Off the Record - Liberals resort to abortion scare tactics

00:00:00.000 all right noah you're supposed to be the funniest on the team so you can uh start us off i'm the

00:00:06.400 funniest on the team i don't know you know what makes you think that is it just not my appearance

00:00:11.120 that's what andrew that's what andrew designated you wasn't this supposed to be andrew's show and

00:00:15.020 i feel like he's never actually here on fridays yeah you know he's always on vacation in different

00:00:19.800 countries and stuff you know living the living his best life i don't even really think that he works

00:00:24.040 yeah i'm a bit concerned that he's in taiwan right now while china is engaged in unprecedented war

00:00:31.080 games surrounding the island with ships and planes so we're a little bit worried about getting

00:00:37.000 andrew lotten back safe and sound into one piece not an asset it's not a maybe a low-key chinese agent

00:00:43.500 who knows no maybe we i feel bad maybe we shouldn't be saying uh unkind things about him while he's in

00:00:49.440 a dangerous dangerous zone sorry andrew yeah i understand he's getting on a plane home today so

00:00:55.720 i'm i think he'll be okay all right well in that case andrew this is your show you need to come back

00:01:01.060 and you need to start hosting it more regularly we're happy to all be guests but it's your show

00:01:04.920 your responsibility all right everyone let's get it started

00:01:08.560 hey everyone welcome back to off the record friday's fun show andrew lotten is out of town

00:01:23.060 in taiwan as you may have heard so i am filling in in his absence and i am joined by william mcbeth

00:01:28.360 and noah jarvis thanks folks for joining me today guys happy to be here it's a pleasure to be on

00:01:33.960 so it's been a spicy week in canadian politics actually it seems like there is probably not much

00:01:40.540 going on and you always know that it's been a slow news week and when they're down in the polls

00:01:44.880 when the liberals start talking about abortion the liberals are once again fear-mongering over

00:01:49.580 abortion saying that the conservative leader pierre polyev if he was in government if he was in power

00:01:55.540 he would make abortion illegal personally i'm pro-life i don't have a problem with this

00:02:00.640 unfortunately pierre polyev has actually said he would do nothing to legislate it

00:02:03.940 so the liberals don't really have much of an argument but they always seem to bring this up

00:02:07.400 when they're down the polls and we have many polls showing them down by as many as 20 points

00:02:12.140 still this has been what they've chosen to make the issue of the week about

00:02:15.620 and there was a pretty crazy press conference that broke out in ottawa this week we're going to play a

00:02:20.260 clip to show you what the liberals sounded like this week in ottawa i'm here representing the

00:02:24.640 women's caucus and members of the little party and we've sent a letter to the leader of the

00:02:28.660 opposition asking him to be very clear with canadians and in particular with canadian women

00:02:33.760 on what he would do to defend a woman's right to choose we've seen that his caucus there are many

00:02:41.060 anti-choice caucus members we've seen some of their actions recently including mp kathy wagenthal who at

00:02:48.320 the pro-life rally held here last week said that women who have abortions end up needing redemption

00:02:54.500 forgiveness and needing god we as women want to know whether the leader of the opposition will

00:03:02.240 ensure that his caucus does not put forward legislation that in any way impinges on women's

00:03:11.120 frights and redims in particular bodily autonomy so of course now the liberals are saying they're

00:03:16.500 putting forward the dreaded letter which is what politicians always do when they don't really have

00:03:20.200 anything else to do william what do you make of this why is this coming up again yeah i mean you've

00:03:25.960 heard of the little boy who cried wolf well this is the little party that cried abortion it's every 0.95

00:03:31.120 single time they're faced with uh policy criticism or sagging popularity they go to their only weapon

00:03:37.980 left they try and claim that the conservative party in government would outlaw abortion but unlike in

00:03:45.260 previous times i think you're seeing that even the legacy media aren't believing it now they're saying

00:03:50.500 look uh we had 10 years of harper government there were no changes to abortion under that the leader

00:03:56.120 pierre polliver has been very clear about uh where he scanned saying he won't like slain on abortion

00:04:02.040 so they pushed back a bit which was good to see i i also have to laugh and say there seems to be an

00:04:07.080 awful lot of men in the liberal women's caucus based on that photo uh or maybe they choose to identify

00:04:12.960 as women now that that could be i guess uh what it is too i think you raise a good point and also

00:04:19.060 you're correct the mainstream media actually did push back on this they don't often push back on

00:04:22.860 this but there's actually some good questions let's go a little bit to that back and forth that we saw

00:04:26.980 between the minister speaking and the liberal mp speaking and some of the questions from reporters

00:04:32.340 in the room were actually really challenging the uh women's caucus as you mentioned and some of their

00:04:36.780 points let's play that clip now harper government had 10 years i know you weren't here many of us

00:04:43.760 were 10 years in power they had four years of the majority didn't move one bit and they had private

00:04:48.520 members who wanted to do things and do things gosh you are all 30 points down the polls i'm looking

00:04:54.720 to some of you will not get re-elected if there was an election this fall how this is the most cynical

