Rebel News Podcast - December 26, 2018


SPECIALļ¼š Candice Malcolm on populism, patriotism and Canada's ā€œPeter Panā€ PM


Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

180.0807

Word count

7,899

Sentence count

404

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

23

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Candace Malcolm joins The Rebel's Ezra Levenkamp to talk about the year that was, and what she's looking forward to in the new year. She also talks about why she thinks Justin Trudeau is the worst Prime Minister in the history of Canadian politics.

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 .
00:00:00.000 Tonight, a feature interview with the founder of the True North Initiative.
00:00:04.180 It's Christmas Day, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:12.660 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:16.440 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:20.160 You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
00:00:23.520 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it
00:00:27.100 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:30.000 Well, over the Christmas break, when things are a little bit slower on the news side,
00:00:37.820 we have long-form, semi-biographical interviews
00:00:42.060 with some of the most interesting newsmakers or friends of The Rebel.
00:00:46.640 And our next guest fits both categories.
00:00:49.800 A friend and a newsmaker, her name is Candace Malcolm, and she joins us now via Skype.
00:00:54.140 Great to see you. Merry Christmas. Nice to have you on the show again
00:00:57.280 to talk a little bit more calmly as opposed to the frenzied news of the day.
00:01:02.220 Well, thank you so much, Ezra. Merry Christmas to you and to all your viewers as well.
00:01:06.000 It's great to be here.
00:01:06.900 Well, thanks. You know, it's been an amazing year for politics,
00:01:11.260 and I think it's the year, in my view, where the pendulum has swung back a little bit from the left.
00:01:17.320 I look at all the provincial premiers that are now conservative-oriented
00:01:21.060 as opposed to the almost completely liberal map a year ago.
00:01:24.940 I look at opposition to the carbon tax in Canada and even overseas in places like France.
00:01:30.240 I look at, I don't know, I just feel like our side of the argument is being heard.
00:01:35.820 That's my sense of 2018. What do you think?
00:01:38.220 I tend to agree, Ezra. There was sort of a sense in Canada that, you know, among elites and liberals
00:01:44.880 in central Canada that we were somehow immune to a lot of the forces that were going on around the
00:01:49.660 world, whether it's, you know, populism or sort of a new alignment towards just, you know,
00:01:55.440 patriotism and nationalism and putting your own country first. And, you know, elites had their
00:02:00.240 nose up in the air saying, oh, Canada's immune to that. And it's clearly not the case. I think it's
00:02:05.540 sort of come a little slower. You know, it happened in the UK with Brexit and the Trump election in
00:02:10.780 2016. We saw these forces piling up. And yeah, it's spilling over into Canada. The sentiment
00:02:16.500 is really there that people feel that elites are out of touch, that the stories being told in the
00:02:22.640 media or by mainstream politicians just don't really reflect their day-to-day life or their day-to-day
00:02:28.280 concerns. And there is sort of this movement, this backlash or, you know, you can call it populism or
00:02:35.100 you can just, you know, call it democracy. But I think you're right. And, you know, as far as
00:02:42.700 political stuff going on in Canada, I think Justin Trudeau has just had an absolutely horrible
00:02:47.340 year right from the get-go. We're sort of seeing the, you know, the mask behind the man and the
00:02:54.660 emperor has no clothes because, you know, the more we get to know Trudeau, the more that we see him in
00:02:59.220 action, whether it's, you know, his disastrous trip to India or the way he bungled the NAFTA trade
00:03:04.960 agreements with Trump, you know, the silly things that he says when he's giving interviews and talking
00:03:11.140 candidly, you know, people kind and all this politically correct nonsense. I think the more
00:03:17.180 we see of Justin Trudeau, the more we realize just how absolutely unfit he is to lead our country.
00:03:23.560 Yeah. Well, his trip to India, I think, was a turning point in terms of his image, because
00:03:30.120 in his 2015 campaign, and really ever since, he has been the stylish, young, handsome, dashing,
00:03:39.240 mediagenic, selfie-loving, cool dude, as opposed to that stuffy Stephen Harper and his sweater
00:03:48.220 vests. And I think that worked, or at least it worked on the media. And so we all sort of said,
00:03:55.540 oh, I guess everyone loves the novelty socks. But his India trip was like the highlight. Like it was
00:04:02.680 the apex. He was doing, it was like Beyonce in a rock concert doing like five costume changes a night.
00:04:11.460 I mean, Trudeau literally would change costumes throughout the day, pose Bollywood style, do a
00:04:18.000 costume change pose at the Taj Mahal. And it just tipped over from sort of, oh, isn't that neat,
00:04:25.680 to, oh my God, that's all there is. I'm going to talk about the terrorist angle in a second. But
00:04:30.660 I think before the terrorist questions of that trip came to light, and I'll ask you about that in a
00:04:35.940 minute, because you broke that story, I think he was also already reaching peak ridiculousness
00:04:42.540 on the selfie front. What do you think?
