00:00:00.000All right. Well, it's my first time hosting the show. We've got William here with us, our chief operating officer, and hopefully he doesn't have a panic attack with anything that I might say that might get us into some trouble here.
00:00:12.160No, I have absolute confidence in your ability to scale message and our ability to do editing.
00:00:19.340Perfect. Absolutely right. And Sue Ann, where are you coming into, where are you beaming into for this episode?
00:00:25.500I'm beaming in from planet Florida, and I am back in Toronto in two weeks. And I have to tell you guys that it has been like a different world down here. God bless Ron DeSantis. He is not allowing any sort of protesting, no free Palestine flags or banners, no blatant acts of anti-Semitism.
00:00:50.220There are a few masks, although, you know, I've seen people in masks, mostly New Yorkers, I would say.
00:00:58.300Maybe a few snowbirds as well who brought down their Canadian values to Florida with some masks.
00:01:05.160Yeah. Yeah. But I would say mostly New Yorkers. I want to go up to them and say 2020 is calling. They want you back.
00:01:13.800Stand out like a sore thumb, I guess. All right, guys, with that, let's get into it.
00:01:20.220All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Off the Record. I am Harrison Faulkner.
00:01:29.740We are joined by the True North Chief Operating Officer, William Macbeth, and True North Journalist, Sue Ann Levy.
00:01:51.720Let's get into this first story right away. It's about Jagmeet Singh, and he has some rather unfounded optimism about his chances in the next upcoming federal election.
00:02:02.880Take a look at this article that we wrote here. Jagmeet Singh, guys, he genuinely believes that he will win the next federal election.
00:02:11.660We're going to throw to this clip here, and it kind of explains a little bit of this, as he says, defiant optimism. Take a listen to this.
00:02:19.720Most of the positive programs enacted by this liberal government only happened because the NDP was holding their feet to the fire. In the next election, would you consider offering the liberals another power-sharing minority government?
00:02:35.480Because we're going to win the next election. We're going to be the ones. Come on now.
00:02:39.560Jagmeet Singh, I defied the odds. We're going to win. Because people need us to win. I genuinely mean it.
00:02:50.260Defiant optimism. He's defiant of the reality, it appears, in this country. William, what do you make of that clip?
00:02:59.360Yeah, I mean, I know we've legalized marijuana here in Canada. I wonder what else Mr. Singh happens to be on to have such a warped view of reality.
00:03:06.980If you look at the polling, there isn't a moment where Jagmeet Singh and the New Democrats have approached winning even the slimmest minority government, let alone outright winning an election.
00:03:17.900This is a guy who has driven NDC support absolutely into the ground. He's abandoned his role as an opposition party to prop up a tired and, frankly, loathed liberal government.
00:03:28.840And I think when people go to the polls, they're going to send a lot of New Democrats their walking papers. He's not going to win the next election.
00:03:37.360He had that. Oh, we've got we've got another guest on the show, it appears, Sue Ann, who has just joined us on off the record here.
00:03:44.220Monty agrees that, you know, that Jagmeet Singh is a lost cause.
00:03:50.540And now people are resigning. Some of his MPs are resigning. His party has become the party of anti-Semites.
00:03:59.360You've got people who are getting up wearing keffias in the legislature and you've got people making motions to end the arms distribution to Israel.
00:04:11.940I mean, could this party do more to drive itself down in the polls? Could this party be loathed more?
00:04:23.300This is the same Jagmeet Singh who walks around wearing Rolex watches and driving, you know, designer cars and thinks he is the champion of the working people.
00:04:32.700This guy is so disconnected from reality. It's surreal.
00:04:36.160He had that he had that little that that pause right when he was sitting in his chair, because I think he realized that if he didn't say something about, you know, wanting to actually continue his political career and wanting to win, then it would appear as though he has no use in Ottawa at all.
00:04:51.640He sits down and he's like, wait, I have to say something. I have to say something about, you know, about my our political chances.
00:04:57.460So we're going to win. You know, we're going to win. Everyone be happy, be optimistic.
00:05:00.720It seems as though, William, he knows that there is no chance for him.
00:05:05.420It seems more and more likely, actually, that this agreement with Justin Trudeau was not really about advancing some of these NDP policies as much as it may have actually been about personally advancing himself and staying in power,
00:05:18.220because any election that would have been called without this power sharing agreement would have certainly seen not only his party get defeated, but he potentially would lose his seat.
00:05:26.600No, I think you're absolutely right. And if you look at what's happened in some other places where we've seen power sharing agreements,
00:05:33.920the one I'm most familiar with is when David Cameron won a minority election in the UK and formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg.
00:05:45.300Well, when the next election actually happened, the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg were blasted out of the water.
00:05:50.960It was really the end of them politically, not just for that election, but up until this time, it's been more than 10 years now.
00:05:58.120And I think you're going to see the same thing. The Democrats have abandoned the one key thing that they had,
00:06:03.360which was the ability to extract concessions from the Liberal government in exchange for their support on key votes.
00:06:09.580And by signing a blank check and saying, we're going to back you no matter what election, you know, vote after vote, issue after issue.
00:06:16.700They really said, we are open to being taken advantage of instead of having a fight for their support on issue by issue.
00:06:23.340And I think it was a terrible mistake on the part of NDP strategists.
00:06:26.900And it's going to bite them in the ass in the next election. Excuse my, excuse my Western colloquialism.
00:06:32.280Yeah, he never really got anything out of this, I don't think. He kept talking about, you know, pharma care and dental care.
00:06:40.420But he himself and his party never really got what they wanted.
00:06:43.740And every time he's been asked about this agreement, about not getting what he was wanting to get out of it in the first place, he has refused to do anything about it.
00:06:52.680You're absolutely right. I mean, he could have extracted a lot of concessions from this Liberal government.
00:06:59.900Ones I wouldn't personally have been supportive of ideologically, but I would have at least respected the fact that he represents a constituency of voters who believe strongly in certain things.
00:07:09.820Instead, what do we have? We have a late, watered down, incomprehensible dental care strategy that no Canadian fully knows if they're covered by or not.
00:07:17.480The beginnings of some form of pharma care program, but that has put them in huge conflict with the provinces who say the plan, once again, doesn't take into account the existing situation on the ground.
00:07:28.500And that's really about it. The only other thing he's extracted, of course, is a later election date, an election being held in 2025, when a not inconsiderable number of MPs will qualify for their generous taxpayer funded pension plans.
00:07:42.100Of course. And Sue Ann, you mentioned the NDP's ideological commitment to the Palestine issue and other very strange foreign policy positions.
00:07:52.660It doesn't even seem as though Jagmeet Singh has set his party up so that left-wing Liberal voters would end up going to his party instead of Justin Trudeau's party in the next election.
00:08:02.900It seems as though, during the next election, Jagmeet Singh's not going to gain any Liberal voters from Trudeau's party and instead be left with a dwindling base in his own party.
00:08:14.200Yeah, well, he's let them down, his party down with respect to the, you know, being tough on the anti-Semitic diatribe that goes on in the legislature.
00:08:24.960Heather McPherson comes to mind. And Charlie Angus, who's resigning. But, you know, the repeated calls by her are to, not just for a ceasefire, but to end the arms deal with Israel is just unconscionable.
00:08:44.420And he's never said anything, never spoken up to me. Saying nothing is, you know, basically saying everything that he agrees with it. He's never kept any of them in line.
00:08:57.180And the other thing is that you were talking about he hasn't made any sort of tangible deals. Look, the cost of living in Canada, gas prices, this, that, price of food, price of basic services has gone up tremendously under the Liberals.
00:09:14.420If he were a champion of the working class, as he's supposed to be, even though he wears a Rolex watch, you know, he would be standing up and screaming from the rooftops.
00:09:25.680The only time I actually heard him screaming was to go after Galen Weston at Loblaws, you know, grocery prices, targeting him. He's obsessed with that guy.
