Blatant Propaganda at Your Expense! ｜ Stand on Guard Ep 146
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
143.88786
Summary
Time is running out for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the clock is ticking on him, and we ve all seen the handwriting on the wall. We ve seen the liberal government hire social media influencers at taxpayer expense to promote liberal policies and spew propaganda, and now it s time to look at what s actually going on.
Transcript
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hi welcome back to another episode of stand on guard back to monday no question period today
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the house of course is in recess there will be some committee meetings over the summer
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hopefully they'll be talking about foreign influence and spies but time is running out
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for justin trudeau the clock is ticking on justin trudeau for a number of reasons and
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we're going to be going to a but we've seen the liberal government tap in a while but none other
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than that shall we say lecturing cabinet minister deputy prime minister and finance minister christy
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freeland has been getting some tough questions on how the liberals use social media influencers at
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taxpayer expense to promote liberal policies to spew propaganda essentially that's what this is
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this is not anything else than propaganda and i wouldn't have a problem with the liberal party
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doing this but when it's taxpayer money you have to say something is askew so we will be going to that
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shortly but i wanted to show you some background about what is that is actually going on here we've
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got a number of things i want to discuss today and i will be right back with all of them
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so we are in a very precarious position in this country we need political change but we also need
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yes please subscribe if you haven't resubscribe if you if you need to please support the station in
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whatever way you can it's appreciated we're growing we've just about hit 26 000 and i i'd like to see 50
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by the end of the summer but that's optimistic i know but whatever you guys can do we we appreciate
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it this is a family this station it really is and even though question period has been put on hold
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for a couple of three months three months we will be doing live broadcasts increasingly and i want to
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keep you up on the news and what i'm talking about today i think is just evidentiary of how corrupt
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the liberal government has become and i really want to emphasize that this is just rank corruption
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in terms of it promoting itself at taxpayer expense now there's a by-election toronto as well today
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uh toronto saint paul's this was carolyn bennett's old seat the she was health minister for years and
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then she became mental health minister very very cantankerous woman but it was a safe liberal seat
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they used to win by 20 points right now it's neck and neck and the conservatives could actually take
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this seat this will be of course a good indication that there are no strings attached to justin trudeau in
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terms of winning elections that he is not helping candidates win elections so we'll we'll see what
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happens there and i'll take a look at some polling before we do that and i also want to talk about
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what in on earth was the royal canadian navy doing in cuba last week when the defense minister bill
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blair claimed that it was some kind of deterrence move against russia turns out it wasn't but we'll get
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into that so i want to give you a little background first here on what is going on with social media
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influencers and where justin trudeau's head is at because arguably i'm no psychologist or
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psychiatrist but i can recognize strains of schizophrenia when i see it and it simply means
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trying to compartmentalize two opposing ideas at the same time and acting like there's nothing
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irrational about it and that's exactly what true has done let's let's listen to this collection here
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out there a deliberate undermining of mainstream media there are the conspiracy theorists there are
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the social media drivers who are trying to do everything they can to keep people in their little
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filter bubbles to prevent people from actually agreeing on a common set of facts the way you know
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the cbc and ctv when they were our only sources of news you know used to used to and global used to
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project okay so that's pretty odd for justin trudeau to be talking about the halcyon days in canada
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of three networks three news networks he doesn't mention the fact there were probably two dailies in
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every major canadian city and we of course we had the well he he would not probably look at the
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national post as part of his equation we had the globe and mail as sort of canada's national
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newspaper and that would be great with trudeau that's what he wants you to read that's the media
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he wants you to view doesn't he doesn't get into radio but of course it's a pre-internet age isn't it
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he's talking about you can't put the genie back in the bottle any more than we can put nuclear bomb back
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in the bottle and pretend that didn't happen we are living in an internet age and trudeau was doing
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everything possible to stifle that information on the internet and we know we know about his censorship
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bills and we know the one that's just introduced in march the online harms act which did not reach
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second reading thank god before the house recessed but interesting because march 2023 we learned that
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the fed spent more than 600 000 hiring influencers social media influencers in 2021 this was the trudeau