00:04:45.540 Yeah, it was sort of a confluence of so many different things, Ezra. But, you know, even just
00:04:49.920 to provide a bit more context than that, right before Trudeau went to India, he was having a
00:04:54.100 really bad time. He had gone on these national town halls to talk to Canadians. And I think that
00:04:59.920 that was kind of like, you know, his handler and his aides in Ottawa, it was their excuse to just sort of
00:05:05.980 get him out of Ottawa, get him out of the media bubble. You know, he was having a bad news cycle
00:05:11.040 when it came to things like the ethics report and his, you know, soiree at the Aga Khan's private
00:05:17.760 island in the Caribbean, where he illegally took a private plane and didn't disclose that. So,
00:05:23.780 you know, he was having a bad time. They sent him on this town halls, and he just embarrassed
00:05:27.360 himself. That was when he made that people kind remark, where he told a young woman not to say
00:05:31.860 mankind, but to say people kind. He told a young veteran that the veterans were asking for more
00:05:38.260 than the federal government was willing to give. There was a couple of really awful sort of clips
00:05:42.540 and soundbites that came out of those town halls. And I think that the India trip was like designed
00:05:47.800 to rescue his reputation, you know, put Trudeau on the world stage. And you know that the international
00:05:52.980 media will just swoon over it. And there's nothing that the Canadian media like more than, you know,
00:05:58.960 swooning over the international media, swooning over Justin Trudeau. And so, you know, it was
00:06:04.020 all so calculated. And you get Trudeau in India, you realize that there's a political problem going
00:06:10.320 on there, that the Indian government and Indian officials are not happy with Trudeau over his
00:06:14.620 actions and his sort of, you know, the sketchy behind the scenes partisan politics of the Liberal
00:06:19.920 Party. And then you have this just totally clueless guy that, you know, he's posing with Bollywood
00:06:25.600 actors. The Bollywood actor is dressed down wearing like a black suit. And there's Trudeau
00:06:30.740 in this magical, colorful outfit with his entire family choreographed to the T. And it's just,
00:06:37.960 you know, talk about an out of touch elite, you know, a man that's just playing Peter Pan that's
00:06:43.860 in a fairy tale. So, you know, removed from reality. And it was just so cringeworthy and so
00:06:50.220 embarrassing. The fact that the international media rejected it and started basically mocking
00:06:55.220 him and saying, who is this guy? You know, it was a total catastrophe for Trudeau and his team,
00:07:01.240 which is so obsessed and so focused on image. You know, they're all style, no substance. And when
00:07:07.300 the style element starts falling apart, you know, that's when you're really in trouble. And I think
00:07:11.020 that was really, you know, a turning point for Trudeau.
00:07:14.480 Yeah. If I recall, it was a seven or eight day trip and there was only about one day's worth of
00:07:19.360 actual business. And I think the Canadian media were totally fine with it. First of all,
00:07:25.240 they love these trips also. They get to go to exotic places. It's first class for them too.
00:07:30.740 I think it took the foreign media, including the media in India itself, to break, to burst the bubble,
00:07:39.700 to pop the balloon. I think had it been in the hands of the CBC and the rest of what I call the media
00:07:46.180 party. I think it would have been the amazing PR success that his handlers wanted it to be.
00:07:53.640 But you actually were the one with the big pin popping the balloon. Why don't you tell us a
00:07:59.440 little bit about that shocking story that you broke? And I couldn't even believe it. I couldn't
00:08:05.520 believe the story was incredible. And I couldn't believe that I knew the reporter breaking the story.
00:08:10.520 You. Tell us a little bit about Jaspal Atwal, a convicted terrorist and attempted murderer.
00:08:19.980 Yeah, it was a storyline like right out of a Stephen King novel or something. But
00:08:25.300 Justin Trudeau. So basically, Trudeau arrives in India. The government is snubbing him. Prime Minister
00:08:32.280 Modi is a really jovial, friendly person. He usually goes to the airport to greet foreign leaders as they
00:08:37.960 arrive. And we like to think of Canada as being an important country, an English-speaking ally in
00:08:45.860 India. And so, Trudeau gets snubbed. There's a lot of sort of discussion about concerns from the
00:08:52.580 Indian government, from the Punjab government, over Trudeau's relationship with a group of
00:08:57.640 Calistani independent separatists. So for people who don't know, Sikhs have long wanted a homeland,
00:09:05.300 an independent state in a part of India. You know, not all Sikhs, but there's a movement
00:09:10.740 among Sikhs. And they call themselves Calistani. So there is this group, you know, the worst terrorist 1.00
00:09:16.120 attack in Canadian history was carried out by a group of Calistani extremists. And, you know,
00:09:22.260 in Canada, it is a problem. There's a community within the Sikh community that promotes these ideas. 1.00
00:09:27.200 And so that was sort of the background. You know, there was all of these concerns that the
00:09:31.240 liberal government and the Trudeau government were too closely aligned with these extremists that
00:09:35.560 the Indian government is very concerned about. And so, you know, while these sort of conversations
00:09:41.840 are happening and people are speculating as to why Trudeau doesn't have a more substantive
00:09:46.120 agenda while he's in India, all of a sudden, we have pictures of a convicted terrorist, a person who
00:09:53.860 was sort of a leader of these Calistani extremists in Canada, a person who had been convicted of attempting
00:10:00.060 to murder a Indian cabinet official who was visiting Vancouver, visiting family.
00:10:08.300 You know, we're talking about 20 years ago, but he, you know, he tried to assassinate this
00:10:14.540 person that the man who was convicted of trying to assassinate this Indian leader is with Justin
00:10:19.460 Trudeau. Photos have been circulated. I had the photos of this person, Jasper Atwal at an event
00:10:25.440 posing with Sophie Trudeau, posing with different liberal cabinet ministers and MPs on the official
00:10:33.340 guest list. Somehow I was able to make it past, you know, all of the screening and vetting that one
00:10:38.540 would have to do to get invited on the delegation with the prime minister, traveling with the prime
00:10:43.800 minister in India, attending official events in New Delhi and Mumbai. He was on the invitation list for
00:10:49.500 two events. You know, you just couldn't imagine that kind of PR disaster and the security risk of
00:10:57.460 having someone with that kind of storied background. I mean, it's just so shocking. So I broke that news
00:11:04.280 in the Toronto Sun. There was a bunch of other sort of follow-up reports of this individual who just has
00:11:10.200 an absolutely sketchy past. And, you know, you really start to realize how closely aligned the
00:11:15.980 liberal government is with this group of people who, again, are considered, there's two banned
00:11:22.860 terrorist groups in Canada that are affiliated with Kalistani separatists. And, you know, Jasper Atwal might
00:11:28.760 claim that he's no longer a part of these groups, but he was a part of them in the past. And even in
00:11:33.500 that court ruling, when he was found guilty of attempted murder, the judge called it terrorism and said
00:11:39.180 and said that he was a terrorist, Ezra. So, I mean, it was a pretty shocking story.