00:04:59.720 play to just throw the abortion scare tactic would you like to respond to that observation absolutely

00:05:04.700 it's not a scare tactic we've seen what's happened in the states do people really think roe versus

00:05:09.320 wave would have been overturned do we think what was happening there was going to happen i've been

00:05:12.960 in the women's movement for over 50 years it is not a scare tactic things are going backwards not

00:05:18.200 only in canada but around the world and these are real risks for canadians we need to know very clearly

00:05:24.120 that that party police put for the convention individual members are not going to introduce things

00:05:30.420 because we do not want to go the same way as the united states so it is not a scare tactic it is a

00:05:35.240 very strong concern and i may not have been here then but i was other places working on women's

00:05:40.760 rights okay so do not use that as a as a reason why it's not a scare tactic last question let's just

00:05:47.120 put it back the other way the government hasn't also legislated to protect abortions either right so

00:05:52.040 why doesn't your government introduce legislation to make it harder for that to get rolled back in

00:05:56.720 when there if there is a conservative government you do not want to legislate woman's body you do 0.70

00:06:05.220 not legislate woman's body that is not you make sure that you have access to abortion you don't want 0.99

00:06:13.240 to legislate anybody's body particularly woman's even if that is to protect the right to choose like 0.79

00:06:19.520 you're calling no you don't want to legislate your ovaries your readers no that is not the way that

00:06:27.720 you protect women's rights i find these clips so difficult to listen to you don't want to legislate

00:06:33.500 women's bodies they always forget when they make these arguments that when we're talking about 1.00

00:06:36.880 abortion there's two bodies at play here there's also the little baby that's growing inside its 0.99

00:06:41.940 mother totally innocent helpless little child but of course liberals don't want to acknowledge that

00:06:46.540 reality that first question there from the reporter was very interesting though he was actually very

00:06:50.280 indignant you could see that even the legacy media is tired of this ploy from the liberals he actually

00:06:54.920 even said to them oh you know you guys are down 30 points i mentioned earlier they're down pretty

00:06:58.860 consistently 20 points but he even went to say 30 points now what do you think that this is simply

00:07:03.320 just the liberals trying to distract because they are doing so poorly in the poll numbers or do you

00:07:07.900 think there's something more at play here oh yeah absolutely they're trying to distract i mean if an

00:07:13.380 election were held today more than half of the liberal caucus uh would lose their seat so it is

00:07:18.740 within their best interest to try and uh lie and portray the conservatives as you know some crazy

00:07:25.040 uh christian radicals who want to roll back women's rights but the fact of the matter is this uh on uh

00:07:31.240 pure polyev's campaign trail when he was campaigning for the conservative leadership he made it very clear

00:07:35.660 that he would not seek to legislate uh abortions in any way shape or form and to my dismay and your

00:07:42.360 dismay uh he will not be taking on uh this issue and you know for good it's for good reason i think

00:07:48.120 the pro-life movement in canada has a lot of work to do uh to make uh abortion restrictions more popular

00:07:54.980 in canada but yeah pure polyev has never said at all that he wants to uh legislate abortions he said

00:08:01.440 the opposite and uh in fact and when the reporters question um that liberal mp is on this they just talk

00:08:08.380 about you know not not making uh not trying to scare the canadian public and then they immediately

00:08:13.520 talk about the united states a completely different country with you know you know different legal

00:08:17.860 jurisdiction and a different judicial system uh you know they talk about roe v wade where canada

00:08:22.940 doesn't really have an equivalent of roe v wade you could point to rv morgenthaler in 1988 and 1993

00:08:29.180 uh but those uh court decisions don't necessarily say that uh you can't uh legislate abortion in any

00:08:36.760 way whereas uh roe v wade it was sort of the the gates that held back the flood of democratic choice

00:08:42.900 uh in the united states so i don't think that a there is a really big constituency that wants to see

00:08:48.840 abortion regulated even if you and i want to see that rachel and b uh pure polyev has no desire to do 0.99

00:08:54.880 this uh and you know even if one of his private uh private members bill hits the house of commons

00:09:00.560 uh and the government votes against it uh and i'm pretty sure all liberal mps and ndp mps would

00:09:06.060 vote against it uh there's just no way uh that sort of bill would pass um in parliament so it is a

00:09:12.780 liberal scare tactic no matter what they say yeah so those liberals mps are saying you know pure polyev

00:09:18.700 if in government he would use the notwithstanding clause to ban abortion he personally wants to

00:09:23.120 legislate to make abortion illegal of course his office has responded and said that isn't the case

00:09:26.680 but i think you raise a really good point here noah that the liberals are saying that you know

00:09:31.160 the liberals are being accused of fear-mongering and they say no no we're not fear-mongering look

00:09:34.400 at what's happening in the united states and by doing that they themselves are fear-mongering

00:09:38.240 because it's a totally different country it's run very differently the pro-life movement is much

00:09:42.140 stronger in the u.s and the liberals always seem to revert back to this when they are trying to scare

00:09:47.240 canadians oh we've got trumpism style canadians we all remember that sort of infamous video when

