Off the Record - Trudeau appeased Hamas supporters

00:00:00.000 It's remarkable how times change. You know, just a few years ago, the desecration of the Terry Fox

00:00:05.780 monument in Ottawa was like the worst possible thing imaginable. And now that seems mostly

00:00:10.420 left-wingers are burning the Canadian flag and chanting death to Canada. We're being told guys,

00:00:15.880 well, it's not that bad because it's actually not against the law. Why are people upset about this?

00:00:20.560 Well, this was actually in Vancouver. There was a bunch of clips coming out of this protest where

00:00:25.740 all these pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah people got together to chant death to Canada, death to the

00:00:32.200 United States, death to Israel. And they were trying to burn this flag. But I found it so funny

00:00:37.520 because they were trying to burn a polyester nylon flag that wouldn't catch fire. So it's kind of a

00:00:43.940 symbol of the resilience of Canada in the face of all these people who hate it.

00:00:48.860 Or the mental capacity of the people who do hate it. Isaac, what did you make of what we saw in

00:00:55.000 Vancouver? Yeah. You know, I saw a lot of things online contrasting these protests, let's call them

00:01:02.540 by these terrorist sympathizers, as you mentioned, chanting death to Canada and burning the Canadian

00:01:07.640 flag versus, of course, what we saw at the Freedom Convoy, a generally peaceful celebration of Canada.

00:01:13.720 So a lot of clips contrasting those two. And obviously, the Emergency Measures Act was called

00:01:19.160 in on one of those gatherings. You might, if you knew nothing about the situation, guess the wrong

00:01:26.740 one. Yeah, it's funny. You know, the NDP were, you know, having mental breakdowns over Terry Fox's

00:01:33.980 statue with a Canadian flag on it. They said nothing at all when Palestinian protesters put the

00:01:38.800 Palestinian flag in Kefia on the Terry Fox statue. And I'm quite certain that we didn't hear a single

00:01:44.180 thing out of the BC NDP or the federal NDP over the ridiculous protest scenes in Vancouver. I guess

00:01:50.360 that's just, I guess that's just the way things are going these days. But with that, let's get into

00:01:55.320 the show. Welcome everyone to Off the Record. My name is Harrison Faulkner. I'm joined today by

00:02:08.500 True North's senior journalist and editor, Cosmin Gerda, as well as the host of the Alberta Roundup,

00:02:15.040 Isaac Lamoureux. Gents, thank you so much for joining us.

00:02:20.080 Thanks, Harrison.

00:02:21.600 Yeah, thanks, Harrison.

00:02:23.280 Yeah, we've got quite a lot to get into. This was obviously an insane week in Canadian politics.

00:02:28.420 They kind of just stack up with each other each week. They just kind of get crazier. But of course,

00:02:32.560 with this past week seeing the first anniversary of the October 7th attacks, we knew that it was

00:02:38.520 going to dominate the political dialogue in this country, but maybe not to this same degree.

00:02:43.960 The big news this week, of course, was kicked off when Pierre Polyev said at a first at an October

00:02:52.020 7th event and then the following day in Ottawa that he would support preemptive strikes on Iranian

00:02:57.840 nuclear bases and their oil reserves, which is, well, depending on what you think about it,

00:03:04.260 the reality is this. It is not a, it's not a sentiment shared by the United States and not one that is

00:03:10.700 shared by the Canadian government. So Polyev kind of taking a different perspective there, but in kind of

00:03:16.400 line with his hawkish stance on Iran. It then followed when Pierre Polyev said in the House of Commons

00:03:22.720 that Canada's foreign minister, Melanie Jolie was pandering to Hamas supporters. And the reality is

00:03:29.800 it doesn't really seem to be too out of step with the truth because according to Tom Mulcair in CTV,

00:03:37.040 Mulcair said that Jolie told him privately that he, she has to pander to these causes because of the

00:03:43.120 demographics of her riding. Remarkably, we're now in a situation where Canada's foreign policy

00:03:48.420 is being dictated by the demographics of individual riding. So there you go. We then get

00:03:55.840 Melanie Jolie responding to Pierre Polyev with this hissy fit. Take a listen.

00:04:01.740 He don't freaking gaslight people. Not on a day that is so important for the country.

00:04:08.820 And clearly that's what Pierre Polyev was doing today. And clearly what he was saying,

00:04:14.780 he was trying to play petty politics on the backs of victims. And so that's why not only should he

00:04:20.640 apologize for what he did, but clearly the guy's unfit to become prime minister because Canadians

00:04:26.500 deserve way better. So there you go. It was, you know, because of what Polyev said, he was basically

00:04:34.100 removed from the House of Commons and censored by the speaker, Greg Fergus, for those, for those

00:04:40.580 comments, which frankly aren't, aren't that bad. If you ask me, I don't know. I mean, I mean, he's not

00:04:45.260 like, he's not saying something that's obviously out of step with the truth. Uh, it's just might,

00:04:50.020 might've struck too close for a Melanie Jolie and Greg Fergus. So we know it's not exactly bipartisan.

