Off the Record - Poilievre and the legacy media clash – again!

00:00:00.200 Sue Ann, why aren't you just doing the show from the pool? That would be much more fun.

00:00:04.080 The pool with my bathing suit on?

00:00:06.160 Well, it might be good for donations.

00:00:09.000 Oh, I don't know. I think it'd scare people away.

00:00:12.100 Despite the weight loss.

00:00:16.980 Just making the audience jealous down in Florida, it looks like.

00:00:22.580 Yeah, yeah, it certainly does that.

00:00:24.440 All right, let's get this started.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to Off the Record.

00:00:36.500 This is True North's newest show where we all shed our inhibitions and pretenses and let loose.

00:00:44.480 Cut loose, let loose.

00:00:45.600 We both cut and let loose on the stories of the week,

00:00:48.800 some of which we've talked about on our show and have reported on,

00:00:51.940 but we do it in a more casual and informal way,

00:00:54.660 and we have tried to have, anyway, some fun in the process.

00:00:57.620 We've had great feedback on this so far,

00:01:00.180 so hopefully we'll get to some of your responses as the show progresses.

00:01:04.320 Last time we forgot, and this time I might forget too,

00:01:06.960 because I just remembered now.

00:01:07.980 So we do eventually want to read your comments on this.

00:01:10.680 Anyway, joined by Harrison Faulkner,

00:01:13.180 host of Ratioed and The Faulkner Show,

00:01:15.360 and also Sue Ann Levy.

00:01:16.960 Great to have you both on.

00:01:18.160 How are the weeks?

00:01:18.700 I'll start with you, Sue Ann,

00:01:19.600 because your week will just make Harrison and I jealous,

00:01:21.740 because we're in Ontario weather right now.

00:01:24.200 It's been wonderful.

00:01:26.020 Actually, the weather has improved tremendously

00:01:27.840 after two months of pretty Cacapucu weather,

00:01:32.460 you know, clouds and rain.

00:01:33.820 So it's really nice to see,

00:01:35.800 and I went to the beach yesterday.

00:01:38.340 Harrison, you didn't go to the beach yesterday, did you?

00:01:40.460 No, I'm afraid not.

00:01:41.720 The Cherry Beach down in Toronto

00:01:43.860 doesn't sound as appealing as a Florida beach right now.

00:01:49.120 The week was all right, but it was a little strange.

00:01:51.460 Like, we had some, we passed a grim mark

00:01:53.820 with the church burnings.

00:01:55.200 We had some very strange interactions with journalists.

00:01:58.280 We'll go through all that on the show,

00:01:59.560 but, you know, it was just another week

00:02:01.120 in Trudeau's Canada, I guess.

00:02:03.860 Yeah, fair enough.

00:02:04.940 Just on the beaches in Toronto,

00:02:07.360 very, very misleading,

00:02:08.800 because I used to work, when I worked in radio,

00:02:11.080 I worked at Chorus Key, which is on the waterfront,

00:02:13.360 and I was told, oh, you'll be right next to Sugar Beach,

00:02:16.000 and I'm like, oh, that seems like a weird place for a beach,

00:02:18.120 and then you look out the window,

00:02:18.920 and it's just like this fake, like, I don't know,

00:02:21.320 like 200 square feet of sand

00:02:23.040 in between a sugar factory and a radio station.

00:02:26.700 I mean, this is not what a beach is.

00:02:28.220 I want the Sue Ann type of beach. 0.87

00:02:30.380 But there are many umbrellas on that beach,

00:02:32.160 aren't there, Andrew?

00:02:33.320 Yeah, you can put umbrellas up.

00:02:36.020 That doesn't make it, like, plus 30 degrees

00:02:37.980 and salt water.

00:02:39.520 It's, like, I don't even know if you,

00:02:40.660 I don't even know if you can go in the water there.

00:02:42.320 I think it's, like, just, like, an over,

00:02:44.200 I just don't get it.

00:02:45.100 I just don't get what Sugar Beach is supposed to be.

00:02:47.380 If you're from Alberta, you're like,

00:02:50.020 what the hell are they talking about?

00:02:51.140 So let's talk about something that can unite us all,

00:02:54.160 which is the spectacle that is Pierre Polyev versus the media.

00:02:58.500 This has become a dog bites man type of story.

00:03:02.620 There are just so many instances of Pierre Polyev

00:03:04.840 and journalists scrapping.

00:03:06.480 The most recent one, I talked about it a bit on my show,

00:03:09.040 was him with a Canadian press reporter on,

00:03:12.260 and, well, just take a look.

00:03:15.820 Why did your party want to grant over $100 million

00:03:19.840 in regulatory relief to the mainstream media?

00:03:23.740 We don't want to give any tax dollars to the mainstream media.

00:03:27.200 Our belief is that the mainstream media and all...

00:03:29.260 Did your party decision, then,

00:03:30.680 your party's decision to grant regulatory relief?

00:03:33.500 So I'll answer your question.

00:03:34.920 The media that is bought and fade poor...

00:03:38.640 Where are you from, by the way?

00:03:40.320 Which outlet are you in?

00:03:42.920 Which outlet?

00:03:44.360 Which outlet?

00:03:44.940 Canadian press.

00:03:45.700 Ah, okay.

00:03:46.360 Canadian press.

00:03:47.420 So you're talking about tax dollars for media.

00:03:50.680 Isn't CBC your biggest...

00:03:51.960 I can answer...

00:03:53.300 I asked regulatory relief.

