Candice Malan talks about Tucker Carlson's recent visit to Canada and what he had to say about the treatment of Christians in the country. She also talks about the burning of over 90 churches across the country and what that says about our society.
00:00:00.000Why does it take an American journalist and pundit, Tucker Carlson, to point out obvious truths about Canada?
00:00:06.700Why is he the only one talking about the evils of our country's euthanasia program?
00:00:11.240Why is he the only one talking about the rot in our society where we encourage and even pay for young Canadians to use deadly and harmful drugs?
00:00:18.720We allow our government to trample on our rights and freedoms, rip apart our history and our traditions,
00:00:24.900and we do nothing when over 90 churches are vandalized or burnt to the ground.
00:00:30.120There is something deeply wrong here in Canada.
00:00:32.640I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:45.000Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.
00:01:27.560Our own reporter, Rachel Emanuel, introduced Tucker at one of those events.
00:01:31.780So we were pleased to be a part of it in some small way.
00:01:34.580You know, I don't always agree with Tucker.
00:01:36.660I don't always agree with people he interviews or the way he interviews.
00:01:39.860But I did really appreciate what he had to say in Canada.
00:01:42.960Sometimes it does take an outsider to come in and point out the truth, point out the facts, things that people are too shy or too afraid to say.
00:01:51.440You know, a lot of the topics that he brought up, like euthanasia, like the fact that we give drugs or we legalize drugs and allow young people to use terribly deadly drugs.
00:01:59.520What does that say about us as a society?
00:02:01.820I think Canadians, generally speaking, are too polite, maybe too horrified to talk about these things.
00:02:11.580I want to zero in on something specific that Tucker talked about when he was talking about how Canada treats its Christians, how Canada treats Christian pastors, Christian churches.
00:02:23.540And basically, again, what that has to say about our society.
00:02:27.580So I'm going to play a bit of a longer clip here.
00:02:29.680This is from his speech on January 25th, talking about the treatment of Christians in Canada.
00:03:14.560So if you're hassling that group, maybe you've got another agenda that we should be concerned about, even if we're not in that group.
00:03:22.780If we burn 90 of their churches to the ground and the prime minister and his little weird buddies are endorsing that, burning churches?
00:03:34.980If you're on the side of burning churches, let me just say I don't need any other facts of the case, you're on the wrong side.
00:03:40.040If you're throwing preachers in prison for preaching the Christian gospel, not for hurting anyone, not for making pipe bombs, not for trying to castrate other people's children, not for importing millions of people into your country who are not going to have work,
00:03:57.500just for the crime of preaching the Christian gospel, you go to jail at the same time when they're encouraging your kids to do drugs and not just fentanyl but weed.
00:04:09.280Don't raise your hand if you have a 15-year-old son, but come up to me after and tell me what you think of legalized weed.
00:04:16.180And if you have a 15-year-old son, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:04:18.960They did that to you and to your son on purpose.
00:04:21.540And so in a country like that, in a world like that, if you think that preaching the gospel is so dangerous that the people who do it need to be in prison in shackles,
00:04:34.080you're serving someone other than the people of Canada, if you know what I mean.
00:04:38.060So again, Tucker is absolutely right, and he's right to point this out.
00:04:41.480I am happy to say that although some of the other issues that Tucker touched on, talking about euthanasia, Canada's drug policies,
00:04:49.220we don't often talk about those things in public forums, and we don't have those sort of policy debates in our country, unfortunately.
00:04:57.800When it comes to the treatment of Christians, when it comes to the burning of churches and the arresting of pastors,
00:05:03.780horrible, horrible treatment of pastors, again, for the crime of preaching the gospel,
00:05:08.520trying to host church services for prayer during that awful period of COVID.
00:05:13.440Remember that time when you could go to the grocery store, you could go to Walmart,
00:05:17.140you could go to the big box stores and buy things you could consume,
00:05:21.300but heaven forbid you try to go to church, try to find solace in your community and pray to God.
00:05:26.820With your community, that was considered beyond the pale, and we saw multiple pastors arrested for that in Canada, in Canada of all places.
00:05:35.360Usually you have Canadian leaders condemning the treatment of religious minorities in other parts of the world.
00:05:41.140You didn't really expect to see it here in Canada, but then COVID came, 2020 came around,
00:05:45.340and all of a sudden we were living in an Orwell novel, and our pastors were getting arrested.
00:05:49.820I'm pleased to say that with some distance and with some time, more people are talking about it,
00:05:54.700more people are raising concerns and saying, hey, that wasn't right.
00:07:43.500I would disentangle two parts, because there is no justification for burning down a church, period.
00:07:51.140Regardless of the other information or regardless of the other justifications that people would claim to use,
00:08:03.020there is never a justification to burn down a church.
00:08:06.540And we as Conservatives have called for stronger criminal sanctions for arson against all who carry out these attacks.
00:08:14.240We've also called for more security infrastructure around places of worship,
00:08:18.660so that we can stop terrorists who burn down churches, who attack mosques and synagogues.
00:08:23.920Unfortunately, these crimes against religious communities have raged out of control after eight years of Justin Trudeau's catch-and-release system,
00:08:33.340after he has divided our country and turned people and groups against each other.