00:09:36.240But, you know, overall, he's gone along with everything the Liberals done to make our life more unaffordable.
00:09:43.100You're absolutely right. I mean, he should be tackling this issue. He should be holding the government to account for the out-of-control cost of living.
00:09:52.100But, of course, he is, and he seems more interested in other things, probably like his pension.
00:09:56.220Sue Ann, you brought this up about, you brought up the anti-Semitism issue. You recently published a great op-ed in True North.
00:10:03.360Why don't you go through what we're seeing on campuses and what you're trying to tackle here in this latest True North article of yours?
00:10:09.500Well, I've been watching with tremendous interest and actually tremendous disdain and disappointment at what has happened on university campuses, both in the States, because I am located in the States right now, and it's, you know, gone into Canada now.
00:10:27.280It's morphed into Canadian on Canadian campuses. I've watched these kids who are kids because for the large part, I would say mommy and daddy are still paying their tuition because who can afford to go to Colombia for $70,000 US?
00:10:44.960I've watched them bar Jewish kids from entry onto campus. I've watched them vandalized buildings. I've watched them set up these encampments, very professional-looking encampments.
00:10:58.120And then, of course, the epitome of all this entitlement is the young lady, a PhD, a leftist PhD, who wanted humanitarian aid. She wanted food to be delivered to the building at Colombia that they had vandalized.
00:11:14.920And, you know, the same in, you know, at McGill, they're screaming, Jew hatred, and nobody's doing anything.
00:11:21.920So my question the other day is I'm watching all this, like, where are the parents in all of this? What has happened? Has the nuclear family broken down so much that parents are not either raising their kids right to have any moral compass, to have any boundaries, to have any respect for authority?
00:11:39.920I mean, I talk about in the column about the fact that politicians have no respect, and schools have become cesspools of leftist dogma. So, I mean, what should we expect?
00:11:54.920But parents have essentially handed their kids over to schools and expected them to parent. And, you know, I'm wondering, I haven't heard any speak out.
00:12:04.920Are they watching this young lady who's asking for humanitarian aid, you know, DoorDash, essentially, to deliver some food to their building? Are they watching this? And are they ashamed? Are they embarrassed? Are they the slightest bit angry? I don't understand it.
00:12:23.240William, what do you make of what we're seeing in the United States and now just recently at U of T?
00:12:28.140Well, I did have to laugh at the Columbia student protester who demanded that they be delivered food. You know, there's an expression that said the revolution will not be televised. Well, in this case, the revolution will not be catered. And if you were going to occupy a building, maybe you should have thought ahead of time about bringing snacks and drinks from home.
00:12:50.640But I think Sue Ann makes a great point, which is obviously these kids can wake up one morning in the past couple of weeks and decide to be rabidly pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic.
00:13:03.740It's a case of this is learned behavior from years of activist teachers, activist professors and activist student groups allowed to present a very distorted picture of reality to these people and parents who either through inaction or because they didn't want to have a difficult and awkward conversation with their own children allowed this to happen.
00:13:27.400And I don't think it's a coincidence that we're now seeing a rise of parental rights movements in Canada and the United States and elsewhere saying we're deeply concerned about what our kids are being taught or indoctrinated with in schools, the propaganda they're being fed, because frankly, they're turning into people we don't recognize.
00:13:45.540You know, I'm sure that these kids, you know, I'm sure that these kids all had loving parents and or parents who thought they were doing the best by their kids.
00:13:54.460But in reality, they've allowed their kids to become brainwashed. And it's deeply disturbing to see the consequence, of course, being now so many Jewish students feel unwelcome and unsafe on university campuses, which is completely unacceptable.
00:14:08.380And I think it's why there are various moves now to try and address this situation, because it's becoming untenable.
00:14:16.380Certainly, anyone who has witnessed these protests cannot say they're simply protests in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
00:14:24.780The rhetoric being used is hateful, violent and fully anti-Semitic.
00:14:30.620And I think people have said enough is enough. We cannot allow this to continue.
