EZRA LEVANT ｜ Canada's media party feels threatened by the independent press
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Summary
Candace Malcolm is a brave person. I know this because she has chosen the same career path as me. She s the boss of an independent, non-government funded journalism organization called Juno News. She actually found a True North before that. We ll have a great conversation today to figure out how to be a free journalist in a country like Canada.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Great show today. You know, Candace Malcolm is a brave person. I know this
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because she has chosen the same career path as me. She's the boss of an independent, non-government
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funded journalism organization called Juno News. She actually found a true north before that.
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We'll have a great conversation today to figure out how to be a free journalist in a authoritarian
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country like Canada. But first, let me invite you to become what we call Rebel News Plus
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but the satisfaction of knowing you're keeping us strong and independent. Go to rebelnewsplus.com
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That's Rocklink with a C, info at rocklink.com. All right, here's today's show.
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Tonight, a sit down with our friend and competitor, Candace Malcolm from the new Juno News. It's
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February 27th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show. Shame on you, you censorious bug.
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You know, I'm not complaining because I love doing it, but it is hard to be an independent
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journalist in Canada. It's hard in a number of ways. I mean, all your competitors are subsidized.
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Imagine that. How on earth could you possibly compete against the CBC State Broadcaster a
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billion and a half dollars a year every year, let alone all their assets, their offices, their
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huge staff? How can you do it? And it's not just them. It's the so-called private media too.
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So there's the financial discombobulation, but there is also a clubbiness to it. For years,
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I've used the phrase the media party because they're a club, a clique. They're like-minded.
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They have a similar party line. They share the same views and ideology and they enforce it like
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a political party enforces discipline on its members. So too does the media party. If anyone
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asks questions that are too prickly, they find themselves on the outs. There's not a lot of
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people who are too prickly. I think of Holly Doan and her company called Blacklocks, but they have been
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shunned and shoved out by other people in the Ottawa Press Gallery. So you got to respect someone
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who's willing to say, yeah, that's for me. And I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about
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the fact that over the last 10 years, Rebel News was born in 2015. We just turned 10. Over the last 10
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years, there have been other hearty and hearty souls who've said, long odds, long hours, no respect from
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our peers, sign me up. And one of those people is our friend Candace Malcolm, who created True North
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and now a new project called Juno News. And I hand it to her for braving the hurricane of opprobrium
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from the Mean Girls in the Raging Media Candace. Malcolm joins us now. How are you doing?
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I'm great, Ezra. Thank you so much for having me.
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Oh, you're welcome. You know, there is, it's tough fighting against competitors who are subsidized.
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But I think sometimes there is a bit of psychic pain from being disparaged and dismissed from people
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because you dare ask different questions. And I mean, I don't have an inferiority complex towards
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the CBC or the Toronto Star. But it sort of bugs me that they claim to be the tastemakers,
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trend senators, arbiters of what's good journalism or not. It pains me not because I crave their
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approval, but because they're wrong. And it's an outrage to me that they get to set the standards
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still in so many places. How do you feel about being a bit of a media tycoon yourself?
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Do you feel that way at all? Are you impervious to the hurt feelings?
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No, I don't get hurt feelings. I think I'm way beyond that now, Ezra. And, you know,
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I used to work in the legacy media, so I know what it's like on the other side.
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And, you know, one of the criticisms, you know, we have the criticisms. I used to say the three Bs,
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right? They're biased because they are all left wing. They're bought and paid for because they
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all get subsidized by the Trudeau liberals. But I think their worst sin is that they're boring,
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that they all have the same opinions, and that they're very milquetoast, and that they don't want
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to ruffle any feathers. And so when they, you know, interact with people like myself, and
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probably even more so with you, they get sort of like overwhelmed, and they don't like the fact
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that we add a little bit of color and a little bit of flair to our political analysis. And really,
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I mean, to me, it's the only thing I find disheartening, Ezra, is the fact that anybody
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still watches. I know the CBC's views are way down, that they're going to get subsidized no matter what,
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as long as there's a liberal in office. But I think that it's down to like single digit percentage
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of Canadians that actually tune into the CBC at all. And I think that the newspapers, the big ones,
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would be bankrupt. We know this. We can see their financial data because they're public.