00:11:43.940 Yeah. And the chutzpah of taking, I mean, it's important that you point out he's not just a terrorist.
00:11:50.760 He tried to assassinate a cabinet minister from the country of India, and then Trudeau brought him
00:11:57.080 to the country of India as a VIP guest. I mean, that would be like bringing a PLO terrorist 1.00
00:12:05.460 to meet the Israeli government. It's so, it's, if you were to have a screenplay in Hollywood,
00:12:13.580 the, you know, the studios would say, oh, it's too much. No one will ever believe it. It requires
00:12:19.080 too much suspension of disbelief. Like, it's too crazy. But the crazy didn't stop there. And I don't
00:12:26.840 want to just talk about this today, but it was one of your great scoops. And I think it helped cement
00:12:31.940 the change in Trudeau's reputation from this international darling to a serial bumbler and
00:12:39.320 fumbler who frankly has caused disasters in every foreign affairs file. So it was a disaster. And
00:12:45.220 there could be a thing to say. You could say it was an absolutely wrong decision. I apologize. It
00:12:52.420 was bad judgment, bad vetting. You could, like, you could own it and it'd be a one day story of
00:12:57.140 embarrassment. But instead, and this is what's so incredible, they claimed it was a setup by rogue
00:13:04.280 elements of the security services in India. They actually ran with that. The liberals said,
00:13:11.640 no, Justin Trudeau didn't do anything wrong. Liberals didn't do anything wrong. This was like
00:13:16.780 planted, like this person was planted on our guest list by people in India to embarrass us to,
00:13:24.040 like, it didn't even make sense in its own terms. It was crazy.
00:13:29.460 I felt that way too. It was like, you know, so sometimes when you're reporting on a story and
00:13:33.800 you're really in depth, you're talking to a lot of people, you're talking to a lot of sources,
00:13:37.420 you kind of wonder, like, you know, am I too down, too far deep in the rabbit hole? Like,
00:13:42.720 is there something I'm missing here? And that story came out in the CBC, Ezra. So, you know,
00:13:47.560 Trudeau can always count on his friends and allies in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
00:13:52.120 to basically just write their narrative into the news. And there it was on Sunday evening,
00:13:57.920 a senior source telling reporters that it was rogue Indian, it was rogue elements in the Indian
00:14:04.720 government who had orchestrated this entire thing to embarrass Trudeau and make him look weak on this
00:14:09.560 Kalistani terrorism issue. We found out that the senior source was not a partisan liberal appointee,
00:14:16.920 but none other than the national security advisor, the top nonpartisan civil servant advising on
00:14:24.380 national security issues in the country is supposed to be, you know, the pinnacle of professionalism
00:14:30.860 and sort of hard nose policy. And here this guy is kind of doing his own thing, briefing the media,
00:14:38.600 demanding that it be off the record, not providing any evidence to back this claim.
00:14:43.400 And I mean, it took, it took, what, eight months for the report to come out as to, you know,
00:14:49.620 the parliament did an investigation into what happened and why the national security advisor
00:14:53.860 was briefing reporters with this ridiculous conspiracy theory, Ezra, that had no backing in
00:14:59.260 reality that, that really upset the Indian government because they, you know, to make it all worse, 0.99
00:15:04.000 you know, as, as much as the diplomatic fiasco that we were in the middle of,
00:15:08.560 Trudeau doubles down and blames the Indian government. He,
00:15:11.020 he mentioned it in, in parliament as well in an exchange in the house of commons.
00:15:15.080 Well, the report just came out this month as when there's absolutely no evidence and, and, and no,
00:15:20.760 nothing to substantiate the claim that there were rogue elements. It was just really a conspiracy
00:15:25.380 theory. And we know that the national security advisor who retired a couple of weeks after all,
00:15:30.640 this whole scandal, that he was having private conversations with top officials in the PMO
00:15:35.420 that were, you know, behind closed doors and the committee wasn't privy to any of those
00:15:39.800 conversations. So the idea that this was all, uh, you know, cooked up, uh, scheme from Trudeau and
00:15:45.980 his inner circle, uh, is, is pretty evident at this point. It's pretty sad, you know, that they,
00:15:51.260 that they came up with this coverup conspiracy to try to, you know, offload any responsibility
00:15:57.100 and that people in the media fell for it and that the CBC dutifully wrote that story. It's just so
00:16:03.360 embarrassing, Ezra. Oh yeah. I mean, it was a huge screw up. And then to say, no, no, no,
00:16:09.580 India tricked us like that. India. I mean, I have an affection towards India. The more I study the 0.99
00:16:16.920 history of the British empire, the more, the more I study India, its role in freedom, the more I get
00:16:22.900 to know Sikhs, the more I admire the country, the history. I love the fact that it's a democracy.
00:16:30.320 Um, I'm, I, I love India for its democracy more than the left loves China for its economy.
