Rebel News Podcast - December 28, 2021


EZRA LEVANT ｜ A special year-end interview with our friend Candice Malcolm, founder of True North


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

180.42776

Word count

8,419

Sentence count

547

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Candace Malcolm is one of the few independent journalists in Canada who doesn t take any government money. In this special year-end interview, she talks about why it s so important to have an independent media company that doesn't take government cash.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.300 Hello, my friends. Today, I have a special feature-length interview with Candace Malcolm, the founder of True North.
00:00:07.720 She's one of the few independent journalists in this country. Doesn't take any government money. 0.79
00:00:12.580 That's today's podcast, but I'd like to encourage you to get the video version.
00:00:16.520 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, and it's eight bucks a month.
00:00:21.360 You get my daily show and weekly shows from David Menzies, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and Andrew Chapados.
00:00:26.600 And you get the satisfaction in keeping us independent and strong.
00:00:31.680 We're one of the few people in Canada that don't take government bailouts to new media.
00:00:36.040 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.
00:00:37.680 All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:43.340 You're listening to a Rebel News Podcast.
00:00:45.740 Tonight, a sit-down interview with Candace Malcolm, the founder of True North.
00:01:00.160 It's December 27th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:03.220 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:09.900 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:13.980 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:19.840 Well, I was stunned a few months ago to see the list of Canadian media companies
00:01:32.040 that took a special $61 million pre-election payout from Justin Trudeau's media bailout program.
00:01:41.820 1,500 names.
00:01:45.540 Names of companies.
00:01:46.420 I did not know there were 1,500 media companies in this country.
00:01:50.940 Now, to be fair, Post Media, which has dozens of titles, each one of them was on the list,
00:01:57.640 but that just makes it all the more shocking.
00:02:00.360 And so when I say that 99% of the Canadian media is on the take, that is not an exaggeration.
00:02:07.980 In fact, it's probably more like 99.44, as Dove used to say.
00:02:16.840 But one of the very few media outlets that, like us, doesn't take any money from Trudeau,
00:02:22.200 and it shows, are our friends at True North.
00:02:25.100 And joining us now for a special year-end interview is our friend Candace Malcolm,
00:02:28.700 the founder of True North.
00:02:30.420 And I'm sure you're a subscriber at TNC.news.
00:02:32.820 And if you're not, please go there and fix that.
00:02:34.940 Candace, great to see you again.
00:02:36.200 And congratulations on a banner year for TNC.news.
00:02:40.360 Great to see you.
00:02:41.380 Thank you so much, Ezra.
00:02:42.580 You know, it's really interesting because you see, we have this media scenario
00:02:45.900 where all of these media companies are beholden to the government, and yet they're shrinking.
00:02:50.340 No one's watching them.
00:02:51.300 People aren't tuning in.
00:02:52.500 They're shedding jobs.
00:02:53.580 They're laying off journalists.
00:02:54.440 Meanwhile, you know, independent journalists and outlets like The Rebel and True North
00:02:58.940 are seeing huge success.
00:03:01.420 You know, we had an amazing year in 2021.
00:03:03.720 We nearly doubled in size.
00:03:05.620 And it is because Canadians are choosing with their wallets.
00:03:09.320 They don't like the legacy media.
00:03:10.580 They don't like what they have to offer.
00:03:12.000 And they want something different.
00:03:13.180 And I think that's so evident, so obvious at this point that, you know, it's a great
00:03:17.760 time to be in independent media, but it's a sad state of affairs in our country when so
00:03:22.300 many journalists go hat in hand to the federal government for money.
00:03:26.600 It's such a conflict of interest.
00:03:27.720 It's so wild, Ezra.
00:03:28.920 Yeah.
00:03:29.380 And you know what?
00:03:30.220 I've noticed that now that Trudeau has broken that taboo of literally paying cash to the
00:03:39.600 journalists that cover him, others are saying, oh, so that's how it is in Canada, this sort
00:03:44.800 of soft corruption.
00:03:46.800 Everyone's in on it, so no one talks about him.
00:03:49.360 It's sort of a cartel.
00:03:50.720 And the suckers are the public, because there's no disclosure.
00:03:56.100 You know, when a media party outlet talks about Justin Trudeau, interviews Trudeau, they
00:04:02.520 don't say, brought to you by Trudeau.
00:04:05.040 They keep that conflict of interest, I'm not going to say a secret, although that $61 million
00:04:10.960 list I talked about was kept confidential.
00:04:14.420 Imagine that, 1,500 people keeping a secret.
00:04:17.600 I didn't even know that was possible.
00:04:19.660 But others are getting into the game.
00:04:21.680 So Facebook and Google, they give millions of dollars to media companies, too.
00:04:27.720 And they say, oh, it's because we're so beneficent.
00:04:30.580 But no, I think it's to color the media coverage of big tech and their censorship.
00:04:35.720 And of course, China, the People's Republic of China, now buys huge infomercial-style
00:04:42.720 advertorials in the Globe and Mail and other huge newspapers.
00:04:46.520 So I think that everybody knows the media in Canada is for sale.
00:04:51.420 And I just think it's terrible for our democracy.
00:04:54.560 I don't know any other country that calls itself free, that lets its media be rented
00:05:00.540 out like that.
00:05:01.880 Well, you're absolutely right.
00:05:03.740 And I think that the China thing is really troubling.
00:05:05.920 But you're right.
00:05:06.560 The principle is there.
00:05:07.380 Once you know that the media is for sale and they're there for hire, you know, other less
00:05:13.460 sort of benevolent forces may move in.
00:05:15.500 You may say, oh, the Canadian government, you know, they're a good guy.
00:05:19.540 They're allies.
00:05:20.440 You know, that's us.
00:05:21.120 They're friends and we trust them.
00:05:23.680 But when it comes to countries like China and other countries, Iran as well, you know,
00:05:28.020 paying, you wouldn't even know, Ezra.
00:05:30.160 You're reading the Globe and Mail thinking that you're reading news stories.
00:05:32.940 And actually, an entire page is sponsored by China and you don't even know about it.
00:05:36.980 The way that I like to think about it, and I boil it down, is it's sort of the three Bs
00:05:40.680 of Canadian media, right?
00:05:41.880 So we know they're biased.
00:05:43.080 We know that journalists are left-wing.
00:05:44.480 They've always been left-wing.
00:05:45.320 They've always been in the tank for the Liberals or maybe the NDP in the U.S.
00:05:48.820 They're obviously Democrats.
00:05:50.180 It's so patently obvious.
00:05:51.820 So we have that one.
00:05:52.620 They're biased.
00:05:53.460 In Canada, they're beholden because how can you criticize a government, Ezra, that you're
00:05:58.600 reliant upon to pay your bills?
00:06:00.480 Media is dying.
