us seriously if we're not going to protect our borders and if we're not going to meet our NATO commitments?
00:37:38.680We have shown a complete disregard for the interests of our country, which are the interests of our allies by association.
00:37:46.380If we're not going to be able to defend ourselves, then how can they defend, you know, rely on us to defend them?
00:37:51.160And the other interesting point on that, Warren, is similar to the point that you brought up, is I find, you know, in international polling, Trudeau still remains a pretty highly, I guess, popular international figure.
00:38:01.080But it's almost like they don't care what he has to say.
00:38:36.100And going back to the Pearson days, you know, we were respected around the world for our peacekeeping ability, which, you know, the world certainly needs at the moment.
00:38:47.100And, you know, every successive prime minister has presided over, you know, for a country that is not even really a middle power, militarily or diplomatically.
00:38:57.620They've provided, presided over a country that was respected, at least, as a respected voice internationally.
00:39:05.820You know, when I worked for Cretchen, he would get calls from, you know, from Clinton and from the leaders of Britain, Tony Blair and so on.
00:39:16.820They would consult with him and ask for Canada's opinion.
00:39:28.900You know, I think Paliyev is going to win the election whenever it comes against, you know, whoever the liberal leader happens to be.
00:39:35.660And I'm hopeful that he repairs that situation because we really need it repaired.
00:39:41.420And we'll see if he gets any of those covetous looks during the next election campaign.
00:39:45.820The issue, though, I find it interesting because you do have mentioned the election.
00:39:49.120Obviously, the federal budget coming up is going to be a big part of that.
00:39:51.760But the Trudeau liberals have seemingly tried to get out in front of their own federal budget over the course of the past couple of weeks.
00:39:57.440We talked about this a little bit last week.
00:39:58.940But, you know, surprisingly, even more money coming out this week for housing.
00:40:03.120That has been the big kind of issue here.
00:40:05.860So, you know, aside from the announcements, we can kind of parse those apart a little bit here.
00:40:09.860But in terms of this announcement and this issue on affordability and housing, Tasha, do you think that the liberals have found their election issue here?
00:40:17.900Do you think this is what they are going to ride or die on?
00:40:21.620Well, no, I think what happened was Paliyev found the election issue, which was housing.
00:40:25.680And the liberals were forced to respond.
00:40:27.060I'm not sure how much water this will carry, considering the election will be at the most a year and a half from now.
00:42:14.900And having those options means that rental housing is less attractive.
00:42:19.240So I think the government has to look, government, and this is provincial mostly, have to look at how do you incentivize the building of these units
00:42:25.440and make sure that landlords are protected from the kinds of issues that they're dealing with with tenants who are, you know,
00:42:32.040essentially some of them taking them to the cleaners.
00:42:34.440And, Warren, I was kind of thinking that the Trudeau government was almost getting out in front of this issue
00:42:39.080and trying to change the message on some of the other issues like foreign interference in the carbon pricing with this housing announcement.
00:42:44.620But to Tash's point, are they really just trying to keep up with the conservatives on this affordability messaging?
00:44:17.020As I was saying, you know, I can appreciate an ambitious, you know, goal, but this seems unrealistic in many senses.
00:44:23.280But as I was saying, it does – you know, we've changed the headlines for a couple days with some of these announcements, the foreign interference inquiry and the carbon tax, no less.
00:44:30.480I wanted to get into that a little bit here so we don't skip over it here.
00:44:33.600But I was reading a column in The Star, the headline this week.
00:44:36.460It says, it's no wonder a national security official felt compelled to leak information to the media.
00:44:41.540So it just seems like from what we've learned so far that, you know, the prime minister was, you know, somewhat in the know here.
00:44:47.160But that – I don't know, this is almost Trump-like as much as, you know, Trudeau supporters might not like to hear it, but he doesn't like to read his briefings.
00:44:55.600It seems like politics perhaps was at play in getting some of these warnings out here.
00:44:59.420Warren, I'll let you take this one for – to start.
00:45:01.860Well, somebody's not telling the truth.
00:45:04.180You know, Katie Telford is previously – his chief of staff has previously testified under oath that he reads everything, quote-unquote, with respect to national security.
00:45:14.220Then Trudeau appears and testifies that, no, he doesn't read anything.
00:45:28.660And then we have the other rock stars, you know, the C-team from PMO appearing and saying that, you know, they don't really take these serial briefings that they got from CSIS over a period of years seriously, presumably because they know more about national security than CSIS does.
00:45:47.700The boys and girls in short pants and PMO saying, well, yeah, we didn't really take it seriously because we know national security.
00:45:54.260Well, if that's the case, then just get rid of CSIS, you know, if you're smarter than them and you know more of what's going on, get rid of them.
00:46:01.780Like, now I think I understand why they moved heaven and earth to prevent this inquiry from taking place, including, you know, appointing Trudeau's ski buddy, David Johnson, to, you know, do whatever he did.
00:46:13.580They knew how bad it was going to look.
00:46:16.780And already, just in the very earliest phase of this inquiry, they look terrible.
00:46:22.540And as I say, it looks like somebody is lying.
00:46:25.980And Tasha, I guess further to, I guess what we've seen so far as well, we do have some sense of oversight, some sense of oversight.
00:46:33.680But is it time that we, you know, bring back the CSIS inspector general or is it clear that we need some kind of another independent set of eyes dealing with this and that there should be no politics involved in some of these decisions?
00:46:45.640Well, the problem is politics is involved in decisions.
00:46:49.060Politics is involved in the sense that that is one of the key areas that China is interfering in.