00:03:54.080 You want an answer?

00:03:55.300 The party wants to grant $100 million

00:03:56.960 in regulatory relief to the mainstream media.

00:04:00.460 When would you like me to respond?

00:04:03.320 Okay.

00:04:04.000 Good.

00:04:04.740 Okay, great.

00:04:05.800 So, of course, you are a tax-funded media outlet

00:04:08.360 and spreading Justin Trudeau's message.

00:04:10.860 Why did you...

00:04:11.380 And...

00:04:11.880 So you're...

00:04:12.600 You're interrupting me again.

00:04:14.060 You're interrupting me again.

00:04:15.240 I am answering the question.

00:04:16.380 Why did you...

00:04:16.720 Do you regret granting $100 million

00:04:19.860 in regulatory relief to the mainstream media?

00:04:23.580 Your question is false.

00:04:24.600 So if you can allow me to correct your falsehoods,

00:04:26.820 then we can answer the question directly.

00:04:29.140 So, false.

00:04:30.960 Canadian...

00:04:31.440 Conservatives do not believe in giving tax dollars

00:04:33.420 to media outlets.

00:04:34.740 That's Justin Trudeau.

00:04:35.760 That's Justin Trudeau.

00:04:36.960 That's Justin Trudeau.

00:04:38.320 Okay, if you don't want me to answer the question,

00:04:40.340 I'll move on to someone else.

00:04:41.980 You're a tax...

00:04:42.780 You're a tax-funded mouthpiece to the PMO.

00:04:45.140 That's the reality.

00:04:46.700 So...

00:04:46.900 I love the question answered.

00:04:48.020 You committed...

00:04:48.480 I'm trying to answer the question.

00:04:49.580 I'm trying to, but you're heckling.

00:04:51.500 Are you going to let me answer the question,

00:04:53.320 or are you just going to heckle on behalf of Justin Trudeau?

00:04:57.160 Which is it?

00:04:57.820 I would love the answer.

00:04:58.700 Great.

00:04:58.940 So our party does not support tax dollars for media outlets

00:05:02.360 because that's when we end up with biased media like you

00:05:04.660 who come here and articulate the PMO talking points

00:05:08.520 rather than delivering real news to the Canadian people.

00:05:13.160 Justin Trudeau gave Bell Media and other media tax dollars supposedly to protect media jobs.

00:05:20.280 And then what happened?

00:05:21.580 They all got laid off.

00:05:23.180 So the supposed justification for giving Bell all this money was that it was going to save media jobs.

00:05:31.500 Well, they all got fired.

00:05:32.760 So I guess that wasn't the real reason for giving tax dollars to the media.

00:05:37.180 The real reason was for him to buy support from the media, which is what it actually did.

00:05:41.780 So we believe that media should be driven by readership, viewership, and listenership.

00:05:49.240 And that's what allows it to represent the Canadian people rather than taking marching orders from the PMO.

00:05:55.900 All right.

00:05:58.720 On a scale of cringe to stick it into my veins, where are you on those sorts of exchanges, Harrison?

00:06:04.060 I'm all for it at this point.

00:06:07.240 I really am.

00:06:08.100 I have to say that the Conservative base was crying out for someone to finally address the legacy media this way.

00:06:16.220 And we've got it.

00:06:17.720 You know, not everybody is satisfied with Pierre Paulyov so far.

00:06:21.080 But I think it'd be tough for many Conservatives in this country to say that they don't enjoy seeing the Canadian press and CBC get treated this way 0.92

00:06:29.480 when they ask ridiculous questions like that. 0.82

00:06:31.740 So I think, you know what, I'm all for it. 0.79

00:06:33.340 I think it's well past time that some of the legacy media press in this country got a taste of their own medicine

00:06:39.160 and were treated with the kind of respect that they themselves deserve, which is not a lot.

00:06:44.020 Yeah, Sue Ann, you've been a political candidate in the past.

00:06:46.700 You've also been, for much more of your life, a journalist.

00:06:50.100 How do you look at those sorts of exchanges?

00:06:53.540 Delicious.

00:06:54.240 They're absolutely delicious.

00:06:55.680 Love them.

00:06:56.580 I spent 20 years at City Hall in Toronto.

00:06:59.480 And I was the lone person out asking tough questions.

00:07:04.300 And I always got put down by the person I was asking the questions of, particularly the mayors.

00:07:10.920 And everybody else would laugh and find it quite funny.

00:07:15.820 And it's nice to see the shoe on the other foot.

00:07:18.240 And the thing that really, really makes me happy and find it delicious is that Pierre is so cool about it.

00:07:27.680 He doesn't get ruffled in the slightest.

00:07:29.740 He has a great technique.

00:07:31.100 And it's about time, as Harrison said, that these people were called out because I find it despicable.

00:07:40.020 So you don't take the Pascal Saint-Ange view.

00:07:43.680 I infer from your answer that this is an attack on democracy.

00:07:47.880 She really said this.

00:07:48.980 Take a look.

00:07:49.440 I just want to get back on the altercation between Pierre Poilievre yesterday and a journalist from Canadian Press.

00:07:57.960 First of all, I want to say that he's pretty thin-skinned.

00:08:01.720 It's our job when we're politicians to answer questions from journalists.

00:08:06.200 We're accountable to the Canadian population.

00:08:08.660 And it's the journalist's job to ask those questions.

00:08:11.360 Some questions are difficult.

00:08:12.760 Some questions are easy.

00:08:14.520 Yesterday's question was pretty easy.