00:16:38.060 And to think that, and there's a lot of people from India who live in Canada now. And I think
00:16:42.860 they're generally very successful immigrants to Canada. I, I really think that's a relationship
00:16:47.740 that Canada could have done well by largest democracy in the world, second largest country
00:16:52.840 in the world. Very soon we'll overtake China in terms of pure population numbers. Maybe it already 1.00
00:16:57.340 has. And just to just not nuke it, I don't want to use that word, but just to wreck that relationship,
00:17:04.660 just to get through a few tough days of media spin, that shows a juvenile, childish, unseriousness
00:17:12.600 of foreign policy substance. That's my point. Candace, is that trip not only burst the bubble on his
00:17:18.900 self-loving narcissism, but it burst the bubble on any, anyone who thought that Trudeau was actually
00:17:25.800 a serious, substantive international player. That's at least what I, I take from it.
00:17:31.840 Yeah, I completely agree. I think that there was a very sort of superficial knowledge that most people
00:17:37.060 had about Justin Trudeau that, you know, he was sort of painted, uh, by his handlers and his PR people
00:17:43.340 as the, uh, anti-Trump. So, you know, Trump, Trump came in and he was a sort of hard-nosed
00:17:48.920 law and order kind of conservative guy. And Trudeau was his opposite. Trudeau was this warm,
00:17:55.240 lovey, you know, uh, liberal who, who just, you know, wanted everyone to hug and get along.
00:18:02.400 And I think that the more people got to know Justin Trudeau, you know, there, there's, there's,
00:18:07.660 there's really like a lack of substance when it comes to him, but there's also another side.
00:18:11.180 And that is this sort of cynical partisan politics. Like he puts his own personal
00:18:16.800 fortune ahead of the relationship with this very important ally that Canada has. So the whole point
00:18:24.080 of the eight day trip was his image, but it was also, there was also a partisan reason there.
00:18:28.440 And that was that the liberals wanted to impress, uh, the diaspora. They wanted to court votes from
00:18:35.240 specifically the Sikh community, but also the entire Indian diaspora. And, and that was why the,
00:18:41.180 you know, the whole week was so light on serious official state business. And so heavy on,
00:18:46.960 you know, visiting all these different sites and, and, and taking pictures and using,
00:18:51.720 you know, gaining all this material essentially to be used in the 2019 election. And you're right that,
00:18:56.700 you know, the, the Indian diaspora in Canada is incredibly successful. Um, Sikh Canadians have
00:19:02.000 always contributed, you know, tremendously right back to, you know, fighting on behalf of the British
00:19:08.580 empire in the first and second world war. Um, they've had tremendous contributions, but you know,
00:19:14.000 instead of acknowledging that, you know, Trudeau is the leader of all Canadians, he, he plays this
00:19:19.880 really sort of sneaky, divisive, uh, vote bank politics where he tries to court very specific
00:19:26.100 groups with very specific, uh, language. And I think that was another part of the, what was exposed
00:19:33.040 through that trip was, was, was, was just how, how sort of dishonest they, um, the government is
00:19:39.160 and Trudeau is when it comes to kind of dividing Canadians into little groups and then providing
00:19:44.740 different messages to different Canadians in the sort of, you know, divisive kind of way.
00:19:50.460 Yeah. You know, I, I think, uh, of Trudeau's international adventures, India, just the worst
00:19:58.840 disaster. China snubbed him, Cuba, Trudeau absolutely abases himself in a over the top
00:20:07.920 eulogy for Castro and Cuba repays Trudeau by using a sonic weapon to, to give brain damage 0.58
00:20:14.880 to our diplomats there. Um, we got a rough deal with Donald Trump in NAFTA because Trudeau insisted
00:20:20.940 on talking about feminism and global warming. Uh, things couldn't be worse between Russia and 0.97
00:20:27.180 our foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland. Saudi Arabia is, uh, you know, they get all the good
00:20:33.240 stuff selling us their oil while they, uh, you know, the relationship diplomatically is awful.
00:20:39.700 I can't think of a single country in the world, Japan and Australia put them in the list too.
00:20:45.260 I can't think of a single country in the world where relations between them and Canada are warmer
00:20:50.940 today. With the possible exception of Iran, that Trudeau again, without any reason is so
00:20:58.500 affectionate towards, I think, I mean, John Manley said it the other day. Uh, here's a quick clip of
00:21:04.000 John Manley, uh, saying we've never been more alone. We've never been, in my view, as alone in the
00:21:10.480 world as we are now. I think John Manley's right, Candace. I think for all of the, his savoir faire
00:21:17.720 in his international glamour, Trudeau has made Canada more isolated and smaller in the world.