00:09:51.920 peer polyev was being interviewed while he was in western canada and you know he was accused of

00:09:57.300 bringing trump style politics to canada and he was saying oh who's saying this who's saying that i'm

00:10:01.640 like trump and the reporter had really had no basis no way of backing this up one of the other things

00:10:06.520 that kind of comes to mind with this is that we know peer polyev in the polls has struggled a little

00:10:10.660 bit with sort of uh middle class women in the toronto gta area of course that's always a battleground 1.00

00:10:16.280 in federal elections we know the conservatives are going to be looking to that after we saw those poll

00:10:20.060 numbers come out we sort of saw peer polyev get a makeover stopped wearing the glasses maybe was

00:10:24.240 wearing a little bit of face makeup there were some accusations that i have no idea if this is true

00:10:28.440 not that he was even wearing one of those like under coatings under his shirt that has like the

00:10:31.960 fake muscles and stuff you know all this from from liberals probably isn't true it was sort of funny

00:10:36.420 to watch at the time but william what do you make of this is this really just more of the liberals

00:10:40.080 tactics tried to make peer polyev unpopular with a specific group of people in canada because they are

00:10:45.620 seeing their poll numbers and they're getting a little worried for the next federal election

00:10:48.320 yeah i mean i think you're absolutely right and it's interesting the liberal government has always

00:10:54.860 reached for it seems two issues when they were trying to quote unquote scare back their supporters

00:11:00.420 one was abortion the other was guns and gun control and i think you've seen in both cases those wells

00:11:06.880 have run dry there is no legitimate fear on the part of everyday canadians uh on either of the

00:11:13.380 conservative approach to uh either gun control or abortion uh you are completely right count is very

00:11:19.580 different than the united states we have a much less uh influential and uh wide-ranging pro-life

00:11:26.100 movement we don't have the same uh pro-life politics that exist uh in the republican party that does in the

00:11:33.860 conservative party and uh less of a canadian appetite for any change on this so for the liberals to

00:11:39.600 keep going back to it it really shows how out of ideas they are they they put forward their budget

00:11:45.160 it was an absolute flop that didn't move a single supporter back into their camp they've said they're

00:11:50.360 all about building houses not a single house has been built under new liberal programs so what they're

00:11:55.160 going to is what's always worked before but i think this time again as i said that well has just run dry

00:11:59.980 and as a government let me just say as a government that's been in power for over nine years uh you

00:12:07.540 know and the reporter mentioned this they had so much opportunity to legislate abortion rights into

00:12:12.900 canadian law but uh they have not done that and uh you know the really crappy retort that one of the

00:12:18.660 mps gave is oh we will not uh legislate uh women's bodies and you know starts mentioning uh specific

00:12:24.740 parts but you know we did this all the time you know with the canada health act and uh various other

00:12:29.800 laws we legislate people's bodies all the time you know i mean that's what they did during the

00:12:34.380 pandemic when they're forcing people to uh get uh vaccines much unless they want to you know have

00:12:40.720 their rights severely restricted i mean we legislate people's bodies all the time so to act like this is

00:12:46.740 something that is beyond the pale that we cannot you know uh reach this uh measure as a canadian

00:12:53.660 society it is ridiculous we do this all the time uh and you know just saying it over and over again

00:12:59.720 we will not legislate women's bodies i'm not going to do anything you're just wrong you know yeah it's 0.99

00:13:05.600 just one of their classic talking points completely ignoring the fact that the right to life is one of

00:13:09.380 the most basic human rights whether that's in stride in a constitution or a charter or whatever

00:13:13.300 that is a basic right that we all inherently have and that right is stolen from babies before they're

00:13:18.080 even out of the womb but of course as we mentioned they conveniently ignore these realities time and time

00:13:22.440 again of course ignoring reality is sort of becoming more commonplace for the liberals now we've talked

00:13:26.980 a lot about this story being a distraction for their low polling numbers they also had some other

00:13:31.200 bad news for meta this week william why don't you break down that story for us yeah well as you know

00:13:36.660 um the liberal government's online news act came in force last year and it sought to make big tech

00:13:43.660 companies specifically google and meta who owns facebook and instagram uh have to pay news publishers

00:13:50.160 for the privilege of having their content posted on their platforms google said well we don't really

00:13:57.020 like this but okay we'll give you a hundred million dollars a year in order to uh get you off our backs

00:14:02.940 i think meta simply decided they had enough and meta said fine we won't include any canadian news content

00:14:08.600 on our platforms and here we are now you know coming up on eight or nine months after that law was

00:14:14.860 implemented and the clear winner here uh has been meta and the reasons we can cite is first of all

00:14:21.260 uh canadians and record numbers are still signing up to meta properties to facebook instagram

00:14:26.480 viewership readership usership of these platforms hasn't declined and advertising revenue has continued

00:14:33.260 to grow i think something like 19 percent year over year uh compared to it because meta's always said

00:14:39.200 it isn't a news platform it doesn't really see a lot of traffic because of news content and in fact