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government turning to social and this was largely to counteract any qualms people had about getting
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the covet 19 vaccine because there was a lot of information on the internet saying that this vaccine
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might not be as safe and effective as the government was claiming it was we now know it was neither
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of those two it was not effective in stopping or preventing you from getting covid and there are
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reasons to doubt its safety and we have to look into that too but here's exactly what's going been
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going on with the social media influencers social media influencers to get the word out on some of their
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initiatives documents recently tabled in the house of commons show ottawa paid influencers more than
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600 000 in taxpayers money last year and more than a dozen federal departments and agencies employed
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those influencers to try and help get the messages out from everything to do with the covid vaccine rollout
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to winterlude staycations let's go to ottawa ctv's rachel aiello is standing bush covering this story
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today so rachel some people are going to say smart move other people are going to say wow interesting use
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of taxpayers money walk us through the story here yeah todd well it's really a new frontier
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advertising through social media influencers obviously government departments for a long time
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have been trying to reach a canadian audiences where they are traditional tv watchers uh online
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themselves through their own accounts but what we're seeing in increasing numbers todd is the
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government using influencers to get their message out so instead of seeing a post from the government
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of canada themselves what you'll see is a post from probably someone you follow uh saying that
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they're partnering with the government of canada and they're bringing you this message so i dug through
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these documents and took a look at the trends and what the government has been doing in the last year
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and it was really interesting to see some of the strategies at play obviously with the covid vaccine
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rollout they had an aim of targeting diverse groups groups of canadians who might not necessarily be
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traditional media watchers and also wanting to ensure um uptake in the covid vaccine is there
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in groups of people of color for example uh the lgbtq community and you saw that play out with who
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they appointed or hired or contracted for these uh influencer posts so we saw a rather diverse group
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of folks be tasked with then taking to their social media accounts many of them with large
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followings some of them with very specific audiences todd you know they are a clear
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cash or a trusted community and sharing their rationale for why they got vaccinated and these
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were all sponsored paid posts that the government backed in in order to increase the take up in the
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covid 19 vaccine i just landed in ottawa look who i ran into this is this is classic moment here
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you might remember this this was during the canada strong and free conference
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you know in april and this is uh a social media influencer but not one the liberals really would
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want to use yeah cat canada because she goes by her moniker on on x and here she is sitting
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obviously in the business class section with christie freeland the deputy prime minister and uh
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freeland actually invited her to be one of her social influence social media influence but but she
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didn't have any idea that it might not be the most appropriate choice for can you wave to my
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yes so she got a bit of pushback on that and by the way uh we all know the covet 19 vaccine was
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safe and effective according to to youtube anyway so we uh we always have to add that disclaimer don't we
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uh so there she is uh deputy deputy prime minister christia freeland sitting on the airplane with a
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small c conservative social media influencer cat canada and here's christia freeland looking extremely
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uncomfortable trying to explain what the government's policy on social media influencers actually um but
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we've seen the liberal government tapping influencers and we're now seeing departments using uh marketing
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money to also tap influencers um to deliver government messaging uh i guess why pay influencers why do this
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um i'm happy to offer a really general answer which is she look happy to you she looks extremely
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stressed extremely uncomfortable and unwilling to answer that question and you'll find out as
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as she attempts to answer the question she doesn't um it is really important for
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our government to be sure canadians know what we are doing on their behalf um we work
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for you guys and we work for all canadians and the money that the government of canada invests
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is the money of canadians and so we are all really really focused on talking to canadians on being out
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in person and talking to as many people as we can in person um as you guys know i used to be a journalist
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um i still read two newspapers every day in print um and take pictures of the articles that i share with
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people um and i am a huge believer in the value of the work that all of you guys do the work of
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professional salary journalists um we also recognize that a lot of canadians get their information from
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other sources and it's our responsibility to be sure that we are meeting canadians where they are