00:06:01.980 Media is shrinking.
00:06:02.680 They don't have the advertising revenues, as you mentioned.
00:06:05.400 That's all gone to Facebook and Google, and that's its own separate problem.
00:06:08.440 But because of that, the media companies, they can't really truly criticize Trudeau in a
00:06:13.940 meaningful way, in a way that you would expect journalists to do.
00:06:16.900 The role of a journalist is to expose corruption, expose failed policies, expose the inner workings
00:06:23.580 of the government.
00:06:24.600 How could the media expose those things when they need Justin Trudeau?
00:06:28.100 Otherwise, they're going to get laid off.
00:06:29.900 Their companies are going to go out of business.
00:06:31.760 With regards to the CBC, they're going to collapse.
00:06:35.060 We see every year the advertising revenue at the CBC falls.
00:06:38.480 So they're biased.
00:06:39.800 They're beholden.
00:06:40.480 And the third B, which I think is the worst offense, is that they're boring, Ezra.
00:06:44.260 There's so much groupthink.
00:06:45.580 There's so much just repeating the same narrative.
00:06:47.900 They basically take their talking points from the Liberal Party every morning, and they push
00:06:51.760 that out.
00:06:52.160 They attack the Conservatives with that.
00:06:53.580 They push out their news reports on the pandemic and on the vaccines.
00:06:57.780 They don't look like news reports, Ezra.
00:06:59.080 They look like infomercials.
00:07:00.560 And it's so laughable.
00:07:02.700 But there's no contrarian attitude.
00:07:05.780 There's no pushback.
00:07:06.660 There's no—we even see in the U.S. newspapers and magazines that are on the left.
00:07:13.980 There was a long piece in The Atlantic, which is a left-wing magazine, similar to McLean's,
00:07:19.040 all about how the numbers with COVID were massively inflated, right?
00:07:22.560 We saw a long piece in Vanity Fair about how masking children was wrong.
00:07:27.440 And just because, you know, some doctor out there says that it might be a good idea to
00:07:31.640 put masks on little children, talking about five, six-year-olds, that's not a good idea.
00:07:37.480 So you see a variety of opinions and perspectives in the U.S. media that you just wouldn't see
00:07:43.000 in Canada.
00:07:43.440 In Canada, it's all groupthink.
00:07:44.820 They all have the same opinion.
00:07:45.860 They all have the same bland, boring approach to reporting the news, reporting the political
00:07:51.600 news.
00:07:51.900 There's nothing interesting going on.
00:07:54.140 And so those three Bs are why I think that the media is just completely—it's a dead
00:08:00.100 industry.
00:08:00.580 It's dead and dying.
00:08:01.620 And I think that they don't realize it yet.
00:08:03.320 Younger people and anyone under 30, say, doesn't even engage with the legacy media.
00:08:07.920 They don't even care what they're saying.
00:08:09.200 They're not even aware of what they're saying.
00:08:10.560 They've already moved on to new forms of technology and new ways of gaining information.
00:08:14.260 It's just this sort of old guard, Ezra, the Laurentian elite old guard that's clinging
00:08:19.700 to their power.
00:08:20.400 And Justin Trudeau is enabling them.
00:08:22.260 But it's not going to be much longer.
00:08:24.640 You know, sooner or later, these media companies will die.
00:08:27.800 The fact that they're on the dole, they're reliant on Trudeau, it just shows that they're
00:08:32.320 very much on their last legs here.
00:08:34.140 Well, you know, I think that to me the absolute classic moment was in the 2019 federal election
00:08:42.200 when it fell to a U.S. magazine to break the photos of Trudeau in blackface.
00:08:49.260 And there's two parts of that—three parts of that story that I think are interesting.
00:08:52.840 Number one, that it was a Canadian who had these pictures, and he couldn't get a Canadian
00:08:58.880 outlet to be interested, so he felt he had to go to Americans.
00:09:02.100 Number two, as soon as—I think it was Time magazine—published those photos, all of
00:09:08.020 a sudden, the other Canadian media had their own blackface photos that they were sitting
00:09:12.460 on that they said, oh, I guess the story's out, so we should roll out the photo we've
00:09:17.220 been hiding.
00:09:18.560 Like, within hours, the CBC and Global had their photos.
00:09:22.560 They didn't just find them within the last hour.
00:09:25.740 They had them all along.
00:09:27.220 They were holding them back because they pretended they weren't newsworthy, as if, you know,
00:09:31.900 if they found Jason Kenney in blackface, as if they wouldn't roll that out.
00:09:35.180 And finally, after the dust settled, the interrogations and examinations of that B.C.
00:09:42.820 man who leaked this—who gave the story to the Americans, they did more opposition accountability
00:09:50.020 to journalism—him, who are you?
00:09:52.280 What are your motives?
00:09:53.280 —than they did on the story itself.
00:09:55.560 And to me, how can you get 1,500 journalists so trained like that?
00:10:04.360 And it's—and I've been using the phrase media party for almost a decade because it
00:10:10.120 has a party discipline.
00:10:11.920 Candace, it's not just that they think alike and they're boring and they move as a herd.
00:10:16.120 I mean, some animals do that instinctively, like birds line up in a formation when they
00:10:20.800 fly.
00:10:21.660 But if one bird broke away, the other birds don't discipline him.
00:10:25.680 You know, they say, oh, where's he going?
00:10:27.160 But they don't—like in Canada, there's a—you know, you are ousted and punished if you dare
00:10:35.040 criticize.
00:10:36.060 You're demonized and deplatformed.
00:10:37.660 Look at how the National Post tried to fire their star writer, Rex Murphy.
00:10:41.760 So it's—
00:10:42.220 Rex Murphy, Barbara Kaye.
00:10:43.180 I mean, it's happened to so many of them, right?
00:10:44.860 And you're right.
00:10:47.400 With the guy in Vancouver, they were camped out outside his house.
00:10:50.360 Like, you know, they were giving him more scrutiny than the prime minister who was the
00:10:53.740 one who was found in blackface thinking that, what, he was some shadowy operative or something
00:10:58.520 like that.
00:10:58.900 It's like their fever dream about what's happening.
00:11:02.320 And yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:11:03.780 I think Twitter has given us a little insight into the minds of how these journalists work
00:11:08.740 because they share their musings on there.
00:11:10.640 And you can absolutely see it, the way that they go after other journalists.
00:11:14.780 It's—you know, they've, for years, targeted the Toronto Sun.
00:11:18.240 You used to write for the Sun.
00:11:19.440 I still do.
00:11:20.480 And, you know, there's so many articles out there of legacy media journalists just completely
00:11:25.360 demonizing the Sun.
00:11:26.780 And to be completely honest, the Sun is pretty tame.
00:11:29.480 The Sun is not a right-wing publication by any imagination.