00:21:23.860 Uh, yeah, I think there's just such a confusion on behalf of Trudeau and the liberals as to what
00:21:27.960 Canada's role in the world. You remember, Ezra, when they first were elected, they made such a big
00:21:32.440 deal of saying that, you know, Canada was back, that, um, under, under Harper and the Conservatives,
00:21:37.620 Canada had disappeared from the world stage, and that Trudeau was ushering in this new era of
00:21:42.820 positive Canadian influence in the world. And, you know, as, as insulting as that was to so many
00:21:48.940 Canadians, you kind of wait and wonder what exactly that foreign policy agenda is going to be. I mean,
00:21:55.280 it turned out it was basically selfies with Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron and a bunch of, you know,
00:22:02.120 puff pieces in the media about these so-called bromances. Um, but then when it comes to, you know,
00:22:07.820 the real relationships and Canada's role in the world, as you pointed out with all of these
00:22:12.600 countries, you know, whether it's because Trudeau refuses to budge on, you know, the special
00:22:18.220 privileges to the dairy cartel in Canada, whether it's their just totally schizophrenic idea of,
00:22:24.380 of when to call out human rights, you know, like we're going to call out Saudi Arabia for human 0.95
00:22:29.460 rights abuses on Twitter. And meanwhile, we're going to vote in favor of Cuba at the United Nations
00:22:35.860 over and over and over and over again, and refuse to condemn any of their bad behavior,
00:22:41.300 refuse to even call for gender equality. Justin Trudeau's absolutely favorite topic
00:22:45.200 when it comes to Cuba. I mean, it's just totally nonsensical. And even Iran, which, you know, 1.00
00:22:50.860 Trudeau made such a big deal again, in courting the Iranian vote during the last election and talking to,
00:22:56.780 you know, the Iranian diaspora in Canada, saying that he pledged to reopen relations and normalize
00:23:03.720 things and have a consulate going in an embassy. Well, he hasn't even done that. I mean, even,
00:23:09.520 you know, even his own promises, I don't advocate or advise renegotiating a deal with Iran, just given
00:23:16.520 how that country is basically a state sponsor of terrorism, a rogue country that's absolutely 0.67
00:23:22.820 destabilizing the entire Middle East. Trudeau wanted to be friends with them, and he couldn't even make 0.99
00:23:28.220 that happen. So, yeah, Canada is lost on the world stage. It's sad to see how far Trudeau will go
00:23:35.620 groveling to the United Nations to try to get a meaningless temporary seat on the Security Council.
00:23:43.380 For what? You know, we're willing to sacrifice all of our values, all of our relationships,
00:23:47.460 all of our friendships. Trudeau's foreign policy, it actually looks a lot like Barack Obama's foreign
00:23:53.180 policy, which was basically to go around the world, grovel, apologize for America, make America look
00:23:59.240 weak, and turn his back on our, you know, the West's closest allies. So, yeah, Trudeau's just been
00:24:06.460 utterly disappointing on that front. You know, Candace, I'm enjoying talking over some of the
00:24:11.640 news highs and lows of 2018 with you, but I did promise at the beginning of our discussion that
00:24:19.080 this would be semi-biographical, and we haven't done that, and my excuse is, because that Jaspal Atwal
00:24:24.880 story, the story of the terrorists that Trudeau brought to India, was your scoop, and so I just wanted
00:24:30.660 to take the opportunity to recount that incredible moment, because I think that was such a turning
00:24:35.520 point for Trudeau. I should say that you're also the author. I want to make sure I got the title right
00:24:40.220 here. Stupid Things Trudeau Says. That's your book, right?
00:24:44.200 Yeah, that's right. That was sort of a light-hearted, satirical book. I couldn't help it,
00:24:49.200 because Trudeau's just said so many remarkably dumb things over the years that I wanted to catalog,
00:24:54.880 you know, some of these quotes and comments and try to put them into some context for the reader,
00:24:59.360 so. You know, and it's funny, and you know what? It's true, and anyone who pretends they're not
00:25:03.520 stupid quotes, I mean, there's so many of them. We know the people kind one. We know when he says
00:25:08.360 budgets will balance themselves. We got to grow from the economy from the heart out. Give me
00:25:14.080 one or two other just clangers that if it were George W. Bush or Dan Quayle, we'd never stop
00:25:20.640 talking about. Well, sure. After the Sochi Olympics in 2014, the Winter Olympics, when Vladimir Putin
00:25:28.060 and the Russian army invaded Ukraine and Crimea, Trudeau went on a political talk show in Quebec
00:25:34.020 and said that the reason that Putin invaded Ukraine was because he was mad that his hockey team lost
00:25:40.620 during the Olympics. And even at the time, even at the time, the host sort of looked at him like,
00:25:45.540 are you serious?
00:25:49.040 So there's that. There's a whole collection of his, you know, favorite digs against Alberta and the
00:25:55.280 people of Alberta. Back before he became prime minister, he would always make those comments in
00:26:01.140 French, though, Ezra, just so that, you know, we couldn't clip them and play them back to the people.
00:26:05.580 But, you know, he said that Canada would be better off, is better off when people from Quebec are in 1.00
00:26:11.360 charge and the country suffers when Albertans are in charge. He said that if Canada was really the
00:26:16.960 Canada of Stephen Harper, he would be for Quebec leaving and becoming its own country. You know, he really
00:26:25.000 had some incredibly divisive and controversial things to say about the Canadian Confederation and
00:26:30.700 specifically about Alberta.
00:26:32.420 Yeah, you know what, that's, we were just chuckling at all the goofy things he said, but what you just
00:26:37.200 said there are positively dangerous. Well, listen, I do want to talk a little bit biographically,
00:26:42.020 because, of course, we know you from your column with the Toronto Sun, and I'm so glad you have that
00:26:49.040 forum, because it's one of the few newspapers in Canada that still allows conservatives to be
00:26:53.460 conservative. I regret the National Post is no longer as strong in that department. There's still some good
00:26:58.660 writers on the Financial Post, but I'm so glad you have that place. So you write for the Toronto Sun.
00:27:04.800 Before that, you were with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Way back in the day, you were a staffer
00:27:09.780 for Jason Kenney in Ottawa. And now you're the boss of the True North Initiative. And we've mentioned
00:27:15.380 that before, and we know your colleague, Andrew Lawton, obviously an old friend of ours, too. Can you
00:27:20.360 give our viewers a bit of a briefing? I think I know what it is. Would you call it a think tank?
00:27:26.300 Would you call it a forum? What exactly is the True North Initiative?
00:27:30.420 Sure. Well, I kind of like to think of it as sort of a next generation think tank media platform hybrid.
