Fake News Friday ｜ Poilievre continues to trigger the media
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Summary
In this episode of Fake News Friday, host Harrison Faulkner and co-host Andrew Schecters discuss the fallout from Stephen Harper's recent endorsement of Pierre Polyev in the Conservative leadership race, and the media's reaction to it.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Fake News Friday.
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It is Friday, August 12th, 2022, and as we try to stand firm in the blizzard of lies,
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expose the fakery, the misinformation, the disinformation, and just the plain, pure, unbridled wacko,
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we are standing here at True North doing exactly that, and after that bold introduction,
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there is no man befitting it as much as my trusty co-host for this episode, Harrison Faulkner.
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Harrison, it is good to have you on. How was your week?
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Pretty good. That was a pretty nice introduction, I gotta say, and I was just thinking about this, Andrew.
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It's been a quiet week. It's been nice and simple. We haven't had the Prime Minister around,
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and I'm starting to get that feeling like he's coming back soon and everything's about to kick up again,
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so it's been a nice, quiet week, I have to say.
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Yeah, I mean, the point that I made, I think it was on this show last week,
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which some people didn't like on Twitter, or at least didn't see the nuance of,
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is that I would be happier in the grand scheme of things if he just stayed in Costa Rica,
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What goes up must come down. What goes to the Caribbean must come back,
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so next week will be a bit of a different week, I have no doubt.
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Let's talk first and foremost, though, about the conservative leadership race,
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Now, you may remember, this is going back to the archives here,
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Bush derangement syndrome, which was the original DS,
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and it was, I believe it was Charles Krauthammer, if memory serves.
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It was just the complete spastic, hysterical nature of a lot of the critiques of George Bush,
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and we've seen this derangement syndrome come back every time there's a conservative leader now.
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It doesn't matter who it is, people just go absolutely crazy.
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Doug Ford, before he was the lockdown leader, when he was a conservative,
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the media had Ford derangement syndrome, certainly there was Harper derangement syndrome,
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and now there is undoubtedly Polyev derangement syndrome.
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Let's look here first off at how the Globe and Mail decided to cover
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the fallout of Stephen Harper's endorsement of Pierre Polyev.
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I haven't talked to you like this in a while, and much has transpired.
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Our party, once again, has a leadership race underway.
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In this particular race, there's been a lot of speculation
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about whom I support or do not support and why.
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So it may be useful for my fellow party members to hear my views straight from me.
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It's a strong field, but one candidate has garnered disproportionate attention.
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Pierre Polyev was a strong minister in my government.
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In the past several years, he's been our party's most vocal and effective critic of the Trudeau Liberals.
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He's been talking about the issues, especially the economic issues, that matter.
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Slow growth, debt, inflation, lack of job and housing opportunities,
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and the need to fix the institutions that are failing Canadian families.
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So Stephen Harper, who has kept his powder dry the last couple leadership races,
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did come out and say that he is standing behind Pierre Polyev.
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And a Nanos research poll written about in the Globe and Mail says
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Stephen Harper's endorsement shows no boost for Pierre Polyev, new polls suggest.
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This story came out on August 8th, and they did a telephone survey of just over 1,000 people.
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They consider it accurate, plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20,
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But basically, they say that most people would find no effect one way or another
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of Stephen Harper's endorsement on Pierre Polyev.
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And if you read the fine print, you realize this was not a poll of Conservative Party of Canada members.
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This was a poll of the general population, people who may or may not be members at all.
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And it was basically saying, I'll read the question exactly.
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Has Stephen Harper's recent endorsement of Pierre Polyev as a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership
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given you a more positive impression, a more negative impression,
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or has it had no impact on your impression of Pierre Polyev?
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If you're not voting in the leadership race, your answer to that would presumably,
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But the media is trying to make it seem like, oh, Stephen Harper's tainted, Polyev's tainted.
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And really, it's just a fundamental misunderstanding or willful ignorance of how leadership races are won.
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I hope Canadians can see through all of this, Andrew, because, you know,
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what we all know is if you can't poll the general public to begin with,
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then when you try to poll the general public about a Conservative leadership race,
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it's going to mean basically nothing, first of all.
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And I think if you were to specifically poll Conservative members,
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obviously the Stephen Harper endorsement of Pierre Polyev is a huge boost to Polyev's campaign.
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No matter what campaign you're on or you're in or no matter what person you support,
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getting the endorsement of the previous Conservative Prime Minister is huge for anyone.
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So the idea, of course, that it's going to not impact his chances in a general is not true, I don't think.
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And, of course, they do this thing where they talk about how, you know,
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he experienced the biggest boost in Alberta and Ontario and Quebec, you know,
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both said that they were the highest respondents to say they disapproved of the endorsement.
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But Canadians can see through that, at least I hope,
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because obviously the Globe and Mail is not intending to poll actual Conservatives
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or to, in fact, get an accurate poll of Canadians.
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We know that polling companies have consistently failed to poll,
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whether it be Conservative, whether it be working-class Canadians,
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whether it just be people who live in the middle of the country.
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They can't seem to gauge where that support is coming from.