00:04:55.720 I want to get through everything we have here. So in response to all of this, and of course the

00:05:00.180 legacy media was melting down right alongside Melanie, Melanie Jolie and saying Polyev was, was wrong to,

00:05:06.440 was wrong to make these claims. True North and you Cosmin in particular, you fact checked what was

00:05:12.440 going on with a listicle that explained every opportunity, the five times that the Trudeau

00:05:18.500 government has appeased Hamas. And I want to give you the chance to explain that in more detail Cosmin.

00:05:24.920 So what exactly has the Trudeau government done to appease Hamas? Sure. First, I just want to point

00:05:30.920 out the double standard of this ruling because I would make, I would take Pierre Polyev's comments

00:05:37.320 to be fair comment. And here we have the liberal government constantly accusing the conservatives

00:05:43.780 of pandering to far right extremists, domestic terrorists, et cetera. But those comments are not

00:05:49.740 taken out of line. Nobody's censored for that. So we did put together this list. It was five times

00:05:55.920 when the liberal government clearly pandered to Hamas and its supporters here in Canada. I think

00:06:03.140 the cream of the crop was when a senior Hamas leader actually thanked the Trudeau government

00:06:11.100 alongside other other governments. But Canada was a chief among that list for his support and calls for

00:06:18.500 a ceasefire. That extends also to votes in the UN by Bob Ray. Additionally, they've supported NDP

00:06:25.720 motions. They've also accused Israel of targeting civilians, ignoring the fact that Hamas often stores

00:06:33.220 ammunition, all sorts of equipment, fighters in civilians' homes, uses civilians as human shields.

00:06:40.260 And all of these things put together just go to substantiate Pierre Polyevra's claims that the

00:06:47.100 liberal government has, in fact, pandered to Hamas. Isaac, what do you make of what we've seen?

00:06:53.400 Yeah, a few things. One thing that stood out to me with Jolie's little hissy fit there was she,

00:06:59.240 and I'm guessing did this consciously, did not use the word Hamas, which I found very interesting given

00:07:04.020 the subject she was speaking about. You would think it would come out naturally, especially on October

00:07:08.840 7th. And then just touching briefly on what Pierre said about Iran there. I don't know that I disagree

00:07:17.640 with him per se, but really, I'm looking at these things through the lens of you're either pro-war or

00:07:23.160 against it. So I really don't want to advocate for war in any way. I think that's something Trump did

00:07:28.720 so well, and we'll see with the upcoming American election here, was he kept the world essentially out

00:07:34.160 of wars. He didn't start any new wars. He resolved a few, you'll remember, Korea. So really, I want

00:07:39.440 these wars to come to an end. And the best way to do that, of course, is to stop funding these foreign

00:07:44.600 entities. Well, one thing I think is going to be, you know, people should pay attention to is

00:07:50.640 Pierre Polyev's changing statements when he eventually does become prime minister, because

00:07:55.280 it's looking very, very certain that he will be. And I'm pretty certain that when he does become

00:07:59.480 prime minister, he won't be saying that Israel should strike Iran's nuclear bases. You can say

00:08:06.060 that when you're the opposition leader, but, you know, there are, you know, falling out of line with

00:08:10.940 the United States foreign policy on the Middle East is not something that Canadian governments

00:08:15.380 typically do. And I think that Polyev is taking a chance when he's opposition leader to make that

00:08:20.160 point. You know, I think the other thing that I see, which really bugs me, is this fact that we have

00:08:25.040 now let our politics be dictated by the ethnic fights and foreign issues that immigrants mostly

00:08:34.460 care about most. So Melanie Jolie admitting to Tom Mulcair there that she has to take certain

00:08:40.200 stances as the Minister of Foreign Affairs because of the demographics of her riding, as if that should

00:08:45.200 have any bearing whatsoever on Canada's best interest. It doesn't. But this is not just the

00:08:51.120 only issue that we've seen this, right? We've seen, for example, different ethnic groups in Brampton

00:08:57.000 dictating Canada's foreign policy when it comes to India, right? This is a major issue. And the same

00:09:03.140 goes likely for China in certain cases, right? Certain members of parliament don't want to make such a

00:09:09.440 strong stance against China because their riding maybe in Richmond is heavily Chinese. So we've now

00:09:16.760 let ourselves into this situation, Cosmin, where Canada's foreign policy is being dictated by small

00:09:23.460 individual riding ethnicities. What a terrible situation for Canada.