00:27:37.820 And so the concept when I started it, when I created it, was I used to work in the immigration
00:27:42.600 department in Ottawa. When it came to discussions about immigration, immigration security, border
00:27:48.020 security, you know, the issues just never get discussed fairly. And there's so many special interest
00:27:53.280 groups and lobbyists on the left, you know, whether it's refugee lawyers or refugee groups
00:27:58.140 or, you know, different special interest groups that are lobbying the government. And really
00:28:02.300 just when it comes to media stories, they make it one sided because they provide these over
00:28:07.280 the top quotes or, you know, put out these reports that really advocate for open borders
00:28:12.540 and something that goes against the Canadian, the best interest of Canadians. So the idea with
00:28:18.040 True North was to try to counter that to provide some common sense, you know, rules based suggestions
00:28:23.940 and to sort of try to keep the media honest by providing the other side of the story. That
00:28:28.860 was about three years ago. And the ideas kind of morphed and broadened into kind of creating
00:28:34.800 something like our own media platform. So we do create some reports, we still try to do the
00:28:41.300 sort of policy think tank stuff. But we also focus on getting the information out to Canadians and,
00:28:47.520 and telling that other side, we do some investigative reports, we've hired Andrew Lawton, a journal,
00:28:52.920 a great journalist out of London, Ontario, to provide his own commentary and his own reports,
00:28:57.940 we focus a lot on doing, you know, things, everything's online. So, you know, through Facebook
00:29:02.620 and through our website, and just engaging with Canadians, having that robust conversation about
00:29:09.180 immigration, that the elites are so afraid to have as, or they're so afraid to talk openly about
00:29:14.620 immigration, they don't want to have a debate, you know, the whole United Nations migration compact
00:29:19.900 was just rushed through without even consulting with the Canadian people. And I think the reason 0.99
00:29:25.860 that elites don't want to have a conversation with Canadians is because they know that their
00:29:29.800 positions are offside, they're not consulting with the public, they're going against what people
00:29:34.540 want. And, and, you know, that's, that's so unfair to the Canadian people. This is our country,
00:29:39.100 a country that we've built, our ancestors have built, we should have a say in the future of our
00:29:43.740 country. And so again, True North just really seeks to facilitate that conversation and to provide
00:29:50.860 balance to, you know, the insanity of politicians and the mainstream media journalists.
00:29:56.460 Yeah, you guys are really strong on the immigration file. And I think it obviously comes from
00:29:59.980 your history working in that department. I always show this graph here. This is from August. Angus
00:30:07.020 Reed asks the question, do you think immigration numbers are too high, too low, or just right? And 1.00
00:30:14.700 as you can see here, this is a historical graph that goes back decades. And the number of Canadians
00:30:20.380 who say the number is too high is at 49%. It's never been higher. The number who say it's too low,
00:30:27.260 we should invite more folks in is 6%. Again, that number has never been lower. And the number who
00:30:33.340 say, Oh, I guess I'm fine with where it is, is 31%. I think those people just don't want to take a
00:30:38.060 position or maybe they really think the number as it is, is fine. So you add up those who think
00:30:43.580 it's fine as it is, or should be lower, that's 80%. And yet Trudeau is going in the direction of the 6%,
00:30:49.900 increasing it, and is contemplating jacking it up to a staggering 450,000 people a year.
00:31:00.700 I think you mentioned right at the beginning of the show how populism is on the march around the world.
00:31:06.460 That's going to light a fire in this country. I believe, Candace, that if anything is going to
00:31:11.020 start, I mean, God forbid, Macron-style riot protests. I don't want violence in Canada. But if
00:31:17.980 anything's going to light a match, a populist rebellion, it's going to be opening up the
00:31:22.380 borders to a lawless, chaotic immigration in the face of 80% of Canadians who wish this to the contrary. 0.53
00:31:29.180 And a combination of that, Ezra, and the fact that Canadians are just not consulted,
00:31:33.500 that Trudeau continues to ram through his agenda. I mean, he's the one that's driving this sort of
00:31:38.780 populist notion. You know, Canada has long been open and understanding of immigration. We've long
00:31:46.780 been a country that's welcomed immigrants, integrated them, and welcomed them as full
00:31:52.060 Canadian citizens. And that is our record. That's why Canada's immigration system works.
00:31:58.460 And as soon as you sort of stray away from that and say, you know what, we're just going to
00:32:03.900 accept all migrants. We're going to change the definition. So a migrant is now a refugee. Refugees
00:32:08.940 don't really have to follow Canadian immigration law. So, you know, our immigration laws are going to,
00:32:13.980 you know, be put on the back burner so that we can welcome all these people. I mean, that's what's
00:32:19.500 driving the change in public opinion. And it's been a drastic change over the last 10 years or so,
00:32:24.300 where Canadians used to generally support immigration, be pro-immigration, and understand
00:32:29.260 that, you know, we need to continue to welcome newcomers to grow our economy and to have new
00:32:36.140 innovation and all these other things. You know, that consensus is slowly fading away. And,
00:32:41.180 you know, it's directly because of the policies and the attitude of elites, specifically Justin Trudeau
00:32:48.700 and his liberal government. And then on top of that, the way that the media sort of bullies and
00:32:53.900 name calls anyone who's critical. I mean, you've long been the sort of, you know,
00:32:59.100 a boogeyman to the mainstream media that they said that they call you far right or, you know,
00:33:04.140 call you extreme. Well, you know, the views that you're expressing are the views of most Canadians. And
00:33:09.420 and it's the same with us at The True North. We have now started to be called the same kind of
00:33:14.540 things, accused of the same kind of, you know, name calling and being xenophobic and all this
00:33:20.620 stuff. Well, you know, what we're trying to do is just have an honest conversation and sort of tap
00:33:25.900 into the sentiment of Canadians who are, have valid concerns, have valid worries. And, you know,
00:33:30.860 the more that Trudeau and the media try to demonize us, the more angry people become. And that's,
00:33:35.980 and that's how you end up with these sort of populist revolts. So, you know, they shouldn't
00:33:40.140 be blaming people like you and I, they should be looking in the mirror and looking at their own
00:33:44.060 policies and their own tactics and the way that they treat, you know, the citizens of their country.