00:11:33.780 They're pretty tame, pretty mainstream.
00:11:35.780 Maybe they push back ever so gently here and there.
00:11:38.900 But the way that journalists from, you know, the Toronto Star, CBC, there is a pack of
00:11:46.900 them.
00:11:47.120 And I love your term, the media party.
00:11:48.760 It really is completely accurate because, you know, most of them come from the same sort
00:11:54.300 of walk of life.
00:11:55.440 They have the same lifestyle.
00:11:56.400 They have the same core values and beliefs.
00:11:59.040 And Justin Trudeau's their guy.
00:12:00.260 He's their man in office.
00:12:01.700 And they're going to protect him.
00:12:03.040 And so whether it's, you know, completely falling in line with any health edict that
00:12:10.140 he gives and painting anyone who goes against, you know, these heavy-handed, top-down orders,
00:12:16.620 treating them like they're some kind of an enemy to the state, it's really remarkable to
00:12:21.720 see.
00:12:21.920 And like I said, Twitter gives us a great little window as to how it operates because you
00:12:26.220 can see they're, you know, they're mean-spirited, they're bullies, they get really angry at
00:12:30.320 other journalists who don't report the same stuff, you know, the way they treat you, the
00:12:33.800 way they treat me.
00:12:35.600 Even, you know, people like Holly Doan, Holly Doan over at Black Logs is a lovely human being.
00:12:39.720 She's not right-wing by any imagination. 0.95
00:12:43.100 She just doesn't fall in line with what they do.
00:12:46.040 And she'll happily report, you know, misdeeds and misspending and corruption in the Trudeau
00:12:52.600 government.
00:12:53.200 And it's like, that's not allowed.
00:12:54.700 And you can see, really, the PAC mentality, like you say, the media party as well.
00:12:59.700 Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Holly Doan of BlackLocks.ca.
00:13:03.340 I swear, you can count them on one hand's fingers, the number of media companies that
00:13:08.560 are not on the government tool.
00:13:10.320 I want to move on to some other topics.
00:13:12.120 But before we do, you mentioned that True North has doubled in size, and I can see it.
00:13:16.660 I see some of the journalism you're doing.
00:13:18.900 For some of our viewers who haven't yet signed up, and really, folks, you've got to sign up.
00:13:23.540 It's tnc.news.
00:13:25.180 I think it behooves all of us who complain about the media party to support the alternatives.
00:13:31.480 I support a number of media, just, you know, $10 a month or whatever, like I'm not going
00:13:35.640 crazy or anything.
00:13:37.760 Frankly, I support some media that I don't even read.
00:13:40.400 Because I know that sounds odd, but, like, if I want there to be a viable competition
00:13:48.800 for the media party, can I not put $10 a month in?
00:13:52.200 And so, I mean, I think I'm a $10 a month guy to True North.
00:13:55.260 Tell me what you guys are up to.
00:13:56.500 Can you give us a bit of a year-end report?
00:14:00.900 Like, what did you guys accomplish in 2021?
00:14:03.520 And what are your plans for the future?
00:14:04.980 You mentioned you're doubled in size.
00:14:06.700 Just give our viewers just a little sampler of what you're up to.
00:14:11.160 Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:11.820 Well, thank you for the opportunity, Ezra, and for the little plug there.
00:14:14.360 I think that's right.
00:14:15.100 I think that conservatives are really good at supporting conservative causes.
00:14:18.980 And you look around at sort of the infrastructure.
00:14:20.660 We have a lot of conservative free market think tanks, you know, university-adjacent programs
00:14:26.460 to help young scholars.
00:14:27.900 We have the sort of economic think tank that looks through the numbers.
00:14:32.600 But when it comes to the media, there's just, you know, the landscape was pretty wide open
00:14:36.700 a couple of years ago, and a new rebel is right in there with a huge audience.
00:14:42.000 But for True North, what we try to do is we step in with the written report.
00:14:46.700 So we try to almost compete, Ezra, against, like, the wire service, the Canadian press,
00:14:52.040 writing news stories, but not from the perspective of the leftist, you know, biased, beholden,
00:14:59.000 and boring legacy media.
00:15:00.540 We try to tell stories that are interesting to conservatives.
00:15:03.800 We do quite a bit of investigative journalism with ATIPS, talking to sources, trying to uncover
00:15:08.560 broader themes that are being ignored by the legacy media.
00:15:12.640 So we do a lot of written work, and we put out news stories, you know, every hour, all day.
00:15:19.160 And so for us, some of our core areas that we report on, things like civil liberties,
00:15:26.040 things like, you know, obviously corruption within government.
00:15:29.860 Myself, I've long been interested in things like immigration, terrorist networks operating
00:15:35.060 in Canada, you know, nefarious actors and state-sponsored activities in Canada.
00:15:41.360 And so those are the sort of areas we focus on.
00:15:44.620 But of course, we touch everything.
00:15:45.800 We've started getting really into this issue of critical race theory being taught in our
00:15:50.020 schools, the sort of idea that everything in Canada boils down to racism, that Canada
00:15:56.340 is a white supremacist country.
00:15:57.440 These are things that are being taught in our schools to our children.
00:16:00.760 And then obviously COVID as well, and this huge government overreach.
00:16:04.760 And so, you know, there's a variety of topics that we look at.
00:16:07.580 We also put out documentaries.
00:16:09.020 My colleague Andrew Lawton put out a full-length documentary last year looking at the issue
00:16:14.220 of gun rights and legal gun owners and how the Trader government's really heavy-handed,
00:16:18.680 clunky, awkward ban of supposed so-called assault rifles, how that impacted day-to-day people
00:16:25.160 and not just people who you would imagine that are gun owners, but other people as well,
00:16:30.560 like Olympians and sports shooters and those kind of people, women who want to carry a weapon 1.00
00:16:36.160 in terms of self-defense, you know, they looked at, he looked at and interviewed people from
00:16:41.080 all over the country and told a really unique perspective.
00:16:43.880 So, you know, we have a lot of really fun projects on the go that we're constantly working
00:16:47.780 on.
00:16:48.420 For me personally, one of the biggest issues and stories that I uncovered the past year
00:16:52.540 was just looking at the issue of the supposed unmarked graves that were discovered near residential
00:16:58.840 schools and how the media really manipulated that story and took the facts out of context.
00:17:03.480 They didn't do the regular due diligence of the journalism in terms of verifying information
00:17:09.360 and reporting the facts.
00:17:12.200 Instead, they just ran away with this narrative that Canada is this evil, genocidal state and
00:17:16.020 that the residential schools were like de facto death camps.
00:17:19.320 You know, that's not what the evidence showed.
00:17:21.560 That's not what we learned from the discoveries at T'Kemloops and other First Nations reserves.