00:09:30.320 Yeah, and I just want to add it's not just foreign policy. This actually spills out into inter-ethnic

00:09:35.260 conflict that we see played out on the streets. In Calgary, we saw Eritrean gangs fighting each other

00:09:42.340 way back. Recently, we saw a journalist, a South Asian journalist being attacked on the streets by

00:09:50.720 somebody, part of a different ethnic group in that region, essentially disagreeing with what he had to

00:09:57.520 say on his exposure of extortion schemes within his community. And this is happening all over the

00:10:03.940 place. You mentioned China. We see the Chinese government have agents in this country illegally

00:10:10.200 operating police stations that the government claims have been shut down. But we know that there

00:10:15.800 is still a lot of activity being pushed by the CCP in Canada to pressure, threaten and intimidate

00:10:23.220 Chinese expats who live in this country, who speak out both privately and publicly against the

00:10:30.040 Chinese communist government. So it is impacting our foreign policy, but it is also playing out

00:10:35.760 in the everyday lives of Canadians. And don't you think, Isaac, that members of parliament who are

00:10:42.420 elevated into positions of extreme importance, like being in the cabinet, don't you think that

00:10:47.520 when you're in that position, standing up for the interests of the Canadian people is more important

00:10:52.560 than winning your seat in the next election? Wouldn't you think that that's a reasonable price to pay for

00:10:57.260 standing up for the interests of Canadians?

00:10:58.680 Yeah, we've seen these MPs that have such a national influence acting selfishly, if you want

00:11:07.380 to call it that, really just catering to, as you mentioned, a very small demographic. But I guess it

00:11:13.180 comes as little surprise given so many liberal MPs in their own ridings are seeing that based on the

00:11:19.080 polls, they will lose their seats. So these people are thinking, how am I going to keep my job, my salary,

00:11:24.420 my life? Because if I lose my seat, I'm out on the street, essentially, right?

00:11:29.500 Yeah, it is unbelievable. The last question I have for both of you, and Isaac, you already

00:11:35.540 touched on this, but Cosmin, what do you make of Polyev's decision to come out so forcefully

00:11:41.120 for Israel to preemptively strike Iran? Like I was saying, my perspective is, I think that Polyev is

00:11:47.800 taking the opportunity as an opposition leader. But in general, I don't think many Canadians

00:11:53.160 want to be dragged into a major war. Yeah, look, I think he wants to distinguish himself

00:12:01.140 from the liberal government's lukewarm response. And we know that the foreign policy file has

00:12:07.400 never been the strong suit of the liberals. So whether you agree with his decision or not,

00:12:14.600 he's taking a stance that is very, you know, single focused, obviously, intentional and has

00:12:23.260 actionable items to it, whereas the liberal government just kind of just lingers in this

00:12:29.740 diet, like this false promise of dialogue of just essentially going to the UN. And they're not really

00:12:37.860 doing anything. They're not actually pressuring different interest groups involved in this

00:12:42.980 conflict. And they've abandoned Canada's role as this middle power that mediates global conflicts and

00:12:50.480 achieves reasonable solutions that avoid the death toll and the carnage that we see playing out right now.

00:12:58.320 I couldn't agree more. And we're going to stick with you, Cosmin, because we're going to transition

00:13:02.140 now from foreign policy to provincial politics. I want to go over to British Columbia, your neck of

00:13:08.380 the woods, to talk about the state of the race as we're entering, as we get closer to election day

00:13:14.680 in British Columbia. There was just a debate. So what's going on in BC? Because it's starting to get

00:13:19.000 a lot of national play. Yeah, so the election is less than two weeks out. We just saw a major debate

00:13:26.140 happen. I think it's going to be, it was the only televised debate actually between the three major

00:13:31.260 party leaders, the BC conservatives, BC NDP, who are in government and the BC greens. But this whole

00:13:39.680 conflict of the Hamas protests and et cetera happening throughout Canada, particularly touched

00:13:45.680 BC because we saw in Vancouver on October 7th, a major pro-Palestine, pro-Hamas rally happening. And

00:13:54.740 these clips went viral all over the place, including in the United States, where these protesters,

00:13:59.760 as we mentioned earlier, literally said, were Hezbollah, were Hamas, death to Canada, death to

00:14:06.880 the United States, et cetera. And this sparked a condemnation from BC conservative leader, John

00:14:13.560 Rustad, who came out and said that his official party policy will be to pressure Ottawa if he gets

00:14:21.280 elected to deport any non-citizens found to openly and publicly support terrorist groups and terrorist

00:14:29.080 entities. And we know that both Hamas and Hezbollah are listed terrorist organizations here in Canada.

00:14:36.120 And that actually made it into the debate. He was the only leader in that debate to bring this up. And

00:14:43.640 he mentions in a clip that we're just about to play how the BC NDP have continuously pandered to this

00:14:51.320 radical wing of their own party, including by sacking one of their own ministers.

00:14:57.400 I care about the fact that our youth want to be able to have safety here. You know, we have a government

00:15:02.120 that kicks out a Jewish cabinet minister, Selena Robinson, to appease a mob who last night was

00:15:08.280 burning flags in front of the art gallery. I find that incredibly offensive.

00:15:12.280 So just for a little bit of context, Selena Robinson was a minister in the BC NDP government. She's Jewish.

00:15:21.880 And she made some comments soon after the October 7th conflict broke out in the Middle East,

00:15:28.360 essentially saying that I think she called the area where Palestine is a crappy piece of land in an interview.

00:15:37.400 And this caused a huge flood of far left radical pro Hamas pushback from within the BC NDP and David Eby,

00:15:49.320 essentially the premier essentially caved to that pressure. And it's outstanding because nobody is

00:15:57.000 calling out the BC NDP is consistent push to appease these individuals within their own party. And we see

00:16:04.520 these protests playing out all the time. They're happening in Victoria, where I live every Saturday,

00:16:09.880 there's pro Palestine people being escorted by police constantly blocking traffic, saying all sorts

00:16:16.120 of slogans, etc. So I want to ask you, Harrison, how much because I'm here in BC, this is the story of the,

00:16:24.120 you know, the year, essentially, how much of this has spilled out to the rest of Canada? Are you seeing

00:16:30.440 conversations about the BC election, and particularly the response from the BC government,

00:16:35.640 which is, I think, a solid one to call for the deportation of people who support terrorists? Is

00:16:41.720 that really reaching the rest of Canada? No, the problem, I think, living in Ontario,

00:16:46.760 and specifically living in Toronto, is that whatever happens in this area is like the most important news

00:16:52.280 story in the world. And anything else is not thought about, it's not talked about, it's not discussed.

00:16:57.480 And I think that's almost exclusive to Southern Ontario, that kind of mindset. But I think anyone

00:17:03.640 paying attention to politics in Canada is watching this closely. They might not have been watching it

00:17:08.440 several months ago. But as the Conservatives get closer and closer to potentially even winning this

00:17:13.400 election, or just putting a major dent into the BC NDP, people are starting to look at this and think

00:17:20.200 to themselves, wow, this is major, this is a major political shift. This is really bad news for

00:17:25.800 Justin Trudeau's Liberals. It's obviously terrible for the NDP. But the one thing that everybody does,

00:17:33.720 at least in Toronto, look at Vancouver and British Columbia, the one thing they look at that for is

00:17:39.400 just the state of the city itself, the problems, because people care more about the problems they

00:17:45.640 do about what's nice about a certain place. You know, if it bleeds, it leaves, that sort of thing.

00:17:50.760 And everybody just understands that Vancouver especially is drug infested, it's full of homeless

00:17:58.360 people. And the policies that have led to that situation have been put in place, you know,

00:18:04.440 for decades, really, but consistently by this, by the NDP, they're the ones that are legalizing cocaine

00:18:10.600 in certain instances, giving out, giving out the, the, these hydromorphone pills to children,

00:18:17.880 talking about safe, what is it, you know, like basically giving out drugs to kids in BC, it is,

00:18:23.960 it is absurd. So we're not seeing a lot of the dialogue about the election, but everybody understands

00:18:29.560 that the situation in BC is bad, and it needs to change. Isaac, what is the situation out in Alberta,

00:18:34.600 are people paying attention to BC a bit more? Yeah, obviously, I'm a lot closer to BC than you,

00:18:40.520 Harrison, being their neighbor, their eastern neighbor, but no one would call Alberta an eastern

00:18:47.320 province. Yeah, obviously, I've been paying quite close attention to the BC election, not just because

00:18:54.040 I work for True North, but because I found this, find this provincial election really interesting,

00:18:59.000 especially with the polls, because it's, it's really going to be a nail biter, I think,

00:19:03.400 based on the polls, because really, we see the NDP and the Conservatives kind of flipping in each

00:19:07.640 subsequent poll where they're within a few points. So that's really interesting. And I just wanted to

00:19:15.400 talk about the BC provincial election, you know, is not the only provincial election coming up in

00:19:20.680 Canada, we have a few others, and I just really want to see what dominoes will begin to fall if the

00:19:26.520 Conservatives just start cleaning up the provinces, what kind of message that's going to send to the

00:19:31.560 federal government. Cosmin, I will say this, I, not many people are talking about BC election in

00:19:37.880 Ontario, but they are talking about Chip Wilson, the Lululemon founder. This guy seems pretty based,

00:19:43.160 I didn't know about this.

00:19:44.280 Yeah, so essentially, Chip Wilson, he's a big business figure here in British Columbia,

00:19:53.560 and he owns a home in Vancouver, I think that's his base of operations. That's actually where he founded

00:19:59.160 Lululemon, the athletic clothing line. And he put out this huge sign on his property, that I guess he had made

00:20:07.880 himself, he got commissioned to be made. And it, it essentially argued that, you know, the left keeps

00:20:14.520 calling the Conservatives, the BC NDP keeps accusing the Conservatives of being extremists, far right,

00:20:20.600 etc. But they ignore the fact that the BC NDP are communists. And we know the BC NDP is a socialist

00:20:30.040 party, they have their roots in progressive Canadian socialism. And some would argue some of the policies

00:20:36.600 they're introducing, including, you know, mass government subsidized housing in British Columbia

00:20:42.120 is a form of, you know, communist housing, I come from Romania, I was born there, I immigrated to Canada

00:20:48.520 when I was seven or eight, we had huge, they were called blocks, but they're essentially giant gray brick

00:20:55.000 buildings where people got to live for free, but you didn't actually get to own the place. And it was

00:21:00.760 essentially a government subsidized place that was offered to you by the Soviet dictatorship.

00:21:06.600 at the time. So I think there's some legitimacy, but people were so angry with the sign that they

00:21:12.520 went up there, graffitied it, wrote all kinds of messages on the sign. And it's funny because it

00:21:18.360 just proves that who would get angry at being called a communist other than people who are communists.

00:21:26.040 Man, homemade political signs. That's like a new concept that could really take off. You know,

00:21:30.360 it's pretty boring, like a sign in some color. How about, how about, how about tell us how you really

00:21:34.680 feel that would really spice some things up in some neighborhoods, eh, Isaac?

00:21:39.160 Yeah. Uh, yeah. When I was talking with Lindsay, uh, on the daily brief on Thursday about this,

00:21:44.600 she said Wilson had the most expensive home, uh, in Vancouver or NBC there, which is $81 million. So

00:21:51.720 yeah, I had found that interesting. I mean, his, his sign getting defaced. I don't know how he feels

00:21:57.640 about that, but he, he didn't put up a subsequent sign and even a third sign. I heard, I can't remember

00:22:02.920 what they said, but so he's just going to keep putting up new signs every day. They'll deface them

00:22:06.760 and he'll put a new one up the next day. Well, I just want to add that like the fact that they're

00:22:11.080 defacing private property just goes to prove his point. These people don't care about private

00:22:16.120 property. They feel entitled to other people's private property. I wish there was a better segue for

00:22:23.000 these stories. That's the other problem. You know, like I feel like back in whenever, whenever

00:22:27.240 Andrew Lawton would host the show, he would always have these classic segues. I'm not there yet, but

00:22:31.240 we're going to, we're going to just, you know, abruptly segue to another story here. And we're

00:22:35.000 going to ship it over to you, Isaac to talk about the revelations we are learning about the handling of

00:22:40.280 the Jasper wildfire story. I talked about this on my show yesterday and it is what we are learning

00:22:45.880 is just disgraceful. The neglect, the negligence and the handling of this wildfire, um, which it appears

00:22:52.760 could have been almost entirely prevented. Isaac, what are we learning? Yeah. Tough to segue into

00:22:58.680 this one, Harrison. Obviously I spent much of my day yesterday for hours watching the testimonies

00:23:04.200 coming out of the house of commons about the Jasper wildfires. And with every testimony I watched,

00:23:10.200 the feeling of sickness in my stomach grew knowing now for certain that something is amiss with the

00:23:17.960 way the Jasper wildfire was handled, not only during the fire, but leading up to the fire. So

00:23:23.560 the conservatives, uh, they're setting forward a motion calling for additional testimony from

00:23:29.400 forest management groups, stakeholders, indigenous communities, and impacted individuals for four

00:23:35.400 additional meetings, because they're saying, look, we've uncovered so much already. We need more time to

00:23:40.200 go through this. Uh, it was Dan Mazier, a conservative MP who said, quote, over the last two weeks, an

00:23:46.760 alarming amount of evidence has been released at the environment committee that shows minister Guibo

00:23:51.720 was negligent in protecting Jasper. Uh, yeah. So obviously we saw Guibo was found, uh, discussing

00:23:59.080 canceling prescribed burns for quote political purposes. This was months before the fire. And again, the fire

00:24:05.160 caused almost a billion dollars in damage, destroying a third of Jasper resulting in over 360 square

00:24:12.760 kilometers of burned or partially burned area and 358 destroyed structures. Mazier said a few other

00:24:19.560 things. He said, uh, that parks Canada officials, which we saw in their testimony, they can't even tell

00:24:25.160 us how many hectares of dead pine remain in Jasper. But, uh, fans of true north may remember our exclusive

00:24:31.560 where, uh, Peter Schultz said he estimated that last summer, uh, about 40% of the forest was

00:24:37.720 standing dead pine, which he said essentially made it a powder keg. Yeah. But then something even worse

00:24:43.480 came out Harrison, which was that we saw in these testimonies, firefighters speaking, who said, look,

00:24:48.520 we showed up and they, they sent us away. Yeah. 50 firefighters and 20 fire trucks were turned away

00:24:54.760 by parks Canada when they arrived in Jasper to help fight the fire. This was during the fire. And they

00:24:58.760 said, no, no, thanks guys. So yeah, we saw the president of Arctic fire safety services,

00:25:04.120 Christopher live them or leave them. I don't know how you pronounce that, but he testified that they

00:25:08.520 were deemed non-essential and yes, parks Canada ordered them to leave. He said he also revealed,

00:25:15.800 I mean, the more I go into this, the worse it gets guys. He also revealed that the, the hydrants

00:25:20.760 in Jasper are different than every other municipality in Alberta and British Columbia. And they only had

00:25:25.720 seven available adapters. So these fire trucks were showing up. They can't even connect to the

00:25:29.880 hydrants because for some reason, parks Canada ordered some weird hydrant that no other municipalities

00:25:36.040 use. So of course the threading is not compatible with the fire trucks. And yeah, that live them. He

00:25:41.320 said at one point they were just forced to stand there and watch things burn down because they

00:25:45.320 couldn't connect to the hydrant. So he said something interesting, which was quote, that this should

00:25:51.080 warrant a deeper investigation into this agency's fire mismanagement and overall role as guardians

00:25:57.080 of Canada's most important and cultural assets. I mean, the list is never ending. The things that,

00:26:03.480 that I uncovered yesterday, guys, uh, going through these testimonies. I mean, it, it literally does

00:26:07.800 get worse and worse. The last thing I'll, I'll add, I guess, was you let me know the level of corruption

00:26:13.880 you think this is, but at one point, uh, the committee chair stopped Liverman from testifying, said,

00:26:18.440 said they couldn't interpret his French, but then literally five seconds later, someone's

00:26:22.840 testifying and they're interpreting his French. So I'm like, Hmm, found that kind of odd. But they

00:26:27.160 said, we got to stop you right there. Our interpreters can't interpret you. But then

00:26:30.200 literally five seconds later, they're interpreting another guy. So I really don't know what's happening.

00:26:34.440 And we know Guibo and Smith, the Alberta premier have a long history of animosity. So there's really a

00:26:41.400 lot that goes into the story. Uh, who, who, who, who wants to speak about it first?

00:26:46.280 Well, I find it, I find it shocking. Of course, Cosmin, you know, every time there's a wildfire

00:26:52.760 in this country, especially over the past three or four years, it's always climate change to blame.

00:26:58.120 It's always climate change, despite the mounting evidence of people who formerly worked in Jasper

00:27:04.360 from wildfire firefighters and from forestry experts saying it has nothing to do with that. It's negligence,

00:27:11.000 poor forest management, but obviously it is so conveniently blamed on climate change.

00:27:17.560 Yeah. I think Canadians need to start asking themselves at what point does the negligence,

00:27:24.120 mismanagement, incompetence result in real consequences? Because this fire is devastating

00:27:32.600 for the people of Jasper and the surrounding communities. They've lost their homes,

00:27:36.840 businesses, literally everything they based their lives on. And you could argue that the results

00:27:45.560 are a direct consequence of the liberal government's failure to prevent this from happening failure to

00:27:53.320 shield this town and protect the people there who were under their care. They had a duty to do that,

00:28:01.480 but they didn't because they focused on these pie in the sky targets that don't actually manifest.

00:28:09.160 These environmental targets don't actually manifest any real results. Things keep getting burnt up and

00:28:15.800 they've ignored the real actions that prevent forest fires. Like you said, forest management equipping

00:28:23.240 firefighters with the right equipment. It's simple. It's just logical things that you have to think of

00:28:29.080 when you're dealing with emergency preparedness. And they've also tanked the forestry industry here in B.C.

00:28:36.040 And the forestry industry has a role to play in actually managing forests. They cut down older trees.

00:28:43.480 They remove debris from forests. They plant new fresh trees. It's ridiculous. And they've taken all these steps

00:28:51.640 for what? Just so that they can get some global clout at the U.N. and at the COP summits.

00:28:57.960 Meanwhile, the consequences are people's lives are ruined and worse when people potentially die.

00:29:04.440 Yeah. And not only that, I mean, we're resulting in potential deaths. We're resulting in billions

00:29:11.800 of dollars of damages. We're resulting in one of the crown jewels, one of the natural crown jewels of

00:29:16.520 the world, likely one of the most beautiful natural places in the world being destroyed. And here's the

00:29:22.040 thing. They always talk about lowering carbon emissions. That's what Trudeau and Guibo always talk

00:29:26.920 about. That's why there's a carbon tax. That's why they constantly, that's why they refuse to fund and

00:29:32.200 support Canada's natural resources industry. Because we need to lower our carbon emissions,

00:29:36.520 Isaac. But here's the thing that they don't tell you. That the wildfire season in 2023,

00:29:41.800 just the wildfires alone, not the oil industry, not cars, not any of else what they say,

00:29:47.000 the wildfires alone emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all but three nations in the

00:29:53.240 world. The 2023 wildfire emitted more carbon than every other country except for China,

00:29:59.720 India and the United States. So if you wanted to lower carbon emissions in Canada, they could

00:30:04.840 actually do that by preventing forest fires, Isaac. Yeah. And also don't forests absorb carbon. So

00:30:11.480 when they burn down, pretty much you're losing a net negative as well. So it's a double whammy,

00:30:19.320 if you want to call it that. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And then to basically use these

00:30:25.960 policies, use these climate policies, which is what Peter Schultz, um, a former Jasper Park senior

00:30:32.520 planner alleged as far back as 2008. So this is a long issue, long, long time problem where certain

00:30:40.120 political groups in and around Jasper, right? He blames them and parks Canada for basically believing

00:30:47.560 that any cutting down of any tree is a crime that it, you know, that it is like taking a life

00:30:53.560 that. So they have allowed these groups and parks. Canada have been infiltrated by political

00:31:00.040 activists. It appears, and these are not my comments. These are comments from someone who

00:31:03.880 worked at the park to dictate forest management policies, stopping lumber companies, as you pointed

00:31:10.200 out, Cosman, from clearing out areas of the forest, from actually building what they call fire blocks in

00:31:16.280 the middle of the forest. And from stopping, from stopping the clearing out of dead wood,

00:31:21.320 the pine beetle that is killing this, killing these trees from stopping that from building up on the,

00:31:25.960 on the forest floor. Like it's so common sense, but yet we've basically allowed for us to be sacrificed

00:31:33.160 for climate change policies. I can't think of anything worse.

00:31:36.600 Just to stick on the negligence aspect of this, the vast majority of the negative consequences of the

00:31:43.720 destruction, et cetera, comes from a lack of preparedness and a lack of, of actually doing

00:31:49.800 anything to prevent this from happening on the part of government. Here in BC, not too long ago,

00:31:55.000 there was flooding in the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, particularly Mission, uh, Chilliwack,

00:32:01.080 that area there. And it was revealed that the government there, both municipal and provincial

00:32:08.520 government were warned way, way, way back years ago. Like I think even a decade earlier that the

00:32:14.440 dikes were not prepared for another major flooding incident because one happened about half a century

00:32:20.040 prior. So they were aware of this. They didn't do anything to prevent it. Their flood system was not,

00:32:26.840 uh, upgraded. It wasn't managed to the degree where it could have prevented much of the damage that

00:32:33.240 happened to farms. And that's the main people who were actually, uh, affected by this climate event.

00:32:39.000 But what it actually was, it was a mismanagement event. The government failed people, failed to act

00:32:45.480 and invested their time in priorities, making like climate change, uh, emergency declarations,

00:32:52.840 instead of actually getting people on the ground, putting up sandbags, reinforcing dikes, creating those

00:32:59.560 floodgates. We try to end the show with some, uh, less serious topics, some, uh, more lighthearted

00:33:07.480 topics, but it won't be very lighthearted for, uh, Isaac or I, because both of our teams,

00:33:12.360 our hockey teams had a rough start to the season on, uh, on Wednesday night, but the news of the NHL

00:33:18.440 season has been completely trumped by the hiring of a fee, the first female NHL assistant coach,

00:33:26.520 Jessica Campbell by the Seattle crack. And everybody is going crazy over this because

00:33:31.080 it's so impactful. The first female coach has been hired. Now we have some disagreement here

00:33:35.800 amongst the true North staff. Some of us believe this is a clear example of DEI getting its way into

00:33:41.960 hockey, a place where it does not belong. And others don't believe. So Isaac, you don't believe

00:33:46.840 the hiring of Jessica Campbell is DEI. I will. Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I looked into her history

00:33:53.560 a bit, uh, obviously she had various medals, some gold ones from international play. And

00:33:59.560 even more so she began coaching in 2017. So how long is that seven years now? Uh,

00:34:05.400 so as the owner of JC power skating, her clientele included NHL player, Tyson Joost,

00:34:11.400 Tyson Joost, Stanley cup champion, Joel Edmondson and Olympic gold medalist, Natalie Spooner. So pretty

00:34:17.240 good list there. And then in July, 2022, she was hired as the assistant coach of the Coachella

00:34:24.280 Valley Firebirds, which was the top minor league affiliate of the NHL's Seattle Kraken for whom

00:34:29.240 she now coaches or assistant coaches. Sorry. She obviously became the first woman to be employed

00:34:34.440 on a full-time basis in the AHL as well. And then as you mentioned this week, she became the first female

00:34:41.960 coach to be behind the bench in engine and NHL history. So while I will admit with you and Harrison,

00:34:47.880 that, um, DEI may have played a part because Seattle's like, Oh, we're going to hire this woman.

00:34:52.920 You know, it might look good for us. But at the same time, she does have an impressive resume.

00:34:57.240 They didn't just pick some random woman off the street. And we were talking earlier about how

00:35:01.320 Kyle Dubas of the Toronto Maple Leafs may have had an even less impressive resume than her.

00:35:06.840 You know, I don't know much hockey is not my number one sport. I do love watching hockey now in Canada.

00:35:11.480 I have to say, I don't follow it very closely, not as close to some others at True North,

00:35:16.120 but I looked into this story and I see that she has had a rapid rise through the ranks of hockey,

00:35:23.080 very rapid, likely faster than most, uh, most male coaches. It says here that, uh, in 2021, 2022,

00:35:30.920 she got her job as the assistant coach for the Nuremberg Ice Tigers. And then I guess it would have been

00:35:37.880 within a year and a half later, she's in the AHL. And then the very next season,

00:35:41.160 she's at the NHL. Uh, it seems very quick hiring. And another thing I will say, Cosman is,

00:35:46.840 you know, what gives it away for me about this being DEI is that everybody's going absolutely

00:35:52.280 absurd over this saying, this is so historic. So historic is the first woman they're doing,

00:35:57.240 you know, special segments and videos for it. But if she was completely deserving of it,

00:36:01.720 why bother? Just let it go under the radar and let her just stand on her own two feet and let her

00:36:06.920 work show for itself. Well, look, I, I'm not a huge hockey expert, but the other thing that's

00:36:13.560 overlooked is this is Seattle, Washington state. This is like one of the most liberal progressive

00:36:20.120 states on the West coast. I've been to Seattle. Uh, it's actually a dump. Now the local government

00:36:26.440 has ruined that city. It's almost as bad, if not more widespread, uh, in, than Vancouver in terms

00:36:33.320 of their, uh, drug addiction issues and crime. I saw a person there, uh, there was an ambulance

00:36:38.600 trying to come through. We were just driving through downtown and he was pointing like a finger gun at the

00:36:45.080 ambulance in the middle of the crosswalk and it couldn't pass by him. It is one of the quintessential

00:36:51.720 left wing radical Antifa places in this, in, in the entire United States. So I'm not surprised.

00:36:59.560 I'm really not surprised it's coming from Seattle. Isaac, what do you make of just the general

00:37:03.960 direction of the NHL? We've seen some shocking examples of this DEI woke nonsense. I believe that

00:37:09.480 they, they helped, they held some sort of, uh, there was a transgender event that they held a hockey game,

00:37:15.480 uh, about two years ago. We've seen all their, you know, their, the, the black lives matter

00:37:20.520 messaging on the hockey ice. I mean, surely like all the other sports, this sort of thing should be

00:37:26.520 left off the ice. Yeah. I remember last year, obviously we saw that big pushback against pride

00:37:33.720 events in the NHL because so many players were saying, look, we are not participating in this,

00:37:38.280 uh, which led to a bunch of controversy, but that that's really what, what, what it came down to Harrison.

00:37:43.360 It's like, we're here to watch hockey. We're here to get away from the politics of, of,

00:37:46.920 of everyday life. We just want to watch a sport we love and wind down, you know,

00:37:51.400 let's focus on the sport, the game. We don't need to bring all of these woke initiatives into it.

00:37:57.640 You know, it's like a lot of hockey players. We, we, from what we can see are actually

00:38:01.880 conservatives. They don't believe any of this crazy nonsense. And we, we kind of know part of that,

00:38:06.760 because we have seen through the true North channel, some retired NHLers that follow our

00:38:12.200 accounts and follow our work. So we appreciate all those guys for, uh, liking what we produce

00:38:17.160 at true North with that, let's wrap it up. And, uh, I guess the slogan goes, everything you've just

00:38:23.320 heard was off the record. So did the Oilers really lose six, nothing Isaac, or was that a slightly

00:38:37.000 we have improved because last year we got smoked eight one. So, uh, based on that logic, we got to

00:38:41.800 game seven of the Stanley cup finals. I mean, we may never lose again. There you go. That's some

00:38:46.440 optimism. That's some optimism as, uh, as our, as our managing, uh, editor or managing, uh, producer

00:38:52.520 said that kind of optimism is Maple Leafs level optimism. I have to say.

Off the Record - October 11, 2024

Trudeau appeased Hamas supporters

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