00:14:34.340Yeah, I mean, there's that there's that, you know, it's not a story necessarily, but people have talked about this, that, you know, you send your kid off to university and they're totally normal.
00:14:44.080They come back with totally different color hair and they've got some strange gender that doesn't really exist anywhere.
00:14:49.200Right. That happens. People do get indoctrinated at these schools and it is a big issue.
00:14:54.340I think there's also a point to make here about how universities, you know, there has always been a tradition of a protest and activism, anti-war protests and activism at universities for decades in the United States and in Canada.
00:15:08.960But there is something different about these protests.
00:15:11.180It's not the same as the anti-apartheid protests that were happening in the 80s on university campuses.
00:15:16.840There's something different here and there's something fundamentally wrong about what they're fighting for.
00:15:21.420They have their facts wrong. But as you point out, as you both have pointed out, it's being fed by professors and by media who are leading them down this path that is not righteous, like the anti-apartheid protests and perhaps the anti-war protests in Vietnam.
00:15:38.860It's completely different than what we've seen in the past.
00:15:42.480Well, and if you go up to any of these young ladies and I saw a wonderful clip on I think it was on Twitter or on X, I should say, where these young ladies were asked, what are you doing here?
00:15:57.640Oh, I don't know. I just thought I'd come down and join the fun.
00:16:02.060And they don't know what the heck they're protesting about.
00:16:07.220They don't know what from the river to the sea means.
00:16:10.020They don't even know where Rafa is or Palestine.
00:16:13.300They couldn't point it out in a map if you asked them.
00:16:18.720And the other thing that I didn't mention before is that it's probably exam time is finished in Canada, but certainly in the States, they're going through exams.
00:16:29.440And do the parents not care that their kids are finishing the term or, you know, instead of sitting out in tents, shouldn't they be writing their exams?
00:16:40.460And the whole thing about not allowing Jewish students into the university, that's outrageous, absolutely outrageous.
00:16:48.560And parents watching this, I'm watching it on TV and I'm outraged.
00:16:53.120Parents watching this, they're thinking, my little darling's doing this.
00:17:03.120Yeah, William, what do you make of those comments?
00:17:07.100Well, I think it'd be an interesting exercise to go onto these campus protests and ask them to identify what the name of the river is and what the name of the sea is.
00:17:16.820And maybe as a precursor to having a position on this conflict, you should have to be able to answer some basic questions about it.
00:17:23.320I bet we'd find a lot of them wouldn't be able to articulate either of those things.
00:17:27.420But, no, I completely agree with Sue Ann's point that if you're a Jewish student who's paid for these classes and who wants to get an elite post-secondary education and now you're being denied the right to enter your buildings or move certain places on campus, it's completely unacceptable.
00:17:43.960Protest movements are protected, but your rights infringing on other people's rights have to come up against some reasonable limits.
00:17:52.740And I think in the case of these protests, when you see them occupying buildings, committing acts of violence, calling for hatred and violence against different groups and religions, I think all of that combined means they've crossed that line beyond legitimate, peaceful protesting into something far darker and far more disturbing.
00:18:10.420Right. And the federal government has, in Canada, they've displayed a willingness to treat protests differently depending on the cause that is being protested.
00:18:19.160Of course, we've seen protests just remove the university protests, these pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine protests, remove that from the university.
00:18:27.160Let's talk about the protests outside of the synagogues, outside of religious places of worship.
00:18:33.240Well, that was treated a completely different way than a peaceful protest in Ottawa over vaccine mandates.
00:18:42.540Another point I want to raise, going back to the tradition of protests at universities, in these protests in the past, in decades past,
00:18:50.760I don't think the majority of people involved in these protests were trying to cover their faces, wearing masks and masking their identity.
00:18:58.900It seems, Sue Ann, that you talk about how parents might be ashamed of seeing their children involved in these protests.
00:19:04.920Maybe some of these people, they don't want to be seen in the protests themselves, but they want to be a part of the movement.
00:19:09.500They're maybe afraid to show their own identity for a cause they apparently seem so worthy to stand up for.
00:19:15.920Definitely. I think, you know, let's talk about Toronto and the rules around not masking yourself at protests.
00:19:27.200Well, that doesn't seem to have been upheld.
00:19:31.240So we still have them wearing these masks and the keffias wrapped around their heads.
00:19:36.460And, you know, they, either they're ashamed or they think that if they don't, if they cover their faces, they won't be arrested because they can't be identified.
00:19:46.300But let's just say they're fooling themselves.
00:19:51.600Yeah. And I want to open this aspect up just to a broader conversation.
00:19:55.420It's in the news now, and there have been Canadian conservative commentators and American conservative commentators talking about this.
00:20:01.480The United States, they just passed a piece of legislation which tackles anti-Semitism.
00:20:07.160Now, a lot of people are saying that instead of enforcing the laws that are already on the books to clear out these protests,
00:20:14.540the government has now moved to actually tighten free speech rules around ability to criticize Israel, for example.
00:20:21.700I want to get your opinions, both of you, on just the idea of adding in new legislation to combat anti-Semitism rather than just clearing out the protests with the additional laws in place.
00:20:37.360I mean, I think everybody has to be extremely careful when we start passing laws that further limit any of our fundamental freedoms.
00:20:46.320I think what we're seeing in the case of the United States is a reaction to the apparent failure of institutions, of law enforcement, of universities to actually do something meaningful about these protests.
00:21:00.600They're looking at these protesters getting away with everything they have been and saying, well, look, we don't think this is acceptable.
00:21:08.020We want to strengthen the toolbox in order to be able to take more direct action on it.
00:21:12.560I think there is a lot of risk when you start to say certain things fall under that restricted category or you take away fundamental freedoms of speech or assembly.
00:21:24.300But I think it just reflects the desperation.
00:21:27.100So many feel in saying, why can't we do something about this?
00:21:29.840Why can't we clear out some of these encampments?
00:21:33.060Why can't we stop people from making violent and hateful statements?
00:21:37.100Why can't we arrest people for breaking the law?
00:21:40.900So, you know, you're seeing those two forces come up against each other, a desire to have freedom of speech, freedom of protest, freedom of assembly and saying, but also we've crossed the line into far darker things and we need to take fundamental action against them.
00:21:53.840Sue Ann, what do you think about this, this combating between existing laws and wanting to add more laws into place?
00:24:02.400And I wish there was a good transition for this, but there really isn't.
00:24:06.520We have to move on to our next story here.
00:24:08.400And for whatever reason, the liberals and the legacy media have refused to let go of this story, this Diagilon story, trying to somehow paint Pierre Pauly of the Conservative Party as though they're secretly collaborating with the dangerous far right.
00:24:24.220Let's throw up another article about this story if we have it.
00:24:28.840So Jeremy McKenzie, who we spoke about on this show last week, he, of course, is credited as being the founder of Diagilon.
00:24:36.300In reality, Diagilon is not even actually a group.
00:24:39.760We know that from the HateGate reporting, they don't meet the definition of a group, let alone a dangerous far right militia, as some have tried to paint them as.
00:24:49.340But that has been the line from Anti-Hate Network.
00:24:54.060And so he actually went on, I think it was with Viva Frye, and he released a statement saying that he is not connected with the Conservative Party.
00:25:03.520He is not connected with Pierre Pauly of.
00:25:06.100In fact, anyone who follows the rhetoric of the group and the people that watch Jeremy McKenzie know that he is by no means a fan of Pierre Pauly of.
00:25:14.100In fact, it seems as though they seem to attack Pierre Pauly of as much, if not more, than they attack Justin Trudeau.
00:25:19.900But, of course, that has not stopped the Liberals and the media from staying on this story relentlessly.
00:25:25.640They seem desperate, William, to do whatever they can to try to paint Pierre Pauly of as someone he is clearly not.
00:26:01.520I would say what it's showing is, frankly, the desperation on the part of the Liberal government.