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The Post Media and Toronto Star, they don't make money. They're not good businesses. And so they need
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the bailouts. They need the bailouts. I think the reason is just because they haven't figured out a way
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to communicate to Canadians in a way that they like. Nobody under 40 watches any of the legacy
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media at all. Everybody gets their news online. And it's interesting to see, I think there's been
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a proliferation of independent media because, you know, you really paved the way after the death
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of Sun News Network, a place where I worked as well. And, you know, I had a lot of fun working
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at the Sun News Network. And I was sad when Sun failed. But then I was really excited to see what you
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had built. And you proved the business model. You proved this idea that Canadians are very willing
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to pay for news. It's not, you know, this idea that they need government funding because otherwise
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who will pay for local journalism. It's just not true. And there have been a lot of people following
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in your footsteps as well to create things like the Western Standard, like True North, even post-millennial.
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And even now, you know, in the last five years, it's not just companies, right? You see independent
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creators. You see these really creative people on TikTok and YouTube reacting and telling the story
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to their audience, mostly like young men in their teens and 20s, I would say, propping up these big,
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big YouTube accounts and TikTok accounts where they are being informed. They are being told the story,
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but just not from the perspective of the Globe and Mail and the CBC. And I think that that makes
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the reporters and the bosses at those companies, at the Globe and Mail and at the CBC and many others,
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it makes them angry. It makes them frustrated. They lash out. They use derogatory terms to describe
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us. They try to marginalize us. And it's just not working, right? They've used the same slurs
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against people like us for so long that it just doesn't mean anything anymore. Like Andrew Coyne
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called my organization far right in his column the other day. And, you know, to me, it was just kind
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of like pathetic and sad. It's like, you know, if you consider me far right, I'm pretty much like
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as mainstream as it gets in conservative circles. I moderated the 2022 debate, the conservative
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debate. I was a moderator. I interviewed Pierre Polyev just last week on my show, right? We had
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a long form sit down interview where I asked him all the questions that conservatives want to know,
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right? So if you believe that someone like me can be called far right, it's like, well, then the whole
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party, then half the country is far right. That word doesn't mean anything. And again, it just goes to
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show how kind of deranged they are not just about Trump, you know, they're deranged about Trump, but
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they're deranged about the whole new world that we live in. You know, I think about Andrew Coyne
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sometimes because 20 years ago, we were buddies. I looked up to him. He's a few years older than me.
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And fast forward to today, and he has gone completely nuts on Twitter. And I think part of the reason
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is, 20 years ago, the established media had such a monopoly. So if you wanted to be a pontificator,
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a pundit, a guy with quippy hot takes, you had to somehow get through those barriers to entry and work
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your way up to the top of really a handful of media companies, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, maybe
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there's a daily newspaper in some cities. And then there was such a small group of you. And so
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because of that, you had all the attention. But now, Andrew Coyne isn't particularly thoughtful,
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smart, funny, creative, independent. Like he does, he has such a standard boring view. I think part of
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his rage, and he's gone totally nuts, is that he has to compete against all these TikTokers and
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Instagrammers. And he doesn't have the luxury of having them barred from the guild. Like they
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used to be, they actually used to call themselves the craft, or the guild, G-U-I-L-D. Like they were
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some medieval society who knew the secret ways. I think there's a rage there because, you know,
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you don't have to listen to Andrew Coyne. You can be your own pundit. And you're right. TikTok has
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actually made it so you can earn a living off that kind of thing. I don't, I mean, go ahead.
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Well, I was going to say that there used to be a criticism of the right, maybe 10 years ago,
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that we didn't do a good job policing our own in terms of some radical voices found their way
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into our myths. And that, you know, there was a, there was a criticism that you couldn't really tell
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the difference between who was on the far side of the right and who was more of a center-right person.
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I feel that way about the legacy media and the left, right? Like I get the deranged
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criticism from fringe people like Rachel Gilmore or Press Progress, you know, they, they really hate
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us. And it's like, they're kind of creepy and obsessed with us, right? Like they'll do,
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they'll do like, they'll do long form podcasts about me and my family. And like, like Rachel
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Gilmore will put up multiple TikTok stories all about me. And, and, you know, it's, it's twisted,
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right? And it's like, okay, you know, I guess she has her audience and that's what she does.
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But then I see and hear the same criticisms from people in the Toronto Star, people like
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Chantal Libert and Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. And it's like,
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they're, they're all saying the same thing. And you can't really distinguish between the fringe
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far left and the sort of mainstream Globe and Mail in 2025. It's, it's kind of wild.
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You know, it's true. Over the course of time, I've sort of stopped caring about what they say.
