Off the Record - December 06, 2024


How woke is our military?

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Hosted by
Mentioned
This is all Trudeau’s fault How low can Trudeau go?

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

165.86

Word count

6,396

Sentence count

368

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

20

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Trump's continued trolling of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, as well as a new story about extremism in the Canadian military, and a new report from a leaked internal survey, suggest that the Canadian government thinks that the majority of Canadian soldiers are extremists.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 All right. Well, I guess the trolling is going to continue from Donald Trump. We're getting
00:00:03.940 AI images. It feels like it's 2019 again. Is he going after Justin Trudeau here or is he trolling
00:00:10.740 the entire country? What do you guys think? Yeah, I think he's more so targeting Trudeau
00:00:18.600 than the entire country. Of course, we recently saw him specifically come after the liberal
00:00:23.320 government and their border crisis saying, look, if you don't solve this, we will inflict a 25%
00:00:28.360 tariff against your goods. So obviously, he has no love for Trudeau. And it's no surprise,
00:00:35.100 perhaps, given previous statements made by not only Trudeau, but his entire caucus, like
00:00:41.920 Minister Freeland, for example, and the things they've said about Trump, why would he have
00:00:46.360 any love for them? My question is whether Trump has a soft spot for Canada, because who would
00:00:54.020 have thought that he'd be the one to solve our border crisis? Well, it's funny, I read reports
00:01:00.020 that he wanted to split Canada into two provinces, one red Republican one, I'm assuming the West or 0.60
00:01:07.520 majority of the West and one blue Democratic one to make it even. And the liberals, they're playing
00:01:14.260 this off as like friendly banter, but it's very one sided for it to be banter. It's almost like the
00:01:20.260 liberal government is just sitting there and quietly accepting all of the jokes at their
00:01:26.640 expense without throwing any back towards Trump. And you would think if it's friendly banter between
00:01:32.780 buddies, that would be the case. But they're falsely playing up this idea that, oh, we're all just pals.
00:01:40.900 Well, the legacy media doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. They seem to think that Donald
00:01:45.740 Trump is being serious with his AI images. And I think the reality is over the next four years,
00:01:50.780 we should just get ready for some good laughter, for some good trolling, because that's really what
00:01:56.720 Trump is known for. All right, everyone, let's get into this one now. Let's get into the show here.
00:02:06.660 All right, welcome to Off the Record. We are joined here by True North's editor and senior
00:02:13.020 researcher, Cosmin Georgia, as well as the host of Alberta Roundup, Isaac Lamoureux. My name is
00:02:19.120 Harrison Faulkner. We've got quite a good lineup here. But on the topic of Donald Trump's trolling,
00:02:26.260 there's a new story that has come out, which could give Trump lots of ammunition to troll
00:02:30.900 Justin Trudeau over. And the new story is this. It's an exclusive to True North. We have obtained a copy
00:02:36.120 of a leaked internal survey given to soldiers that is basically asking soldiers to discuss
00:02:43.720 the state of extremism in the military. Let's put up the headline here if we've got it. And
00:02:52.080 that's right. So the Canadian military in this extremism, right-wing extremism survey is asking
00:02:59.340 soldiers, for example, if in the past two to five years, they have purchased extremism merchandise,
00:03:05.160 guys, such as a Make Canada Great Again hat. I mean, just imagine the trolling Trump could do with
00:03:11.280 this, you know, giving Trudeau, for example, a Make Canada Great Again hat, putting one on in an AI
00:03:17.060 generated image to talk about how much of an extremist he is. The opportunities are endless.
00:03:21.620 I hope he does get into it. But besides the humor, there's a dark side to this story, because this
00:03:27.120 survey is not just about the Make Canada Great Again hat. It asks soldiers, for example, if they agree
00:03:34.400 with the statements such as the Canadian government restricted freedoms too much during the COVID
00:03:40.020 pandemic, the assumption being that if you agree with that, you're an extremist. Also, they ask
00:03:44.700 questions like the country has let in too many immigrants, something the majority of Canadians 0.95
00:03:49.720 agree with, which makes it appear as though the Canadian government thinks the majority of Canadians
00:03:54.160 must be extremists. Even worse, it asks questions of veterans and soldiers if they believe the Canadian
00:04:01.680 government prioritizes immigrants over veterans and if the Canadian government doesn't care about
00:04:06.780 veterans. Once again, the message being there, guys, that if soldiers believe those statements,
00:04:13.380 they are extremists. I mean, I don't know where this is coming from. We know the military is bad,
00:04:19.740 but I didn't know that it was this bad, Tosman.
