Off the Record - Guilbeault tries to be hip and cool

00:00:00.000 You guys, my computer died in the last show that I was doing.

00:00:02.560 So hopefully that doesn't happen this time.

00:00:04.060 But Noah, you're in charge if I disappear.

00:00:08.320 I'm in charge.

00:00:09.140 Am I like the senior member?

00:00:10.200 No, it's you, Noah.

00:00:11.260 I'll just be in the background.

00:00:13.140 You're just my DEI pick.

00:00:17.460 Ouch.

00:00:18.420 That would hurt, you know.

00:00:19.660 But, you know, I don't know why.

00:00:21.240 The Kamala Harris of off the record.

00:00:23.400 That would really hurt.

00:00:24.560 I can't do that ever again.

00:00:25.780 I'm glad I'm not a lib.

00:00:27.240 Jesus Christ.

00:00:28.280 What really hurt?

00:00:28.900 That was awful.

00:00:31.000 Being a DEI pick, I mean, that one hurt the soul, Rachel.

00:00:36.640 I think, you know, you might be a DEI pick.

00:00:38.340 You've got the woman's status. 1.00

00:00:39.260 I don't know.

00:00:40.240 What's higher on the intersectional hierarchy?

00:00:42.300 Being a man or being a woman or being black? 0.81

00:00:45.360 Being a person of color is definitely higher. 0.99

00:00:47.520 It is.

00:00:47.980 It is.

00:00:49.960 I would know, you know.

00:00:52.260 Yeah, you would know.

00:00:53.840 You've probably dealt with some of that.

00:00:58.500 Being a person of color?

00:01:01.000 Yeah.

00:01:03.920 I'm on the lowest ranking of the DEI list as a single white male.

00:01:08.120 Oh, well, we've got to boost those numbers up.

00:01:12.400 Let's get you into a wig and get you some brass and you'll be good to go. 1.00

00:01:17.500 You'll shoot right up the rankings.

00:01:20.400 You probably can get it paid for by the government too, Isaac.

00:01:22.960 So, seems like a good idea.

00:01:25.780 Yeah, I'm not going to go down that road.

00:01:27.940 Okay, guys, let's get it started.

00:01:30.500 Hey, everyone.

00:01:39.600 Welcome to Off the Record, our Friday fun show.

00:01:43.340 Before we get started, I have some bittersweet news for all of you.

00:01:46.720 If you haven't already heard, our colleague and usual host of the show, Andrew Lawton,

00:01:51.280 has left us all.

00:01:52.280 He's taken a leave of absence from Trudorth as he is seeking a conservative nomination.

00:01:56.720 So, we are very excited for him.

00:01:58.960 We wish him the best on his campaign and his hopeful candidacy.

00:02:02.560 However, he will be deeply missed here at Trudorth.

00:02:05.000 And I guess for the time being, you are stuck with us.

00:02:07.560 Joining me today are my colleagues, Noah Jarvis and Isaac Lamoureux.

00:02:11.280 Thank you so much for being here, guys.

00:02:12.540 Great to be here, and hopefully I'm not a drag on the show now that Andrew's gone.

00:02:19.220 Not a drag on the show that Andrew's gone.

00:02:21.040 You're just a drag on the show because you're a DEI.

00:02:25.420 Good to be here as well.

00:02:27.040 Maybe I'll be a more common entity of Off the Record now that Andrew's gone.

00:02:32.320 Who knows?

00:02:33.400 So, it's been sort of an exciting week over at True North.

00:02:36.440 I know that we sometimes struggle to find funny stories to talk about on this show,

00:02:41.040 but I think today we had no shortage of them.

00:02:43.100 Starting off, I feel like our colleague Harrison just sort of lit X on fire this week.

00:02:47.640 I don't know if he was the first person to post this image, but he was definitely one of the first.

00:02:51.420 Basically, I'm sure you guys have heard the drama of some immigrants pooping, 1.00

00:02:56.280 pooping in places that you shouldn't poop, 0.82

00:02:59.000 like parking lots and beaches has been one of the other commonly one.

00:03:01.960 I also saw today a video of a man pooping on someone's lawn in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

00:03:07.380 So, that's been sort of just a trending story.

00:03:09.580 So, of course, naturally, when Harrison posted a photo of a man pooping outside of a gas station

00:03:15.500 in a Tim Hortons, he had like a Tim Hortons cup in his hand.

00:03:18.040 I don't really know what was going on.

00:03:20.180 I'm not sure if the man was like hoping to like poop into the cup or if like,

00:03:24.720 based on the photo, it appears that's what's happening.

00:03:27.560 So, Harrison posted this photo online.

00:03:30.080 He wrote, Brampton man just couldn't walk the 15 yards to the bathroom.

00:03:33.960 Mass immigration is totally working.

00:03:36.280 This tweet blew up.

00:03:37.880 And I think part of the reason it blew up is just because it's such a hot topic right now,

00:03:41.480 considering we just recently had the story of, you know, Indians,

00:03:44.680 Indian immigrants are pooping on beaches. 1.00

00:03:46.120 And then the city came out and said that wasn't true. 0.97

00:03:48.040 And all the people who live in the city were like, no, this is true.