00:08:16.320 He was just asked to explain why his party introduced an amendment to lift fees for Canadian broadcasters.

00:08:25.160 It's a pretty easy question.

00:08:26.380 It's his party that brought that forward.

00:08:29.800 So, yes, when you're a politician, you need to answer questions.

00:08:33.180 And when you're attacking the press, when you're attacking our free press, you're also attacking democracy.

00:08:37.920 It's unworthy of a leader.

00:08:40.340 Now, I should just say I've never interviewed Minister Saint-Ange.

00:08:44.280 My one attempt at doing so, it was a couple of months ago.

00:08:48.080 She was leaving Question Period.

00:08:49.500 It was around the time that there was a big kerfuffle about C-18 and the Facebook news ban and all of that.

00:08:55.700 And I had one question.

00:08:57.640 And she got into the back of her limo so quickly and passed me off to a staffer who said to text him.

00:09:04.920 And I did.

00:09:05.520 And I never heard a response.

00:09:06.740 So this whole, oh, we are there to answer questions. 0.99

00:09:09.320 Yeah, a load of crap. 0.99

00:09:10.700 So, Harrison, attack on democracy. 1.00

00:09:12.800 What do you think?

00:09:13.380 Well, it's a lot easier to answer questions from the media when you pay them off to write soft articles about you.

00:09:20.020 It's a whole different story when you're the opposition to the government that's stuffing the pockets of the media.

00:09:25.500 You know, I should also say that journalists and the politicians are supposed to have a combative relationship.

00:09:31.500 They're not supposed to be patting each other on the back.

00:09:34.080 They're not supposed to be, you know, treating each other with kid gloves.

00:09:37.140 A sign of a good democracy is when the journalists fight back against the politicians and the politicians have a right to dish it back as good as they receive it. 0.96

00:09:46.060 So, again, this is just completely ridiculous.

00:09:49.000 And one more thing, giving the money, giving media the taxpayer dollars is a lot different than lifting taxes on broadcasters. 0.77

00:09:58.160 And anyone who pretends as though that's the same is obviously just trying to confuse the public and push political talking points.

00:10:04.980 Yeah, what's what's your read on that, Sue Ann? 1.00

00:10:08.700 Well, I think, you know, she is a giant hypocrite. 1.00

00:10:13.060 I mean, all we have to do is look at some of the tape. 0.99

00:10:17.120 I mean, the proof is in the pudding, in the tape of Krista Freeland, for example, calling security and roughing up one of our colleagues from Rebel Media, Dave Menzies.

00:10:30.800 I mean, Dave is a character and sometimes he asks for it, but in this case he didn't.

00:10:34.440 He asked a hard question.

00:10:35.380 And, you know, it's it's it's really, really quite hypocritical to hear her talk that way, because I don't know about you guys, but I was muted, banned on Twitter, blocked, you name it, by politicians who didn't want to answer my hard questions.

00:10:56.020 So it's kind of rich to hear her talk that way.

00:10:58.740 Yeah. And also, let's not forget, Justin Trudeau is the guy who will, you know, say, oh, the Globe and Mail story is false.

00:11:06.320 The guy who bans media he doesn't like from being there.

00:11:09.480 So it's not even like they're living up to this lofty, aspirational goal that they're setting out for others of, oh, we'll take all questions whether we like him or not.

00:11:18.380 Yes. Yeah, they never do.

00:11:21.420 They never do. They cherry pick and most politicians do that.

00:11:25.880 They cherry pick the ones that are from the friendly media.

00:11:29.480 The amount of softballs that I, during my career, heard other media lob at various and sundry politicians was appalling.

00:11:38.320 I mean, nobody ever really got, you know, many, many sides of the story or the hard side of the story.

00:11:44.180 So, I mean, listening to her, the big difference, Harrison and Andrew, is that now we've got somebody who's actually fighting back and it's about time.

00:11:53.980 Yeah. And it flips the script like the next election, because we're used to seeing the whole like deferential thing that Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer did.

00:12:01.940 So we will keep an eye out for that.

00:12:05.240 This is a story that really was quite shocking.

00:12:08.820 And I want to get both of you to weigh in on this, but let's play the video.

00:12:12.400 And just to set the stage for it here, this is a very heated demonstration that was taking place outside a Richmond City Council meeting in British Columbia.

00:12:22.820 The discussion was about a proposed supervised injection site, a so-called safe drive by my quote.

00:12:30.900 So I need to, like, bring in more a so-called safe injection site in Richmond, which people in the suburban community clearly didn't like and them coming out to be heard and be heard before City Council.

00:12:41.620 But then this happened.

00:13:11.620 I've lived here my whole life.

00:13:14.440 I have lived here my whole life.

00:13:20.360 I've lived here my whole life.

00:13:22.500 Go back where you came from.

00:13:24.000 You're not a Canadian. 0.99

00:13:25.540 This is what this nice white BC progressive woman is yelling at this Chinese man concerned about his community. 1.00

00:13:34.580 Now, when did go back where you came from become a progressive slur?

00:13:39.080 Because I was always told this was what, you know, the evil, scary right-wingers say, not the nice, virtuous lefties.

00:13:45.560 Yeah, well, we heard that from the people who are protesting the Freedom Convoy as well, didn't we?

00:13:51.440 It is becoming one of those new progressive slurs against those who they disagree with, how the tables turn, I guess.

00:13:58.560 But notice what that woman says there. 1.00

00:14:00.980 You know, this is not Canada.