00:26:06.640They put all of their effort into this 2024 budget, into the affordability and housing announcements that they touted for weeks leading up to the budget, and should be right now doing a full-court press selling to Canadians how their lives would be better off with this Liberal budget and, therefore, under the Liberal government.
00:26:28.380The fact that they're not shows just how much of a flaw this budget has been for them.
00:26:36.360Desperate accusations from Pierre Pauly of using the term wacko is the end of parliamentary democracy, to Diagilon is a secret Pierre Pauly of militia that's going to destroy Canada.
00:26:50.420I haven't checked Twitter or X lately.
00:26:55.180And I think the fact that they aren't even denting Pierre's popularity reflects just how much Canadians have tuned out the Liberal government and Prime Minister Trudeau.
00:27:05.040Suhan, what do you make of these desperate attempts, these desperate attacks against Pierre Pauly of?
00:28:26.620Why don't we throw up the polling that our colleague, Cosmin Georgia, was able to pull from.
00:28:32.440Basically, it's actually been following for since 2022, since June of 2022.
00:28:36.960At the end here, you can see that this, from April 29th to the 24th, Pauly of polling has actually increased.
00:28:45.180And these diagonal smears against Pauly of and the conservatives began right at that time.
00:28:50.480So none of this is actually working for them.
00:28:53.200And there's a couple of things going on here, which I find very interesting.
00:28:56.040I made this point in my show that we released yesterday about how these attempts by the liberals to make Diaglons seem bigger and scarier and more important than they actually are, only really serve to do two things.
00:29:08.640One, it actually will get more attention to a group they supposedly feel as though is some dangerous right-wing militia.
00:29:15.340People are going to actually see this and look into it.
00:29:18.420The other thing that I think is going on here is that they want Diaglons to be a bigger force than it is because they want to have the weapon to attack conservatives with.
00:29:27.960They need to have their Canadian version of the Proud Boys, which they can use to silence conservatives and silence conservatives into submission.
00:29:37.760And I don't think it's going to work for them, but they're obviously, in my opinion, trying to do that.
00:29:41.700They're trying to create something out of nothing here and create something that they can use for many years to attack conservatives over.
00:29:49.100Let me know, William, as someone who's worked in this industry, in inside politics, if you think that I'm onto something here or if you think I'm a little off.
00:29:57.980I mean, they're trying to change the channel away from their own dismal performance and their own low popularity.
00:30:04.800The problem is what they're trying to change the channel to is just so unconvincing.
00:30:09.520You know, the idea that this Diaglons group is anything other than a small group of, you know, some would say crackpots, others would say malcontents, the grumpy people who they are, poses some sort of threat to Canada is absolutely ludicrous.
00:30:27.240In the same way that, you know, when Alex Jones says he likes Pierre Poliver, suddenly that represents some sort of fundamental threat to Canada.
00:30:37.520And I'll bet you most of the people in Canada would have to Google who Alex Jones is to have any idea of what the Liberals are talking about.
00:30:45.520These are symptoms of a government that doesn't have a policy agenda that can deal with the issues and with the concerns that ordinary Canadians have.
00:30:56.020They're offside on so many things, things like the carbon tax, which is widely unpopular.
00:31:01.660They're, you know, they're soft on crime, soft on drug addiction agenda, which is really out of step with Canadians, especially those in cities and smaller towns.
00:31:11.800And so instead of trying to present policy ideas, they're down to this, they're throwing the muck, and the muck they have is just so unconvincing that I don't think you're going to see any movement in the polls, except for an increase in conservative support and an ongoing decrease in liberal.
00:31:26.520So, and this is despite the attempts by the trained media seals, who, you know, speak up and, and, and make the most ludicrous comments, I could think of a few names, but I won't, you know, single out anybody.
00:31:42.480But, you know, that panel with Rosie Barton, they're just, it's just ridiculous that they, they go on and on and on and it's, people are tuning out this sort of thing.
00:31:54.860They, they just, they know that Justin Trudeau is, is bailing these people out and they know that the CBC is, you know, over, over granted, getting too much money and, and they just don't believe these kinds of things anymore.