00:08:37.940We have more violence directed against religious groups, including Christians, than we have ever seen in Canadian history.
00:14:57.140Like, how did it how did it break down?
00:14:58.840So I think when I put together the map and this was probably several months into the backhoe burnings happening, I think we were up to 36, 30 or 30 something acts of vandalism and fire.
00:15:14.920So it happened in a big burst and it's been happening, happening continuously since then.
00:15:21.160And I think, like, every month there's there's an act of vandalism, multiple acts, actually, because we're at 96 now and it's only been about two years.
00:15:33.000So, Cosmin, you've read a lot of news stories, you've analyzed the information, done your own original reporting.
00:15:47.220Do you believe it's it's sort of random or just sort of individual vigilantes?
00:15:51.700Like, what is what is driving this and who do you believe is behind it?
00:15:56.320Well, I definitely think the narrative around residential schools, the enmity that a lot of people feel towards, not just the Catholic Church.
00:16:12.320There's all sorts of churches being targeted.
00:16:14.720It's just a broad brush of Christianity that's being attacked right now.
00:16:21.940And so I think a large motivating factor was how the media and politicians in this country spun the narratives about the so-called, you know, residential grave findings.
00:16:34.580And we haven't even turned up a single bone yet.
00:16:37.580And this kind of created a climate of hatred and almost gave a green light to all of these subsequent acts.
00:16:46.760You know, it's so interesting that you say that.
00:16:50.680I remember the liberal minister of heritage at the time when they brought in their online safety bill.
00:16:56.980So the bill that censors networks like True North and podcasts like the one we're on right now.
00:17:02.240He said that that would address the church burnings.
00:17:06.340We had public figures, including the head of the B.C.
00:17:08.920Civil Liberties Association organization, supposed to be defending human rights and individual rights like the right to freedom of religion.
00:17:15.980And she tweeted in the wake of all of this, burn it all down.
00:17:20.780We had Gerald Butts, who's Justin Trudeau's at the time, his principal secretary and his assistant, his best friend.
00:17:27.480He said that it was understandable that these churches were being burnt down.
00:17:31.840NDP MP Nikki Ashton actually celebrated the toppling of the statues that were also happening around the same time.
00:17:39.480And the toppling of the statue of Queen Elizabeth II and as well as Queen Victoria saying that these were acts of decolonization and then including a little heart emoji for good measure.
00:17:51.180So rather than the figures, establishment figures and leaders in this country condemning these acts of violence against a religious group, we actually had people cheering it on.
00:18:07.580I mean, it's essentially incitement in some cases because it creates a climate where people feel like they can do this without consequences because our political leaders, rather so-called leaders, are not condemning it.
00:18:26.180There hasn't been a federal inquiry into this where we've reached 96 acts of property damage targeting a specific religious community.
00:18:36.840And there hasn't been one single committee to investigate this.
00:18:40.900And it's, you know, quite honestly, it is also sad that the conservatives have not pushed an investigation into these acts because we could potentially cross the line into acts of violence, whether it be direct or a mistake.
00:18:59.340Like, what if there's somebody in those buildings and one of these churches goes up in flames?
00:19:04.680Well, and also, how would you just feel as a member of that congregation?
00:19:09.740Would you really feel safe going to church every Sunday or going to pray in the afternoons knowing that your religious community is being targeted, that the church up the street was burnt down or vandalized?
00:19:20.760Because, I mean, you're right, it does create a climate of fear.
00:19:25.620And I will give Pierre Polyev some credit because recently, I mean, I'm talking about very recently, January 22nd, I played the clip off the top of the show where he, Polyev did condemn this act and said that there's no justification for burning down churches and called on Trudeau to do more.
00:19:41.900But, again, you know, this is two years after the fact, two and a half years, maybe three years after the fact.
00:19:47.300Finally, we have a conservative leader who's willing to voice these concerns.
00:19:52.600I mean, the fact that the conservatives haven't been pushing this from day one shows that there was some fear.
00:19:58.640Now, hopefully, they've gotten past that.
00:20:00.060So, Kazma, as far as law enforcement, is there any effort to sort of uncover who's behind this or investigation to hold the people who have done this to account?
00:20:33.900I think a woman in Vancouver splashed paint on a church.
00:20:38.980This was pretty close to the residential school claims, and she was arrested and charged.
00:20:46.260But there's no broad, you know, hate investigation happening here.
00:20:51.480And I think the police, unfortunately, are not asking the right questions.
00:20:57.000They're not looking into the political motivations and the, you know, the hatred that exists behind these acts.
00:21:06.780So, unfortunately, there and then also there hasn't been some national approach to this.
00:21:13.440It's just single police forces investigating the incidents as being isolated when, in fact, there is a pattern here.
00:21:23.260And there's so many of them that we need to start considering these incidents as connected to some degree or at least looking into how they might be connected, whether it's ideologically or actually a network of people coordinating this.
00:21:38.800Well, you know, sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the obvious of what's happening in our country.
00:21:45.000I was pleased that Tucker Carlson brought this up during his speeches in Calgary.
00:21:49.680The fact that he had that number right on the tip of his tongue, that there were 90-some churches burnt, means that he must be reading True North, must be reading your reporting, Cosman.