00:14:02.380 Apparently, she thinks Canada is supposed to be a country where every city is infested with drug addicts and with the destruction that comes with it.

00:14:10.520 I guess that's what she wants for Canada.

00:14:12.820 And anyone who disagrees with that must go back to where they come from.

00:14:17.220 Well, I come from Canada and I don't want to see my city, although it already has been in Toronto, turned into a drug-infested wasteland. 0.98

00:14:23.780 But it's just completely ridiculous.

00:14:26.060 But again, what you're seeing is sort of the crumbling of the left here, falling into the traps that they set for their opponents. 0.75

00:14:34.740 Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know this man who was in that, and I feel bad he was subjected to that.

00:14:39.960 But oftentimes, I've always said, immigrants have a much more idealized version of what Canada is and should be than many people who were born here.

00:14:47.500 Because they chose to be here, they chose to come here, and this guy then sees people overrunning his community with these policies, which are magnets for crime.

00:14:57.180 You've covered these sites, Sue Ann.

00:14:59.220 So who is more Canadian, the Asian man that says, I don't want this in my neighborhood, or the progressive woman screaming at him? 0.93

00:15:06.840 Well, obviously, the Asian man, you know, all they have to do, these people, is walk to East in Vancouver, the east side of town, downtown Vancouver, and see what a safe injection site has produced. 0.65

00:15:22.640 I mean, it's a drug addict wasteland.

00:15:25.000 I was there last year, and it actually made me physically ill to see the way these people are living and allowed to live on the street, you know, in their fentanyl poses, in, you know, in their urines, on their urine-soaked sidewalks.

00:15:42.520 I mean, I've said this repeatedly, and then it came to Toronto, and people are seeing what, how these sites destroy communities.

00:15:50.700 And frankly, I've been against them for over 10 years, maybe 15, when Vancouver first started, but frankly, they don't help drug addicts.

00:16:00.060 They just enable their drug addictions, and all the arguments that were used initially to bring them in, I don't think hold muster anymore, because there's still opioid deaths, and they can't argue that these things are helping at all.

00:16:17.340 All they're doing is destroying the fabrics of communities.

00:16:20.460 Go to downtown Toronto, and you'll see drug addicts lying on the street.

00:16:25.020 Well, yeah, and that's the thing here.

00:16:26.580 I mean, when was InSight in Vancouver, which was sort of the first one?

00:16:29.920 That has to be, what, 15 years ago now that that came up?

00:16:33.660 And anyone can look at British Columbia, and Vancouver specifically, and see clearly none of this has helped.

00:16:40.640 I mean, the situation has gotten exponentially worse, so at best, it's made no difference at all, and at worst, it's inflamed this.

00:16:48.560 But that's the part that's missing, is that more of the same is not going to yield a different result.

00:16:54.140 So the fact that there was such anger in that video is so insane, Harrison.

00:16:59.040 Yeah, and the reality is it hasn't worked at all.

00:17:03.700 It is not saving lives.

00:17:05.360 These are political talking points, political dogma running up against a brick wall, which happens to be the truth.

00:17:11.620 You know, British Columbia set the highest annual death toll for opioid overdoses just last year.

00:17:18.000 And this, as you said, has been going on for years now.

00:17:20.080 It's the leading cause of death in British Columbia for youth aged 10 to 18, opioid overdose.

00:17:26.160 And now the B.C. government is considering providing safe fentanyl to children.

00:17:31.320 I mean, anyone who thinks that this is saving lives, as the addictions and mental health minister at the federal level will constantly repeat,

00:17:39.560 or as British Columbia officials themselves will repeat, is running at extreme odds with the truth.

00:17:45.580 And they're just, they have their eyes shut.

00:17:47.580 They don't want to address the fact that this is making life worse.

00:17:51.920 It's ruining communities.

00:17:53.880 And it's ruining lives.

00:17:55.440 It's killing people.

00:17:57.060 Yeah.

00:17:57.240 And let's not forget the shooting last summer of that poor, innocent woman right near a safe injection site in Riverdale in Toronto.

00:18:05.500 And people, the community was in an uproar.

00:18:07.980 And the people who run the site and the health minister, deputy minister, they were down like cavalier about the crime that is occurring around these sites.

00:18:17.800 Drug dealers know that they are a target.

00:18:20.400 I actually saw drug dealing in action because I spent a lot of time outside some of these sites or around these sites.

00:18:27.980 I mean, it's absurd that the progressives think that this is helping in any way.

00:18:32.360 It's the best definition of insanity, frankly.

00:18:35.580 And I just want to add one more thing as well.

00:18:38.500 Take a look in Toronto.

00:18:39.760 If you happen to live in Toronto, you will know that the works, the public health city of Toronto department is on Ryerson University campus.

00:18:48.400 So students who pay to go to university have to walk past a safe injection site, a site where they give out all of these safe supply drugs, as they're called.

00:18:59.400 It's just constant destruction and havoc on campus.

00:19:03.920 So the city thinks that that's appropriate.

00:19:07.000 Sue Ann, you brought up the Parkdale shooting.

00:19:09.260 There was a woman who worked at that facility who has now been charged because she helped to try and get the killer, the alleged killer, away from the police.

00:19:20.400 I mean, it's astonishing.

00:19:21.300 These are, as you said, Andrew, crime magnets.

00:19:24.180 And for somebody, some activists to be so racist and awful in front of that person who just wants to live in a community that is not infested with drugs says a lot.