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And one of the reasons for that is, I know that on any given day, we could have a million views on
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a particular video. And when I look at some of the efforts from the regime media, it's a fraction
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of that. I'm not saying every day we beat them. I just, but I don't even check anymore. To me,
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my fondest month, and I tell our team this all the time, was February 2022, the trucker convoy in
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Ottawa, because on all platforms, we had 400 million views and impressions that month, which
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is more than what the CBC claims to get on any given month from their digital assets. And just to
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know that on the one month that counted, because we were on the ground, we beat the state broadcaster.
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After that, I sort of stopped checking because it was like achievement unlocked. And I mean,
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I check out the CBC just if I need to get mad or something. But I really, I don't think they're
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trendsetters and tastemakers other than they claim to be. So when I talked about, you know,
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the pain of being shunned by, like, for example, our reporter David Menzies is quite a character,
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I grant you that. But he was arrested five times in 2024, on every occasion for doing journalism,
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not for assault, not for trespass, doing journalism. And I think where's a Canadian journalist for free
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expression? Where's a Canadian Association of Journalists? Where's Amnesty International?
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Where's Penn Canada? Never did they speak out. So I think they're fakes and phonies. All right,
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I'm ranting. I want to talk to you actually about your new thing, Juno, J-U-N-O. I saw your
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announcement with our alumnus, Kian Bexty, that you're starting a new project. And I was signed
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up to both Counter Signal, which is Kian's shop, and True North. So now I'm getting emails from Juno.
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And I bet a lot of our viewers subscribe to you or Kian also. So they're probably wondering,
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what I'm wondering, which is, what is Juno? What's the difference between it and True North?
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And what do you hope to do? And I'm getting a lot of emails, which is great, but help me understand
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what your plans are. Yeah, sure. Okay. So I'll just go back. I started True North in my living
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room all the way back in 2016. Ezra, I came on your show and announced it. And back then it was
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a think tank. And my whole idea was that I was going to write reports on immigration, try to
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encourage the government to clean up their immigration policies. It kind of merged and pivoted
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over the years and became a media company. And one of the things that I always heard from our
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supporters and from our fans was that they just wanted more journalism. You know, the opinion
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stuff was great. I was an opinion columnist in the Toronto Sun for many years. And they liked that.
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They liked the podcast, but they really liked the written news, the written reports. And I saw that
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even among all of the independent media outlets in Canada and the more conservative ones, we didn't have
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a great news source. So I wanted to turn True North into basically the equivalent of the Canadian
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press, a wire service that produces straight news that doesn't do podcasting or opinions, but just
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writes the news, informs Canadians, gives them the facts, but tells the stories that you're not going
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to see in the Canadian press, that you're not going to read about in the Edmonton Journal or the
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National Post. And so that is still the idea for True North. And we're in the process right now of
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trying to apply for a very specific government program, not to get funding, but just to have
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the correct certification. It's called an RJO, a Registered Journalism Organization. And it would
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allow us to be a charity that does news. So True North is a charity and part of what we do is news.
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But if we got this RJO status, we could devote the entire resources of True North towards journalism.
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We wouldn't have to worry about the CRA. And so we are in the process of that. And so while that is
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happening, the best thing for True North is for me to step aside and not be part of it, because I
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don't want my opinions, my controversial, sometimes, you know, outwardly conservative, social
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conservative views to muddy that process and to affect it in any way. So I decided that I was going
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to take my podcast and my opinion journalism and do it separately. And that is when I came across
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Kian Bexty and we said, hey, you know, why don't we, why don't we join forces? Why don't we,
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you know, he's, he's in Alberta. I'm in Ontario. Why don't we merge together, use our resources
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and create something bigger, especially coming up to the election. So we decided to join together
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to launch Juno News as a subscription-based news service so that it can be full of all the opinion
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that we want. We don't have to worry at all about the charity rules and anything about that,
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that we used to at True North. So basically, Juno is the publisher. Juno is the platform.
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And True North continues to exist as a news service. So basically, the idea is, it's kind
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of like the Canadian press, an independent alternative Canadian press. And then you can
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get that news through Juno. So if you subscribe to Juno, you'll get all the news from True North,
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you'll get my Candace Malcolm Show podcast, and you'll get everything from Kian Bexty and
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The Counter Signal all on one platform. You just have to subscribe once and you get absolutely
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everything. So I get this a bit confusing. I think part of it is because of the Trudeau government,
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the way that they've changed the rules, and we have to jump through all these hoops and
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everything like that. But basically, the bottom line is, JunoNews.com is where you can get all
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of the information that you've always trusted from True North, plus all of the sort of edgier,
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more fearless brand of journalism from Kian Bexty.