00:46:54.560And this is where, you know, I took from the inquiry three things.
00:46:59.380One, like Warren said, Trudeau tossed people around him under the bus.
00:48:07.640You can't have politicians who are beholden to another country for either donations, support, anything.
00:48:14.800That endangers your security in the worst way today, but it would be far worse if we were in conflict.
00:48:19.620So I think they didn't want any of this to come out because people would start noticing that they're putting our country at risk in very fundamental ways.
00:48:28.000Just switching gears to a couple of other stories that I did want to get to this week, specifically the issue with the carbon price.
00:48:34.960Now, as I was mentioning, I think the Liberals have kind of shrugged this a little bit with some of their housing announcements in terms of getting a little pressure off their back on this.
00:48:43.160But the NDP is what I'm kind of confused about.
00:48:45.040So they kind of came out earlier this week saying they might be opposed to a consumer carbon price.
00:48:50.740It seemed like, I don't know if Jagmeet Singh was getting polling from inside the party or just members were very upset, but they had to pull that back.
00:48:56.840So just wondering from a strategy point of view, maybe Tash, I'll start with you.
00:48:59.820Do you have any sense of what the NDP was trying to do here?
00:49:04.120I'm just trying to still figure out what's going on.
00:49:07.000I think the NDP is caught between a rock and a hard place on this because a lot of its constituency, working class people, are in the sights of the conservatives.
00:49:16.060And those are the same people who are paying those high heating bills and are saying, wait a second, I don't like paying a carbon tax.
00:49:23.300So the NDP is saying, how do we make sure those voters don't run away?
00:49:27.820I don't think they really thought this through, though, because, of course, then they upset the progressives on the other side in the party who are hellbent on fighting climate change at all costs.
00:49:38.020So they really – this is the issue for the NDP.
00:49:42.600How do you balance those two sides of their base?
00:49:45.420And I don't think they did a very good job this week.
00:49:48.580And I guess, Warren, it's seemingly like they are trying to differentiate themselves from the liberals, but perhaps they picked the wrong issue.
00:49:54.220It was a strange kind of move from the NDP this week.
00:49:57.360Yeah, it was, I guess, another indication for me that just the whole notion of taxing carbon is dead.
00:50:47.500And we've talked about that in terms of, you know, could it be the, you know, final stride that broke the camel's back
00:50:53.760when he started to put some different concessions on that.
00:50:58.920I just wanted to get to one last story here quickly, guys.
00:51:01.720Pierre Paulyev obviously leading in the polls pretty comfortably right now.
00:51:04.400But also, Labour leaders are meeting this week in Ottawa, talk about a whole number of things, the Canadian Labour Congress.
00:51:10.540But they're calling out Pierre Paulyev.
00:51:12.140They're not saying his name specifically this time, but they're saying that they're – you know, don't trust –
00:51:16.380they're telling their members, essentially, don't trust people that say they're working for the working class unless they actually show you, in a sense.
00:51:22.600So, I'm wondering, I don't think Pierre Paulyev has a lot of support in this space, but Warren, heading into election,
00:51:28.260does he even need this kind of section of the electorate, or is he kind of politically safe enough to kind of ignore something like this?
00:52:21.240Like, they're just not going to do it.
00:52:23.300But what the private sector unions are doing is quite interesting.
00:52:27.600You know, about a dozen of them supported Doug Ford in the last provincial election campaign because there had been, you know, Labour ministers like Puccini and McNaughton, who they really felt comfortable with.
00:52:41.100I think Paulyev is trying to do the same thing.
00:52:43.940And based upon the evidence on Friday, it's working.
00:52:46.840And, yeah, specifically mentioning, yeah, it's a good point of distinction there is public sector unions.
00:52:51.280Tasha, is that something that Pierre Paulyev needs to worry himself with right now?
00:52:54.920Or does he need to, or can he, you know, ignore this right now and perhaps, as Warren's mentioning, focus on trades unions and other unions?
00:53:02.960Well, he'll do what Doug Ford was, which was exactly that.
00:53:05.880Doug Ford in Ontario had the support of Leuna in the last election, private sector trades union.
00:53:12.140And that's where the bread and butter for the Conservatives will be federally.
00:53:16.260They would love a fight, I think, with public sector unions in some way because, again, it's about the growth of government, bloated government, right, under Trudeau's watch.
00:53:24.380But the average person, you know, they're paying through their taxes for this.
00:53:28.040Joe Lunchbucket with his hammer and the welder and, you know, Pierre Paulyev always talks about these folks.
00:53:33.760And they're looking for a champion, as they are around the world.
00:53:37.020This is not unique to Canada's populist movement.
00:53:41.440To Tasha's point, if I can jump in really quickly, you know, there were studies published this week showing the fastest growing, growing labor sector in Canada is the public service under Trudeau.
00:53:53.700We've got 100,000 more jobs and, you know, which is great for people in Ottawa, maybe not so much for the taxpayer.
00:54:01.580So, you know, it makes sense to me that, you know, CUPE is not going to be aligned with Paulyev, but they were never going to be aligned with Paulyev.
00:54:08.700Yeah, you can hear the Paulyev political ads now.
00:54:13.340But we'll wait until next week to hear more about what the budget brings this week as well, see if that changes anybody's calculus.
00:54:20.560But Tasha Carradine and Warren Kinsella, thanks so much for your time this morning.
00:54:26.480Warren Kinsella is a strategist and post-media columnist.
00:54:28.760Tasha Carradine is a political columnist for the National Post and writer for GZERO Media and an author that is their thoughts, your thoughts.