00:03:50.460 I think that was at Wasaga Beach in Ontario.

00:03:52.520 So, then a former Liberal MP commented, he quote tweeted on Harrison's post.

00:03:56.420 And he said, I own this property and this did not happen.

00:04:00.260 It's photoshopped, do better.

00:04:01.980 And then his rebuttal of Harrison's post also got like a ton of traction online.

00:04:07.180 And then a whole bunch of people chimed in saying this is totally fake. 0.97

00:04:10.800 You know, Harrison, you're a racist. 0.90

00:04:12.360 And a lot of other people had posted this image as well. 0.97

00:04:14.640 And I think some people were even being threatened with a lawsuit.

00:04:17.020 So, everyone who was kind of like watching on the sidelines, like waiting to see what was happening.

00:04:21.220 But the thing that everyone kept pointing to is you can see this man's reflection in the car.

00:04:26.140 And it would be extremely difficult to photoshop that.

00:04:28.780 I mean, I know photoshop has gotten pretty good.

00:04:30.780 But I would say the average social media user is not very good at it.

00:04:35.340 And so, it seemed very unlikely that the image was photoshopped.

00:04:37.740 But then Harrison had the receipts.

00:04:40.020 And he actually had, it's sort of a little video.

00:04:42.360 It was actually just basically the live version of the photo.

00:04:46.700 So, if you have an iPhone, I don't know if it's the same for Android users.

00:04:49.520 You can actually take like a live photo.

00:04:51.280 And it takes like a little video.

00:04:52.460 And then you can choose where in the photo you want to stop.

00:04:54.700 So, Harrison was able to post that live photo.

00:04:57.800 Which is essentially a small video.

00:04:59.560 Which proved that the photo is in fact real.

00:05:02.060 And that it was not photoshopped.

00:05:04.460 So, the thing that I think is most interesting is the people who are still claiming that the photo is photoshopped.

00:05:10.020 They're not backing down.

00:05:10.880 They're not retracting their tweets or issuing apologies.

00:05:13.000 They're just doubling down.

00:05:14.060 And it seems like it's just sort of a war of you're going to believe what you want to believe at this point.

00:05:19.200 It doesn't matter what the truth is.

00:05:20.860 What did you make of this whole situation unfolding on Exus Week, Noah?

00:05:25.720 Well, I thought that, you know, you're exactly right.

00:05:28.640 That it is kind of inexcusable that you especially have a liberal MP who won't retract the statement that, you know, is proven to be false.

00:05:35.760 And this is because Harrison is sort of on the wrong side.

00:05:38.640 He's, you know, a conservative, he talks about mass immigration, and he talks about things that, you know, is really a big thorn in the side of the Liberal Party.

00:05:48.860 And so, you know, just spreading misinformation on the internet, and you could even call it disinformation if you think that Raj Grewal purposefully spread this falsehood.

00:05:58.640 You know, spreading these sorts of falsehoods, it's fine, you know, if it's against a conservative or it helps to disprove a conservative's argument.

00:06:07.960 But, you know, users on Exx did provide the receipts, and it's a great thing that, you know, we have a greater understanding of what the truth is and what is not.

00:06:18.220 Because under this liberal MP's just sort of pronunciations, just sort of anything he says, it's not going to be really accurate.

00:06:29.680 I think it's really concerning that this liberal just sort of dismissed Harrison's pretty, you know, fair concerns without, you know, trying to, you know, investigate why, you know, someone might be mad about this.

00:06:45.040 Because the liberal government, they've created this immigration problem in which, you know, we have people coming into the country that don't share Canadian values, don't share the same sort of values of sanitation and hygiene. 0.96

00:06:56.280 I think that's a really basic Canadian value. Go to the washroom if you're going to take a crap. 0.99

00:07:02.100 But, you know, I think that, you know... 0.99

00:07:05.700 It's complicated stuff.

00:07:07.200 It's really complicated. I really, you know, took a while to learn that.

00:07:11.600 But I think that if you just dismiss these concerns out of hand, you're going to create resentment among the Canadian populace.

00:07:21.300 And you're going to create a more anti-immigrant sort of environment in Canada.

00:07:26.700 So Raj Grewal, he's actually...

00:07:29.200 What he's done is actually pretty counterproductive for his cause.

00:07:32.640 So I think that if you are a, you know, pro-immigration liberal, just dismissing, you know, immigration critics' concerns about people crapping in public is not going to bring people onto your side.

00:07:46.340 It's actually going to, you know, create people who are more anti-immigrant.

00:07:50.180 You're going to have neutral observers who see this interaction on Twitter and say, hey, you know, maybe the pro-immigrant people are, you know, just crazy misinformation spreaders and, you know, the type of people who just seek to deny the truth, you know, for their own political purposes.

00:08:05.600 Yeah, no, I think you raise a really good point when you talk about the fact that just dismissing concerns about mass immigration and some of the problem that it brings, like different understanding of what sanitation is and different understanding of what is appropriate in a given country versus the country where you might have originated from.