00:19:34.820 Yeah, and I should say, of course, the activists won out in this case.

00:19:37.600 The motion to consider implementing this site passed with a vote of 7 to 2.

00:19:43.440 It was just two councillors who stood against it.

00:19:46.480 Now, it's not a fait accompli just yet, but the way things are going, it certainly seems like that is likely to be the eventual outcome here.

00:19:54.820 But speaking of unhinged protesters, let's talk about what happened at Mount Sinai Hospital.

00:20:01.420 Again, this one is, I shouldn't even be surprised anymore.

00:20:06.240 Like, you think there are some sacred cows that remain in the context of political debate, but not when we are talking about the anti-Israel left.

00:20:14.480 Take a look at this clip.

00:20:16.480 I mean, 10 out of 10 on the climb.

00:20:42.360 8 out of 10 on the rhythm of the chant.

00:20:45.060 0 out of 10 on everything else.

00:20:47.580 Sue Ann, I'll just, you know, give you the floor on this one as our Torontonian and also a Jewish woman who's been on the front lines of this anti-Semitism stuff for years.

00:20:57.260 Yeah, you know, Andrew and Harrison, this goes back to the fact that the police and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow didn't handle this well right out of the gate.

00:21:08.100 And they enabled these people and empowered them to continue their protests.

00:21:11.840 The last I spoke with the police, there were, I guess this makes it about 495 protests in Toronto by mostly the anti-Israel left radicals.

00:21:25.180 I call them terrorists.

00:21:26.420 They are, their tactics are intimidating, you know, to strike a Jewish hospital. 0.93

00:21:34.400 Somehow they thought that related to Gaza and what's going on in the hospitals there, although that is all propaganda because the IDF never struck any hospitals as that has been proven.

00:21:45.660 But they just, many of them are people who are just totally indoctrinated, ignorant of the reality of what's going on, and they just get caught up in the craziness.

00:22:01.660 I mean, they just, they found a purpose.

00:22:04.200 I follow all of them on social media, and I follow the leaders, and somehow they think that these protests are going to help in some way. 0.98

00:22:13.940 I think they're all mentally unstable, frankly.

00:22:18.540 And I think that the police, and they're now handling it much better, but, you know, there were weeks and weeks, like almost eight weeks of them not handling it well. 0.85

00:22:30.660 And this has just encouraged this craziness.

00:22:34.520 More charges should be laid.

00:22:35.780 I mean, the person, when politicians give their platitudes and make their statements like Olivia Chow did and the others, like, you let this happen.

00:22:45.800 I want to say, you let this happen.

00:22:48.020 So it's rather, again, I'm going to use the word rich to be coming out and saying this.

00:22:53.000 And Jews in my community are feeling very intimidated.

00:22:56.180 To strike a Jewish hospital is outrageous.

00:22:58.840 You mentioned Olivia Chow.

00:23:01.480 So she did eventually condemn this, and Justin Trudeau eventually did as well, and Doug Ford.

00:23:07.400 And so they all eventually did, but it was notable how slow they were compared to if there had been, you know, an attack on a mosque.

00:23:15.100 And we've seen this happen.

00:23:16.400 But the way that the left responds to this.

00:23:19.100 So Olivia Chow, who's been like a darling of the far left and the even farther left for years, Olivia Chow puts out her condemnation on Twitter.

00:23:27.860 I won't read the holes, David.

00:23:29.180 But Nora, real communism has never been tried.

00:23:31.800 Loretto decides to respond this way.

00:23:35.740 Let's put up her post on X. 0.99

00:23:38.140 She says, Chow betrays everything it means to be progressive.

00:23:42.160 Now, leave that up, though, for a second, because Olivia Chow says a hospital is a sanctuary. 0.95

00:23:48.180 Yesterday's actions were unacceptable.

00:23:50.000 Targeting Jewish institutions is anti-Semitic.

00:23:52.380 And hate has no place in our city.

00:23:54.440 So when Nora says this betrays everything it means to be progressive, she's saying the quiet part out loud, which is that what we saw in that video is what it means to be progressive.

00:24:05.560 Right, Harrison?

00:24:06.080 Well, certainly it's a mask off moment for Nora Loretto and for, I think, a lot of people who agree with her.

00:24:12.640 To speak to the protesters' mental instability, as Sue Ann noted, I can't think of a worse way to try and alienate Canadians from your cause than to protest like this in front of a hospital that has nothing to do with what these people are protesting about.

00:24:28.880 Now, I think that there are some people who protest Israel who don't protest out of racism and they have things that they disagree with Israel on.

00:24:42.880 But when you're protesting Mount Sinai Hospital to make the claim that that is purely anti-Israel, pro-Palestine and not anti-Semitic, I have a hard time believing that.

00:24:53.600 And you really can't, good luck trying to sell that to the Canadian public as well.

00:24:57.780 Because I've seen these protests, I've been inside of these protests, I've interviewed these people.

00:25:02.900 When you speak to them, they, of course, understand that they're trying to, you know, get their cause out to the public and they want people to join their cause.

00:25:09.860 But in that group mentality, it seems that they lose all sense of reality and they're willing to push the boundaries all the way to blatant anti-Semitism.

00:25:19.060 And, of course, the consequence of that is alienating Canadians from their cause, whatever kind of Canadians were still perhaps, you know, willing to support these people.

00:25:29.580 Because they're just showing themselves to not actually care that much about what's going on.