00:33:49.420 You know, I was listening to you and how the official establishments, it's the media,
00:33:55.500 it's the politicians, it's academia, it's pop culture, like it's, it's, it's even police.
00:34:03.660 All the establishment is basically tamping down the bandwidth of debates on these issues. And
00:34:09.980 you made me think of the United Kingdom, because, of course, we, we have some staff there,
00:34:15.740 Jack Buckby, Martina Marcotta, and we used to have Tommy Robinson. And earlier this year,
00:34:21.500 you and Andrew Lawton came to London to report on the trial of Tommy Robinson. It turned out to be a
00:34:29.580 very quick court hearing. It was basically adjourned by the judge. But I'd like you to share with our
00:34:35.500 viewers because, you know, Tommy Robinson is, is probably one standard deviation more rambunctious
00:34:41.980 than me. And I think I'm one standard deviation more rambunctious than you, Candace. So you're
00:34:47.260 polite company. And so, I mean, he has a rough background. And I don't think he, he hides it at
00:34:54.860 all. In fact, I think in some ways, he is sort of a, a spokesman in some ways for working class Brits.
00:35:02.220 It's still stratified there by, by class and region. And I'd like you to share with our viewers your
00:35:09.340 thoughts. So you came to the UK, you met Tommy, you came to the court, you came to the trial.
00:35:13.900 And, and we crowd fund your ticket and that of Andrew Lawton. And our rule was,
00:35:18.700 you just have to show up and report no editorial oversight from me or the rebel.
00:35:23.420 We just wanted another pair of eyes there to, to, to see what was going on. So can you tell our
00:35:29.900 viewers what you thought of the event itself of Tommy? And are there any lessons that you learned in
00:35:35.340 your time in London that might apply to your thinking about Canada, especially on these
00:35:39.900 politically incorrect issues? Yeah, certainly. Well, first, thank you so much to
00:35:44.700 you at the rebel and to your generous, you know, viewers and supporters that enabled that crowd
00:35:49.740 funding. You know, it was a really great experience to get to go over to London and get to report in a
00:35:54.460 different country and have that experience. So, so thanks for that. And yeah, I mean, going there,
00:35:59.820 what I sort of kept feeling like was, you know, this is where Canada is heading. This is like Canada 0.93
00:36:05.420 10 years into the future. If we continue on the same path, um, where you're right, you know,
00:36:12.220 England and London is much more sort of class based. So people don't want to listen to Tommy
00:36:18.060 because of the neighborhood he grew up in and the accent that he has. And, you know, his lack of maybe
00:36:22.620 formal fancy education. Um, but the issues that he's raising are just completely obvious and evident.
00:36:28.860 The fact that there are these unintegrated, um, immigrant groups, mostly Pakistani, but other 1.00
00:36:35.980 people from different Muslim countries that form these gangs, they do despicable, 1.00
00:36:40.860 horrible things in grooming young women to show a complete lack of respect for the country that 0.99
00:36:46.060 they're in, but also the, you know, independence and the, um, the rights of these young women, 0.99
00:36:52.380 these girls in many cases. And then on top of that, you have the institutions, the police,
00:36:59.500 um, you know, the courts, uh, journalists, academics, social workers, all willing to cover
00:37:06.460 up and ignore and sort of lie about the prevalence of this phenomenon. Uh, you know, I haven't heard of
00:37:13.100 that stuff happening in Canada, but we're not far away. And we see elements of it, for instance,
00:37:17.580 after the Danforth shooting where it was just completely sealed and there was no information
00:37:22.140 coming out and the police were sort of playing part of this sort of PR game. But anyway, in,
00:37:27.740 in, in London and in, in the UK, more broadly, you know, Tommy Robinson is a sort of a hero of his
00:37:34.140 people. He's, you know, part of the underclass for sure, but he's, he's fairly smart. He's articulate.
00:37:39.660 He's ringing the alarm bell about these issues and the way that the government just completely,
00:37:44.220 you know, clamps down on him and, and tries to find any excuse to arrest him and silence him and
00:37:51.020 put him away while the media are playing that role as well and demonizing him and trying to
00:37:56.860 de-platform him. I mean, the whole thing was really eyeopening and sad, um, you know, considering that
00:38:02.540 Canada got its political institutions we inherited from that same tradition, um, in the UK to see how
00:38:10.380 they've sort of abandoned freedom of speech and the rule of law, the idea that everyone should be
00:38:15.340 treated equally. And they've created a special, um, situation for migrants be just because they're 0.97
00:38:22.060 migrants, just because they're Muslim, they don't have to follow the same set of rules. Um, it's scary. 1.00
00:38:26.940 You know, I talked to a lot of people while I was over there, Ezra, and you know, I think that
00:38:32.140 people see it, people understand it. The reason that Tommy Robinson is as famous as he is is because
00:38:38.780 he's effective and he's speaking about something that's true that, that, that people there just
00:38:43.260 aren't getting through their mainstream media. So I, you know, I think that it's great that there are
00:38:48.300 independent journalists like you that are, you know, really involved in covering the story and raising
00:38:53.660 the alarm. And I was grateful for Andrew and I to have the opportunity to go over there
00:38:58.540 to see it with our own eyes, to try to tell the other side of the story to the British public while
00:39:02.780 we're there, but also, you know, to bring back those lessons to Canada and to make sure that we
00:39:07.660 can safeguard ourselves at any sign of these kinds of, uh, trends happening in Canada. We can
00:39:14.620 call, call it out for what it is, ring the alarm bell and, um, make sure that that sort of
00:39:19.740 stratified double standard and, you know, the horrible crimes that are committed without justice.