00:08:22.220 Just dismissing those concerns outright is going to cause resentment among the Canadian people.

00:08:25.860 I think we're already at that point.

00:08:27.560 I think that Canadian people, by and large, are feeling resentful.

00:08:30.340 And this is like a very typical playbook that we see from the left.

00:08:32.600 Oh, you can't talk about that. 0.99

00:08:33.640 You're a racist.

00:08:34.420 Just dismissing concerns outright and instead throwing a label, sort of like a Band-Aid fix on someone so they won't talk about these things.

00:08:43.060 But the one thing, like, that I just can't get past is just that there's so many people who still believe that this image was fake because of how loud it's being voiced.

00:08:50.620 And I think we're seeing something very similar playing out in the American election right now.

00:08:54.640 I covered this on my show on Wednesday, Rachel and the Republic, which you should absolutely go and watch if you haven't seen it yet.

00:09:01.060 But essentially, there's been so many things that have happened in the past that now people are trying to rewrite.

00:09:05.580 So, for example, Kamala Harris being named the Borders are as vice president because the border is such an issue. 1.00

00:09:11.740 Now people are trying to say, oh, she was never the Borders are.

00:09:13.720 And in some cases, this is being done quite successfully.

00:09:16.320 And I think it has the ability to to change the election if it goes unchecked.

00:09:20.860 So when we talk about this disinformation, Isaac, do you think that X is really a place to for people to go and to disseminate what truth is?

00:09:28.180 Or do you think a lot of the times people leave with more confusion, more questions than answers?

00:09:34.100 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:09:35.320 And obviously, Elon Musk, who owns X, has been very vocal in purchasing X, that he was doing it to protect freedom of speech.

00:09:44.320 Many people have touted him as the savior, if you will, of a freedom of speech because of all the.

00:09:50.020 We've seen all the other social medias like Facebook and other meta owned social medias, and we know that they have.

00:10:04.660 Stopped certain information from getting out there intentionally, the Hunter Biden laptop story, of course, is one that most people like to cite and remember.

00:10:13.180 But yeah, I mean, X is also where I remember seeing a study years ago that at the time, Twitter was the most where the social media where the most politics were discussed.

00:10:28.340 So obviously, freedom of speech in that sense is very important, especially when we're talking about election integrity and the like.

00:10:36.660 So obviously, people are discussing primarily politics on X.

00:10:40.560 Yeah, and just going back to the photo quickly, I mean, the fact that people are still trying to say that's photoshopped when there is a live photo, literally a video version that your iPhone automatically takes.

00:10:52.780 I mean, it's a ridiculous defense to hang on to.

00:10:56.220 And I also wanted to say that I read True North's article on that story, and we obviously we tried to reach out to the gas station who the employee said he didn't know what was going on.

00:11:06.060 And then they wouldn't provide the CCTV, which I found odd, because obviously, if you wanted to prove what happened, you could just provide the unedited raw video from the CCTV.

00:11:17.660 So I don't know why there's any secrecy remaining around that.

00:11:22.580 But yeah, I know. I mean, oh, sorry, you could just go.

00:11:25.500 Yeah, it was just absolutely like, again, I think we really saw the people who posted this image initially.

00:11:30.260 They came with the receipts, and I think it was fairly obvious to everyone that it would have been difficult to Photoshop that given.

00:11:35.760 But, you know, just another day, some more drama on X.

00:11:38.100 Another kind of funny thing that happened was a video that Stephen Guibault posted, you know, very unpopular environment minister of Canada right now.

00:11:44.780 And he's trying to sort of catch on the bandwagon of some trends that we're seeing in the States.

00:11:48.920 You know, why don't you take the lead on this one?

00:11:50.340 I'm just I'm just too frustrated with it at this point.

00:11:52.860 Go ahead and explain what happened here.

00:11:55.640 Well, you know, just for some context, in the United States, Joe Biden has dropped out.

00:12:02.160 And Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee for president for the Democratic Party.

00:12:07.500 And pretty soon after Kamala Harris, you know, stepped forward and basically claimed the Democratic nomination, this social media trend, I would say it was a little manufactured.

00:12:20.320 But the social media trend emerged, basically saying that Kamala is brat. 1.00

00:12:26.340 Now, it is just like this stupid Gen Z thing. 0.99

00:12:29.640 I'm part of Gen Z, so it's like, you know, self-generational criticism. 0.99

00:12:32.880 But, you know, there's this stupid Gen Z thing where, you know, there's this artist, pop artist named Charlie XCX. 0.96

00:12:40.080 She has this album coming out and, you know, she has this, I guess, clever marketing scheme where she's like, you know, XCX is brat or whatever. 1.00

00:12:47.780 I don't understand it too much because I don't listen to Charlie XCX.

00:12:51.620 I'm not on those corners of the Internet.

00:12:53.520 But basically, Kamala Harris and her team, they took this Charlie XCX trend and they basically, you know, repurposed it for their own campaign purposes.