00:25:34.700 They care more about trying to make a statement about Israel, which, of course, is a statement about Jews. 0.99

00:25:38.900 So it's just ridiculous. 1.00

00:25:41.120 It's a deep-rooted, deep-rooted Jew hatred, deep-rooted Jew hatred. 0.99

00:25:46.880 And, you know, it started with targeting Café Landoir, Aroma, remember, at the beginning. 0.73

00:25:55.800 And going in front of the Israeli consulate, well, that's, you know, you could make a sort of stretch it that that is related to Israel more so.

00:26:06.100 But to target Jewish businesses, Indigo, the people who were charged with Indigo, didn't think they did anything wrong, even though they engaged in civil disobedience.

00:26:14.980 All these actions were not targeting Israel.

00:26:17.960 They were targeting Jews.

00:26:19.440 Let's make it, you know, pure and simple, frank statement.

00:26:23.740 They were targeting Jews. 1.00

00:26:25.380 When people write me on Twitter and say, you are a Zionist pig or you're an evil Zionist, they mean I'm an evil Jew. 1.00

00:26:34.300 They're not talking about Israel. 0.99

00:26:36.120 It has nothing to do with it.

00:26:38.080 And also, yeah.

00:26:38.800 And I think on that point, I believe that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments can be distinct.

00:26:45.920 I believe they can be, but the Venn diagram is a lot more like a circle than these people tend to admit.

00:26:53.000 And I think that when push comes to shove, the nuanced, reasoned, moderate, non-anti-Semitic critique of Israel is basically as elusive as, you know, the Yeti in the wilderness of the Himalayas or something. 0.98

00:27:07.840 Because nine times out of ten, it's just trying to put lipstick on a very anti-Semitic pig. 0.98

00:27:14.160 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:14.400 And they talk about, you know, you're a genocidal.

00:27:18.760 You support genocide. 0.78

00:27:20.520 This is the repeated comment I get.

00:27:22.820 You're, you know, Zionist. 0.93

00:27:24.240 They use the word Zionist.

00:27:25.160 They use the word Hasbro.

00:27:26.920 And like you say, they're trying to put lipstick on what is really deep-seated anti-Semitism.

00:27:32.360 And as well, these protesters will say this is about human rights.

00:27:36.180 This is about protecting Muslims who are being killed by Israel. 0.89

00:27:41.300 But these protesters don't care about the Uyghurs in China.

00:27:45.260 They don't speak up about other Muslims who are being killed by other Muslim countries.

00:27:50.280 They speak up when it has to do with Israel.

00:27:52.800 It's clear this has nothing to do with human rights because they have lots to protest about if it was really just about human rights.

00:27:59.600 It's not.

00:28:00.680 It's about Israel.

00:28:01.880 And as Sue Ann says, it's something much worse, much deeper.

00:28:04.960 We say in the Jewish community, if it's Jews, it's news. 1.00

00:28:09.220 Yeah, yeah, very, very well said.

00:28:12.820 I, when I was in Israel for the first time in 2011, I met an AP reporter there who said, you know, when, and he spoke Hebrew as he was Jewish.

00:28:21.820 And that was how he got the job being posted there when he was quite young.

00:28:24.820 And he said, like, people at AP bureaus around the world are lucky if their stories ever get picked up.

00:28:29.300 Where he said for him, it was like, if someone sneezes in Jerusalem, he could write a story and it's going to get picked up everywhere.

00:28:35.820 So I think there's some empirical evidence behind what you just said there, Sue Ann.

00:28:40.160 Just to end things, I mean, I know it's a bit of a sour note as we head into the weekend here.

00:28:44.020 But Harrison, why don't you tell us what happened in Regina last weekend and, more importantly, what happened in Ottawa in the days following?

00:28:50.700 Yes, of course.

00:28:51.620 Well, as Canadians who have been following this story will know, Canada was rapidly approaching the grim 100 number of churches that have been targeted by arsonists and vandals since 2021.

00:29:04.480 One, we've now since passed that.

00:29:06.800 We are now at 100 churches that have been targeted in this country.

00:29:11.620 And on Saturday, or on Friday midnight, rather, the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Regina was targeted by an arsonist who was caught on camera dumping the contents of a jerry can onto the rear entrance of this 118-year-old Catholic church, the oldest Catholic church in Regina, lighting it on fire and running away.

00:29:31.120 Thank God the church was saved by firefighters.

00:29:34.480 But this is, we're now at 100 churches, which is an awful thing to have happened in this country.

00:29:41.400 It's a blight on the government and the state of our country itself.

00:29:45.760 Now, here's where it gets even worse.

00:29:48.960 You might think that condemning an attempted arson of a church might be the easiest thing to do.

00:29:54.680 It might be the easiest, no-brainer thing to say, yes, I condemn the burning of a church.

00:29:59.980 But, according to the NDP and the Liberals, well, that was just not going to fly.

00:30:06.400 Take a look at what happened when a Saskatchewan MP, Corey Tuchore, I think I said his name right, he got up in the House of Commons on Monday and sought a unanimous consent motion to condemn the attempted arson at the Blessed Sacrament Parish.

00:30:20.180 Take a look at this clip.

00:30:21.160 The Honourable Member from Saskatchewan University, Saskatoon University.

00:30:26.060 Yes, there was another attempted arson at a church on the weekend, Mr. Speaker.

00:30:31.220 And if you seek unanimous consent, you will find...

00:30:34.060 I hear that there is no unanimous consent.

00:30:38.480 It being 3.20, the House will now proceed to the taking of deferred recorded division.