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Got it. And I don't want to ask a dumb question, but I just, I'm not sure if I got it. So will
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No. So it's going to be kind of folded into Juno. We're still working on that. But if you go to
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JunoNews, you'll see there's a tab for the Counter Signal. And in the next coming weeks,
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months, it will all be kind of merged together onto one.
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Sure. I mean, I know I'm going to find out in real time because I'm getting emails from the
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both of you. I just, listen, I wish you luck. It sounds exciting. I love the name Juno. Of course,
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the beach in Normandy, where the Canadians helped liberate the, and of course, it's also the name
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of our music awards, our National Music Awards. Okay. Well, I think I understand that. And I wish
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you good luck. And the government does have so many rules and processes and bureaucracies
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to regulate journalism, not just the RJO. And we applied for the QCJO and we were denied.
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Imagine the government saying who is or isn't a journalist. That's sort of gross. But it's not
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just that. I mean, I don't know if you remember, but in 2019, I wrote a book called The Libranos.
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And the government said I had to register that with Elections Canada. There were 24 books in that
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election campaign about Trudeau. Mine was the only one that was investigated. And they fined me,
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I think it was $3,000, because I didn't register with the government. So I think there's too much
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regulation. The idea that a government can tell a book author or a journalist what they're doing is
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or isn't legal journalism feels very Soviet to me. I agree. Well, I had Pierre Polyev in a sit-down
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interview, and I asked him about this topic. I said, are you going to defund the CBC? Are you going
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to pull out the $600 million media bailout? He didn't answer the second question, which was
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interesting, because I think in the past he had said that he was going to defund it. Now he said that
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he wants to depoliticize the process. And to me, it's obvious why, because I'm living through it,
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I'm going through it. There are these panels that determine whether or not you're a journalist.
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I mean, you've gone through it as well, trying to get that qualification to be the qualified
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Canadian journalism outlet. I mean, it is all sort of Orwellian. Anyway, Polyev said that he was going
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to depoliticize it. And interestingly enough, the left interpreted that, Ezra, as somehow Pierre
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pledging that he was going to fund Juno and the rebel, which is not what he said at all.
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But in the twisted minds of those journalists, any change to that system that could somehow benefit
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groups like ours is so offensive and wrong that they were basically lighting their hair on fire
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over it. It's not what he said at all. But the point still remains that it's a very convoluted,
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complicated system that we have to adhere by, right? It's the rules of how our organizations are
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structured. And it has been deeply politicized by the Trudeau government.
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Here's that clip from your sit down with Pierre Polyev.
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You've been outspoken. You said that you were going to defund the CBC. I believe that you said
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you're going to remove the $600 million newspaper fund that Trudeau created to fund the legacy newspapers
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as well. Does that concern you that the media is just not going to give you a fair shake?
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Well, the traditional mainstream media has always been totally liberal. I mean, there's a few
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exceptions, but by and large, they will just regurgitate whatever the Carney Trudeau liberals
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say. And in all of the last six or seven elections, they have campaigned almost openly for the
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liberals. So I would not expect it to be any different this time.
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And so just to clarify, would you get rid of that $600 million newspaper fund that Trudeau gave
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We are going to be cutting back on that. You'll have to wait for our platform to get the details.
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We have to depoliticize news media finance because right now what happens is that there
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are subsidies that go to favored media outlets that CRA designates, and then there's not funding
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for others. And then, of course, the worst example is CBC, which gets this enormous subsidy
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to do largely what Canadians can get elsewhere. Canadians can get digital media, videographical
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media anywhere else. And yet they're paying a billion plus dollars for CBC to do that. So I think
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those are examples of where we need to cut and we need to defund the CBC and have an independent
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self-supporting media that can keep Canadians informed.