00:14:46.300 the people who really benefit from having news content posted on instagram and facebook are the

00:14:52.420 news companies who get vast more amounts of exposure and that's true if you look at especially small

00:14:58.560 and independent media outlets they've seen massive drops you know calamitous drops in their exposure

00:15:05.280 after the meta and in-depth ban getting them off facebook and instagram so i think the government

00:15:11.280 should pat itself on the back say job well done our our new law to help the news industry has massively

00:15:17.940 hurt the news industry that's a great job everybody gets a cigar the really ridiculous thing about this

00:15:25.300 story is that we all knew exactly how this was going to play out because the same thing happened in

00:15:29.760 australia a few years back when they wanted to legislate this type of thing you know have facebook

00:15:34.540 pay news companies for already giving them a benefit by being able to share their you know

00:15:39.860 their work on facebook's platform and receiving lots of clicks and visits to the website that way

00:15:44.660 when that happened you know facebook in australia just said okay we're not going to allow link sharing

00:15:48.640 anymore and they briefly banned it now they were able to come to a deal with facebook at the time now

00:15:53.000 meta and sort of work through that but here in canada we've just been we haven't been able to

00:15:57.360 overcome that we can share our news now i know a lot of people have been able to find little

00:16:01.280 workarounds a lot of people i know i maybe shouldn't even say them so meta doesn't get

00:16:04.840 wind but you know you might post a a picture on facebook and then post the link in the comments

00:16:09.040 or something and just say look in the the comments below but obviously you know for an outlet like true

00:16:13.320 north who we did get a lot of business from facebook we did get a lot of clicks from facebook

00:16:17.300 now we have to find all these silly workarounds the reality is when people are scrolling on social

00:16:21.440 media they're just looking very quickly and you got to have that attention you got to have that

00:16:25.320 headline that's going to grab their attention and cause them to actually click on that story and take a look

00:16:29.420 so i would assume that this has just been a massive blow for us as well as some of the other

00:16:33.880 independent media outlets that you mentioned sure rebel has experienced you know um drawbacks western

00:16:38.680 standard william obviously you sort of run the operations maybe you could speak to specifically

00:16:42.640 what the impact has been for us at true north not being able to share our work easily on platforms

00:16:47.900 like facebook yeah i you know it's interesting we obviously like everybody else used meta tools we used

00:16:55.020 facebook we used instagram to reach uh large swaths of canadians with our content uh i i would say uh

00:17:01.760 one of the things that was great about uh facebook is that it allowed you to get in front of a very large

00:17:08.460 audience uh millions and millions and millions of canadians use it every day and it allowed you to

00:17:13.620 drive traffic to your videos to your news stories and to your other content but when we saw this bill

00:17:20.300 coming we realized that it would be a problem for us that if we were too reliant on meta properties

00:17:26.380 uh for our for our content we would be in trouble so we invested in uh building up our email list in

00:17:33.420 growing on properties like x and on making sure that people were visiting our website directly rather

00:17:39.200 than simply linking through to it through facebook and instagram posts and as a result we've been far less

00:17:44.640 impacted than i think some other organizations have it's it's still an it's still an issue we're still

00:17:50.680 seeing a decline in some of our key metrics but overall we've been far less badly hurt than than some

00:17:57.960 other entities you have to ask yourself if the if the bill is hurting news companies why wouldn't the

00:18:04.200 government recall it why wouldn't they drop it or at least retool it substantially uh in order to deal

00:18:11.820 with some of these problems and it seems now that they're just locked in a in a bitter personal

00:18:16.160 feud with meta and uh in between a liberal government on life support and meta who has record-breaking

00:18:23.040 profits my money is on meta who's going to win this fight no one so william obviously mentioned a

00:18:29.340 personal feud there but obviously with independent media being so impacted by this ban do you think

00:18:34.520 there's more of this do you think this is actually maliciousness on the liberal government's part

00:18:38.020 uh actively trying to harm independent media which has been so critical of their government

00:18:42.520 well i think it might be malicious on on behalf of the mainstream media who

00:18:48.980 lobbied for this legislation uh but i think it certainly is incompetence on the trudeau government's part

00:18:54.500 i i believe that you know no matter what they touch you know it just turns they have the reverse

00:18:58.920 might as touch instead of turning into gold it turns into uh human defecation so you know i really

00:19:04.620 think that the the liberals they try their best uh to make this legislation help canadian news i mean

00:19:11.040 that's what they they claim to you know be trying to do as much as possible you know giving millions

00:19:16.200 of dollars in media bailouts uh and you know passing bill c11 and you know this bill c18 i think they

00:19:23.780 generally genuinely thought that you know meta and google would just you know dump their pockets in front

00:19:29.580 of them and you know give out a bunch of checks to news media who are failing but at the end of the

00:19:34.540 day you know this is legislation that uh hurts local news outlets first and foremost the trudeau

00:19:40.600 government they claim uh to want to be able to support uh local news and you know they give billions of

00:19:46.640 dollars to the cbc to you know support local news who actually don't support local news but that's