00:17:27.260 And so, you know, just trying to report the facts to viewers, but also uncover, pull apart
00:17:36.540 the spin, you know, decode the media spin, call out the media, call out the legacy media.
00:17:42.020 One of the other things that we do on the Candace Malcolm Show, I have a podcast called
00:17:44.920 the Candace Malcolm Show.
00:17:45.680 It comes out Monday to Friday.
00:17:46.940 And every Friday we do an episode, as we're called, Fake News Friday, where we just go
00:17:51.600 through some of the worst examples of the week of the media either lying to viewers, misrepresenting
00:17:58.180 the facts, being completely biased and in the tank for the Trudeau liberals.
00:18:01.940 So there's a lot of content, obviously.
00:18:04.040 If anything, it's hard to boil it down to the top three stories each week, but we do that
00:18:08.200 every Friday.
00:18:08.840 And so, anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on at True North.
00:18:11.200 We've got some great reporters, great podcast hosts.
00:18:15.440 You know, like I said, we're expanding.
00:18:16.840 I think we've, we're up to 15 journalists and producers working for us now, which is,
00:18:21.200 you know, like I said, double from last year.
00:18:23.480 And, yeah, we've got a big year on the horizon as well.
00:18:26.100 And we've got some exciting things planned.
00:18:28.540 So, yeah, I really appreciate everyone watching who, you know, watches Rebel, also watches True
00:18:34.360 North.
00:18:34.660 We sort of complement one another.
00:18:35.880 And, again, it's so important that we, that we recognize the need to support independent
00:18:42.700 media, because, you know, unlike all the guys that go hand in the Trudeau government, we
00:18:46.980 actually, by principle, don't accept money from the government.
00:18:49.380 We never will.
00:18:50.040 We never do.
00:18:50.660 We never have.
00:18:51.680 And we actually think it's, it's wrong and a huge conflict of interest.
00:18:55.800 And ethically, it undermines the practice of journalism when you're accepting money from
00:18:59.840 the subject of which you are reporting on and investigating, Ezra.
00:19:03.120 Well, you know, I just want to tell you, Candace, that's a great summary, but I want to tell
00:19:08.060 you that I was talking to the lawyer for McLean's magazine, Howard Winkler, the other
00:19:13.120 day.
00:19:13.620 And he tells me that McLean's has a staff of 14.
00:19:20.740 So you have a staff, I think you just said, of 15.
00:19:24.080 I want to let you know that in just a few years, without a dime of government money, you
00:19:30.220 and your viewers and your team have built a news organization larger than McLean's, one
00:19:35.020 of the oldest and most prestigious brands in legacy media.
00:19:38.620 So congratulations.
00:19:40.480 Yeah, that's, I mean, that's great.
00:19:41.940 And it's kind of sad what McLean's has become, because it used to be so fun and so interesting.
00:19:45.760 I remember reading it in, I guess it was the 2000s.
00:19:48.080 And they had, you know, they had some really, you know, they had Mark Stein in there, Andrew
00:19:52.500 Coyne used to write there.
00:19:53.860 I think Paul Wells is still there.
00:19:55.340 He's a, he's an interesting guy, but you know, the, the, the, the magazine was exciting
00:19:59.820 and interesting.
00:20:00.320 And now I read it and it's just like, you know, woke left-wing hectoring, they hate Canada.
00:20:05.580 Every story is either about how Canada's racist and full of racist people or how our history
00:20:10.660 is genocidal.
00:20:11.380 Like they've fully bought into the woke mindset and, and it's almost depressing that that's
00:20:16.240 Canada's national magazine.
00:20:17.640 You read it and you just feel like these people hate Canada.
00:20:20.720 I don't even know.
00:20:21.740 I mean, they used to be the national magazine.
00:20:23.580 I'll, I'll grant them their history, but I, I just have never heard anyone talk about
00:20:28.400 that.
00:20:28.540 You know, I was, I was looking, um, I remember many years ago when I ran the Western Standard
00:20:34.120 magazine out of Calgary.
00:20:35.860 And, um, of course we didn't take government money back then either, but back around the
00:20:40.740 same time, a magazine called The Walrus started and it had charitable status.
00:20:46.360 And so I studied, well, where are they getting their money from?
00:20:49.480 And they, they got it in part from the Tides Foundation, which, um, is a left-wing Marxist
00:20:55.660 group that hates, uh, oil and gas, for example.
00:20:58.200 A lot of folks have heard of the Tides Foundation, uh, but they, they're still around.
00:21:02.080 The Walrus is still around and because they're a registered charity, their financials are
00:21:06.380 disclosed on the Canada Revenue Agency website.
00:21:08.580 I think that's a $6 million a year company, which is an enormous budget.
00:21:14.160 Um, so they're getting all these grants.
00:21:17.760 They're getting huge government payouts.
00:21:20.300 They're getting cash injections from foreign lobby groups.
00:21:24.660 I honestly don't know what they're doing with all that money.
00:21:28.180 I think I pay attention to Canadian media more than your average bear.
00:21:31.760 And I, for the life of me, can't remember the last time anyone said, hey, did you see
00:21:37.440 that article on The Walrus?
00:21:38.900 Or, whoa, The Walrus is, but it's just, I think you're right.
00:21:43.060 You talked about bias and beholden and boring.
00:21:45.980 It's just when you're, when you're basically hired by all these authorities to just pump
00:21:53.620 out content, you're a content farm for Trudeau and the Tides Foundation.
00:21:59.060 How could you be interesting?
00:22:00.780 You're not allowed to be.
00:22:02.500 And the, and the managers, like the business people, you're not an entrepreneur.
00:22:06.780 You're a grantrepreneur, which is a real thing.
00:22:10.420 You're just an expert at filling out forms and, and putting together PowerPoints of why
00:22:15.700 you should get grants instead of an expert of running a company.
00:22:18.660 I find that deeply sad, actually, because I'd love it if there was a rollicking magazine
00:22:24.460 that took on everyone.
00:22:26.280 I'd read it.
00:22:27.060 I'll, I'll never read The Walrus.
00:22:28.520 I just never even think about it.
00:22:30.120 It's like a, an empty cab pulls up and The Walrus steps out, as they say.
00:22:35.420 It's just, it's a, it's a nothing.
00:22:37.220 It's a void.
00:22:37.980 Don't mind me ranting.
00:22:38.980 I want to ask you another question.
00:22:41.380 You're the president of the Independent Press Gallery.
00:22:44.560 Give us an update on that.
00:22:46.600 Sure.
00:22:46.880 Yeah.
00:22:47.100 So the purpose behind the Independent Press Gallery, Ezra, as you know, is that there,
00:22:52.240 there, there were so many independent outlets.
00:22:54.240 As we mentioned, there's a huge void on the, on the political right when it comes to journalism
00:22:58.200 and ideas.