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i don't know if anyone else want i guess i'll just add um you know i have four kids all of us up
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here have kids and we see that our newspapers on our kitchen counters are not getting read read by our
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children at least i do and i'll just say that this is um this is a time where the way in which media
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is is consumed uh is evolving uh is evolving and we need to evolve with the times okay so evolve with
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the times on your own dime don't expect taxpayers to pay for your propaganda and this of course is
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immediately where she goes to suggest that anything that is opposing liberal policy is misinformation
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disinformation and she's just about to get there and certainly when i was minister of national defense
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we saw in numerous instances that misinformation and disinformation were creeping into our media
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our systems across the country and in the private and public sector were being hacked
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uh by cyber criminals and so essentially i don't think we should look at the use of influencers
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in a silo we should actually think about how as a government we are responding to the
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to change the way in which people think and in yesteryear
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you see how pained they are to try to rationalize and justify their misuse of taxpayer money to pay for
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liberal propaganda because it's all it's all everybody else's fault there's this massive conspiracy out
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there on social media to discredit the wonderful policies promulgated by the liberal government
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and it's their job to spend your money to ensure you don't believe any of it was more objective
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we are now in an era where people debate what is true and in order to be in the realm of discussing
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i thought we always debated what is true is that not something we should be doing is it only true if
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the liberal government says it is we need to ensure that the work that we are doing in whatever portfolio
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is actually disseminated in an honest and clear way so that canadians can understand what their taxpayer
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thank you uh for all those answers my follow-up is um you know if tick tock is potentially a national
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security risk then why are you leaning on its influencers to deliver government messaging and get a
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yeah christian come to my right i mean as you know um we do take the potential threat posed by tick
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tock tock very seriously and our government has taken real meaningful action there that is the right
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thing to do and that is certainly an issue which we are discussing with our allies the broader question
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of foreign interference and how as countries um we can protect our own democracy and the democracy of our
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our partners and i'll just say that influencers being influencers are heard on other media platforms
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other than tick tock oh how nice but if tick tock is not if is not kosher for the federal government
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to use why is it okay for the liberal party to use it i mean what where's the disconnect end here it is
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incredible hypocrisy but that's what we've come to expect from this government so so this is a very
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serious issue because of course we've got trudeau spending your dollars your tax dollars on government
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propaganda at the same time he wants to eliminate stations like this he wants to eliminate
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new media and independent media from the internet because they all
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are guilty misinformation disinformation which are terms he doesn't use as readily as anita anand did
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in that interview he likes to talk about harm now that if you're spinning any kind of story
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that is not written by the liberal party that you're in you are producing harm on canadians and you
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must be silenced and the online harms act will do that by putting you in prison for life locking you up
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at home with a bracelet if you're considered to be potentially guilty of a thought crime
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and of course subjecting you to human rights tribunals which can find the life out of you and keep you poor
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for the rest of your existence and that's what trudeau's plan is so it's it's twofold
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force taxpayers to pay for his propaganda stop any media outlets that disagree with him that's where
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trudeau is coming so how is this affecting things right now now as i said there's a by-election coming
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up in toronto st paul now and this is the this is the average here that we have the conservatives are
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about 20 points ahead of this poll they've maintained a 20 point spread now for about four months
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so this is this is a huge i'd love to see the block disappear entirely here but it would
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the this is indicative of how the liberal support has cratered and it continues to crater and
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yeah and that's the by-election we'll have the results on tonight it's it is too close to call
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but it's a good possibility that the conservatives could take it and that of course would be another
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reason for justin trudeau to consider his future as the leader of the liberal party and prime minister
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of canada do i think that's going to take him down no i don't i don't think that's going to be enough
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impetus for him to to truly assess his future and say it's time to go i think he'll continue as long
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as it's feasible does as long as he can fend off attacks from the caucus and the cabinet and the party
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bosses he'll do that but interestingly enough you know there's the liberal hope throughout the ages