00:19:51.620 besides the point uh but you know the the studies showed that uh local news outlets have seen a decline

00:19:57.360 in their audience by 86 percent uh and mainstream media they've only seen a decline about half that

00:20:04.560 so it is definitely not a bill uh not legislation uh that is helping uh local news outlets like the

00:20:11.960 trudeau government says uh and i think that you know the mainstream media when they lobby for this

00:20:17.140 legislation they have their own lobby uh that uh sites like our companies like post media and four star

00:20:23.360 uh they all contribute to you know this organization that lobbies the government i believe that they

00:20:28.060 knew that you know even if uh meta banned um uh being being able to see canadian news on their

00:20:35.060 platforms they still have their newspaper subscriptions uh people still know who they are from their

00:20:40.400 reputation build up built up over decades so they're more likely to just directly visit their website

00:20:45.600 uh there's a lot of other uh areas in which uh these legacy media outlets can make money uh and they

00:20:52.580 know that outlets like true north and other local media outlets uh they don't have the same resources

00:20:57.420 as them so uh it's sort of like how when you increase the minimum wage walmart uh generally benefits

00:21:03.380 because uh they have less competition in the mom and pop shops and the small to medium-sized businesses

00:21:08.860 so so i think that you know if the trudeau government had sort of any integrity and wanted to

00:21:14.280 follow through on their plan to help uh news media they wouldn't uh you know continue uh making this

00:21:21.160 uh legislation law they would try and revoke this legislation and bring something forward

00:21:25.960 that would actually help uh news media although i don't want them to try and help news media anymore

00:21:31.220 they've done enough uh they've destroyed trust in these institutions by giving them hundreds of

00:21:36.500 millions of dollars and they've destroyed their ability to actually reach an audience so maybe if they

00:21:41.200 didn't touch this file anymore that'd be for the best and when you talk about how this has been so

00:21:46.720 detrimental for local news the irony of is of course that the liberals are spending so much

00:21:50.860 particularly to bolster local news we know they spend a lot on news media in general as you mentioned

00:21:55.580 but they have sort of a local journalism initiative you guys have probably seen this in the paper for

00:21:59.960 audience if you're ever reading a newspaper and you see beside the author's names it says in brackets

00:22:03.960 local journalism initiative that means that reporter salary is directly paid for by the federal

00:22:09.300 government so while news media in general receives hundreds of millions in funding and subsidies

00:22:14.380 those positions are actually being paid for directly so you know have to always take everything that you

00:22:19.940 read and legacy media with a grain of salt but those positions are just being paid by the feds i think

00:22:24.180 it's so wrong that we're seeing that and yes now the federal government's spending all this money

00:22:28.280 on these positions and at the same time that they're making it impossible for canadians to find the work

00:22:33.040 that they're spending money paying for that we're spending money to pay for because we're actually the

00:22:36.420 tax payers thank you this doesn't make any sense at all william what do you think yeah i mean i we've

00:22:41.940 always said that if your job salary is dependent on the government how on earth can you possibly

00:22:48.660 fairly cover that government and hold them to account your media outlet who relies on government

00:22:54.400 subsidies government transfers government funding in order to keep the lights on and make payroll how on

00:23:00.480 earth can you critically cover that government hold them to account because you know you you need them

00:23:05.960 it's it's a an abusive relationship almost like between a drug addict and a drug dealer so um

00:23:12.600 as you know speaking for true north we would love nothing more than the government to fully get out of

00:23:19.160 the news business to leave us alone to let us do our thing and to uh stop meddling in something they

00:23:25.440 clearly don't understand but uh i'm not optimistic that we'll see any changes from this government they've

00:23:31.740 they've said that uh that you know they have no plans on doing it but i'm optimistic that a future

00:23:36.460 government may decide to roll back some of these truly disastrous changes and let us get on with the

00:23:42.120 business of uh reporting the facts and the truths of canadians well we're on the topic of social media

00:23:48.620 we have a big story from tiktok about from the tip from about tiktok this week a new report recommends that

00:23:54.440 the canadian government forced tiktok to divest from its chinese parent company bite dance or

00:24:00.080 announce a national ban to secure canadians from surveillance propaganda and predatory data collection

00:24:06.560 from the communist regime the mcdonald laurier institute reporter report titled china's glaring

00:24:12.820 trojan horse recommends that the federal government mimic the united states tiktok ban legislation by giving

00:24:17.500 bite dance the option to either sell tiktok to a suitable buyer or face a ban of the app in the

00:24:22.600 country okay so we all know that tiktok has been controversial because you know china is collecting 0.99

00:24:27.120 so much data on the people that have it downloaded on their phones and are using it do you think a ban

00:24:32.020 would be in the best entrance of canadians no i'm gonna let you go first well i think this is a really

00:24:39.180 uh a controversial issue because on one hand we have to balance uh two principles one principle being

00:24:45.800 order and the other being liberty the the on the order side uh we do need to ensure that canada's

00:24:51.480 national security is uh is its integrity is solid um and when we have uh countries like china uh that

00:24:59.480 are seeking to undermine canada's democracy canada's institutions uh and undermine even sometimes the