00:22:58.980 And so a lot of actors have, have jumped in and we sort of realized like, Hey, you know,
00:23:03.900 we're, we're all being discriminated against when it comes to access to press conferences,
00:23:08.400 being able to cover elections, you know, we're stronger if we're together.
00:23:12.120 So the Independent Press Gallery is an organization that allows just, not just on the right, any
00:23:17.380 independent outlet, any, any media company that doesn't take money from the government
00:23:21.900 to, to, to come together to kind of use our collective strength to, to sort of borrow an
00:23:27.280 idea from unions and collective bargaining.
00:23:29.540 But, but the idea is that, you know, if, if, if one of us is, is treated in an unfair way,
00:23:34.460 we can all sort of come together and speak out.
00:23:36.680 If, if, if we need access to something, again, we can, we can come together and, and speak
00:23:41.640 out.
00:23:41.860 And so it's, it's great.
00:23:42.880 It's, it's sort of a, a forum, a social club, a way for us to, you know, put our heads
00:23:49.660 together sometimes when we need to.
00:23:51.820 And we basically have two requirements for any journalist.
00:23:56.280 One, you need to sign our declaration, avowing to follow journalism ethics, basic, basic
00:24:03.340 ethics that the journalists must follow.
00:24:06.380 And then second, which, which, which really is part of the first, you must pledge that
00:24:10.680 you do not take money from the government.
00:24:12.500 And that's so important.
00:24:13.500 It's so important to journalists all over the world.
00:24:15.320 It's, it's wild that that would even be something that we would have to make a requirement for
00:24:19.720 as you're in Canada.
00:24:20.600 But as, as you mentioned, and as we all know, so many journalists take money from the government.
00:24:24.520 And so, you know, most legacy media journalists wouldn't, wouldn't be able to join the independent
00:24:28.920 press gallery simply because they're not truly independent.
00:24:32.040 They do take money from the government.
00:24:33.040 And so they have that conflict of interest.
00:24:35.400 One of the things the independent press gallery did under your watch was rise to the occasion
00:24:40.120 of the absolutely un-Canadian proposal to regulate the internet that the Trudeau liberals put
00:24:48.580 forward in the last parliament.
00:24:49.640 And because parliament broke for the election, those bills died on the order paper.
00:24:54.360 That's like, they just, they won't continue.
00:24:56.860 They have to be reintroduced.
00:24:58.060 But the liberals after the election two months ago said they're going to do it.
00:25:04.180 They intend to regulate the internet in a way that has never been seen in Canada or the United States
00:25:10.260 or the UK or Australia.
00:25:12.160 Germany has some pretty crazy censorship laws.
00:25:14.620 I think that's a legacy of their Nazi era, but really it goes further than anything they 0.90
00:25:20.680 have.
00:25:20.980 It really feels like something that Turkey, like a, like a semi-free authoritarian country
00:25:26.520 like them or Russia would do. 0.89
00:25:28.460 Can you give us a bit of a summary of what you're worried about is coming for internet censorship?
00:25:37.400 Because I think that while we're all focused on the civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic
00:25:42.320 as well, we should be.
00:25:43.880 There's a monster that's slouching forward.
00:25:47.220 And I think they're dead serious about it, by the way.
00:25:49.940 But why don't you go ahead and tell us your thoughts on that?
00:25:52.800 Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:53.600 As for, we got, definitely got a sneak peek of it under Stefan Gilboa, the former heritage 0.98
00:25:58.000 minister and some of the, just absolutely, like you said, undemocratic, illiberal bills
00:26:04.640 that they want to put forth to censor the internet.
00:26:07.440 I mean, it's chilling, it's terrifying.
00:26:09.760 And again, just from the perspective of, you know, your average Canadian who thinks,
00:26:14.540 okay, I don't know, no one's in support of hate speech.
00:26:17.820 No one wants, you know, bullying and these kind of things online.
00:26:21.180 It's true to liberals who are taking advantage of that sentiment and going further than anything
00:26:25.260 we've ever seen before.
00:26:26.780 And I think this is going to be one of, if not the most important issues of the next
00:26:31.800 five years that we need to, you know, the internet was created, Ezra, as sort of a bastion
00:26:36.380 of freedom.
00:26:37.100 It's, you know, as much as we sort of bemoan big tech and the growth and the concentration
00:26:41.560 of power, you know, the idea initially and up until recently was that libertarians sort
00:26:48.640 of built the internet and this idea that you can be free, you can express yourself, you
00:26:52.820 can say what you want.
00:26:53.640 And people can choose what we know you can choose.
00:26:56.440 You can turn off one app, you can open up another one.
00:26:59.080 You don't have to expose yourself to this.
00:27:01.160 But the idea that true liberals would come in and try to sanitize that, try to create
00:27:04.880 rules, I mean, it's completely the antithesis of free speech in a free society.
00:27:11.000 And I think one of the things that's equally troubling, Ezra, is a total lack of opposition
00:27:15.300 against it.
00:27:16.260 We barely heard a peep about this in the federal election, just like so many other important
00:27:21.480 issues of the day, because Aaron O'Toole doesn't actually oppose Justin Trudeau.
00:27:25.760 He agrees with Justin Trudeau on most of these issues.
00:27:28.960 And so he didn't want to come out opposing these bills.
00:27:33.540 I don't know what the new ones will be called.
00:27:35.280 But he doesn't want to come out and oppose them because he actually agrees with them and
00:27:38.080 wants them.
00:27:38.540 And he doesn't want to be painted as someone who's enabling extremism online.
00:27:41.880 But we've seen so much of this, Ezra, even with, you know, to go back to the criticism
00:27:46.140 of the media, first of all, the media, the legacy media has been silent on this.
00:27:50.620 We've barely heard any kind of criticism, any kind of alarm bells being rung in the newspapers,
00:27:57.260 on TV stations, on radio stations about this massive breach into our freedoms online.
00:28:06.400 But also they've sort of been pre-spinning in support of Trudeau by creating this sort
00:28:14.120 of boogeyman idea that there's this sort of legion of extremists lurking online and that
00:28:18.840 it somehow poses a threat to Canadian society and that the sort of real terrorists are so-called
00:28:24.480 right-wing extremists online.
00:28:26.500 You see these kind of stories being pushed out on CBC and Toronto Star and other legacy
00:28:31.700 media, Justin Trudeau networks.
00:28:33.840 And what they're doing is they're building up fear and anticipation so that Trudeau can
00:28:39.000 sweep in with these really sweeping pieces of legislation.
00:28:44.720 So certainly that's one of the things that the Independent Press Gallery is going to be
00:28:48.540 keeping an eye on.
00:28:49.720 That's something that True North will be reporting to keep an eye on.