00:30:46.660 So, no, no unanimous consent to condemn the burning of that church.

00:30:52.560 They did it again, however, guys.

00:30:54.440 The left in Canada's Parliament did it again when Andrew Scheer got up seeking the same motion.

00:31:01.340 They let him speak for a little bit longer before cutting him off.

00:31:04.540 But take a look, they did it twice.

00:31:06.460 This time to Andrew Scheer.

00:31:07.420 I recognize the Honourable Member, a former chair, a current House officer, a member from Regina Capel who is rising on his feet for a point of order.

00:31:18.020 Mr. Speaker, Blessed Sacrament Church in Regina was subject to arson and vandalism.

00:31:22.540 And I believe you'll find support that the House recognized the right of Canadians to gather to worship or celebrate their faith.

00:31:28.160 So, I regret to interrupt the Honourable Member from Regina Capel, but I could clearly see that there is no unanimous consent for this.

00:31:41.940 Absolutely disgusting.

00:31:43.160 What kind of people, Andrew, can't bring themselves to condemn the burning of a church? 0.96

00:31:47.700 It's like the lowest, lowest, lowest, lowest hanging fruit.

00:31:53.180 It's not even hanging.

00:31:54.100 It's fruit on the ground.

00:31:55.100 You can just kind of walk by and just sort of pick it up and say, oh, wow, here you go.

00:31:58.720 But, like, you know, it's one thing because I do believe that the anti-Semitism issues we've been discussing are very real.

00:32:05.760 It's not an either or.

00:32:06.700 You can condemn anti-Semitism.

00:32:08.060 You can condemn attacks against Christians.

00:32:10.460 But again, Suen, it's one group that tends to get a pass here.

00:32:14.080 You know, it just to me speaks to the breakdown of the moral fabric in our country, that they can't even condemn something like this in a church.

00:32:26.800 You know, perhaps these lefty progressives, they don't like the police.

00:32:32.240 They don't like religion. 0.68

00:32:34.200 You know, and here we have drug addicts running wild and running rampant on our streets in major cities.

00:32:41.720 I mean, it's sad to say that Trudeau's Canada, I mean, in the last eight years, I mean, the decline in this country is real.

00:32:52.240 And it's very disheartening.

00:32:54.780 There's a lot of symbolism going on, right, with these motions.

00:32:59.340 And I think Christians who are watching this will have to struggle with the idea that if they can't, if these MPs can't condemn the burning of a church, what does it say about how they think about Christians in this country?

00:33:13.640 I think a lot of people are going to be left with that question in their heads.

00:33:16.940 Now, it's also important to remember, this same parliament voted unanimously to condemn Canada of committing genocide against First Nations people.

00:33:26.580 So they could all agree on that.

00:33:28.140 They could all agree that Canada committed genocide, but they can't agree to condemn the burning of a church.

00:33:33.940 What do you think the reaction would be if not just, not a hundred mosques, but one mosque had been the target of an attempted arson?

00:33:42.700 It would be bedlam in the House of Commons.

00:33:45.720 Everybody would be freaking out over it, and rightly so, I should say.

00:33:49.560 Oh, and Trudeau would have been on a plane there.

00:33:51.880 He would have been there within hours.

00:33:54.780 And this is the thing that's happened.

00:33:56.320 I mean, when there was that debunked, I mean, you would remember this, Sue Ann, because it happened in Toronto.

00:34:00.260 There was that debunked hijab hoax where a young schoolgirl had basically falsified a claim that her hijab was ripped off.

00:34:08.380 And this was like, you know, Trudeau was condemning it.

00:34:10.460 And then when Toronto police said, yeah, okay, this never happened.

00:34:13.400 But therein lies the problem.

00:34:14.920 Here we have video evidence.

00:34:16.340 I don't think we need to play it, but video evidence of this arson attempt of police saying it.

00:34:22.120 And there you go.

00:34:23.000 You can see the screen grab of it there.

00:34:25.180 And it is slow, slow.

00:34:27.000 And to be honest, I still don't think Trudeau has said anything about it.

00:34:29.660 I know a couple of Liberal MPs have.

00:34:31.640 One of them, Anthony Housefather, who's been quite strong on these sorts of issues.

00:34:34.880 But nowhere near the condemnation, like you said, Harrison, if this had been at another type of institution, which would also have been wrong.

00:34:42.920 Yes.

00:34:44.320 All right.

00:34:45.180 Fair enough.

00:34:46.400 Well, I was going to jump in there.

00:34:48.200 But, you know.

00:34:48.560 No, I was just going to say that I think Trudeau at this point is just dialing it in.

00:34:52.240 I, you know, I don't think he's really running this country anymore.

00:34:56.920 He's lost.

00:34:57.880 He'd rather jet off somewhere.

00:34:59.900 I mean, it's I actually enjoy the interplay between the people running for president down here because at least they seem to be passionate about what's going on, the border issues and all that kind of stuff.

00:35:16.060 And I don't I don't get that feeling from any of the people in the Liberal Party and particularly Trudeau.

00:35:22.580 If that's the case and Trudeau is really phoning it in and he's basically done, what a way to bookend his time as prime minister in this country.

00:35:31.060 One hundred churches attacked under his watch.

00:35:34.620 I can't think of better symbolism, quite frankly, to to encapsulate Trudeau's time as prime minister in this country.

00:35:40.960 Yeah, very, very well said.

00:35:42.820 Well, that is all that we had, but I do want to give some comments because we said we were going to.

00:35:48.040 Well, I don't know if we told you we were going to.