00:04:21.300 Well, I'll tell you exactly where it's coming from. The Department of Defense, particularly the
00:04:28.000 Liberal Minister of Defense, and it's been consecutive ministers of defense, have had these top-down orders
00:04:35.600 to reform the military based on these sort of diversity, equity, inclusion, and woke principles.
00:04:44.260 And the result of that is they're pathologizing. They have a whole army of activist academics,
00:04:52.740 and we'll get more into that later about who the author of this study is. But these activist
00:04:58.500 academics have been hired to essentially pathologize any sort of conservative opinions or stances
00:05:07.400 among soldiers as being extremist, fascist, Nazi, etc., in an attempt to root out and create a culture
00:05:17.120 of paranoia and almost like dictatorial authoritarian surveillance among soldiers that is controlled
00:05:26.500 by this apparatus that has been installed, which is not even part of the military. These professors
00:05:32.860 have nothing to do with the military. They've never been in the military. They've never
00:05:37.200 trained as a soldier. They've never been in the line of fire. They have no idea what it means to
00:05:42.440 operate a functional and combat-ready army. Yet here they are dictating who gets to be in the
00:05:50.020 military, what sort of views they get to have. Isaac, do you think the Department of Defense
00:05:56.180 hates the troops here? Because you've got to think the majority of troops at this point are patriotic
00:06:03.820 nationalists. They want to make Canada great again. It seems as though they actually just despise the
00:06:09.460 rank and file.
00:06:10.060 Yeah, I don't know whether I could say that they hate them per se, though. It's funny you ask that,
00:06:16.340 Harrison. A week or two ago, I was actually talking with someone in my local military, and he was
00:06:22.240 explaining to me how anti-woke they are. He's like, look, I'm in the infantry. This stuff does not pass on
00:06:28.620 the ground. This is not at all how it is. So we have to remember that these really are coming from the
00:06:33.920 higher-ups being led by, of course, the liberal government. But a question I had for you, Harrison,
00:06:39.120 was obviously this in your article there, is you highlight a lot of the far-right extremist
00:06:45.760 questions in this survey. I'm curious, did they in any way, shape, or form address far-left extremism,
00:06:51.340 as you'd expect from an unbiased study, and perhaps, ironically, the more common of the two in Canada?
00:06:56.920 No, in fact, the basis of the study is part of a larger research group, and I have the title of it
00:07:07.760 for you here. And this is from the government of Canada, the internal government of Canada website,
00:07:14.580 basically explaining where this study, where this survey came from. The Ontario Tech University's,
00:07:19.900 quote, network for research on hateful conduct and right-wing extremism in the Canadian armed forces.
00:07:26.300 So someone at the Ontario Tech University, we know who, Dr. Barbara Perry, has set up this network
00:07:33.220 for hateful conduct and right-wing extremism, specifically in the Canadian armed forces. And the military
00:07:39.600 is embracing this. They are really trying to, as they say, as I've written in my article here, and as
00:07:45.020 they have written in these documents, they're trying to combat and detect radicalization and extremism
00:07:52.560 by asking questions like the Make Canada Great Again had, by asking troops if they have listened
00:07:58.320 to extremist music. But you don't know what that even is, like Confederate battle songs or something?
00:08:04.940 We know who the person is, Dr. Barbara Perry. Cosman, you know all too well who this woman is,
00:08:11.480 because you've been trying to track down her research. Explain more about who this woman is, 0.88
00:08:15.400 and what is it that she's trying to hide from us. Right. So Dr. Barbara Perry is one of several
00:08:25.140 academics who've made a sort of living out of this anti-hate incorporated industry that has propped up
00:08:34.500 over the last decade or so. And she's renowned and cited frequently by the media, by politicians,
00:08:42.240 NDP and liberal alike, by having originated this idea that there are over 300 hate groups active in
00:08:52.840 Canada, far-right extremist hate groups. Now, we've tried to get Barbara Perry to name these hate
00:09:00.700 groups or provide any sort of tangible evidence that they actually exist. But it's been several years
00:09:07.320 now, and she's never produced a list. In fact, we had to go all the way to the Ontario Privacy
00:09:13.840 Commissioner, go through the process of appeal, mediation, and eventually adjudication to try and
00:09:22.660 get this list. But unfortunately, the way the Ontario Privacy Laws are written, they give academic
00:09:29.180 institutions, which she's represented by and her research was conducted in, quite a lot of leeway to
00:09:35.380 exempt things like research from public prying eyes, even though she gets to benefit from the sort of
00:09:44.480 a claim and all of the attention she gets from making this extraordinary claim. And to me, if you're
00:09:51.580 making extraordinary claims, you need to have extraordinary evidence to back up those claims.
00:09:58.760 So yeah, no evidence whatsoever to back up any of her research that's been made publicly available.
00:10:04.440 But yet, politicians are crafting hate speech legislation, citing this research in committee
00:10:12.940 meetings and reports. I'm pretty sure even the CAF, the Department of National Defense and the
00:10:19.920 military has cited her figures. Perhaps even CSIS has cited her figures. There's all these departments
00:10:26.520 citing her figures, and nobody even knows what she's talking about. So yes, she's not the only one.
00:10:32.560 There's other researchers. There's Dr. Rachel Zellers. We actually wrote an article about this. She gave a
00:10:39.200 speech at a national defense conference where all of these senior members of leadership, this was last
00:10:46.100 year in January, we reported on this, had to show up for a conference where she says that Canada is
00:10:51.340 completely infected by white supremacy. So just to get an idea of what's going on with the military and the
00:10:58.380 things they're being indoctrinated with, or at least told to silently abide by, it is these sort of activist
00:11:05.560 professors, as I've mentioned, who are leading it. And just one final point, Isaac, you mentioned, you know, have they
00:11:12.820 mentioned far left extremism? No, because I've actually tried to a tip that to get an access to information
00:11:19.160 requests from the Department of National Defense to ask them, where is your reporting or investigation into far left
00:11:26.600 extremism? I used, you know, specific phrases like anarchist, Antifa, anti-authority, Marxist, Leninist,
00:11:35.160 and they haven't turned any single thing up. So it's very one-sided. And if you ask Dr. Barbara Perry,
00:11:41.080 why aren't you paying attention to far left extremism? She'll just ignore you and say, oh,
00:11:45.920 make some excuse. Oh, I'm only, my research is only focused in this area.
00:11:49.580 Well, I must be confused, you know, because when I think about the military, I think about war fighters
00:11:56.560 and troops being able to kill the enemy to win battles and to be lethal. Not about, you know,
00:12:05.080 detecting extremists in the ranks, not about how many diversity boxes you can check off in the ranks
00:12:12.360 and the amount of pride flags you can fit on the mast of a naval ship. But that, Isaac, appears to be
00:12:18.760 the case with our military. And we wonder why young men aren't signing up. Yeah, I mean, look,
00:12:26.400 there's no other way to say it. Our military's priorities have been deeply flawed. And we've seen
00:12:31.720 that reflected in its recruitment shortfalls because they've focused on, instead of promoting
00:12:38.440 diversity, freedom, the things you'd expect in a military, they want to promote their woke DEI
00:12:46.900 initiatives. So I have some data here. In 2022, only 5,242 Canadians enlisted in the armed forces,
00:12:56.420 which was a decrease of 35% from just over 8,000 in 2021. And this decrease, shockingly,
00:13:04.000 came despite the Minister of National Defense announcing that permanent residents
00:13:08.040 were welcome to apply. So you didn't have to be a Canadian citizen. But between November 1st,
00:13:13.340 2022 and November 24th, 2023, while 21,472 permanent residents applied, only 77 were accepted. So
00:13:23.100 obviously that change has in no way, shape or form helped. And then every time we check the numbers,
00:13:28.360 they go down, not up. Right. I mean, to be quite honest with you, the fact that we've opened up,
00:13:33.040 you know, the military to non-citizens is outrageous. And I'm not too concerned that 1.00
00:13:40.320 we haven't accepted many. My guess is that most of them who've applied have failed background checks,
00:13:44.700 have failed the necessary background checks that are required. It seems like a national security
00:13:48.900 threat. We're going to park it there with the military, but we're going to move on to a story
00:13:53.920 which is, you know, as they say, it's kind of white pilling, actually. It's kind of nice to see this
00:13:58.680 because in our country for a long time, what have the stories been surrounding Christianity
00:14:03.740 and our Christian faith in this country? Well, it's been dominated by the fact that
00:14:07.300 a hundred churches, more actually, have been burned or vandalized since these outrageous claims made
00:14:13.440 regarding residential schools. In fact, it looks as though at a political level, both municipal and
00:14:20.080 at a federal level, Cosman, things are starting to turn around. What's going on there?
00:14:23.280 Right. Sure. I'll just begin with municipally. We've seen multiple municipalities and cities adopt
00:14:31.780 what's called Christian Heritage Month. And most recently, we had one of our reporters, Clayton
00:14:37.700 Domain, go out to Mississauga where they raised the Christian heritage flag. As you can see from the
00:14:44.700 photo, it's just a white flag. I'm assuming representing faith, purity, et cetera, and this blue square
00:14:51.020 was a red cross. And that's meant to be a sort of ecumenical, if I may use a fancy word, representation
00:14:58.280 of all Christian faiths, whether it's, you know, evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox,
00:15:05.060 Coptic, et cetera, which there are, you know, a wide array of in Canada. It's one of the biggest
00:15:11.400 religions in this country, if not the biggest religions practices in Canada. So that happened 0.94
00:15:18.360 at the municipal level. Federally, we have a new petition started by Conservative MP Jameel
00:15:25.280 Giovanni, and it's an attempt to protect Christians in Canada. The petition itself is called Protect
00:15:33.000 Christians Canada. And it's a national campaign that he hopes to present to the House of Commons
00:15:39.520 in February. And it highlights several things that he hopes governments at all levels will do,
00:15:46.620 including, as you mentioned, address the crimes against Christian places of worship, including
00:15:52.860 the fires and instances of vandalism, as well as protect the conscience rights of professionals,
00:16:01.820 including doctors, to not provide maid or abortion. And additionally, to protect the charitable
00:16:09.340 status of Christian organizations in Canada, which have contributed a huge amount of fundraising and
00:16:16.980 charity to those in need. I think worldwide, globally, a lot of people don't know this, but the Catholic
00:16:23.820 Church is one of the number one providers of charity. And these things are so overlooked. So I wanted to pass
00:16:31.720 this on to you, Harrison, and just ask, you know, these are small steps to take. Obviously, they're not, you know,
00:16:40.040 we're not really addressing the fundamental problems. And there's been such a huge, growing, almost enmity and
00:16:49.140 contempt that's been sowed by politicians and the media alike against Christians. And how do we confront that
00:16:58.540 particular aspect, the continued demonization of an entire faith, or rather a multitude of faith, groups of
00:17:06.220 faith against that Christianity is? Well, I think, you know, to see Jamil Giovanni be so honest and upfront
00:17:14.260 about the reality that Christians are facing in our country, it is persecution. There isn't as better 1.00
00:17:22.220 an example of Christian persecution than churches being burned down, then arsoned to the ground and vandalized.
00:17:29.820 And it's nice to actually hear a politician say the words and to affirm what Christians are feeling across the
00:17:36.460 country. Christians are being persecuted in this country, and we need leaders to actually take it seriously. So, you know,
00:17:42.800 this is a small step. The flag raising is symbolic. I will say Mississauga is one of the most Muslim
00:17:49.780 cities, I'm quite certain, in the country. So, to see that in Mississauga is actually
00:17:53.960 kind of a nice thing. And I'm not really big on the flags thing, as you pointed out earlier, Cosman. It's not the
00:17:59.220 biggest. It's very symbolic. Nothing's really going to happen. But having a conservative MP be so honest about the
00:18:04.960 reality we're facing here is nice to see. Another thing that needs to happen is we need to recognize that Canada is a
00:18:11.600 Christian country. It's very, very simply a Christian country because our head of state, the leader of this
00:18:18.180 country, the King of Canada, is a religious leader as well. He is the leader of the Church of England, which
00:18:24.700 basically makes you, by any other definition, any other country whose head of state is a religious leader,
00:18:30.940 that would make them a Christian country. So, Canada is a Christian country, and our people, our Christians,
00:18:35.980 deserve to have this recognition. So, look, pointing it out and acknowledging that Canada is a Christian
00:18:42.740 country will go a long way, I think, to what will be a long process, Cosman. But it is what needs to
00:18:48.020 happen. We need to start calling out these things and be honest about who we are as a people. Isaac,
00:18:53.620 what did you make of this sort of shift we're starting to see?
00:18:58.260 Yeah, you said that Mississauga might be one of Canada's most Muslim cities. But even still, 1.00
00:19:03.480 according to Statistics Canada, in 2021, 49.5% of Mississauga's population was Christian. So,
00:19:10.640 that really speaks to what we're talking about here. And I've been keeping a close eye on this
00:19:14.940 list from christianheritagemonth.ca, which is, they have a list of every municipality that has
00:19:20.100 officially signed a proclamation to make December Christian Heritage Month. And I was keeping an eye on
00:19:25.940 this list because Saskatchewan was supposed to announce yesterday that they too were joining the list,
00:19:30.600 and I just checked the list. They're on it, despite not being a municipality. So, that would,
00:19:35.200 I think, make them the first province to do so, though I haven't seen an official release from
00:19:39.340 the province, but they are on the list, alongside 36 municipalities. And I've been checking this list
00:19:45.700 over the last few days. I think when I first checked it, it was either at 32 or 35. So, it has
00:19:49.760 been growing. And I'm not sure how many other municipalities plan to join in making December
00:19:56.520 Christian Heritage Month. But truthfully, I don't know how I feel about that, because really,
00:20:00.900 there aren't enough months, there aren't enough days in the year to please every special interest
00:20:05.820 group, let's say. So, really, I'm more in favor of removing all these months, like Pride Month, 0.75
00:20:12.780 Christian Heritage Month, all the months, although December is sensible for Christian Heritage Month, 0.99
00:20:16.440 given Christmas. But I don't know that we need to celebrate each little thing like that. Instead,
00:20:21.300 we should focus on things where Canadians can truly be united as a whole. Yeah, what do you think about
00:20:27.220 that, guys, on the whole, dedicating a whole month to Christianity there? Well, I was going to ask that
00:20:33.720 question to you, Cosme. I was going to just frame it in this sense, you know, as you point out, Isaac,
00:20:38.000 there's Islamophobia Awareness Month, there's Pride Month, you know, there's, I'm sure there's a month
00:20:43.600 for, you know, like some Indian religions, whatever, right? Just stuff that is not the majority in our
00:20:50.680 country. And it would be nice to be able to have a month for Christians, and it's nice to have a 0.91
00:20:55.920 month for veterans. But I feel like if you do, if you do give, if you do have a month that is
00:21:00.260 Christian Heritage Month, you're, you're delegate, you're, you're kind of relegating Christianity to
00:21:04.980 one month, when it should be every month of the year. It should be every day, every month of the
00:21:09.540 year, right? So what do you think? Do you think that we should even bother with the Christian Heritage 1.00
00:21:13.320 Month? Or should we just acknowledge that Canada is a Christian country, the majority in this country
00:21:17.880 are Christians, and we don't need a month because the majority here are Christians? 0.99
00:21:23.960 Right, I think, to your point, recognizing Canada as foundationally a Christian country,
00:21:30.100 the pioneers and people who built this country were faithful people, and they wrote it into the laws and
00:21:37.280 into the Constitution and into the Acts of Confederation, that Canada is founded on certain
00:21:43.940 principles that come from Christian thought, and, you know, past theology, thought about law, etc.
00:21:52.000 And it's, it's, people like to ignore that, because we live in a secular society. But the fact is,
00:21:59.680 even secularism, the things we value in secularism, poured out of Christian belief and Christian
00:22:05.920 thinking. It was, you know, the, the church fathers and all the theologians preceding them,
00:22:11.800 whether Protestant or not, who came up with a lot of the concepts, we believe about, you know,
00:22:17.160 God given liberties and freedoms. So, absolutely, whether this competing idea of like, oh, I have
00:22:25.360 this month, you have that month. I'm not a big fan of it, because it just points to this idea that we
00:22:32.080 have to just accept we're this multicultural fragmented society, and that we're just constantly
00:22:37.620 vying for attention and space in the calendar year. And as you mentioned, as a Christian,
00:22:44.660 it depending on the denomination, but all Christians celebrate certain vital celebrations
00:22:51.320 and, and, and holy days that are marked, you know, by the life of Jesus Christ. But more so,
00:22:58.860 if you're a specific denomination, like Orthodox, where you have like saint days, or even Catholics
00:23:04.180 have a whole liturgical calendar, Advent, etc., right? So it's not, it's, it's kind of like just
00:23:12.080 accepting this like piece of the pie, instead of recognizing how foundational this religious and
00:23:22.020 spiritual system has been to the things we cherish as a free and, and liberal, so to speak,
00:23:31.340 a free society that values liberty. And, you know, as, as Canada has, you know, pushed itself further
00:23:40.320 and further away from its Christian roots, we've, our, our leaders have brought us closer to the radical
00:23:46.620 LGBT woke ideology, where we have to fly the flags of this movement. We have to fully embrace the most
00:23:56.040 radical elements of this transgender ideology, the LGBT ideology, where if you don't fly the gay flag 0.53
00:24:05.020 in your town, or you don't, you don't paint your crosswalk, the rainbow colors, we're going to fine 0.96
00:24:10.200 you. And we're going to try to bankrupt you personally. Isaac, this story has been making
00:24:14.900 national headlines. What's going on here?
00:24:17.120 Yeah, so basically, a human rights commission find the rural township of Emo for discrimination
00:24:25.140 after they voted not to recognize June as a pride month. Yeah, so the fines are said to amount to
00:24:32.560 $15,000, that'll be $5,000 for the mayor, and $10,000 to the town and the Human Rights Tribunal of
00:24:39.500 Ontario is trying to force them to pay it. So the tribunal found that Emo Mayor Harold McQuaker,
00:24:47.080 his tie-breaking vote, which refused to declare June as pride month, they called that discriminatory
00:24:52.780 and ordered him not only to pay the fine, but also to undergo LGBTQ training. Unsurprisingly,
00:25:00.320 the mayor said he won't pay the fine. He called it extortion and said that he won't take no such
00:25:05.740 training. So I'm curious to ask you guys if either of you think that he'll be forced to take the
00:25:11.500 training and then your general reaction to the tribunal essentially trying to force everyone to
00:25:18.300 celebrate pride month. Osman, what do you think? So, you know, having been born into like a post-communist 0.69
00:25:27.860 country in Romania, I see so many parallels between this type of quasi-judicial structures that exist
00:25:37.680 in those authoritarian regimes that are only meant to enforce the ideological conformity to party lines.
00:25:48.280 And this is what the human rights tribunals have become, in my opinion. Perhaps the people who
00:25:55.360 originated this had some other intention, but when you create these bodies that are manned by
00:26:02.540 essentially activist lawyers, when you actually look at who makes up the
00:26:07.600 tribunal membership and the adjudicators who make these decisions, they're all people who've been
00:26:14.100 trained in this sort of diversity, equity, inclusion, human rights law field that is relatively
00:26:20.440 like new and has also branched out into being something completely different than just addressing
00:26:27.020 basic human rights. And it's become more about what I mentioned in endorsing ideological conformity.
00:26:34.660 And it's really troubling because it defeats the purpose. And they almost like play a double role.
00:26:43.160 Like, why can't courts just figure out what human rights are? Why do we need to have this extra body
00:26:48.180 that doesn't actually help? And anyways, if he's disputing their ruling, it's going to have to go
00:26:54.620 to a court. He can appeal it in a court. He doesn't have to pay it. They don't have any enforcement
00:27:00.040 capabilities. They can't send a bailiff to you and throw you in jail and make you pay it, you know,
00:27:06.520 garnish your funds. They don't have that power. They're sort of like it's a glass house and they still
00:27:14.840 have to go to a court. So it's still a waste of resources anyways. And you know what? I've just
00:27:19.800 found out that there isn't even a flagpole that could be used to hoist the pride flag in the
00:27:24.080 township of emo other than the Canadian flag. What are they going to do? Take the Canadian flag down
00:27:27.980 and hoist the gay flag. I mean, it is absurd, right? But this guy, like this is, you know, this is epic, 0.99
00:27:34.660 but we shouldn't like this guy, Harold McQuaker, great Canadian. I said he was a Canadian of the week
00:27:39.600 yesterday because, you know, you just love to see this stuff. You love to see someone actually
00:27:44.100 standing up against this nonsense. But you know, why is this, why is the township of emo, this small
00:27:50.580 town in the, you know, west of Lake Superior getting all this attention? Other cities across
00:27:55.960 the country should be doing this too, right? But it's just Harold McQuaker, town of emo. As you point
00:28:01.700 out, Cosman, he's being forced to pay $5,000 personally. Personally, he has to pay $5,000 for not
00:28:08.920 celebrating pride, for not raising the flag and painting his crosswalk. I bet you they only have
00:28:15.340 one crosswalk too. I bet you they only got one crosswalk, not even one flagpole to hoist the
00:28:20.920 pride flag. And it's a penalty for not, not displaying it. Like it's so stupid that by, you
00:28:27.080 know, we have to, we have to, you know, fly this flag because somehow that's going to make life easier 1.00
00:28:33.100 and better for gay people with a township of emo. It's not going to do anything for the town people of 0.97
00:28:37.940 emo. I don't get it, Isaac. It's crazy. Yeah, well, I will say this because I plan to talk about
00:28:44.360 this on Alberta Roundup this week too. It's nice to see, I suppose, that in Ontario, like Alberta,
00:28:51.200 small towns are the ones who seem to be standing up for freedoms where the cities aren't. For example,
00:28:57.700 in Alberta this week, Barhead, a small town, passed a motion banning all non-neutral,
00:29:03.240 essentially anything, buildings, crosswalks, you name it, on public property. So they too were
00:29:10.640 another small town saying, hey, we're not playing by these rules. Although this was actually a town
00:29:14.540 vote, not just the mayor, the entire town voted on it. But I don't know. Why do you think,
00:29:20.660 Harrison or Cosman, that these small towns seem to be so much more eager to stand up for the freedom
00:29:26.560 of their citizens when compared to the cities? Well, on the other side, the fact is that they're
00:29:34.380 also targeted because leftists and progressivists have an astuteness when it comes to manipulating
00:29:42.380 bureaucratic processes. And they're very much involved in municipal governments. I track
00:29:48.780 municipal agendas all the time. And you always see these delegations from leftist organizations,
00:29:55.560 whether it's pride organizations, environmental groups, et cetera, pressuring local governments to
00:30:02.320 do certain things, whether symbolic or actually actions that affect people financially, the taxpayer.
00:30:09.700 So they've developed this ability to manipulate the existing bureaucratic structure. And they not
00:30:17.240 only do it at the municipal level, they have all of these avenues of complaints, like the tribunals,
00:30:22.160 et cetera, for them to get what they want. And I think people who are, you know, conservative minded,
00:30:29.660 right wing minded, whatever, need to recognize that because I feel like we've dropped the ball
00:30:35.340 there. Like nobody's engaged at that level. Nobody's really taking the time to go there and represent
00:30:41.220 themselves and to push the issues and push back against the other side in a sense, because that's what
00:30:49.500 it'll take. Like there's nobody running for school boards. There's nobody running who represent these
00:30:54.700 views for, you know, municipal council. It's like, then what do you expect? Because you're going to,
00:30:59.800 you're let, you're leaving the field open for the other team to take it. Right.
00:31:04.720 Absolutely. And, you know, I just want to highlight, I mean, those are absolutely
00:31:07.680 truly important points. Conservatives have neglected. Municipal politics are neglecting
00:31:12.720 the actual inner workings of bureaucracy at a municipal and a provincial level. They,
00:31:17.740 there aren't any conservatives in these bureaucracies. That's just the reality they
00:31:21.080 are. They get forced out. They look at and say, there's no way I'm going into that mess.
00:31:25.040 But this story about Harold McQuaker, it gets crazier because he was also forced to go through
00:31:30.860 re-education, LGBT re-education training, which he has of course said he's not going to do. Like
00:31:37.860 he said, he's not going to pay the fines. I mean, if this guy opens up a GoFundMe or a GiveSendGo
00:31:42.320 more likely, he's going to get a lot of money here. He might be able to raise money for the town.
00:31:46.500 They'll be able to buy a new flagpole, hopefully not to put up a pride flag, but they probably would 1.00
00:31:51.320 be able to put up a lot of new stuff and more Canadian flags. We need more Canadian flags,
00:31:55.800 not more of this absolute garbage, absolute nonsense. So you know what? That could be the good 1.00
00:32:00.780 thing that comes from it. We're going to end the show with a discussion like we did at the top of
00:32:05.460 the show about Trump's trolling, the commander in chief of trolling. He really is. And he hit us,
00:32:12.520 he hit us all of Canada with this AI generated image on Monday, knowing that the Canadian media
00:32:18.640 were going to have an absolute meltdown over this, of a picture of him standing on top of a
00:32:23.540 mountain with a Canadian flag saying, Oh Canada. Right when the discussion about Trump joking about
00:32:29.280 annexing us, he hits us with this and the legacy media go wild. Uh, Isaac, does the legacy media
00:32:36.180 just have no sense of humor anymore? Yeah. I mean, how can you not look at that photo and just laugh?
00:32:43.440 Of course, I was just laughing just now, even though I've seen it many times, you know, it makes you
00:32:47.220 laugh. Plus it's, I mean, come on, how seriously are we going to take something that's AI generated?
00:32:52.240 It's not like Trump literally hiked a mountain and in Canada and placed a flag in it. I don't even know
00:32:57.800 that that's a Canadian mountain. I saw some suggestions online that it was like based on a
00:33:03.160 picture or a mountain from Switzerland. So, I mean, the fact that legacy media have taken it so
00:33:08.700 seriously, I mean, it speaks to a lot of things, but if you can't look at that picture and laugh and
00:33:14.640 say, ha ha, good one, Trump. Uh, I, I really don't know what you're doing.
00:33:17.880 Yeah. It just perpetuates the ongoing meltdown that's been happening, uh, with the legacy media
00:33:26.700 in particular since the election. I remember watching the election night coverage and the
00:33:31.560 ensuing, you know, op-eds about the, the world is ending, you know, the end is nigh, like where
00:33:36.720 everything is going to collapse. The democratic world has, you know, shuttered. It's ridiculous.
00:33:42.540 Like it's preposterous. And the fact is that like Trump's actions are also preposterous in a way 0.99
00:33:50.140 and over the top, because that's what he is. He's always been this over the top figure who
00:33:55.420 is extravagant and almost like, uh, larger than life in many ways. And he exerts that and people
00:34:04.020 react, but they don't react rationally. They react irrationally. They take it seriously,
00:34:10.280 right? Like you made that point. They take it seriously, but any rational person would look at
00:34:14.800 that and be like, of course, this is a joke. And I think, I think there was a video of the
00:34:18.900 Nelk boys, like egging Trump on to, to do this. No, I have to correct. I have to, I have to correct 1.00
00:34:24.920 the record. That was a joke. I made that video up. It was a mix of two videos because, because I did it
00:34:31.680 because you can imagine that that was exactly what happened. That video was when the Nelk boys were on 0.59
00:34:37.580 Trump's plane and they showed it, they showed him a video of them, uh, doing a prank with Kamala 0.94
00:34:44.340 Harris supporters. And Trump was just telling his advisor, put that up on my website. I want that up
00:34:49.720 on my social media. And that's obviously what's happening here. Right. Yeah. One of his staffers
00:34:54.840 who's, you know, tuned in, knows what's going on in Canada and knows there's an ensuing meltdown
00:34:59.260 happening, made the image and go, sir, you got to look at this. This is going to blow the heads off
00:35:03.620 the legacy media in Canada. And he's like, yeah, put it up. That's clearly what happened. Right. So,
00:35:08.540 you know, they've got to just figure this out. When I saw that original post, I thought, you know,
00:35:13.120 my, my first reaction guys was God, imagine Andrew Coyne seeing this picture. He would have gone
00:35:19.800 crazy. Right. And so many of them, Rosie Barton and David Cochran, I'm pretty sure they all did
00:35:25.080 segments on it. And we're talking about the likelihood of Trump actually, you know, wanting to
00:35:30.900 make Canada the 51st state. Uh, it's, it's funny Harrison. Cause you got me live on camera. So
00:35:36.840 I'm going to report you for a misinformation. It got community noted. It got community noted.
00:35:42.140 And I was saying to the, I was saying to the team here when we, when I, when I made it yesterday,
00:35:45.860 I was like, you know, surely this is like, you know, people know this is a joke. And I realized,
00:35:51.480 Oh no, my editing must've been so good that it pieced it all together. No, I mean, it got community
00:35:56.900 noted. I'm thankful it did. Cause it was supposed to just be like a joke, you know,
00:36:00.880 this is probably how it went down in some way. Um, but it reminds me of when Donald Trump was
00:36:06.700 the president in 2019, he started to like leak ideas about buying Greenland, you know, as one
00:36:14.060 normally does as a U S president normally does that way. He was just messing around and contemplating
00:36:18.760 this. And then somebody clearly made, made a meme of a Greenland, the village in Greenland with a
00:36:24.920 giant gold Trump tower. And he goes, I promise not to do this to Greenland. We have that right there.
00:36:30.020 Let's throw this up on the screen. It is so funny. You know, this is just how he is. And if you are a
00:36:35.380 legacy media journalist in this day and age in the Trump era, and you are not tuned in to Trump's
00:36:41.160 sense of humor, you're a problem. Like you got it, you got to get tuned into it. So, you know,
00:36:46.660 you can't just be taking everything literally. I guess that's what we're going to get though.
00:36:50.700 Right. Isaac. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's craziness. Uh, we've got some other
00:36:57.640 memes that he's been posting recently. It's like his meme game. Cosmin has, has actually been turned
00:37:02.040 up. His time, his time out of office has made him, you know, even better at memes. Let's show the
00:37:06.720 ones we've got on the screen. Now we've got, uh, that, that whole meltdown with, uh, the squirrel.
00:37:13.840 I'm pretty sure. Uh, I would try to figure out peanut. That's who he is. Peanut and the squirrel.
00:37:19.280 There we go. Yeah. Peanut rest in peace. Uh, there should be another one as well that we've got
00:37:24.980 just, you know, this guy is a joker. Yes. The Haitians and the cats. I mean, come on. Like I 1.00
00:37:31.960 said before, if you're not, if you're not attuned to this stuff, then you're just not, not, not in the
00:37:36.020 game. No, the older guys love their AI generated images. It's boomer memes. The new boomer memes
00:37:45.700 are just AI, right? Uh, we are in for a crazy ride. Well, let's leave it there. Remember that
00:37:52.200 everything you've just heard between the three of us is off the record. I'm rusty with the, uh, with
00:38:03.220 the throws, the ins and outs on this show. I got to remember the, the, the little slogans
00:38:08.000 off the record and, and all of that, but I think it went smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
00:38:13.020 it's funny. I was just thinking back to like, I think it was last new year's. I did a thread
00:38:17.820 about how I did AI generated about how bodybuilders were taking over Ottawa and demanding Justin
00:38:24.900 Trudeau, a squat 300 pounds or something like that. And it went viral and it did get a community
00:38:31.100 note. And it's like, obviously this is not real.