00:39:24.780 Um, so that, that kind of thing just never happens in, in our own communities.
00:39:29.420 Well, I'm, I'm so glad you feel that way. And I guess, uh, I think of the true north initiative,
00:39:33.820 that's a phrase from our anthem and stand on guard for thee is another phrase from our anthem. It
00:39:38.940 sounds like you're doing that by the way, folks, if you want to see all the reports from that special
00:39:44.220 week when we were there with Candace and Andrew, and we brought an American reporter named Cassandra
00:39:50.780 Fairbanks and an Australian named Avi Yamini. You can see all that at realreporters.uk.
00:39:59.660 Real reporters, of course, in contrast to the media party of London, which is the worst of all.
00:40:04.620 Candace, let me ask, and on this note, I mean, you've had an amazing 2018.
00:40:08.700 You've really led the charge. Obviously you broke the story of the year, jazz ball out while amazing.
00:40:12.780 Um, you, you fight hard, whether it's carbon taxes or, or open borders, immigration, this UN
00:40:20.620 global compact for migration. What are you going to do in 2019? Maybe some of it's a surprise and
00:40:27.500 you don't want to let the cat out of the bag now, but give our viewers a bit of a hint. What are you
00:40:31.820 up to? What are your plans for true north initiative? Uh, are there any events you're looking forward to
00:40:37.580 in 2019? What do you, what do you think is going to come? Well, definitely we're looking forward to
00:40:42.700 it. We've had a great year in 2018, just in terms of, you know, getting stories out there and telling
00:40:47.660 the other side. Uh, but also, you know, recruiting people into our fold. We've had great, uh, success
00:40:54.300 doing, uh, fundraising campaigns. There's a lot of Canadians that are really, you know, willing to
00:40:59.260 open up their wallets and give us, you know, a little bit of money here and there to help support
00:41:03.340 our cause. So we're going to be growing. We're going to be focusing on doing more investigative reporting.
00:41:08.700 We've got a couple of, uh, exciting names of, um, scholars that are going to be joining,
00:41:13.420 uh, the organization to help us write reports. And again, to counter all of the sort of politically
00:41:20.060 correct, uh, cultural relativism and, and, uh, creeping, um, you know,
00:41:28.700 blasphemy or creeping, creeping Sharia law that happens in, in Canada. So we, we've got a bunch of 1.00
00:41:34.380 projects that we're going to be rolling out and we're just going to continue to, you know,
00:41:37.900 counter the media bias to hold the Trudeau liberals accountable and to try to advocate for, you know,
00:41:44.060 the policies that we believe in, which is basically, you know, limited government and,
00:41:49.260 and freedom and responsibility, promoting Canadian values and Canadian, um, you know,
00:41:55.900 rights and responsibilities. Well, we can hardly wait to see what you do next.
00:42:00.220 And, uh, we wish you great success. Uh, I think that, uh, you do a lot of important things.
00:42:07.020 In my mind, the fact that you still have a platform in the mainstream media,
00:42:12.220 if I can call the Toronto sun, that is incredible because all the things you say
00:42:17.180 are the kinds of things that get the D platformers going. If you know what I mean,
00:42:22.380 the people who try and ban and get people they don't like fired. So I'm glad that you have a,
00:42:27.180 a foot here in the rebel and a foot there in the Toronto sun and that you're talking to both sides
00:42:32.220 because it's so important that people hear your point of view. It's great to see you again. Thanks
00:42:35.580 for spending so much time with us. I know you're a fan favorite with our viewers. So they'll be
00:42:39.500 thrilled to have spent this time with you too. Uh, have a great new year and we'll see you in 2019.
00:42:45.420 Thanks Ezra. Yeah. It was great to get into the issues a bit more. And, you know,
00:42:49.100 with the Toronto sun, it's like, you know, they try to, they try to discredit the Toronto sun. They
00:42:53.340 hated our reporting after the Danforth. They hated what we had to say on the UN compact.
00:42:58.140 And so, you know, we, we're constantly having to deal with that same kind of thing, but you know,
00:43:03.100 when it comes, at least it's a, it's a, it's a newspaper that's sort of still broadly considered
00:43:09.260 part of the mainstream media. And I'm appreciative of that, that voice, but I also think that the
00:43:13.980 future is here online and, you know, with, with outlets like the rebel. So, um, you know,
00:43:18.860 best of luck to you too. You've been doing incredible work over there and continue to
00:43:23.420 enjoy watching the rebel grow. Well, thanks for those kind words and, uh,
00:43:27.340 good luck to all of us. We'll sure need it. All right. Take care of my friends.
00:43:31.020 Okay. Bye Ezra. All right. That's Candace Malcolm, fan favorite, Toronto sun columnist,
00:43:36.300 and the boss of the true north initiative. Sounds like they've got a lot of great things
00:43:40.380 ahead for 2019. Well, that's our show for today on behalf of all of us here at rebel world headquarters.
00:43:47.260 Good night and keep fighting for freedom.