00:25:05.420 safety of certain canadians especially chinese canadians when we have a government uh doing

00:25:09.620 that in our country we need to take every step possible in order to secure uh the integrity of

00:25:14.180 our elections and the security of our people and one of the steps that can be taken is by actually

00:25:19.560 uh getting tiktok to be divested or banned and the reason being is that tiktok uh they have a lot of

00:25:26.420 mechanisms that is controlled by the ccp either directly or indirectly that would allow them to 1.00

00:25:32.380 manipulate sort of the information that is being promoted on that platform for for example i think a lot

00:25:37.420 of people have noticed that a lot of pro-palestinian content is being promoted on tiktok and a lot of

00:25:43.240 pro-israel content is not being promoted on tiktok and i believe that one of the reasons

00:25:48.200 for that is that it is in with it's within the chinese communist party's interest to promote

00:25:54.540 pro-palestinian content content that would divide canadians and get them to support uh or autocratic

00:26:02.860 islamic regime that uh you know engages in terrorism uh in a unique uh in a uniquely um often uh sort of 0.97

00:26:12.160 manner so i think that yeah tiktok does pose a threat however there is the uh the the principle

00:26:18.780 of liberty in that canadians should ought to be free to download whatever apps and use whatever

00:26:24.300 services that they want to use uh and i think that you know when uh governments are going around banning

00:26:30.360 certain uh social media platforms especially you know social media is supposed to be uh the sort of

00:26:35.800 new public square where people get together and share ideas uh and share you know all sorts of

00:26:41.580 things so when uh canadians are being restricted from accessing a public square uh that is sort of

00:26:47.980 uh something that should raise some concerns so i don't necessarily have strong opinions uh on this i think

00:26:54.800 you know if i were you know gun to my head you know choose something i think i would uh go ahead with

00:27:00.800 uh getting tiktok to be divested or have it banned but uh at the end of the day i think that this is

00:27:06.680 something that canadians need to be uh yeah this is a process that canadians need to be brought into

00:27:11.760 i think that um canadians ought to be informed about the benefits and the risk of keeping tiktok

00:27:16.920 legal in canada uh and an informed decision should be made from there yeah i mean and we talk about

00:27:23.160 social media sort of being the new public square i feel like that's mostly true of x where there is so many

00:27:27.440 different types of opinions and freedom of expression is actually allowed you know conservatives

00:27:31.080 can actually speak on x without worry about their accounts being banned the same can't really be said

00:27:35.520 for facebook or obviously then as instagram and certainly not tiktok in which conservative accounts

00:27:40.040 are usually banned very quickly upon making an account but one of the things to consider here is

00:27:44.940 you know this report is sort of lauding the efforts in the u.s to ban tiktok when we look at why

00:27:49.620 the u.s wants to ban tiktok the we also have to look at facebook if tiktok was banned that gives

00:27:55.180 just that much more power to facebook which owns instagram as we've mentioned you know a lot of

00:28:00.000 young people are on instagram a lot of people are on facebook without tiktok facebook basically

00:28:04.540 controls everything and in the last u.s election cycle we know that facebook was actively basically

00:28:09.220 campaigning for the democrats they actively suppressed the hunter biden lap stop story on

00:28:13.460 facebook so this would actually probably be a bad thing for the republicans long term i wonder if

00:28:19.120 the same thing can be said for canada would it be a bad thing for the conservatives if tiktok was banned

00:28:23.580 here william what do you think i you know it's such an interesting topic whether or not uh you know

00:28:30.200 we should be looking at banning or limiting one social media company versus the other i think probably

00:28:34.720 the user base for almost all of them is probably more skewing uh left than right more uh progressive

00:28:42.600 than conservative but uh occasionally i get invited to speak to grade 12 classes in social studies on

00:28:50.060 uh politics and government and uh you know one of the things i'm often told by by students they say

00:28:55.940 well nothing that's debated by politicians really matters to me i don't really care about this and i

00:29:01.420 say well what if they what if they ban tiktok how many of you have tiktok on your phone and of course

00:29:06.920 every single person in the class has tiktok on their phone so if you ever think the government can't

00:29:12.060 impact your your day-to-day life or something you personally enjoy wait till the government takes away

00:29:16.920 one of your favorite apps and then see uh about it but just in terms of uh the security risk of tiktok

00:29:24.660 we know china is a bad actor we know that this is a country uh that has interfered in our elections 1.00

00:29:30.860 that has been caught spying on other companies through technology that was one of the big concerns

00:29:37.220 we had about huawei and their activities uh you know both here in canada and other places it isn't

00:29:44.020 beyond imagination that they could use an app like tiktok to um for nefarious purposes to collect

00:29:51.500 information and then to go ahead use it in some way that is detrimental to uh canada and canadians so

00:29:57.600 you know on balance i think we we have to look and see what can be done to keep canadians safe and we

00:30:04.500 have to start approaching china more from the perspective that this is not a friendly government

00:30:10.200 this is not a government who wants to be an honest partner with canada this is a government with an