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You know what's funny is whenever there's some new government agency to regulate the media,
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like this decision if you get these statuses or not. And it's packed with liberal friends
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of Trudeau. Some wise people on, I see it on Twitter, say, beware of, you know, and the media
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cheers. And people say, beware of this when the government changes. Because if you have a media czar
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right now who is left-wing and shoveling money to all their left-wing friends, get ready for when a
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conservative government takes over and fills that position. And I always joke that I'm ready to
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serve if called. And I mean, I should tell you, Candace, you know, I don't know if I would leave
00:22:29.460
Rebel News for anything, because it's sort of my home and we built it up. But if I was called upon
00:22:34.460
by my prime minister to serve my country by being the chair of the CBC, I would think long and hard
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about it. I just might do it. And I would regulate and lead that CBC in a way that maybe the liberals
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would want it defunded and privatized. I'm just daydreaming in real time here. I guess what I'm
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saying is the thing about censorship and funding, which you mentioned the left-wing group squawking
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about, they're really giving away the game. They want funding and subsidies for politics,
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just only their politics. Right. And I think that they are deeply concerned because, you know, we
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have a principal position that we don't believe that journalists should take money from the
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government. I mean, that used to be universally held across the board. But what if we didn't hold
00:23:23.660
that position, Ezra? What if we didn't? What if we said, OK, all's fair in love and war. If Pierre
00:23:29.600
Polyev wants to defund the CBC and fund Rebel and Juno instead, well, I'm here for it. Go ahead. I'll
00:23:36.380
take the billion dollars. Why not? Right. The left is counting on us not doing that. But what if we
00:23:42.280
just flipped the switch and said, no, OK, well, let's give us 10 years to shape the culture and
00:23:47.340
give us all the money. I think that that would truly terrify them. I would love to see you as
00:23:52.120
CBC president. I don't know if you'd burn the place down. I don't know if you'd burn the place
00:23:57.020
down or if you would just fire everybody and bring in normal, real Canadians and have the opinions of
00:24:03.440
the people watching right now shared for once rather than the high produced, high production
00:24:09.600
value, multimillion dollar slur campaigns, basically trying to paint the truckers as terrorists
00:24:15.840
or trying to paint any number of causes as nefarious, which is what the CBC sort of does
00:24:23.820
professionally. And I think it would be really interesting if conservatives started playing
00:24:29.540
by the same rules that the Liberals play by and hold themselves to.
00:24:32.980
Yeah. You know, Pascale Saint-Ange, who's the new heritage minister, said she wants to
00:24:38.660
practically double the CBC's budget and not for journalistic reasons. She says it's for
00:24:44.900
fighting fake news and disinformation. So she's acknowledging it's a weapon. It's a campaign
00:24:52.380
Enshrined in law, the role that CBC Radio Canada plays in the fight against disinformation
00:24:59.100
to support the public, especially in the current context. And this refers directly to some of the
00:25:04.300
recommendations that were made by the Foreign Interference Commission, which repeated how important
00:25:12.380
it is that Canadians can rely on Canadian sources of information to be more resilient and to understand
00:25:18.220
the patterns that the other countries used to disseminate propaganda or disinformation to
00:25:25.020
influence how we live together in our political context. And this is why I propose to anchor in
00:25:32.460
CBC Radio Canada's mandate its role in helping the Canadian population fight against disinformation
00:25:44.140
Every year when the CBC comes out with its new annual report, it astonishes me that their
00:25:50.220
viewership is falling. How do you fall when the population of the country grows so fast,
00:25:55.500
when you've got so much assets and resources and everything is moving? Like, I just don't know how
00:26:02.300
CBC's viewership can be lower today, especially on their flagship shows. It used to be 20 years ago that
00:26:11.020
you would regularly get a million views of the National and the Journal and Rick Mercer's show.
00:26:17.260
Now, I don't know, they're lucky to get a quarter million. In fact, they hide their viewership.
00:26:22.380
I don't know how you can be that bad, but I think it goes to what you said, biased, bought, and boring.
00:26:28.700
And I think people just, we started talking about, you know, the CBC, and I just, early in our conversation,
00:26:38.140
I just think, no one's watching. It's so, it really feels like a state broadcaster.
00:26:45.820
Hey, let me ask you what you think about Pierre Polyev's commitment, because you said his language
00:26:56.060
sort of changed a little bit about media funding. I think the CBC defunding promise, other than its
00:27:04.140
carbon tax promise, is his number one promise. It's like Donald Trump saying, build the wall.
00:27:09.820
He says that at every speech, at least until recently, I don't know. It's the biggest applause
00:27:14.940
line. And he sort of lives it. Like he, he, he pushes back on the CBC all the time. I love it.
00:27:22.300
But I'm afraid that he might not carry through with that if he takes office. And to me, that's
00:27:28.300
a real litmus test of if he can, if everything else he says, he's going to carry through on.
00:27:33.580
It's also a suicide, like a survival issue. Stephen Harper did not take care of the CBC,
00:27:40.380
and so it took care of him. Are you worried that Pierre Polyev's going wobbly on this stuff?