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has always been get rid of the unpopular leader who's passed his shelf life and
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put in a new leader and the you will have a rebirth of the party and canadians will just naturally
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support it and it of course hasn't always happened has it paul martin did not catch on with canadians
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even though he took over the job from jean chretien
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and it's it's john turner did not catch on with canadians when he took on the job after pierre trudeau
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so it's interesting if you look at this even if they put freeland who i guess is supposedly the front
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runner there's 20 points behind it's not it's not going to work and dominic leblanc minus 13
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now i can't imagine champagne that one of the most annoying and grating cabinet ministers
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even thinking he could possibly be be a leader of the liberal party but he's uh he's at minus 11
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so and mark carney well there's a there's a minus four percent there but there's really nobody who is
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the savior of the liberal party anymore it's not going to happen the liberal party is not going to
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recover from justin trudeau so i that's one reason i don't think he will be leaving anytime soon
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because he believes he's the best leader of the liberal party and he will fight to keep that that
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position i want to move to a story here before i forget this was interesting because
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this question came up in the last week of question period i think about a week ago now
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and it was uh the conservative defense uh critic james uh bazan who was actually an old friend
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and he asked the defense minister bill blair what was the canadian navy royal canadian navy doing down in
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havana and bill blair gave a horribly mangled response it was barely
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coherent and a lot of people commented like is there something wrong with bill here because he really
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didn't seem to have a grasp of the answer but the gist of his response was that the navy was in havana
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as part of some deterrence show against russia because russian ships had been there now
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whether or not bill blair actually believed this or not i i and i doubt it very much but how much
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how much does he not know about his own department if he didn't know what the canadian
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navy was actually doing they were there to put on a conga show
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entertainment for for havana had nothing to do with deterrence and blair was obviously aware of that
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but he came up with this cover story and i mean get a load of this guy here i mean i don't know who this
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is but i would suggest that perhaps the physical fitness requirements and the canadian armed forces have
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been gradually reduced over the years because i i don't recall regular force people looking like
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this when i was in uniform but you know i'm not making fun of the man's weight yeah but
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the canadian armed forces and the canadian navy used to have stringent regulations in terms of being
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physically fit i know i know they got rid of the body mass index years ago but i still thought you
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had you had to pass fitness tests twice a year i did but i was in uniform and i could still pass them
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today but anyway a little surprised to see this picture of this individual and like i said i don't know who
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it is but he was uh it was this photo was tweeted by the canadian embassy in cuba
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they're quite proud of this guy on the trumpet performing for the for the cubans interesting
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to say the least but that is you know we don't know
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i thought i was going to make it through this but i'm not
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no he's not ultimately time is ticking away for justin trito and i think he will continue to try to
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hold on but he can't ignore the facts forever so even though he thinks he's ready to fight another
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election he believes he can win and win another election i don't believe that illusion that delusion
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is shared by the rank and file liberal party membership most of the cabinet or most of the
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caucus which definitely sees trudeau as a liability at this point so he might want to hang on to that
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next election but i doubt the liberal party will let him stay because time is ticking for justin trudeau
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and that's that's where we are with with this story so what do we need to do this summer we have to
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stay vigilant but a number of things and one is to never forget that the trudeau government is trying
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to pass the most authoritarian anti-free speech law for lack of better i'm not going to call it a hate
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speech law because it isn't it is a law that wants to undermine and destroy free speech in canada the
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online harms act and as long as the most authoritarian legislation like it in the world for a democratic
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country a supposedly democratic country we must continue to fight that we must continue to ask for
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names of these spies in the house of commons and not let this story die throughout the summer
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i think that's extremely important we have to keep fighting for truth and we have to keep fighting for
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accuracy and that's something we never get from from justin trudeau so i thank you for watching today
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and we are going to be on again tomorrow and like i say we will continue this live relationship
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throughout the summer question period or no question period and i think it's important to stay informed
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informed and to stay on top of the news thanks for watching everybody god bless you