00:35:50.120 We said internally we were going to.

00:35:51.960 A couple of comments from last week's show here.

00:35:55.480 Be still and no 2999, possibly not a legal name, says love the off the record format.

00:36:03.340 Yes, Andrew, it's endearing as opposed to highly unprofessional.

00:36:06.360 You guys are a great trio.

00:36:08.060 Well, it's not as this show demonstrates going to be the same group of us every show.

00:36:12.320 We do this like cutthroat fight to the death and at the end we'll be left with only three left.

00:36:16.480 So we ditched Canada.

00:36:17.900 We threw her overboard.

00:36:19.220 We brought Sue Ann in. 1.00

00:36:20.320 Maybe next week I'm the one who is thrown overboard.

00:36:23.920 We have a question.

00:36:25.580 So we were talking a little bit about inflation and grocery store stuff last week.

00:36:29.140 And we were also talking about Trudeau claiming that Pierre Paulyev wanted to make Canada great again.

00:36:35.360 Doug Patterson says we should actually just make groceries affordable again.

00:36:39.900 I don't know.

00:36:40.420 What do you think?

00:36:41.020 Should we trademark that one?

00:36:44.400 That's a good one.

00:36:45.400 And I think part of making Canada great again would be making groceries affordable, would be making life affordable.

00:36:51.820 So they work together.

00:36:53.240 But, you know, make Canada great again and make groceries affordable again.

00:36:57.820 The acronym doesn't sound as good as MAGA.

00:37:02.100 Yeah, MAGA doesn't roll off the tongue. 0.75

00:37:05.240 You're in MAGA territory down there in Florida, Sue Ann, right?

00:37:08.860 Yes, yes.

00:37:09.980 The groceries are still pretty expensive here.

00:37:12.400 I mean, I think it's part of a giant trend.

00:37:14.120 And let's not forget the fuel gas as well.

00:37:17.800 Oh, when I was in Davos with Sean Thompson and Cosman Georgia from our team a few weeks ago reporting we were not like Klaus Schwab's, you know, invited elites.

00:37:28.800 We had a rental car and we were driving around.

00:37:31.100 And I never thought I could have a gas bill that would make me long for the gas prices in Canada.

00:37:36.980 That's how bad it is.

00:37:38.020 So, I mean, the one saving grace is that in Europe, like we had this van and I forget how much it was.

00:37:43.080 Like with the exchange rate, it was something like, you know, $200 to fill up the tank.

00:37:46.860 It was insane.

00:37:47.480 And we were driving back and forth a whole bunch.

00:37:50.600 We'll do one more comment here.

00:37:52.320 We have one.

00:37:53.500 Who is this here?

00:37:54.300 This is from Woodjidges.

00:37:58.000 You guys got to work on your YouTube screen handles, by the way.

00:38:01.800 It's regarding Harrison's rental story.

00:38:03.880 The rules are being broken with these illegal rentals.

00:38:06.620 You have to provide a secondary means of egress because of fire.

00:38:10.680 That window in the basement doesn't look like it would cut it.

00:38:13.600 City bylaw and fire departments should get on this.

00:38:16.860 Yeah.

00:38:17.100 Are they, Harrison, or has this just sort of been a thing where they're all just letting it go?

00:38:21.640 Well, I think if these landlords were interested in following the rules, we wouldn't see these listings in the first place.

00:38:26.660 We've long since passed, you know, rules governing how these landlords are going to operate.

00:38:31.860 These slumlords don't care much about the rules. 1.00

00:38:34.880 But, yeah, I can't.

00:38:36.320 It's a bit of a nightmare spot, that basement department to be in.

00:38:40.240 And, I mean, of course it's against the rules, obviously.

00:38:44.420 All right.

00:38:45.100 Well, that does it for us.

00:38:46.720 My thanks to you, Sue Ann Levy, and you, Harrison Faulkner, and all of you who tuned in for listening to this program.

00:38:52.460 Just a reminder, everything you've heard in the last however long we've been doing this was off the record.

00:38:56.720 Now you get to jump in the pool, Sue Ann.

00:39:07.800 Not quite.

00:39:08.500 I've got to have my lunch first.

00:39:10.480 We just do lunch in the pool.

00:39:11.740 Do like a swim-up bar.

00:39:12.880 Yeah.

00:39:13.480 Yeah.

00:39:14.020 Well, thanks so much.

00:39:15.200 That was so much fun.

00:39:17.340 Sorry about the mic issues.

00:39:18.760 Stuck to the tea, Andrew, this time, I see?

00:39:22.760 Yeah.

00:39:23.300 Just, yeah, it's my morning coffee still.

00:39:26.280 I don't have any, I don't think, I don't have anything good to add to that side.

00:39:29.460 I'm, I'm tea-totaling it.

00:39:31.620 So I'm doing the, the D from Baker tea-total.

00:39:34.600 So I've just got to walk.

00:39:34.960 I like it, yeah.

00:39:35.880 You're a lucid and sound mind whenever we do this show.

00:39:39.280 Sober Second Thought.

00:39:40.840 Yeah.

00:39:40.960 Oh, there we go.

00:39:42.460 That's, that's, that's the, that's the second name of the show.

00:39:44.360 If we rebrand it.

00:39:45.200 Sober Second Thought.

00:39:46.000 Second Thought.

00:39:46.720 Yeah.

00:39:47.080 Yeah.

Off the Record - February 16, 2024

Poilievre and the legacy media clash – again!

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