00:30:15.340 agenda and uh it will move forward with that you know and if it means uh bad things for canada in

00:30:22.300 the process well then they're going to go right ahead and do that so china is not our friend china 1.00

00:30:27.020 is a foreign government that we need to be taking far more seriously than we have been up until now

00:30:31.720 i don't know if we're going to necessarily see that serious tone come from the liberal government

00:30:37.400 this report also had an interesting note the prime minister in his cabinet could enforce this measure

00:30:42.700 without needing to pass any legislation through parliament they could instead simply invoke the

00:30:46.840 investment canada act which would bar investment considered an injurious to national security so it

00:30:53.120 wouldn't be that difficult for them to do this but we know that trudeau particularly hasn't taken

00:30:57.240 china seriously noah do you think we're going to see any movement from the federal government on this

00:31:02.280 report well i don't think so because i don't think it's within the liberal government's political

00:31:08.260 interest uh and if it's not within their political interest they're not going to do within the best

00:31:12.940 interest of canadians and the reason being is that the trudeau government they're seen as being very

00:31:17.760 fickle uh and being very soft on matters of foreign interference and for them to uh you know stand up

00:31:24.720 at a press conference one day and say you know on on the switch of a dime we're taking this uh issue

00:31:30.100 very seriously you know we're coming uh and we're going to bad tiktok i think it would you know

00:31:35.020 magnify scrutiny over some of their uh actions to for example not deal with uh the handong situation

00:31:42.120 very seriously they knew uh that he was probably you know put in that position with the help of the

00:31:49.020 chinese government uh and they didn't take any action they didn't take any action uh against foreign

00:31:53.580 interference in the 2019 and the 2021 uh general elections so uh just to put a magnifying glass

00:32:00.820 on the foreign interference issue especially uh with china at this time where their government is

00:32:06.520 already facing a lot of scrutiny i think that it is not within uh their political interest so they're

00:32:11.800 not going uh to move on this issue but if the the trudeau government they have more information about

00:32:18.020 this than any of us uh so they they probably know more than anyone whether or not this is a genuine

00:32:23.900 uh issue uh uh to national security if this is there's a general threat to national security that

00:32:30.400 tiktok poses uh and if they knew that this was a threat to national security they probably uh ought to

00:32:37.660 have acted on this already just like they knew uh that foreign interference from china and iran and

00:32:42.960 russia was a threat um many many years ago so i think it would just uh put a magnifying glass on 0.99

00:32:49.100 why they haven't acted on this sooner why they haven't acted uh strongly on other uh matters of

00:32:54.720 foreign interference and ultimately i think it would tank their polling numbers uh even harder if that's 0.90

00:33:00.620 even possible all right we've talked about national security we've talked about meta we've talked about

00:33:06.180 abortion and i promised you guys that it was going to be a lighter show we haven't really delivered

00:33:09.900 luckily we did save one hilarious story for the very end that should make up for all the heavy

00:33:14.640 content that we had earlier in the show noah take it away all right so uh i'm glad to be talking about

00:33:22.140 this story because uh we're talking about group sex parties uh that's right there is this club in calgary

00:33:29.400 uh in 2015 that received a complaint uh to the city uh basically there was a complaint that there was

00:33:36.420 sex parties and it took the uh the city four years to act but after four years they they were given a

00:33:42.740 stop order because uh they were hosting at someone's home at someone's calgary home uh group sex parties

00:33:48.800 um you know the i guess the specific term is ethical non-monogamous uh sex parties at uh this health

00:33:55.600 house in the northwest uh community of silver springs and they called it club menage um so on a bi-weekly

00:34:02.660 basis every two weeks uh about 20 to 50 people will gather to this house and um really uh duke it out

00:34:09.920 you know they would uh they'd go to town on one another uh and you know i think this uh raises

00:34:16.300 a lot of different concerns first of all about the type of um let's just say uh diseases uh the type of

00:34:25.260 uh uh immunity uh compromising sort of uh viruses that might be going around the community uh but

00:34:32.340 also just raises concerns that um you know your neighbor perhaps uh could just one day decide to

00:34:38.420 open a club uh beside your house and on a bi-weekly basis yet here strange noises coming out of the top

00:34:45.620 floor of their um home so i i believe a uh court they uh found that uh the city uh is not necessarily

00:34:56.680 allowed to if this was uh an establishment uh put up on commercial uh on a commercial property that

00:35:03.780 there would be no problem uh with club menage be opening the only problem with club menage is that

00:35:08.560 they opened this uh this establishment uh in a residential uh area so uh guys i i don't necessarily

00:35:17.140 have much experience with sex parties so maybe you guys could provide some more insight into this

00:35:22.060 maybe uh you you can but william but um what what do you guys believe uh think of uh the sex parties in

00:35:29.940 uh resident in calgary's uh residential area well to start the judge actually ruled that these can

00:35:36.180 continue so long as it's not called a club if they're just sort of parties and not labeled club

00:35:40.460 they're allowed to continue but uh you know stories like these are pretty much why i'm a social