00:13:04.240 They are trying to say that Kamala Harris is brat. 1.00

00:13:06.820 What does brat mean?

00:13:08.380 You know, it means anything to anyone.

00:13:10.600 You know, it means what you wish brat to mean. 0.99

00:13:13.420 You know, which in and of itself, it just makes the whole concept stupid. 0.99

00:13:18.500 But, you know, they've branded their campaign HQ around it. 0.96

00:13:22.620 You know, the sort of online campaign war room.

00:13:24.980 And it seems as if this has caught in the attention of Canadian politicians.

00:13:29.520 So, notorious Trudeau cabinet minister, Trudeau's environment minister, Stephen Giebeau,

00:13:34.720 So, he decided that it would be a good idea to basically repurpose Kamala's, you know, you see it there on screen, repurpose Kamala Harris' branding and say that, you know, this is a brat summer and that affordable housing is brat.

00:13:50.380 You know, what is that supposed to mean?

00:13:52.600 I have no idea.

00:13:53.660 And I thought it was really cringe.

00:13:55.220 I advised Stephen Giebeau to delete the post because that's what any, you know, good person, anyone who wanted the best for Stephen Giebeau's life, you know, they would tell him to take that post down.

00:14:06.280 You know, I don't know what his communications people, his communications staff was telling him.

00:14:11.180 But, you know, they should be fired immediately.

00:14:13.560 It is horrible.

00:14:14.680 It's the worst if I was to, you know, persuade Trump.

00:14:16.900 But, you know, I think it really just goes to show that politics, especially in Canada and the United States, it's become sort of, you know, vapid and, you know, sort of hollow.

00:14:28.640 And that, you know, it's a joke.

00:14:30.200 Exactly.

00:14:30.800 You know, we don't really discuss, you know, really, you know, substantive issues.

00:14:34.560 We just say that housing affordability is brat.

00:14:37.160 And, you know, just put that out in the air.

00:14:39.020 It's not like I saw housing prices come down anytime soon.

00:14:42.580 Actually, housing starts, starts on homes being built, have gone down in recent months.

00:14:49.900 You know, compared to last year, housing starts are down, I think, 50%.

00:14:53.100 So it's not like they're doing anything to make housing affordable.

00:14:56.600 They just declare the housing affordability is brat.

00:14:58.680 And boom, housing prices shoot down 50% in the next week.

00:15:02.440 What do you guys think of this thing that Stephen Giebeau did?

00:15:07.540 Well, I had looked into this trend a little bit in my coverage of the American election, and I was, like, looking into this trend of brat because I didn't really understand it either.

00:15:15.740 I might be a Gen Z, but I actually, you know, tend to fit in more with, like, 60-year-olds and that demographic.

00:15:21.740 So I was lost as to what this trend was.

00:15:23.360 So I was looking it up.

00:15:24.400 So apparently the trend of being brat means to be being bold and uncomfortable, and it's to be the unexpected.

00:15:31.520 And that's why they pick sort of that odd green color that you don't see too much of because it was unexpected.

00:15:35.720 I think it's funny that essentially Stephen Giebeau was saying that affordable housing is unexpected, which it certainly is in Canada.

00:15:43.920 We definitely don't expect that anymore.

00:15:46.700 What's the average median home price in Ontario is, like, something around half a million dollars.

00:15:51.640 And then The Atlantic also described it, and they said that brat is a collection of nightclub bangers celebrating female hedonism.

00:16:00.280 So, no, I thought it was interesting when you said, well, it's kind of whatever you want it to be,

00:16:03.600 because it doesn't seem like there's really a clear definition of what brat is.

00:16:07.040 But whatever it is, Stephen Giebeau definitely didn't know what it was when he made that post.

00:16:11.900 Like, they have no idea what they're talking about.

00:16:13.980 They're trying to fit into a trend that it obviously, you know, sure, you could repurpose this trend if you wanted to.

00:16:19.640 But in terms, and, you know, here we should really just be accusing the Americans of, 0.53

00:16:23.620 we should be accusing Giebeau of importing American-style politics into Canada.

00:16:27.060 Like, he's so clearly taken this trend from the Kamala Harris campaign.

00:16:30.800 He isn't even fully aware of what it is.

00:16:32.600 They might have been able to repurpose it for something,

00:16:34.980 but I don't think they would have been able to repurpose it for affordable housing.

00:16:38.040 And I think this is sort of falling on flat.

00:16:39.320 I don't think it's causing any clarification on the policy methods that they're actually trying to get forward.

00:16:43.660 Isaac, what's your take on this whole thing?

00:16:45.460 Yeah.

00:16:45.720 So, obviously, I didn't know as much background information about the Gen Z brat thing as you, Noah, and maybe you, Rachel.

00:16:53.220 But first thing I did when I saw this video, I thought I knew what a brat was. 0.97

00:16:56.660 But just to be sure, I looked up the definition, which read,

00:17:00.140 a child, typically a badly behaved one, which is, I might think, is how some people would describe Stephen Giebeau.