00:27:47.180
No, I'm not, Ezra. I think that the conservatives have learned a lesson, right? Aaron O'Toole ran for
00:27:51.980
leader of that party, and he was supposedly the true blue option. And one of the things that he said
00:27:57.100
was that he was going to eliminate the carbon tax. And then during the election, Aaron O'Toole changed
00:28:02.860
his position, adopted a more liberal position, and said that he was going to keep the carbon tax.
00:28:07.980
It was just going to change a little bit. And I think that conservatives stayed home. You know,
00:28:12.780
real conservatives, people who believed that Aaron O'Toole was going to do what he said,
00:28:17.260
they stayed home. And that might have been the difference in that election because Trudeau
00:28:20.620
barely won in 2021. He didn't, he didn't win the popular vote. And I think that the conservatives
00:28:25.740
learned a real lesson from that moment, which is that what you say to the base, what you say during the
00:28:31.500
leadership race, the primaries, basically, you have to follow through with that. And I think
00:28:36.540
you're right. It's not a matter of tweaking the CBC. It's not a matter of reducing its budget.
00:28:41.740
You have to defund it. You have to cut it off completely because otherwise it will find a way
00:28:46.860
to survive. I think on the matter of the newspaper bailouts, I think that the conservatives sort of
00:28:52.540
have like a free market approach to a lot of things that maybe they like the idea of like tax receipts
00:28:58.220
being able to be issued and allowing journalism agencies to kind of act a little bit like
00:29:03.100
charities. I'm, I'm a believer of that as well. That's why I, when I started True North, you know,
00:29:07.260
we, we became a charity because I think the journalism can be a public good. And that, that,
00:29:11.900
that, that is, you know, if, if Canadians, like imagine you got your tax tax form and while you were
00:29:18.220
filling it out, you got to select which media companies you funded. So, you know, right now,
00:29:23.340
I think it's $33 from every Canadian goes to the CBC, Pascal saying, oh, she says she wanted to
00:29:27.660
double it to $60. Imagine if you had $60 and you got to put a check mark beside like which
00:29:34.540
media companies you wanted to fund. And imagine if the rebel and Juneau news and True North were all
00:29:38.780
on there and Canadians got to choose where their money would go. You know, that's, that's sort of
00:29:43.100
like a free market approach that like everybody should fund the media. We'll do it through your
00:29:46.620
taxes, but you actually get to direct them almost like a school voucher program. I could, I could see
00:29:51.020
conservatives getting excited about that. Now, I'm not saying that that's Pierre Polyev's perspective,
00:29:56.060
but I think that those are the kind of ideas that are in the works within the conservative party from
00:30:00.300
conversations that I've had. And I think, I think that that could be kind of like a win-win for everybody.
00:30:05.900
You know, I, of course the, the libertarian argument would be why should, I mean, if, or you,
00:30:12.140
as long as there's a checkbox of no thanks, I don't want to spend the $33, I'll spend that on my own
00:30:19.500
family. I mean, I, to, to compel people to give, but to give them a choice is, I suppose, better
00:30:26.780
than compelling them to give to the CBC. But I would, I, I wouldn't feel like I'm like rebel news
00:30:32.700
is morally superior than a restaurant or than a, you know, than a, than a gymnasium. I, you must support
00:30:41.420
one of these 10 restaurants. You must support one of the, I mean, I, with these 10 barber shops,
00:30:45.900
I would just, I, it's, it's tricky, but I think that both True North and Rebel News and Counter-Signal
00:30:51.660
and Western Standard are, and are proof that you can make a go of it without compelling taxpayers to
00:31:00.700
pay. Hey, I got two quick questions for you and then I'll let you, I know you're, you're busy and
00:31:04.140
thank you for jamming us in. I'm riveted every day by seeing Elon Musk take a blowtorch to spending,
00:31:11.260
eliminating entire agencies like USAID, going through social security and finding people who
00:31:19.500
were allegedly 200 years old, but still collect, like, it's just crazy. He's doing it with such
00:31:25.820
vigor and enthusiasm. They're saving tens of billions. Maybe, maybe they're past a hundred
00:31:31.460
billion dollars now. Do you think we could ever get something like that in Canada? Well, I think we need
00:31:36.520
to. I don't think it's a matter of whether we can, Ezra. I think that Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland
00:31:40.980
have put us on an unbelievably unsustainable fiscal path, right? They've doubled the debt
00:31:46.080
in this country. The absolute ballooning of spending during COVID was completely unprecedented
00:31:51.520
and unsustainable. And it wasn't just the fact that they were sending out CERB checks, which I think,
00:31:57.300
to me, hearing, you know, hearing in the liberal leadership debate the other night, the idea of
00:32:01.860
universal basic income and that they still believe in it. I mean, we tried that during COVID and it was an
00:32:06.100
abject failure. And the idea that the liberals haven't learned from that is maddening, Ezra.