00:28:52.900 And I know, you know, Rebel do a great job of keeping us up to date with what the latest
00:28:59.480 movement is towards these bills.
00:29:02.540 We know Trudeau is dead set on imposing.
00:29:05.160 You know, I want to play a quick clip for you from Parliament.
00:29:08.900 Now, this was a few months back.
00:29:12.100 And Alain Reyes is no longer Erin O'Toole's critic.
00:29:15.100 I should point that out.
00:29:16.340 But here is the official conservative critic under Erin O'Toole at the time giving the
00:29:22.440 official party's response, the conservative party's response, to the proposed Internet censorship.
00:29:28.540 And the fact that he's no longer the critic right now and the fact that the bill has changed
00:29:35.900 somewhat is irrelevant.
00:29:36.960 I want you to hear what the conservative party under Erin O'Toole has said in Parliament about
00:29:44.860 Internet censorship.
00:29:45.980 I'll sum it up for you.
00:29:47.100 They want more censorship faster.
00:29:48.920 Take a look.
00:29:49.400 But we don't see it in the bill.
00:29:52.920 There's nothing in this bill that allows for the regulation of social media or platforms
00:29:58.360 like YouTube.
00:29:58.980 And it's clear we would have liked to have seen this in the bill.
00:30:03.360 The minister even says we have to find a way of preventing hate speech, conspiracy theories
00:30:11.240 and fake news that's shared.
00:30:13.380 But right now in the bill, unfortunately, we won't even be able to amend it in that aspect
00:30:21.140 and because it's simply absent from the bill.
00:30:23.360 I just don't believe that the party means it when they say they're opposed to it because
00:30:30.260 I mean, Erin O'Toole is sort of an expert of saying one thing to his party base when
00:30:35.680 he wanted their vote to become leader.
00:30:38.080 And I mean, I tell you, I wish the guys who write the conservative party fundraising emails,
00:30:43.100 I wish they were the MPs because the conservative party fundraising machine actually knows what
00:30:48.900 conservative party members want.
00:30:51.120 And so they give them that red meat when they're asking for money.
00:30:54.600 Trouble is, the MPs in parliament and the leader himself don't believe any of that stuff.
00:31:00.000 I mean, a few of them might, but they've been absolutely subordinated.
00:31:05.560 They've been shut up.
00:31:06.860 Marilyn Gledew talked about a little freedom caucus.
00:31:10.520 She was frog marched out to apologize for it.
00:31:13.180 Anyone who issues any sort of statement contrary to the leader, even by one inch, fired or threatened
00:31:20.000 or demoted, Leslyn Lewis, an interesting conservative MP.
00:31:25.860 I mean, maybe not everyone's first choice, but absolutely sentenced to the back benches in
00:31:31.340 Siberia because she's not an Erin O'Toole lookalike.
00:31:35.820 I am worried that the Conservative Party of Canada actually does not oppose this internet
00:31:42.860 censorship.
00:31:44.200 Well, it doesn't sound like it from that clip that you played, but you're right, Ezra.
00:31:48.360 I don't understand Erin O'Toole. 0.93
00:31:50.340 I don't understand why he's still the leader of this party.
00:31:52.920 He had a dismal performance in the last election.
00:31:55.220 He took a bet, he took a chance by swinging the party to the left saying, okay, all of the
00:32:00.640 criticisms that the media has had about my party over the past five years, I will either
00:32:04.940 apologize for those, or I will purge the elements of those parties, whether it's Derek Sloan,
00:32:09.900 like you said, Marilyn Gladue, you know, push those elements as far away. 0.96
00:32:14.600 The thing that he was most passionate about, Ezra, on the campaign trail was declaring
00:32:18.900 his left-wing bona fides.
00:32:20.680 His eyes would light up when he would talk about how he was pro-choice, pro-abortion.
00:32:26.600 He doesn't want anything to do with the sort of base of the Conservative Party.
00:32:30.740 He threw them under the bus, and the bet was that that was going to get him elected, and
00:32:35.780 then perhaps maybe he would come back and elect a little—govern a little bit more from the
00:32:39.920 right.
00:32:40.080 Well, he didn't.
00:32:40.580 He failed.
00:32:41.400 He lost seats.
00:32:42.180 He lost votes.
00:32:44.040 His plan didn't work.
00:32:45.620 His plan failed.
00:32:46.960 And, you know, in the meantime, he not only duped Conservatives, but he completely insulted
00:32:50.780 them.
00:32:51.440 He degraded their ideas.
00:32:52.740 And he has no business leading the party anymore.
00:32:55.980 But instead, you know, everyone's giving him a pass.
00:32:58.600 The MPs don't really want to, I guess, go into another leadership debate.
00:33:03.360 And now we see this sort of angry man that's just completely lashing out over anyone who
00:33:08.740 has a dissenting opinion, like you mentioned with Marilyn Gladue.
00:33:11.580 But also, you know, Denise Batters, who's a really popular senator from Saskatchewan, she 0.67
00:33:16.220 put forth a petition just simply saying, you know, let's have a leadership review.
00:33:20.600 It's common after an election that we lost to have a leadership review.
00:33:25.600 And, you know, if Aaron O'Toole really feels that he has the support of the party, then
00:33:29.980 he'll have a stronger mandate going into the next election, and we're not going to be stuck
00:33:33.240 in a situation where we have a leadership review in 2023, and then Trudeau could spark
00:33:37.800 an election immediately after that with the Conservative Party in shambles.
00:33:42.400 And so she was making a very reasonable point.
00:33:44.720 What does he do?
00:33:45.360 He kicks her out of the party.
00:33:46.340 He expels her from the Conservative Party.
00:33:48.580 Shannon Stubbs, another one of popular MP out in the prairies, out in sort of northeast
00:33:55.140 Alberta, she made a couple of comments about Aaron O'Toole criticizing some things that
00:34:00.240 he had said on election night.
00:34:02.380 And, you know, suddenly his office is investigating her, and there's this really awful story about
00:34:08.900 her, a hit piece in the Globe and Mail, filled with anonymous accusations from anonymous staffers 0.76
00:34:13.620 saying that she was mean and that she worked them too hard or whatever. 0.87
00:34:16.680 It's like, you know, we know where this is coming from.
00:34:19.280 It's coming from Aaron O'Toole and his inner circle, and, you know, they're bullying people.
00:34:23.160 They're pushing out strong female voices from the party, strong Western Canadian voices from
00:34:28.600 the party.
00:34:29.460 Instead, they're trying to sanitize the party.
00:34:31.120 They're trying to create a party that's more media-friendly, that's more palatable to
00:34:35.120 left-wing voters, and more similar to Justin Trudeau.
00:34:38.400 Basically, the proposition that he had in the last election is, we're just exactly the
00:34:42.820 same as the Liberal Party, but we're less, what, we're less damaged by, you know, five
00:34:47.760 years in government.