00:17:08.500 And, you know, I mean, you're the environment minister of Canada.

00:17:12.760 Why are you even talking about housing in the first place, especially, especially in light of what just happened in Jasper?

00:17:18.220 I really think you'd have bigger concerns on your plate.

00:17:22.640 And then just touching briefly on housing, a July survey from the Angus Reid Institute showed that newcomers to Canada were more likely to leave than Canadian-born citizens.

00:17:33.300 But even three in 10 Canadian-born citizens were considering leaving the province and their country due to housing affordability concerns,

00:17:40.520 whereas 39% of newcomers were considering leaving.

00:17:46.040 And we'll remember Canada's housing affordability reached an all-time low back in April.

00:17:51.000 And then Trudeau promised to build 4 million homes by 2031, which would equate to 1.096 houses per minute,

00:17:58.480 which would require Canada to double its housing starts.

00:18:01.940 And as you said, Noah, they have not been going up but down, let alone double for seven years straight.

00:18:07.260 At this point, it's more than that because, obviously, the housing starts have been falling, not rising.

00:18:12.540 And then the recent news that came out and came into effect on Thursday,

00:18:18.460 which is the promise made by the Liberals in the 2024 budget to offer 30-year mortgage amortizations.

00:18:24.960 And I talked at length about this with various mortgage brokers and economists.

00:18:30.520 I kind of went down into the calculations to see, hey, is this actually a good thing?

00:18:35.880 And sorry, the part that came into effect on Thursday was only for first-time homebuyers purchasing new builds.

00:18:43.360 So it's a very limited demographic.

00:18:45.660 But anyways, in June 2024, the average house in Canada cost $696,179.

00:18:52.000 So after accounting for the minimum possible down payment, which equates to 5% on the first $500,000 and 10% on the remaining sum,

00:18:59.780 or a minimum of 20% if the house exceeds $1 million,

00:19:02.740 a 25-year mortgage would result in monthly payments of $3,789.

00:19:09.240 And for a 30-year mortgage, this would fall to $3,477.

00:19:13.700 Wow, that sounds great.

00:19:14.680 However, this drop in price would cost Canadians almost $115,000 over the full realization of that mortgage.

00:19:23.240 So for a 25-year mortgage on that $696,000 home,

00:19:27.500 Canadians would pay a total of $1,136,853.

00:19:34.300 That would be $651,561 in principal cost after removing the down payment,

00:19:41.220 and then $485,292 in interest.

00:19:45.060 And a 30-year mortgage would see obviously the same principal,

00:19:47.360 but the interest would rise to $600,274.

00:19:50.920 So yes, an increase of $115,000 in interest just by increasing your mortgage over five years

00:19:56.500 to bring down the monthly cost, which...

00:19:59.560 I talked to economist and McDonald-Daurier Institute fellow, Jack Mintz,

00:20:04.740 who is a very renowned economist,

00:20:06.600 and he told me that prospective buyers should only consider this

00:20:10.280 if they have absolutely no other choice and that it's really not a great option.

00:20:15.060 And surprise, he offered a different solution that the feds should explore,

00:20:18.800 which he said, quote,

00:20:20.360 build baby build and control immigration that is pushing population growth and demand for housing. 0.73

00:20:27.140 So yeah, I mean, look, all these issues always come down to the same issue of immigration.

00:20:30.860 Yeah, like I think you raise a really good point that why is...

00:20:35.400 I mean, Guibo talking about this when we just had the fires in Jasper,

00:20:38.040 and maybe he's trying to distract a little bit.

00:20:39.860 But also, you know, this gimmicky sort of announcement,

00:20:42.480 this gimmicky advertising and marketing,

00:20:44.260 it doesn't do anything to abate the concerns

00:20:48.000 and honestly just the sadness and anger that Canadians are feeling about not being able to own a home.

00:20:53.220 And what was that number that you said 3 in 10 people who were born in Canada

00:20:56.540 are considering leaving because of the cost of living?

00:20:59.200 Like those are shocking numbers.

00:21:00.160 I mean, I'm Canadian born.

00:21:01.460 I've definitely considered at times maybe that maybe leaving to live somewhere that's more affordable.

00:21:06.020 Have either of you ever, you know, actually had those considerations?

00:21:10.120 Well, in the pandemic, I was especially thinking like,

00:21:12.640 hey, you know, this is, you know, pretty, it was pretty tragic, you know,

00:21:16.300 prices I think peaked during the pandemic.

00:21:18.600 And around those times, I was thinking like, you know, I don't have, you know,

00:21:23.180 I do have, you know, roots in Canada.

00:21:26.480 But at the end of the day, if I, you know, need to be able to buy a home,

00:21:30.160 you know, I can probably get a home that's worth half of a Canadian home in the United States

00:21:36.120 for about the same size home while making a bit more money

00:21:39.800 because your average American makes more money.

00:21:41.440 Like what?

00:21:41.940 That's a pretty good deal.

00:21:43.500 Wouldn't want, you know, that sort of opportunity, you know.