00:32:11.160
But anyways, it wasn't just the checks that they were sending out to Canadians to stay at home.
00:32:16.120
It was the growth in government, the number of bureaucrats that they hired, the number of
00:32:20.200
consultants that they hired. They're spending millions and millions of dollars on consulting
00:32:24.400
firms to help the bureaucrats, even though they've, I think there's been a 40% increase in the number of
00:32:29.860
bureaucrats working in the federal government since Justin Trudeau came along. So, like, Canada doesn't have a
00:32:35.020
choice. We are on a completely unsustainable path. Look at the loony, the strength of the dollar. I
00:32:39.460
mean, it's recovered a little bit in the last few weeks, but it was down to 68 cents for the American
00:32:45.060
dollar. I mean, I think the Canadian economy is in real, real trouble. Basically, the government
00:32:50.100
propped up our GDP through growth in government and through immigration, hoping that that would sort
00:32:57.020
of cover from the fact that the private sector is just not growing at all. So, I don't think it's a
00:33:01.900
matter of like, hey, should we do what the Americans are doing? Because it would be a big
00:33:06.940
win for conservatives to get rid of some of this wasting government. Like, I think whoever is the
00:33:11.560
next prime minister, I mean, it will be Mark Carney, but whoever forms the next government, whether it
00:33:15.940
is some kind of a coalition between liberals and NDP, whether we go to the polls and conservatives win,
00:33:20.280
or heck, maybe even Mark Carney will win. Whoever, I think it's going to be like the 1990s all over again,
00:33:25.600
where they basically almost defaulted on their debt and they had to massively restructure federal
00:33:30.980
spending because it's just not sustainable. Like, Canada will be a failed state if we don't fix
00:33:35.440
things. I think that Elon Musk and President Trump are giving us some great ideas on how we can do it
00:33:40.620
and how we can cut. And I hope Polyev is watching. I will note, Ezra, that I did ask Pierre Polyev
00:33:45.440
about this in my interview. I said, is there anything that you're seeing from the Trump administration,
00:33:49.680
from his executive orders, that you feel inspired by? He basically just said, no, we've got our own
00:33:55.160
ideas. And I don't think he wanted to be seen complimenting Donald Trump in any way,
00:33:59.580
shape or form, which I understand. But they were defunding USAID. And a couple of days later,
00:34:06.720
Pierre Polyev came out and said, we were going to defund foreign aid as well. So I think the ideas
00:34:11.420
are out there. They're popular. Seeing the left try to defend these ridiculous programs, it's not a good
00:34:20.120
look. The thing that they're protesting is protecting their own corruption, basically, as opposed to
00:34:24.980
actually doing what's best for the taxpayer. And I hope that the Conservatives win so that they can do
00:34:29.500
something like that. But I think even if it's Mark Carney, Ezra, he's going to have to do something
00:34:33.540
because otherwise Canada is going to go bankrupt.
00:34:35.880
Yeah. Well, last question for you. And it goes to your area of expertise. You mentioned True North
00:34:40.580
started with an immigration focus. Trudeau has gone absolutely nuts. I understand that until very
00:34:49.080
recently, there were 4.9 million people in Canada on a temporary visa that was set to expire by the end
00:34:56.260
of 2025. Now, I understand that some of them have been granted extensions. That is more than 10% of
00:35:03.140
our population has to vamoose at the end of the year. They're fake in many ways, fake students who
00:35:09.180
never showed up to the school, fake refugees taking advantage of our soft touch, fake temporary foreign
00:35:15.960
workers in the sense that there was no need for them to be brought in to do the particular jobs that
00:35:21.700
they are. I think immigration is by far the number one issue in Canada. I think it exacerbates every
00:35:27.660
other issue from traffic to school crowding to healthcare emergency wait times. And we've seen a
00:35:36.080
lot of cultural problems too, whether it's Hamas, hate marches. I think that is, to me, that's more
00:35:43.380
important than every other issue combined. Does Pierre Polyev have the courage to stand up against
00:35:51.520
that hurricane? Because he'll be called racist. He'll be called an enemy to different ethnic
00:35:57.380
communities. You'll see big business say, no, no, we need our cheap labor at Tim Hortons. God forbid we
00:36:05.020
spend an extra dollar an hour on staff. You're going to have every entrenched interest saying,
00:36:11.860
do not cut immigration. Will he? Well, he told me again in our interview that he will, that he
00:36:18.580
thought that the Stephen Harper levels were better than today, which I think we should take as a