00:34:48.860 And so they're saying that they'll basically just step in and be better managers of the
00:34:52.660 government.
00:34:53.000 Well, Canadians want something different. 0.99
00:34:54.720 They want an opposition party that opposes the Liberals.
00:34:57.760 They want a conservative party that promotes and stands up for conservative values.
00:35:01.260 And, you know, the freedom of speech issue, the regulating of the internet is just one
00:35:05.360 of about a dozen issues that Aaron O'Toole's abandoned, that Aaron O'Toole said, I'm going
00:35:10.580 to just, you know, go wherever Trudeau goes, hoping that, you know, that that will make him
00:35:15.900 more palatable, again, to left-wing voters and legacy media, that they'll finally, you
00:35:20.640 know, change their mind and go with O'Toole as opposed to Trudeau, which, as we both know,
00:35:24.880 is never going to happen.
00:35:25.920 So I have a lot of criticism for the Conservative Party.
00:35:30.000 And again, I just don't understand why Aaron O'Toole is still the leader of that party.
00:35:34.240 Yeah, you know, and I should say to our viewers, I know for a fact that you and your team at
00:35:39.300 True North have given him every benefit of the doubt.
00:35:41.600 I recall Andrew Lawton, your great colleague who we admire and have on the show from time
00:35:46.000 to time.
00:35:46.680 He had a great sit-down interview with Aaron O'Toole, you know, during the leadership
00:35:53.460 race.
00:35:54.160 So you guys have given him every respect.
00:35:57.580 You've got, you're not hostile to him.
00:36:00.940 So it's not, I mean, we have a bit of a, I mean, they poke at us and we poke back so
00:36:06.120 people could say, oh, you guys are in a quarrel.
00:36:08.580 You guys don't have a quarrel with him on a personal or relationship level.
00:36:13.580 Your objection to him, at least it looks to me, is purely on the fact that he, of policy
00:36:18.560 level and the fact that he's flip-flopped.
00:36:20.140 So I, I mean, I think the fact that you guys who, who traveled on his campaign plane, if
00:36:25.940 I recall.
00:36:26.920 Yeah, we had Andrew embedded on the conservative campaign for a week during the 2021 election.
00:36:32.460 Yeah.
00:36:32.840 So you guys, I mean, it's not like you guys went in there thinking we're going to give
00:36:36.060 this, I mean, I think you went in there with an open mind and he just disappointed you
00:36:39.780 if I'm summing things up.
00:36:41.320 I, what, what gets me is that I look at 10 Canadian provinces, three territories, the
00:36:48.160 federal government and every single governing party and every single, single official opposition
00:36:54.060 has the identical policies on the core issues of our day, the lockdowns, civil liberties,
00:37:01.840 vaccine mandates, quarantines, travel bans.
00:37:05.780 Like really, is there even a millimeter of difference between any of them?
00:37:10.580 And I, and I think to myself, other than a few stragglers, like in Ontario, there's a
00:37:15.560 few MPPs like Randy Hillier and Belinda Carahelios and Roman Baber who are chucked out of the
00:37:21.460 government so they can speak clearly.
00:37:23.000 And you've got Maxime Bernier who doesn't have a seat.
00:37:25.180 Other than these, you know, little atoms, these free atoms flying around in our entire
00:37:32.580 political system, you don't have any diversity of thought on those key issues.
00:37:37.320 And I keep thinking, what if someone were to try?
00:37:41.080 And I look to Ron DeSantis in Florida.
00:37:43.520 I remember when he first decided to buck the sameness and he had about two terrible weeks
00:37:50.780 where the media just tried to destroy him, but he didn't blink.
00:37:55.300 He didn't, you know, adjust his thinking to theirs.
00:37:58.800 And not only did it work as a policy, but he's a real leader.
00:38:04.780 He led his state.
00:38:06.760 He's a role model for other American conservatives who are catching up to him.
00:38:11.560 Like I think Texas is playing catch up to him.
00:38:13.860 And I look at this and I think, why couldn't we even, we don't even have to be that quote
00:38:18.220 right wing.
00:38:18.920 I just wish that Aaron O'Toole and frankly, Doug Ford and Jason Kenney would just try breaking
00:38:26.480 from the pack.
00:38:27.980 Just like there's a media party.
00:38:29.360 There's now a pandemic lockdown party.
00:38:31.420 They're all lockdownists and you're not allowed to deviate.
00:38:34.040 I don't know.
00:38:34.420 I mean, your comments about Aaron O'Toole make me wish if he just tried being conservative,
00:38:39.780 he couldn't do any worse than he's doing as a copycat liberal.
00:38:44.260 You're right.
00:38:44.920 Yeah.
00:38:45.180 And thanks for clarifying that because we did take Aaron O'Toole with an open mind.
00:38:49.460 I tried to hold my criticism of him during the election because, like I said, you know,
00:38:54.140 he had a strategy and I wanted to see whether it was going to work.
00:38:57.260 It didn't work.
00:38:58.360 And now I think that there needs to be a reckoning.
00:39:00.340 But, you know, True North is open to fair coverage of the conservatives in a way that
00:39:06.480 I don't think many other media companies in the country are.
00:39:09.140 We don't instinctively demonize and go after the conservatives.
00:39:13.940 I have many of the MPs as guests on my podcast.
00:39:17.420 I have someone on them this weekly.
00:39:19.540 And definitely overall, we have a good relationship with the conservative party.
00:39:23.540 It's just this leader.
00:39:24.300 I don't understand the direction.
00:39:26.540 And you're absolutely right about Ron DeSantos.
00:39:29.080 I mean, the media tried to get Ron DeSantos to stick.
00:39:32.440 They started calling him Ron DeSantos and it didn't stick because the numbers didn't
00:39:36.540 bear out.
00:39:36.920 They tried to paint it as if, oh, look, this, you know, this crazy governor, they're having
00:39:40.860 a Super Bowl party.
00:39:41.800 Just wait for the huge spike. 0.98
00:39:42.980 And the huge spike never came, right?
00:39:44.600 They opened Disney World when Disneyland was still completely shut.
00:39:47.940 Oh, there's going to be a huge spike.
00:39:50.120 No spike.
00:39:51.480 Ron DeSantos has done a tremendous job.
00:39:53.380 And I think he is a role model to all North American conservatives.
00:39:56.420 You're right.
00:39:56.600 It's too bad that we don't have our own Canadian iteration of that.
00:39:59.780 And I think that a major reason for that, Ezra, is because of our health care system.
00:40:06.140 Our health care system is state-run, centrally planned, and we don't have the same capacity
00:40:12.200 as the, you know, free and competitive system in the U.S. where there are multiple hospitals
00:40:18.400 in the same region where there's, you know, three or four times as many beds in ICU capacity.