00:21:45.980 And while, you know, I think I'm going to stay in Canada for the rest of my life,

00:21:49.500 you know, because I do really love this country.

00:21:52.100 I want to also, you know, be able to live in a country where we don't have to,

00:21:56.500 you know, deal with these significant concerns.

00:21:59.220 I think that, you know, the roadmap in Canada now for a young person is to,

00:22:04.100 you know, try and, you know, do as well in school, get a good job,

00:22:07.060 you know, save up as much money as possible for several years.

00:22:10.580 You know, maybe when you're in your 40s, you get to buy a home.

00:22:13.360 And instead of taking out a 25-year mortgage,

00:22:15.200 now you take out a 30-year mortgage so that you pay it off instead of when

00:22:19.300 you're 65, you pay it off when you're 70.

00:22:21.300 So you can't really retire until you're 70 or even, you know, older.

00:22:25.380 So that's sort of like, you know, the ideal roadmap for a Canadian in Trudeau's

00:22:30.320 Canada.

00:22:31.000 And I think, you know, all Canadians want to, you know,

00:22:33.780 bring back the Canadian dream because it is lost,

00:22:37.000 especially for a lot of young Canadians who, you know, just, you know,

00:22:40.800 trying to do what, you know, their parents had done

00:22:43.340 and are experiencing significant difficulties in trying to establish their lives.

00:22:49.860 So definitely, you know, Steve and Gabo talking about BRAT housing affordability

00:22:56.500 or housing affordability being BRAT.

00:22:59.180 I don't think that's really helping a lot with the problems we're facing.

00:23:03.680 There you have it.

00:23:04.700 You know, two out of three Gen Z, mostly talented Canadians,

00:23:08.200 you know, we're thinking about leaving.

00:23:09.640 I'm not sure about you, Isaac, or we've thought about it before. 0.97

00:23:11.760 They're just chasing away talent, chasing away talent with these dumb policies. 0.72

00:23:16.420 The States, I think a lot of people think about the States as an option. 0.79

00:23:18.680 Then they realize how difficult it would actually be to get a visa

00:23:21.960 and to live there permanently.

00:23:23.100 I think people kind of reconsider.

00:23:24.820 But at least for the time being, you know, we can sit back here in Canada

00:23:28.300 and we can enjoy all the drama unfolding in the States, mostly on X.

00:23:32.240 I know Elon Musk got himself in a little hot water.

00:23:34.260 I think maybe Pierre Polyev should take a note out of Elon's books

00:23:39.380 and have a new strategy for attacking Trudeau or whoever replaces Trudeau more accurately.

00:23:44.820 But Isaac, why don't you explain what happened here?

00:23:46.320 What did Elon do that got people's panties so wound in a knot?

00:23:51.720 Yeah.

00:23:52.220 So Elon Musk shared a parody with real photos and videos of her on the campaign trail.

00:23:56.960 And then the 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom,

00:24:00.940 said that manipulating a voice in a, quote, ad like this one should be illegal.

00:24:06.940 Newsom went on to say that he'd be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.

00:24:12.020 However, something interesting I found in the comments and then looked into was that

00:24:15.400 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed 8-0 in Hustler v. Falwell that a parody,

00:24:22.660 which no reasonable person expected to be true, was protected free speech.

00:24:26.320 And in fact, it was more than that.

00:24:27.860 It was protected by the 1st and the 14th Amendments in the U.S. Constitution.

00:24:31.900 So sharing parody videos like this is a constitutional right.

00:24:36.880 And I mean, Elon Musk is a pretty smart guy.

00:24:39.900 I'm sure he might have had some knowledge of that, which is why he took such a

00:24:44.400 lackadaisical approach, let's call it, in these replies.

00:24:48.200 What do you guys think?

00:24:49.560 Yeah, I think, do we have a copy of that video?

00:24:51.300 Let's just play it now so people can get a sense of exactly what the parody was.

00:24:55.120 I, Kamal Harris, senior Democrat candidate for president,

00:24:58.520 because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility of the debate.

00:25:02.080 Thanks, Joe.

00:25:02.820 I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire.

00:25:05.900 I'm both a woman and a person of color.

00:25:07.600 So if you criticize anything I say, you're both sexist and racist.

00:25:12.220 I may not know the first thing about running the country, but remember, 0.96

00:25:15.840 that's a good thing if you're a deep state puppet.

00:25:19.260 I had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet,

00:25:23.480 a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden. 0.62

00:25:25.340 Joe taught me rule number one, carefully hide your total incompetence.

00:25:31.640 So basically, she's just saying what every sane person in the American public is thinking right now.

00:25:36.280 I know Isaac talked a little bit about how the right for parody was protected.

00:25:40.980 But, you know, I think we've seen a lot of people's charter protected rights here in Canada

00:25:45.320 and constitutional protected rights in the States have been trampled on in the past number of years.

00:25:49.740 Do you think that there's actually going to be a problem?

00:25:51.920 Do you think the individual who made this video and those who've been sharing it,

00:25:54.940 do you think they might actually find themselves in any legal troubles, Noah?

00:26:00.240 Well, I would hope not.

00:26:01.740 I mean, if someone really does get arrested over this or, you know, gets sued or whatever,

00:26:06.300 I think that there's going to be a massive backlash and it's going to have that sort of the Streisand effect.

00:26:12.000 If you guys are not familiar with the Streisand effect, it basically refers to the phenomenon

00:26:17.360 where someone or a company tries to, you know, get rid of something, sort of scrub something from public existence.

00:26:24.960 And, you know, it has the opposite effect.

00:26:26.580 It has the effect of amplifying the thing that they are trying to censor.

00:26:30.060 So, in this case, if, you know, someone, you know, the Paris campaign or some Democrat PAC,

00:26:37.300 they want to, you know, try and sue the gentleman who made this video and try and get the video taken down,

00:26:44.180 I think it's just going to result in a mass proliferation of the video around the Internet.

00:26:48.780 And it really should be because censorship should be viewed with scorn.

00:26:53.180 I mean, there isn't really many legitimate reasons why you should be censoring a government or, you know,

00:27:00.340 the massive corporations should be censoring anything because, you know, it is something that free speech is a value

00:27:07.080 that we're supposed to take very seriously, especially in the Anglosphere, in the United States, in Canada.

00:27:12.080 It is a value that should be protected.

00:27:14.880 And, you know, parity is part of free speech.

00:27:16.980 You should be able to make mockery of Kamala Harris for serving under a president that is more than likely senile 0.74

00:27:24.800 and whose, you know, cognitive abilities are declining.

00:27:27.480 You should be able to mock Kamala Harris for being a sort of DEI hire, for getting picked by Joe Biden

00:27:34.560 because she's a black woman and, you know, she's the Democratic nominee unopposed 0.99

00:27:39.780 because the optics would look bad about deposing a black woman. 1.00

00:27:43.580 You know, you should be able to mock someone about that like that.

00:27:45.980 Now, when you bring AI and you have this sort of impersonation of Kamala Harris's voice,

00:27:51.360 I think, you know, there are certain cases in which you can have a video that is, you know, meant to deceive,

00:27:58.340 that is blatantly manipulative and makes, you know, Kamala Harris or even Donald Trump or Joe Biden

00:28:03.840 or whatever politician you want to name, it makes them look bad in a way that, you know, is meant to deceive the audience.

00:28:10.260 However, I think this video is clearly a parody video.

00:28:12.740 I mean, Kamala Harris is obviously not going to refer to the president that she's serving as,

00:28:17.680 as I forget the word, but basically as being senile.

00:28:22.240 I think that's the word.

00:28:23.460 Yeah.

00:28:24.400 She's not going to refer to Joe Biden as senile, realistically.

00:28:27.560 She's not going to, you know, be nearly as cynical as that.

00:28:32.660 And I think any observer should be able to tell that difference.

00:28:36.880 So, you know, I think the outrage, especially the CBC's outrage about this really, you know, has no basis.

00:28:44.920 And why Canada's public broadcaster is getting involved in this debate out of, you know,

00:28:50.100 out of all the other debates that we could be talking about in Canadian politics, it's really beyond me.

00:28:55.360 I don't see why that's within the CBC's mandate.

00:28:58.460 I mean, CBC shouldn't even be covering American politics.

00:29:01.320 That seems pretty straightforward to me.

00:29:02.660 Their mandate is the Canadian public broadcaster, fine, you know, they can cover some Canadian heritage moments

00:29:07.360 or some important news happening here in Canada.

00:29:09.360 I don't even disagree.

00:29:10.400 I don't even agree with their mandate.

00:29:11.520 I think, you know, they've sort of sold themselves out and the Canadian public has no interest in them,

00:29:15.820 but there certainly is no argument to be made for them covering American news.

00:29:19.760 So obviously they shouldn't be wading into this debate, but it is an interesting one to have

00:29:23.120 because I'm not sure if you guys remember this happening back in 2016.

00:29:26.000 There was a man who was making memes about Hillary Clinton during the election, Douglas Mackey,

00:29:31.100 and he was actually found guilty.

00:29:32.980 I think he was charged federally for making memes, which essentially told people to stay home and vote

00:29:37.780 and just to text a certain number to vote.

00:29:39.680 And he was found guilty of a crime for that.

00:29:41.500 So it'll be interesting to see if the left kind of just threatens and says this is illegal

00:29:45.980 or if they actually pursue it, because we've seen them time and time again pursue legal action

00:29:50.200 where they feel that they are losing.

00:29:51.980 I mean, that's essentially what we saw with Donald Trump.

00:29:53.680 They threw everything they could in the book at him because, you know,

00:29:57.540 they understood his popularity and they understood the threat that he was.

00:30:00.620 And so they threw every legal case they could find.

00:30:02.500 And obviously most of those have now fallen apart around them.

00:30:05.160 And so instead now they're turning back to the corporate media to do their dirty work for them

00:30:08.860 and to make it appear as if there's all this momentum behind Kamala's campaign.