00:36:24.700
victory because obviously what Justin Trudeau has done over the last 10 years has been an unmitigated
00:36:30.100
disaster. And it was predictable from the very beginning. I think that one of the things that I
00:36:35.920
wouldn't have predicted, Ezra, I mean, I knew that there was a problem. And I would have said that this
00:36:40.020
is one of those issues that people don't pay attention to until all of a sudden it exists
00:36:44.620
like every day. It's front and center in every aspect. And you really have seen a cultural shift
00:36:49.980
where it's not even seen as rude to criticize the immigration system. People are being pushed their
00:36:56.140
wit's end. And whether it's the crime, the rampant, unbelievable crime, I mean, I still can't get over
00:37:01.680
the fact that there are home invasions and carjackings almost every day in the GTA. I mean,
00:37:06.180
it's terrifying. It's terrifying. And there's a whole thing of crime tourism, people from Eastern
00:37:13.060
Europe and Latin America and Africa coming here basically on vacation to rob Canadians. I mean,
00:37:18.780
we're sitting ducks and nobody is paying close enough attention. One of the things that Pierre
00:37:22.900
Polyev is very strong on is crime, is this idea that we have to deport people who commit crimes,
00:37:29.480
that we have to put back in mandatory minimums, that we have to get rid of the failed bail program
00:37:34.620
and have reform on that. Because otherwise, you just have the same people committing crimes over
00:37:39.760
and over and over again. And no one is taking it seriously. So I do have faith that Polyev will be
00:37:46.520
strong when it comes to crime. The conservatives are usually very good on that issue. And that,
00:37:50.760
to me, is the most important aspect of the immigration. I don't think that Pierre Polyev is a
00:37:55.600
culture warrior. I don't think he's going to go out there and try to make some kind of a case
00:38:00.480
for Canadian values. Although you did see it in the Canada First rally a little bit,
00:38:06.000
but I don't see him as taking a lead on that cultural side. But I do think sort of like from
00:38:12.300
an economic perspective and from a crime perspective, I think that the conservatives are
00:38:15.680
very strong on that issue. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you feel that way. And
00:38:19.840
it's not just stopping new immigration, it's deporting and saying goodbye. I mean, that's what's
00:38:26.880
so interesting about Trump's approach. It's great to spend so much time with you. Congratulations
00:38:31.780
on Juno News. We're going to keep watching that and following and hopefully you'll grow and be strong.
00:38:38.920
And I am optimistic and I'd even say confident that Pierre Polyev is going to win this year.
00:38:46.360
It's going to be a disastrous interregnum when Carney and Jagmeet Singh do their atrocious deal,
00:38:52.520
as they will. But I think we're going to end the year on a good foot. That's my thought. Last word
00:38:58.820
to you. Well, I hope you're right. I just had you on my show. We were talking about the polls and the
00:39:03.300
terrifying gain by the liberals. I don't know if it's true or not, but Ipsos poll has them supposedly
00:39:09.160
up 26 points over the last six weeks. So a two point lead now over the conservatives. It's way too
00:39:15.240
close for comfort. And I think that a large part of that bump comes from the media drumming up this
00:39:20.720
narrative that Trump is the enemy, that the Americans are going to invade, that only a liberal
00:39:24.740
can protect us against Trump and that anti-American sentiment that lives in the hearts of so many
00:39:30.340
central Canadians. I don't think it really exists the same way in Western Canada, but in central
00:39:34.940
Canada, there really is a deep level suspicion and some level hatred for the Americans. And so
00:39:41.480
the media is amplifying that. The media is doing everything they can. Ezra, we know that they will.
00:39:45.540
We know that they'll continue to do that. Everything they can to prop up the liberals,
00:39:48.480
to prop up Mark Carney, to whitewash him, to cover up his crimes, his lies, his total lack of clarity,
00:39:55.560
you know, whether it comes to his business dealings or even basic facts about his life and where he
00:40:01.240
lives. So, you know, I think that's the job of the independent media. I think that our work is cut
00:40:05.500
out for us, but we have to make sure that Canadians see the full picture as why independent media is
00:40:10.620
just so important. Great to catch up with you. Good luck with Juno News. Keep up the fight.
00:40:15.400
All right. Thanks, Ezra. All right. There you have it. Candace Malcolm, the boss
00:40:19.280
of Juno News. That's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel
00:40:26.080
World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.