00:35:46.700 conservative not a libertarian i think that this should just be banned especially in a residential

00:35:51.360 area i can't imagine you know you've got a young family raising kids and this is sort of the depraved

00:35:56.720 activity that's going on next door you know as i said on my show alberta roundup uh today i think uh

00:36:02.600 might see some homes go up for sale in silver springs and you might get one for cheap because

00:36:07.100 probably no one's going to want to live around this but uh you're certainly going to be taking

00:36:11.280 your share of hits for living there william what do you think yeah i mean if you walked into that

00:36:16.880 house i bet there's a home that has plastic on all the furniture uh 20 to 50 people in a single

00:36:22.860 home engaged in a group sex activity that's uh that is definitely not a recipe for hygiene uh

00:36:29.140 look i i think that um you know generally we ask government to stay out of our our personal lives

00:36:36.820 and out of our homes and you know have they simply been having uh extracurricular fun with a smaller

00:36:44.840 group of people and not calling it a club uh i'm not sure anybody even would have noticed what was

00:36:51.720 going on it could have just looked like uh someone having a party but uh you know the fact that

00:36:57.580 there are 20 to 50 people that's an awful lot of people think of the traffic uh i mean that's the

00:37:04.180 size of a of a university house party 50 people crammed into a single a single place that's quite

00:37:10.380 a disruptive activity and then to operate as a commercial enterprise um in a private home means

00:37:16.500 they're not having to adhere to any of the any of the rules that are established for commercial

00:37:21.560 enterprises with regards to to cleanliness and you know do you have enough bathrooms for 50 people

00:37:27.440 do you have uh all of the things that businesses would be held to so i'm not convinced that the

00:37:33.520 biggest issue was uh their choice of activity so much as the number of people involved and how they

00:37:41.200 charge to do i mean they were charging is my understanding too they were charging quote unquote

00:37:45.800 membership fees to participate uh so it's interesting i guess um you know you never really know

00:37:52.940 what goes on in your neighbor's house you uh uh but if you see 50 people showing up every two weeks

00:37:59.660 and uh coming out with big smiles on their faces i guess maybe you have an idea of what's going on in

00:38:04.900 northwest calvary i i want to like i want to put out where a provincial legislature could legislate on

00:38:12.240 this matter i mean first of all the person drafting up legislation would you know just be tearing their hair

00:38:18.540 out and you know it would it wouldn't be a great fun unless you're you're into this kind of thing

00:38:23.080 then uh you know it might be great fun but like do you just like if you're a neighbor of these people

00:38:28.660 do you like file a noise complaint like once once every two weeks do you uh you know perhaps a lobby

00:38:34.960 for a bylaw to be passed where you're only allowed to have sex parties up to 25 people or something like

00:38:39.920 that you know to really keep it down if you're attending a sex party you're not allowed to park on the

00:38:45.460 street or something like that maybe that'd be a a good way to discourage uh this sort of behavior

00:38:51.280 but you know what's even more concerning to me about the rather than just the sex parties that

00:38:55.500 it took the city four years to get around to this issue i mean the original complaint by neighbors

00:39:01.240 was filed in 2015 and then it took all the way until 2019 for a stop order uh to be issued by by the

00:39:08.840 city i mean imagine you're the neighbor you had to deal with that for four years straight and you

00:39:13.760 asked the city four years ago to to take some action on this and they just haven't done anything

00:39:18.560 so you know uh once a week on uh uh on every other friday night you know you're trying to sit down with

00:39:25.060 your wife have some wine eat a nice dinner and then you know you hear strange noises coming from the

00:39:29.440 left it's like oh yeah that is well the good news is that they had they had four years to put their

00:39:35.540 house up for sale and even longer before this you know address and neighborhood became public before

00:39:39.700 anyone else what they were getting themselves into i think we need to yeah but if it decreases

00:39:46.020 proper value once everyone knew about it but beforehand i mean people who are coming to view

00:39:50.060 your home probably aren't coming to view it in the hours of 12 a.m to 4 a.m so still could have gone

00:39:55.740 out of there pretty easily all right everyone we're gonna have to come up with some more lighter

00:39:59.720 stories for you guys if you could drop some suggestions in the comments below we'll take a

00:40:02.820 look at that for next week don't forget that everything you heard today was off the record

00:40:06.680 william if i made a tiktok account realistically how long do you think it would take before it got

00:40:19.420 banned well i my understanding is tiktok doesn't ban for political reasons very often in fact the

00:40:28.620 biggest thing that gets people banned from tiktok is nudity or sexually explicit content as with

00:40:35.460 every app there is a large cohort of people who use tiktok to sell adult services only fan subscriptions

00:40:42.760 and everything else like that so tiktok spends an awful lot of its time issuing takedown orders to

00:40:48.140 uh people who violate its nudity and sexuality things so as long as you're not doing that you're

00:40:53.200 probably fine i can't live in the sex parties that's that's unfortunate those ethical

00:40:58.520 non-monogamy parties are in trouble

Off the Record - May 25, 2024

Liberals resort to abortion scare tactics

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript