Off the Record - Where on Earth is Justin Trudeau？

00:00:00.000 I feel banter-wise I should begin by apologizing for not being as good as Andrew.

00:00:04.860 I will be a poor imitation as Andrew goes off to pursue the lofty heights of elected office.

00:00:11.660 You'll just have to forgive me for doing as good a job as I can.

00:00:18.280 Well, I think some of our viewers wouldn't be, I don't know, like, think you're Andrew, even though you're clearly not.

00:00:27.400 Just like, oh, you know, the looks.

00:00:28.520 I'm not saying you look terribly close.

00:00:32.700 You have a cute little hairstyle.

00:00:34.760 Oh, well, thank you.

00:00:35.720 Not everybody likes it.

00:00:37.140 I sometimes read the comments of Off the Record, and there is definitely a small but vocal cohort of people who do not like my hair.

00:00:46.220 And so I apologize.

00:00:47.760 Would you call that a mohawk or just, like, baby infant hair?

00:00:52.540 I would call it the way my hair dried after I did it so it would look okay for Off the Record, is what I would say.

00:01:02.360 Well, I think you might need a hairstylist, William.

00:01:07.180 We've got to, you know, maybe pay you, like, a hundred extra bucks a month, you know, so you can get your stuff, you know, done up well.

00:01:14.840 I'll put in the budget request when I talk to Candice Dex.

00:01:19.240 We'll see what, we'll see what she says.

00:01:22.060 All right.

00:01:22.520 Well, let's get this started.

00:01:23.380 Well, good afternoon, everyone.

00:01:32.240 Happy Friday.

00:01:33.220 It's a great day in different parts of Canada.

00:01:36.240 I'm William McBeth, and I'm in Calgary.

00:01:38.980 And joining me is Noah Jarvis.

00:01:41.960 And he, Noah, you're in Brampton right now.

00:01:43.760 Is that right?

00:01:45.620 Vississauga, but very close.

00:01:47.000 Very close.

00:01:47.720 Close by.

00:01:48.300 And Sue Ann, are you actually in Toronto proper?

00:01:51.960 I live in Toronto, but right now I'm up in the Coarthas.

00:01:55.780 Oh, nice.

00:01:56.440 Well, we have a pan-Canadian team for you this week.

00:02:00.300 And as I sadly noted, we, of course, with Andrew Lawton's decision to go pursue elected office, we're having to make do without him for the time being.

00:02:09.480 But we'll all do our best to fill in the gap he's left.

00:02:14.440 It's big shoes to fill.

00:02:15.560 Andrew was a very good and beloved host.

00:02:18.040 And, of course, we do wish him well in his campaign.

00:02:20.960 But that being said, it was quite the week in Canadian news.

00:02:24.820 And to get started, the Prime Minister, who we all know loves to go on vacation, well, someone started to notice something funny about his vacations, Noah.

00:02:35.020 And do you want to tell the people about Mr. Trudeau's travel?

00:02:37.740 Yeah, exactly.

00:02:39.740 So, Paul Wells, he is a respected journalist.

00:02:43.460 I believe he's been on Andrew's show a couple of times before Andrew left us.

00:02:48.380 But Paul Wells, he basically wrote up this piece on his sub stack talking about how the Prime Minister has basically been lying to the Canadian people about his itinerary.

00:02:58.440 On a daily basis, the Prime Minister is supposed to publish an itinerary of what he is supposed to be doing during the day, whether he's going to, you know, go meet with his cabinet or he's going to attend parliament or whatever he plans on doing.

00:03:12.320 The general public has some right to know of it, not of all the details, especially it is of national security concerns.

00:03:19.160 But we are supposed to get the general outline of the Prime Minister's schedule.

00:03:22.920 And lately, in the past few weeks, the Prime Minister, now that the House is on recess for summer, the Prime Minister has been indicating that he has no public events.

00:03:32.920 And he's been doing this for weeks on and he's going to Manitoba, where he has no public events.

00:03:39.020 He's going to Vancouver and he has no public events.

00:03:41.680 He's going to Toronto and he has no public events.

00:03:44.840 However, as Paul Wells documented, the Prime Minister, in fact, does have public events on these days.

00:03:51.640 He went to Vancouver when Vancouver had one of their pride parades a couple of weeks ago.

00:03:58.120 He indicated on his itinerary that there would be no public events, but he told a small coterie of parliamentary press gallery journalists that he would be at the Pride Festival so that they could photograph him and videotape him, you know, glad handling and shaking hands at the Pride Parade with all the parade goers.

00:04:19.100 And basically just kept that, you know, information away from the rest of the Canadian public.

00:04:25.880 He also lied about meeting with, I believe it was Kitchener, the mayor of Kitchener, Ontario.

00:04:32.840 And he also lied about attending the Kitty Carnival, which is basically the Caribbean Carnival, Carabana, one week before the real Carabana, just for the youth.

00:04:46.020 So he lied about all these public events that he's going to.

00:04:50.300 And he's basically doing this because right now he probably doesn't want to be questioned by journalists.

00:04:55.340 He doesn't want to be pressed by the media.

00:04:57.680 He doesn't want to be pressed by ordinary Canadians. 0.97

00:05:00.060 And he wants to just hide away and sort of pick his spots to really try and promote his failing liberal brand.

00:05:10.080 So, I mean, this is not really too surprising for me that the prime minister is going out of his way to deceive Canadians.

00:05:16.680 But it was such a blatant example of the prime minister and just in general, his staffers going out of their way to tell Canadians one thing and, you know, just going about doing another thing.

00:05:29.740 What do you guys think of this story?

00:05:31.420 How about you, Sue Ann?

00:05:32.540 Yeah, Sue Ann, what do you make of it?

00:05:33.960 It's like the dying days of a failed administration when they become like bunker mentality.

00:05:40.520 And I've seen this many times covering politics where they it's it's not exactly lying.

00:05:46.860 It's errors of admission.

00:05:48.480 Omission, I should say, not admission.

00:05:50.820 Very fine line between the two.

00:05:53.600 Omission where, you know, they just don't give information because, as you say, they don't want to be questioned.

00:06:00.740 They don't want to be confronted.

00:06:03.640 So, you know, he just sort of glad hands his way across the country, gaily meeting up with, you know, people, audiences that will love him and friendly media.

00:06:19.360 And it's it's one more nail in his coffin, I believe, because, you know, people are fed up as it is.

00:06:28.760 And he doesn't care about accountability whatsoever.

00:06:31.580 Now, it's interesting, of course, some would argue that if you show up to a bunch of glad handing events, you might be doing what we would professionally call campaigning.

00:06:42.540 He might be campaigning to try and raise his popularity.

00:06:46.240 And the fact that he's refusing to talk to disclose where he's going to be and what he'll be doing and then even altering his official schedule after it's been published to retroactively say he had been at these events.

00:06:59.940 Some would say that's avoiding public scrutiny at a whole level we maybe haven't seen before.

00:07:05.940 Now, what do you think?

00:07:06.760 Is this sort of an unprecedented thing for a prime minister to be hiding this much where he's going and what he's doing?

00:07:12.980 Well, look what's happening.

00:07:13.820 Absolutely.

00:07:14.900 With Kamala, it's unprecedented, but it's starting to happen.

00:07:18.840 I mean, our politicians feel that they're not accountable whatsoever to anybody.

00:07:22.500 It's very, very disheartening to see what's happening in politics, certainly left-wing politics.

00:07:29.820 Yeah.

00:07:30.340 And just to add on to a point that you made, William, the prime minister is basically in the middle of the day updating his itinerary.

00:07:37.520 And usually they'd send these updates to journalists via email.

00:07:41.100 I mean, I get the emails in which the prime minister sends his daily itinerary.

00:07:46.840 And, you know, I see that, you know, they are not retroactively updating those emails and, you know, giving those updates to journalists.

00:07:56.480 They're instead just, you know, silently updating the itinerary on the website without sending an email so that they can sneak in sort of the announcement of these public events under cover.

00:08:08.180 So I think that it is very just dishonest from the prime minister to be doing this.

00:08:13.960 And it is especially concerning because, you know, Canadians have had a hard time sort of accessing the prime minister.

00:08:21.720 I mean, you saw Kian Bexte of the countersignal.

00:08:25.060 He basically went to draw down the prime minister in Tofino a few weeks ago to basically ask him a few questions because the prime minister does not allow the countersignal to ask the prime minister questions normally.

00:08:38.260 So he had to go down and track down the prime minister and ask him questions that way.

00:08:42.340 And it seems that since that sort of event happened, the prime minister's office has sort of been bunkering down even more.

00:08:50.120 And I don't think that's really going to help, you know, their popularity by hiding the prime minister and basically employing the Joe Biden basement tactic.

00:08:57.220 But I don't know. Maybe there's a there's a new thing.

00:09:00.300 I said bunker. I said bunker.

00:09:02.380 Ah, yeah.

00:09:03.480 The bunker mentality.

00:09:05.200 Yeah, the bunker mentality.

00:09:06.680 But, you know, it's a tactic that they're all starting to use.

00:09:12.580 And so they only engage with friendly media.

00:09:15.140 But the problem is, William and Noah, is that the friendly media give them a free pass, give him a free pass.

00:09:22.220 And they're going crazy about if Pierre Polyev eats an apple or a pear or whatever, you know, he didn't chew it properly.

00:09:30.760 But they give this guy a free pass constantly.

00:09:34.320 And like you mentioned, Keenan Bex, they went berserk over him encountering him on the beach.

00:09:41.480 I thought it was just, you know, wonderful that he did this.