00:40:24.220 And so, you know, when Canada gets into a situation where there is a wave or a spike, our hospitals
00:40:30.380 are completely inundated and overrun.
00:40:32.160 And now would have been a great opportunity for a conservative leader to step up and really
00:40:36.280 articulate the reason why we need more choice, more competition, more private money going
00:40:40.840 into our health care system.
00:40:42.480 And instead, you know, we didn't see Erin O'Toole able to articulate that and sell that 0.97
00:40:49.160 vision during the election.
00:40:50.620 We don't see Doug Ford or Jason Kenney here and there.
00:40:53.080 They make a comment, you know, they both initially opposed vaccine mandates, saying
00:40:56.660 that we don't want to split society, saying that they go against our charter and our health
00:41:01.220 act.
00:41:02.360 And then, you know, a few weeks later, I guess they got convinced by the health bureaucrats
00:41:07.100 in their system to go the other way.
00:41:09.180 But we don't see them standing their ground.
00:41:10.740 We don't see them standing up to the lies in the legacy media.
00:41:13.880 We don't see them pushing back against the heavy-handedness.
00:41:17.060 And it's so disappointing.
00:41:17.880 In fact, the examples that you gave with Doug Ford, Ontario and Jason Kenney in Alberta,
00:41:22.040 some of the worst civil liberties offenses in the country.
00:41:25.460 I think that probably the worst thing that happened during the pandemic was the announcement
00:41:29.280 by Doug Ford's auditor general, sorry, attorney general, saying that they were going to have
00:41:35.800 police stop people on the street, stop cars on the road, saying that they were going to
00:41:40.460 ask for a reason as to why they're out.
00:41:41.940 One of the best moments of the pandemic was when those police forces stood up and said,
00:41:46.740 no, we're not doing that.
00:41:47.500 We're not doing that.
00:41:48.480 And defying that order until the Ford government retreated and came back and said that they
00:41:54.120 weren't going to do that anymore.
00:41:55.320 That was one of the worst and one of the best moments of the pandemic.
00:41:58.220 And in Alberta, your coverage of the pastors being arrested, I mean, it's absolutely
00:42:02.020 uncomprehensible that that would be happening in a province run by Conservative Premier Jason
00:42:08.220 Kenney.
00:42:08.680 And I think that, you know, those instances, those absolutely despicable trampling of human
00:42:15.680 rights in Canada is something that conservatives won't soon forget, Ezra.
00:42:20.660 Yeah, it's just incredible.
00:42:22.580 Well, listen, I'm really enjoying our conversation.
00:42:25.080 Let me end with a forward-looking question.
00:42:28.060 I have my thoughts on this, but I'd love to hear, what do you think the big battle or the
00:42:35.040 big story of 2022 will be?
00:42:38.560 Is it a censorship fight?
00:42:39.800 Is it something to do with lockdowns and the fifth booster?
00:42:43.660 Is it, what do you think the big, is it going to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Russia
00:42:48.120 and Ukraine?
00:42:48.800 What's the big thing you're worried about or waiting for in 2022?
00:42:53.900 Well, you know, I'm worried about a lot of things.
00:42:57.800 That's where I'm worried about inflation and the risk of hyperinflation with the way that
00:43:01.340 we have been printing money.
00:43:02.940 I think that we're coming towards a fiscal cliff.
00:43:05.520 That's something that we haven't experienced in a very long time.
00:43:08.040 So I'm very worried about the fiscal shape, not just in Canada.
00:43:11.980 The Canadian government is in a scary enough situation, but globally as well, the way that
00:43:15.740 the countries, Western countries have been printing money.
00:43:18.920 That's a concern for me.
00:43:20.000 I think that pretty much everything you mentioned, but, you know, the idea that at some point
00:43:26.900 we have to get back to normal, we have to live our lives, we have to live with COVID.
00:43:30.960 I think that what we've seen throughout history is that when a government expands, when a government
00:43:35.920 takes on a new role, it's very reluctant to remove that, remove itself from that aspect
00:43:41.520 of our society.
00:43:42.720 So I think that when it comes to, you know, with the Omicron variant, Ezra, what we've seen
00:43:48.140 so far is that it's very viral, it spreads very fast, but the impact is very insignificant
00:43:54.200 compared to previous waves.
00:43:55.800 So what it seems like with the mutations of COVID is that it's getting more viral and
00:44:01.620 less deadly, which is what you want.
00:44:03.920 And so eventually, we're going to have to learn to live with it.
00:44:07.140 And I think that that's going to be a huge battle for Canadians to say, no, we don't want
00:44:12.100 to be mandated by our government to get a vaccine that may or may not be effective.
00:44:17.920 No, we don't want to have to take a COVID test every time we want to travel, including
00:44:21.080 intra-provincial travel.
00:44:22.420 I think that Canadians need to say enough is enough at some point and get on with our 1.00
00:44:27.740 lives.
00:44:28.240 And, you know, seeing how Canadians have been pretty subservient and pretty complacent 1.00
00:44:33.760 during the pandemic was a little unsettling for me.
00:44:36.280 I want Canadians to stand up for themselves and stand up for their way of life and their
00:44:41.420 freedoms in a way that we haven't seen.
00:44:43.960 I mean, we've seen glimpses of it with the anti-lockdown protests, but we also see how
00:44:48.340 those people get demonized and scapegoated by the legacy media.
00:44:51.840 So I think for me personally, the fight for civil liberties and getting back to normal
00:44:57.440 will be the biggest story that impacts our lives in Canada, I think.
00:45:03.080 Yeah, well, it's going to be an interesting year, Candace Malcolm.
00:45:06.460 Great to spend some time with you folks.
00:45:08.620 The website, again, is tnc.news.
00:45:11.540 I find, I have to tell you, if Rebel News did not exist, I would apply to work for tnc.news.
00:45:17.060 I don't know if I would make the cut, but I would certainly want to be part of your great
00:45:21.160 team of happy warriors, telling the truth, not taking a dime from the government.
00:45:26.740 And I think you guys tell the other side of the story, too, which is our motto.
00:45:30.800 But it should be every journalist's motto, and I think you guys do it.
00:45:34.440 Thanks for all the work you do at the Independent Press Gallery.
00:45:37.040 I think it's going to be a big year ahead for that organization because of what's coming.
00:45:41.340 And good luck to you, and happy new year.
00:45:43.760 All right, Ezra, thanks.
00:45:44.800 Same to you, and I hope your viewers have a great new year as well.
00:45:48.440 Well, that's our show for today.
00:45:49.440 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,
00:45:53.080 good night, and keep fighting for freedom.
00:45:55.440 Good night, everybody.
00:46:03.400 Good night.
00:46:08.000 Have a great day.
00:46:09.700 Thank you.