00:30:12.980 But, you know, Noah raises an interesting point that maybe there is an ethical question as to

00:30:16.600 how far can we actually go when we're doing parody and when we're using AI especially.

00:30:21.720 And Isaac, I wonder if you think this is something that could be effective here in Canada

00:30:27.000 or if you think maybe the Canadian people have perhaps a lesser tolerance for those sort of grey areas

00:30:31.860 and it wouldn't be, you know, a popular thing to try here with, let's say,

00:30:36.080 whoever takes Justin Trudeau's place as leader of the Liberal Party in the next election

00:30:39.700 if he does indeed step down, as I think we all expect him to.

00:30:42.620 Would it be a good idea for opposition parties or maybe just organizers to try to paint that person

00:30:49.460 by using AI especially to poke fun at them?

00:30:55.540 Yeah, I guess this could be a useful tactic.

00:30:58.640 And just talking quickly on whether it should be allowed or not,

00:31:03.040 that is deepfake in general.

00:31:04.520 I mean, it's such a crucial line to walk, you know,

00:31:10.240 because as Noah kind of covered, like any, let's say, deepfake video

00:31:16.820 that was intentionally trying to lie and deceive people

00:31:20.020 or show them something that just simply wasn't true

00:31:23.200 and it wasn't clearly a parody as was this video.

00:31:26.800 So, you know, obviously that's going to be harmful, especially during elections,

00:31:31.240 you know, especially if people come online and maybe they're not so tech savvy, let's say,

00:31:37.080 and they just see a video of a political leader doing something crazy

00:31:40.680 that might have been a deepfake.

00:31:42.720 You know, that's obviously something that needs to be addressed.

00:31:44.980 But when thinking about any regulations or similarly that could come into place surrounding this,

00:31:52.860 you know, you just have to think about how it could be used negatively, obviously,

00:31:57.320 which is to essentially censor freedom of speech.

00:32:00.400 So I really don't know what the answer is in regard to legality.

00:32:04.220 I do think that when something is clearly a parody, it's fine.

00:32:10.200 And maybe on the flip side, if it's clearly intentionally trying to deceive someone

00:32:16.020 and suggest that something that didn't happen in reality is true via deepfake,

00:32:23.140 then that is something that should be completely taken down from the Internet.

00:32:27.540 But again, walking the line between control and freedom of speech

00:32:31.760 is such a tough line to walk in modern society.

00:32:36.940 Yeah, I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head here.

00:32:39.240 I think things that are obviously parody and are being created to be humorous

00:32:43.640 should be allowed and, you know, potentially even encouraged to bring a lighter side to politics,

00:32:48.840 help people to laugh at some of the darkness that we're seeing.

00:32:50.660 And when things are a deepfake or being created to pass itself off as truth and reality,

00:32:56.120 when it is not, I think those types of things should definitely be discouraged.

00:33:01.220 Fortunately, that's all the time we have today for our Friday fun show.

00:33:04.060 Let us know what you think of this episode in the comments below

00:33:06.720 and give us some suggestions as who you would like to see host the show in weeks to come.

00:33:11.120 As I mentioned, our colleague Andrew will be gone for at least a couple of weeks,

00:33:14.740 if not a couple of months, and we will certainly miss him.

00:33:16.700 But wish him the best of luck.

00:33:17.800 So let us know who you would like to see host off the record in the weeks to come.

00:33:21.360 And don't forget that everything you heard today was off the record.

00:33:33.100 Did it, guys.

00:33:33.860 37 minutes.

00:33:34.740 I think Noah should host next week.

00:33:36.260 You know, it would be funny if, you know, I host and then Andrew comes back and you're like,

00:33:43.080 yeah, you know, Noah, great hosting job, but I got to say that all those insults

00:33:48.760 that you threw my way while you're hosting, all those jabs,

00:33:53.040 it's going to result in the extinguishing of your tenure with the True North, Noah.

00:33:59.040 I think your job is more protected than you think it is, Noah.

00:34:01.240 Oh, yeah, because I'm the DEI hire.

00:34:05.440 Just, you know, go to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, you know,

00:34:08.460 just walk down the block and say, hey, these True North fellers, man,

00:34:12.680 they're exactly what you thought they were.

00:34:15.640 Exactly.

00:34:16.100 Can you imagine a human rights case against us?

00:34:18.400 The public would love it.

00:34:19.620 People would be like, we knew it.

00:34:21.000 Yeah.

00:34:22.360 Yeah.

00:34:23.220 Yeah.

00:34:24.320 Yeah.

00:34:25.580 Yeah.

00:34:25.940 Oh, yeah.

00:34:27.940 Yeah.

00:34:28.600 Yeah.

00:34:29.520 Oh, yeah.

00:34:30.120 Yeah.

00:34:30.780 Yeah.

00:34:31.120 Yeah.

00:34:32.260 Yeah.

00:34:44.900 Oh, yeah.

00:34:46.320 Oh, my God.

Off the Record - August 02, 2024

Guilbeault tries to be hip and cool

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