00:09:46.640 And all the left wing media who, you know, have gotten it so easy went crazy.

00:09:52.480 Well, let us talk about Canada's legacy media, because you would think that if the prime minister were purposely hiding where he was going and what he was doing, Canadian media would be in an uproar about that fact.

00:10:07.180 And I'm sure that they are writing an endless number of stories about the hiding prime minister who won't tell them where he's going and what he's doing, except it turns out that that's not the case.

00:10:18.360 I think we even may have some examples of legacy media writing positively glowing reports of the prime minister showing up at events that he hadn't promoted that he was heading to beforehand.

00:10:32.120 So, I mean, I think this begs the question, something we've talked about a lot here at True North before.

00:10:39.160 These legacy media who receive huge amounts of taxpayer funding in order to pay their bills, to pay their salaries and keep the lights on in newsrooms.

00:10:50.060 Do you think that if they weren't so beholden to the government's media bailout, that they might be taking a slightly more critical tone of a prime minister who runs and hides and refuses to say what he's doing or where he's going?

00:11:04.340 Sue Ann, what do you think?

00:11:05.340 Well, I think perhaps a little more critical, but you know that the media in Canada and in the States has a very left-wing bias.

00:11:13.500 So they can't help themselves.

00:11:15.200 They just absolutely can't help themselves.

00:11:17.460 And they're, I mean, they're going berserk with the idea of Pierre Polia, you know, making headway in the next election, simply because they know it won't be an easy ride for them.

00:11:28.620 So, Bela, yes, that enhances the riches, but they still have a left-wing bias. 0.59

00:11:35.060 I've found this over the years as a right-of-center journalist.

00:11:38.040 So, Noah, do you think it's an example of inherent media bias?

00:11:42.980 Do you think that they are too afraid to bite the hand that is feeding them taxpayer subsidies?

00:11:48.640 What do you think is going on?

00:11:49.700 Why are the media giving the prime minister such an easy ride with his dine-and-dash photo ops that he's doing across the country?

00:11:56.740 I mean, William, would you, you know, give glowing coverage to someone who wanted to take away your job, you know, or if you perceive that, you know, are you going to give that person glowing coverage?

00:12:08.500 Probably not.

00:12:09.260 Maybe if you're, you know, a journalist of good repute, you know, you still would do that irrespective of those circumstances.

00:12:15.260 But for most journalists in Canada who are not, you know, sort of like war journalists, you know, back in the 1940s doing, you know, big investigative pieces or like the journalists who undercovered Watergate, these are, you know, people like lounging in their home for, you know, their eight-hour shift.

00:12:29.620 And, you know, you know, they're doing whatever, especially CBC journalists.

00:12:32.980 So, you know, in this case with the CBC article, I mean, there's a utter just lack of sort of curiosity with what, you know, why the prime minister is basically lying to the Canadian people about these public events.

00:12:46.940 And instead, they decide to give him a glowing coverage.

00:12:49.720 If that was pure poly up, the story in the CBC would not be about, you know, him, you know, talking to this Filipino event, you know, shaking hands.

00:12:57.680 It would be about the fact that he lied about not going to attend this event.

00:13:02.400 I mean, if you remember when Pierre Polyev first became the leader of the Conservative Party, the media were going absolutely ballistic over the fact that he wouldn't take interviews with the legacy media.

00:13:11.680 And then he began taking interviews with legacy media, and they're still mad at him for whatever reason.

00:13:16.400 So, you know, you can't really win with the media nowadays, especially if you're a conservative.

00:13:22.120 It's a double standard.

00:13:23.960 It's just a shame it's a double standard.

00:13:26.260 I was going to say, thank goodness we have groups like True North who are not dependent on the government's media bailout,

00:13:31.400 who rely on the support of individual Canadians from one side of the country to the other,

00:13:36.120 and who actually print the honest through reporting the honest truth, not just PMO talking points.

00:13:40.880 Now, our next topic, we had a bit of a blow up at the Status of Women Committee.

00:13:47.560 It didn't go quite as well as, I think, the witnesses who were there to testify about women facing violence in their homes and what they've had to live through.

00:13:58.580 And the whole thing seemed to descend into absolute chaos.

00:14:02.880 Well, one of the people who faced the harsh outrage was a Liberal MP who attempted to derail the committee's investigation into this.

00:14:12.720 And she's now penned a two and a half thousand plus word op-ed.

00:14:17.300 So, Noah, do you want to give us the scoop on what's been going on with this Liberal MP who apparently never learned that brevity is the soul of wit when she went to MP school?

00:14:27.160 Yeah. So, the Conservatives currently, they chair the Status of Women Parliamentary Committee.

00:14:35.080 You know, I don't know why the Liberals gave them that committee, but sure, go ahead.

00:14:39.100 So, yeah, the Conservatives, they chair that parliamentary committee.

00:14:42.040 And the committee chair recalled the committee for an emergency meeting because Statistics Canada released new information that showed that the crime rate was going up.

00:14:53.200 So, they brought the committee for the Status of Women back and basically they were going to talk about intimate partner violence, you know, domestic abuse, sexual assault, those types of crimes.

00:15:03.480 And they basically brought in two witnesses.

00:15:06.600 One of them had been abused by her ex-boyfriend very viciously and she showed pictures of the abuse.

00:15:16.120 And she's a Canadian citizen, but that now lives in Los Angeles because she feels unsafe in Canada.

00:15:21.100 So, the committee, they heard testimony from those two women along with a police officer.

00:15:27.420 And when Anita Vandenbeld got the opportunity to ask questions to the witnesses, she didn't take the time to do that.

00:15:35.840 She used her speaking time to basically pontificate about how the Conservatives are really, really bad for calling an emergency meeting because, you know, that she's a partisan.

00:15:46.320 And, you know, she believes that the Conservatives are playing partisan politics, you know, who cares?

00:15:50.040 But the despicable thing, in my view, is that she tried to move a motion to basically have the committee ignore the witnesses that were currently attending the Status of Women Committee and to instead talk about abortion. 0.76

00:16:03.900 You know, an issue that the Liberals really love to talk about because, you know, it makes the Conservatives sort of look bad.

00:16:10.480 But the problem is, is that you have a domestic abuse survivor right in front of you, along with another advocate against intimate partner violence.

00:16:20.180 They're right in front of you and you want to just sort of ignore their concerns, ignore their testimony.

00:16:25.380 You don't want to ask them questions and instead you want to talk about abortion.

00:16:28.940 So, rightfully, one of the witnesses, she walked right out the room and she was, you know, in tears because she had just recounted her experience with domestic abuse.

00:16:41.540 And the Liberals and the NDP, they did seem to not care at all.

00:16:45.000 So she stormed out of the committee room. 1.00

00:16:47.000 The witness who was with her, she also stormed out of the committee room.

00:16:51.540 And the committee basically then just devolved into a bunch of bickering between the NDP and the Liberals teaming up against the Conservatives.

00:17:00.800 So I think it was utterly disgraceful.

00:17:04.160 I know that a couple of Conservative MPs have also pointed out that the behavior, the comportment of Liberal and NDP, NDPs is just awful.

00:17:13.580 And the witnesses, they also recounted their experience at the committee and said that the Liberals and NDP, they were basically just using the opportunity to play partisan games.

00:17:23.580 So I think that, you know, Anita Vanderbilt playing the victim in this scenario when she is basically principally responsible for this committee meeting being derailed and for, you know, basically, you know, making domestic abuse survivors, you know, leave the committee room in tears.

00:17:43.620 That's that's her fault. 0.79

00:17:44.860 And she should not be playing the victim here whatsoever.

00:17:47.520 So, Sue Ann, in her lengthy op-ed, this Liberal MP, far from saying she was sorry for attempting to make the committee talk about abortion when witnesses who were there to talk about intimate partner violence and violence against women had come to talk about their experiences,

00:18:06.600 has now said that the fault for all of this falls on the far right and the Trump campaign somehow.

00:18:15.280 Do you want to try and explain what she's thinking?

00:18:19.860 It may defy explanation.

00:18:22.460 What do you think of this claim that it was the far right and somehow Donald Trump who derailed the status of Women Committee in Canada's parliament?

00:18:30.500 Yes, it was all his fault.

00:18:31.720 So, number one, Trump derangement syndrome is in full operation here, even in Canada.

00:18:39.080 Number two, I always find in my years in journalism that Liberal left pretends to be pretends to be the champion of the under-trodden.

00:18:49.440 And, you know, can you imagine how hard it was for those women to come and tell their stories?

00:18:55.980 I mean, I've been a victim, too, of sexual assault.

00:18:58.700 And I told a story, and it's very hard to relive it.

00:19:02.980 And then they treat them so callously. 0.83

00:19:05.740 So the Liberal left pretends to be champions of these kinds of people, but they're despicable.

00:19:13.440 They are just, they have no empathy whatsoever.

00:19:16.900 This shows that there was no compassion whatsoever.

00:19:19.780 And then the best thing is they play the victim when there's pushback on them.

00:19:24.280 It's just like it's the same script over and over again.

00:19:28.600 And you've got to bring in Trump.

00:19:30.440 You've got to bring in the far right.

00:19:32.520 I don't know who the far right are, but you've got to bring in the far right.

00:19:36.020 Because, unfortunately, we have a population of voters who digest all this stuff and think,

00:19:43.600 Trump bad, all yet bad, you know, this derangement syndrome,

00:19:47.900 which is fed, you know, through the media and by these kinds of politicians.

00:19:52.380 Yeah, I have to say my favorite is still when here in the ninth year of our Liberal government,

00:19:59.400 they still decide to blame Stephen Harper for whatever happens to be going wrong, I think.

00:20:04.800 And you think to yourself, I had no idea Stephen Harper was this powerful,

00:20:09.760 this influential, and had this much control over our country.

00:20:14.300 They hear nine years after he stopped being Prime Minister,

00:20:18.160 he's still making things happen in Ottawa and in government.

00:20:21.940 It just blows my mind every time the Liberals make that claim.

00:20:25.520 Now, I must confess, I didn't read her two and a half thousand word op-ed

00:20:29.600 because I had things I had to do today.

00:20:31.640 I don't blame you.

00:20:32.300 Fortunately, I, yeah.

00:20:34.160 But, you know, on the credibility scale, zero to ten, with ten representing,

00:20:40.180 I absolutely believe what she said makes a whole lot of sense.

00:20:43.480 And zero being, I think this woman might need mental health support going forward. 1.00

00:20:48.280 Where do we put her claims that she thinks that it was the far right, that it was Donald Trump?

00:20:53.040 Like, she was so scared she had to close her constituency office,

00:20:56.960 presumably because people who oppose violence might show up and commit violence.

00:21:03.540 I don't fully understand her worry there.

00:21:05.060 But how much credibility should we give this Liberal MP on a zero to ten scale?

00:21:09.960 Zero.

00:21:10.260 I would give her, yeah, I would give her a 0.5 so she doesn't get the mental health support. 1.00

00:21:15.300 But basically, you know, but I think it feels so callous, you know, just blame the far right, you know, for this.

00:21:22.240 You know, she clearly has a problem with taking responsibility. 1.00

00:21:26.420 And, you know, that's really an indictment on the Canadian political class.

00:21:30.020 I mean, these are people that are supposed to get paid, you know, nearly $200,000 a year to represent, you know, tens of thousands of people. 0.99

00:21:37.800 And, you know, they're just like lunatics. 0.98

00:21:40.440 They don't know what the definition of far right is. 0.99

00:21:42.640 You know, this is your job, politics.

00:21:44.080 You know, why don't you know more about politics?

00:21:46.680 But, you know, it's not like Alex Jones walked into the committee room and started talking like this, you know, and stuff like that.

00:21:53.580 Like, no, like the far right did not, you know, interrupt this committee meeting.

00:21:57.680 It was you guys.

00:21:58.660 You know, maybe the liberals are far right.

00:22:00.160 Who knows?

00:22:00.560 But, you know, they're trying to smear now with Andrew, who's running in London.

00:22:05.700 Yeah, they just, well, I get called far right, too. 0.75

00:22:08.320 So I don't know how a Jewish lesbian can be far right. 1.00

00:22:11.720 But, you know, they throw out these smears and hope that they'll stick. 0.96

00:22:15.020 It's like throwing spaghetti against the wall. 0.58

00:22:16.720 And they use these terms like racist, like Islamophobic, like, you know, bigot.

00:22:24.100 And they're so tiresome of these terms now, the far right, because they're losing.

00:22:29.800 They're losing.

00:22:30.600 It's desperation.

00:22:32.600 Well, let's go on to talk about another favorite politician of ours.

00:22:36.860 We all know that our prime minister does love to play Mr. Dress Up.

00:22:40.640 It's one of his favorite things, especially if he gets to be on a foreign trip at the time.

00:22:44.600 I think we'll all never forget his infamous India trip there.

00:22:49.220 But she's far from the only, quote, unquote, progressive politician who enjoys that.

00:22:54.620 Sue Ann, do you want to tell us about the lovely lady doing the Dress Up Act in Toronto these days? 1.00

00:23:00.820 So we have our very own Mrs. Dress Up in Toronto. 0.99

00:23:06.680 Socialist Mayor Olivia Chow.

00:23:08.340 And, you know, if we hearken back to June 9th, when she said she was, quote, too busy to attend the Walk with Israel, which was attended by myself, my wife, and 48,000, 49,000.

00:23:24.480 I'm not doing the math very well.

00:23:26.360 Nearly 50,000 people.

00:23:27.980 And she said she was too busy to attend.

00:23:31.020 It was, like, one of the biggest events.

00:23:33.540 She also didn't attend the flag raising.

00:23:35.540 But she seems to find herself at diversity photo op after diversity photo op every weekend.

00:23:42.220 And, you know, she always has a little costume to wear, you know, whether it's a keffiyeh on her head or a Hindu costume or she was dressed in some Thai costume.

00:23:53.820 And we also wonder where the heck she gets these costumes because, you know, she we wonder if taxpayers are paying for these costumes, that she has this huge costume budget.

00:24:08.420 In fact, I think I'm going to do an FOI to find out.

00:24:10.800 But the ultimate in just painfulness for me as a Toronto resident and far-right journalist was last Saturday when she showed up to Carabana.

00:24:24.140 Now, she and I are the same age, 67, I will freely admit.

00:24:27.960 I would never find myself showing up to Carabana with half my behind or my tushy showing in a glittery costume with all kinds of feather boas hanging out.

00:24:39.340 And many other things showing.

00:24:43.360 And, you know, the painful part was not just the costume, but then she started to dance, not very well, with a bunch of people.

00:24:51.560 And, you know, I tweeted last Saturday because people just alerted me to it that this is, I said Olivia would be a train wreck. 0.99

00:25:01.100 And she has been because the problem is not only is she enabling anti-Semitism in Toronto by not showing up, not supporting my community, but we've got a drug problem.

00:25:12.980 We've got drug addicts falling down on the streets doing the fentanyl pose. 0.76

00:25:18.120 I have covered for True North the encampments that are taking over parks, which she has allowed. 0.82

00:25:23.420 The crime rate has gone up considerably and she raised taxes nine and a half percent.

00:25:30.160 We're not sure what she's done with that money.

00:25:32.640 A couple of weeks ago, we had severe flooding, basement flooding, my house included.

00:25:37.320 And I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

00:25:39.400 And everybody's trying to wonder, did she just party?

00:25:42.780 Mrs. Dress Up, does she just party or does she actually work? 1.00

00:25:47.200 So, well, I think we're going to watch the clip.

00:25:49.540 I just do want to give our wonderful viewers an NSFW warning before we put this on.

00:25:55.540 If you're eating your lunch, if you're doing something delicate, I urge you to take precautions before we watch Ms. Chao do her little dance here.

00:26:19.540 Well, my goodness, that isn't what you see from a mayor every day of the week, is it for sure?

00:26:35.980 Now, Noah, what do you think?

00:26:38.260 Is this a person who prefers to party and play dress up rather than tackle the pressing problems of a city like Toronto?

00:26:45.580 Yeah, I'm surprised Mayor Chow isn't well-known in the Toronto club scene because it seems like that's all she wants to do. 1.00

00:26:54.780 She posted a picture of her in the reveler suit, and I just got – I'll just discuss it.

00:27:01.300 I'm like, there's too much visible midsection meat.

00:27:04.560 We don't need to be seeing all that, Mrs. Chow.

00:27:07.160 But it just goes to show like, yeah, when you get elected, you don't want to do the hard work for Torontonians by making their lives better.

00:27:17.400 You instead want to go have fun at Caravana and go to all these other events.

00:27:26.220 And it would be understandable if she's going to these events while she's getting priorities fixed for Toronto.

00:27:33.960 I mean, I think mayors are people, politicians are people.

00:27:37.600 They should be able to have lives and attend Caravana and events that are significant in the city.

00:27:43.580 But you only do that if you're actually getting things done in the city and getting things done in your province or your country.

00:27:50.400 And if you're not, focus on politics, focus on passing good bylaws, focus on making the cost of living better.

00:27:59.320 I mean, Toronto has a lot of problems with crime, homelessness, drug addiction, you name it.

00:28:05.400 Toronto has the problem.

00:28:07.260 And it's not like Mayor Chow is making any progress on those issues.

00:28:11.740 She's busy renaming Young and Nundas Square to Sankofa Square and implementing rain taxes and stuff like that. 0.90

00:28:18.740 So it's not like – she's not helping Torontonians whatsoever.

00:28:23.140 So I think that she should readjust the priorities that she has as mayor. 0.59

00:28:29.080 And she should just, like, you know, not wear that to Caravana. 0.86

00:28:33.220 You know, if I was planning on going to Caravana, if I had went, you know, I was going to wear a T-shirt and some shorts.

00:28:38.960 You know, I'm not going to, you know, go beyond my limits because I know my limits.

00:28:42.780 I know who I am as a person.

00:28:45.620 Chow clearly doesn't know her limits. 1.00

00:28:47.600 She's going far above and beyond her limits.

00:28:50.160 Noah and him, she has no boundaries whatsoever.

00:28:54.100 Absolutely no boundaries.

00:28:54.980 No boundaries.

00:28:56.100 Now, Sue Ann, I think you even tracked down a couple more outfits that the mayor has graced us with over the past while.

00:29:04.440 And I think we have a few more examples that we can throw up there just to see if that's true.

00:29:11.820 That's relatively good, that outfit.

00:29:16.320 Yeah, it's a bit better.

00:29:17.800 Yes, I wouldn't wear a white, you know, a white dress when I'm eating ribs because you can get your white dress dirty. 0.85

00:29:28.180 Maybe you should be Chow's wardrobe staffer, Sue Ann. 1.00

00:29:31.860 I think so.

00:29:32.920 And this is just the same weekend in a Hindu outfit. 0.99

00:29:36.040 But, you know, I didn't dig out the really, she also danced at Pride.

00:29:41.080 She danced with some drag queen and danced very poorly. 1.00

00:29:44.740 And that was painful as well.

00:29:46.240 And I forgot to dig that one out because, I mean, that did the rounds.

00:29:51.180 But nothing did the rounds like this outfit.

00:29:54.620 And you want to say, what was she thinking?

00:29:56.960 You know, it's funny.

00:29:59.200 In the old days, if someone who went for Halloween dressed as a Mexican person, they wore a sombrero and they came to Halloween, they would have been accused of cultural appropriation.

00:30:12.120 That was the term the left were so keen on throwing around then.

00:30:16.180 But I don't hear similar claims of cultural appropriation, despite the fact that, you know, Ms. Chow's going far further than a typical third grader wearing a sombrero to his local class Halloween dress up contest is.

00:30:29.980 Do you think it's a double standard, again, on the part of media who aren't calling her out for this sort of thing?

00:30:35.160 Yeah, well, you know, the media that was interviewed, like the CBC and stuff, and some of the people, revelers, thought it was just brilliant.

00:30:45.060 Like, you know, I had people from the left say, oh, well, she looks terrific.

00:30:49.720 I should only look like that at 67.

00:30:51.500 But you're missing the point.

00:30:52.840 She's the mayor of the largest city. 1.00

00:30:54.900 And it's just inappropriate.

00:30:56.320 A mayor who, you know, should be dealing perhaps with record numbers of carjackings, with criminal behavior and crime happening at transit stations, all sorts of things that should be taking the mayor's valuable time.

00:31:10.280 We're just here coming towards the end.

00:31:12.440 But the last issue, I have to laugh because in my notes, this issue is labeled William Hates the Olympics.

00:31:18.980 And I'll be honest, I don't hate the Olympics.

00:31:21.700 I very much enjoy watching Canadians win medals for our country and, you know, really show their Canadian pride on the international stage.

00:31:32.040 Where I am a little bit concerned is the same place Canadians seem to be as well.

00:31:36.640 And that's revealed in a new poll that Canadians think the cost of hosting an Olympics is outweighing the economic benefit that comes to a host city.

00:31:47.180 And Canada, by the way, is far from unique on this.

00:31:50.320 Cities around the world are taking a hard look at international sporting events, including the Olympics, and wondering if the cost, the money they have to spend is getting back to them in the form of economic benefit.

00:32:03.340 And, you know, you can just ask me, in my youth, when Calgary was preparing its bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics, I was helping to lead the no side on the referendum because we knew that the costs far outweigh the benefits now, that that's an IOC dirty secret.

00:32:23.620 And it's resulting in fewer and fewer cities choosing to bid for the Olympic Games.

00:32:28.280 In fact, in the last round, they really only had two.

00:32:31.300 They had Paris and Los Angeles.

00:32:33.220 And rather than be faced with a bid that no one competed in, they gave Paris the summer games and then they gave Los Angeles the next summer games.

00:32:42.920 And that avoided the fact that every other city had pulled out of the bidding contest.

00:32:48.320 Now, Noah, you seem to think possibly that the Olympics are good for a city.

00:32:53.480 So I want to give you this opportunity to talk about if you think it's a good idea for a city to to host the Olympics in the way that cities are expected to do so now and all of the costs that come with them.

00:33:05.320 Well, in my in some of my formative years, when I was seven years old in 2010, Vancouver was hosting the Winter Olympics.

00:33:16.080 And I remember that period in time very, very clearly.

00:33:19.660 I remember, you know, walking through, you know, the bay and seeing, you know, the red mittens that, you know, everyone seemed to have and, you know, the scarves and, you know, everyone was just in a very patriotic mood.

00:33:30.860 And every time, you know, Canada won a medal, especially a gold medal, we'd all be happy for the athletes involved.

00:33:38.080 There's just a lot of there's just a lot of civic pride that comes with hosting the Olympics.

00:33:44.060 And I think that that is something that we quite frankly need in Canada.

00:33:48.180 You know, we have a post-national prime minister who believes that, you know, there isn't really anything that any fundamental values that keeps Canadians together and that we that we hold in common.

00:33:58.920 And, you know, I disagree with that. I think you both do.

00:34:02.880 But I think that when you have these sorts of big events that are recognized internationally that helps to boost your international profile, it definitely helps, you know, generate some sort of civic nationalism.

00:34:16.600 And I think that is very healthy and something that Canada is definitely lacking.

00:34:21.140 And I get the economic concerns. I really do. All right.

00:34:24.740 But the problem is, is that when it comes to hosting Olympics or Pan Am Games or whatever, you can't really calculate the cultural significance that something like that holds.

00:34:34.440 I mean, the Vancouver Olympics is something that I hold near and dear to my heart.

00:34:39.160 And I think that if, you know, Toronto were to host an Olympics, it is something that all Canadians can feel pride in and remember for decades and decades to come.

00:34:49.420 So I think that, you know, you can't just, you know, look at the economic costs and be like, oh, yeah, you know, if we're in the green, we're good.

00:34:55.860 If we're in the red, we're bad. You know, I think there's more to it that meets the eye.

00:34:59.280 Well, now, Sue, and you probably remember when Toronto hosting the Olympics was sort of Toronto's mission in life.

00:35:07.020 It seemed to me that Toronto was obsessed with hosting the Olympics.

00:35:11.300 What do you think? Is it good for a city or is it just an economic weight around the necks of a city and the taxpayers pay the price?

00:35:19.420 Well, I was I've been around long enough to know to remember the Olympic bid under Mel Lastman.

00:35:24.880 You remember that famous I think he went to Mombasa and he was in a pot.

00:35:29.760 The dear man may rest in peace.

00:35:33.360 And then, of course, they lost.

00:35:37.860 And then they went on to the Pan Am games and I covered the Pan Am boondoggle.

00:35:44.320 And there was corruption and there were cost overruns.

00:35:48.520 There was secrecy. And I just I mean, call me a cynic.

00:35:53.140 But I just think the cost benefit analysis, the the issues financially far outweigh the civic pride or the I mean, I'll tell you what will give us civic pride.

00:36:05.600 We get rid of Pierre Trudeau and we start getting this city back.

00:36:10.200 I'm sorry, this this is country back on track here and wrong Trudeau.

00:36:13.780 Yeah. Not Pierre Trudeau. Justin Trudeau.

00:36:17.360 Oh, my God. I feel like an old lady talking. 1.00

00:36:20.480 Justin Trudeau. And we get this country back on track.

00:36:25.380 That would give me a lot of pride.

00:36:26.900 I have no pride in Canada right now because of what's happening in the country.

00:36:31.160 Yeah, I definitely think it's one of those head and heart issues in our hearts.

00:36:35.260 We love when Canada hosts a big event and we get to welcome the world to our country and we get to showcase our country to to the world.

00:36:45.460 And I certainly remember the Vancouver Games very fondly.

00:36:48.680 I think a lot of us do.

00:36:49.600 I just think the problem is, is that under the IOC, which, in my opinion, is one of the most corrupt organizations on the face of the planet.

00:36:58.560 I mean, this is a committee who a good third of it is still made up of royalty from from royal families in Europe and different parts of the world.

00:37:07.600 To me, they've just said that they've made the rules so that it's so expensive in order to host the Olympics.

00:37:13.780 Now, you have to build new venues that the economic benefits can't possibly outweigh the huge costs.

00:37:20.660 And my favorite story when I was researching the Olympics a bit were when Nagano hosted the games in Japan way back in the day.

00:37:29.760 The finances were so bad that at the end of them, the organizing committee burned the financial statements so that they couldn't be audited after the Olympics were done.

00:37:40.680 I mean, that's a sure sign that things are wrong.

00:37:43.340 Well, thank you both so much for joining today and for being part of it.

00:37:47.740 And, you know, again, my first time hosting.

00:37:49.840 So forgive me if I wasn't up to the the Andrew Lawton standard there.

00:37:53.800 It's great to have Noah and Sue Ann with me.

00:37:56.600 And of course, please remember that everything you've heard today is off the record.

00:38:09.340 So Sue Ann, do you think maybe it's a young person, old person thing about the Olympics?

00:38:13.620 Young people see it in a better light than people like you or I do.

00:38:18.160 Is that the difference?

00:38:19.660 I think no, it just hasn't seen the books because I don't know.

00:38:24.400 Pan Am Games was a disaster.

00:38:27.500 And I don't know.

00:38:29.480 Call me young and naive or whatever.

00:38:31.540 But if in 2018, 2019, the, you know, the year that the Toronto Raptors won the championship, you know, if it had been revealed that the city of Toronto had subsidized the team by like $100 million, I wouldn't care.

00:38:43.740 I mean, I love the championship, but that's great.

00:38:46.220 You know, I think the Olympics is a similar thing.

00:38:48.440 You know, it is definitely an argument people use for why we spend public money, for example, building hockey arenas or building sports venues.

00:38:57.400 The idea that it isn't just dollars and cents.

00:39:01.160 There's an emotional connection to hockey teams, to sports teams and for that in the city.

00:39:07.200 But yeah, but then, you know, those are choices we make.

00:39:10.020 We also sometimes mean we can't spend money on things we want to.

00:39:13.360 In Calgary, it means we can't afford to spend money fixing our water pipes.

00:39:17.000 And that's why we're, once again, having to shut our water down and have reduced water at the month of August.

00:39:23.100 Sean agrees with me.

00:39:24.860 So I think I'm by default correct on this issue, no matter what the counterarguments say.

00:39:30.340 So thank you, Sean, for the validation.

00:39:32.300 And yeah, I'm just right.

Off the Record - August 09, 2024

Where on Earth is Justin Trudeau？

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