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to see what other polls might indicate whether or not Canadians would support a Stephen Harper endorsement.
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I came across a Research Co. poll published in July,
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which actually found that 29% of Canadians in this poll,
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29% of Canadians responding to the Research Co. poll
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about the worst Canadian Prime Minister in recent history,
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That's the highest any previous Prime Minister has received.
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So the majority of Canadians believe Justin Trudeau is the worst Prime Minister we've had in recent history.
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And on the other side, Stephen Harper beats Justin Trudeau for the best recent Prime Minister.
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So if I were Pierre Pauly, if I were a leadership candidate,
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I'd certainly know who I'd want to be endorsed by.
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And if I had the choice, it wouldn't be Justin Trudeau.
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I mean, Research Co. is not a huge polling firm,
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but it's not a conservative firm by any stretch.
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It's, as I understand, not tainted by partisanship in general.
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But it is interesting how poorly Trudeau comes off in that.
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And the whole point here, and look, the media is, I believe, within its right to
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start polling on eventualities and ask Canadians, you know,
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what would you think of the Conservatives if Pauly were the leader?
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What would you think if Jean Chafin were the leader?
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What would you think if so-and-so were the leader?
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But it's when they start talking about the internal workings of the leadership race
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without acknowledging in any substantial way how leadership races work, that I get annoyed.
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And in fairness, let me look at this one here from the, I believe this was a,
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no, this was a Leger poll in association with the Association for Canadian Studies.
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And the headline here kind of gives you the angle.
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Pauly have preferred among Conservatives, but Charest favored among Canadians.
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So the media is trying to say that, yeah, Pierre Pauly is unelectable and Conservatives,
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they don't like Jean Charest, but Canadians do.
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And they're basically saying that Conservatives are going to have the right leader that none
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of them vote and the wrong leader is going to, the one that's going to win is effectively
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And I find this to be a bit tiring because they, it neglects to understand that this is
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the Trump effect, that polling does not reflect a certain constituency.
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And there are people who are not as likely to talk to pollsters that are not represented,
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And beyond that, they also fail to understand the importance of campaigning.
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I'm convinced right now that Jean Charest is not even really campaigning to Conservative
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So it's understandable that the country as a whole may have a favorable impression of him.
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And again, maybe Pierre Polyev will be able to do that or won't.
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We don't have a crystal ball, but it's a pretty tired analogy that they're giving here, which
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is, oh, well, you know, he's the one the party likes, but not the country and vice versa.
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And in a leadership race, I would want to have the support of the party, not necessarily the
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And we'll see what happens with whatever leader the Conservative members decide.
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We'll see if they switch their positions or if they make any decisions to kind of change
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But again, if you don't frame the poll in the correct way at the beginning, it's disingenuous
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by saying to Canadians that, you know, Canadians don't support Pierre Polyev and they don't
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It's not accurate and it's not doing a good enough job for Canadians.
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I will just provide some context quickly to that research co-poll.
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It turns out that Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau were bested by Pierre Trudeau for best
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recent prime minister, which I don't know, may, may kind of throw some shade on the research
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But again, I thought that might be interesting.
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And another thing I found in my research before the show was that a Narsity article, Narsity
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is definitely not known to be a pro-conservative, that's for sure.
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Narsity back in 2019 wrote about how Justin Trudeau's approval rating was lower than Donald Trump's.
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So again, it's just one of those things where these are not the kind of headlines you'll
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That's why we're doing it on this show, obviously.
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But again, it's important to put some context behind this.
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When the media wants to tell you that Stephen Harper is this boogeyman, most Canadians are
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afraid of Pierre Polyev or they're afraid of Stephen Harper, look for what Canadians actually
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It doesn't show the best picture of him either.
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So it's important context there that I want to highlight for the audience listening.
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I think the media is going to lose its mind if Pierre Polyev wins, and it's going to be
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Let's turn from the internal party workings of the conservatives to the global workings
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of the shadowy cabal of overlords that run the countries and the world and all of that.
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But we are going to talk about the World Economic Forum here, which had an op-ed in the Globe
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and Mail debunking, as they believe, the own nothing and be happy conspiracy theory.
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But I'll say basically that by now I'm assuming you've heard of own nothing and be happy as
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though it's some common refrain of the World Economic Forum.
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It was a blog post that was published on the WEF's website quite a while ago by a member
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And it was basically putting forward this futuristic scenario in 2030, so just eight years
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What is the living room one day is used as an office for someone else the next day.
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The whole point here, and I want to go right down to the text of this.
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In the world, before this fantasy 2030 world, we had all these terrible things happening.
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Lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely
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congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest, and unemployment.
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We lost way too many people before we realized we could do things differently.
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And doing things differently in this fantasy world is owning nothing and evidently being
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So it wasn't like a central campaign platform item for the WEF, but it was a think piece
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that the WEF put out that ultimately aligns with the World Economic Forum's broader vision
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of rethinking property rights, of basically making it so that we all live with less because
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So let's talk about how this is being represented by the WEF now in a Globe and Mail op-ed.
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So Andrew, there was an opinion article that was published in the Globe and Mail by Adrian
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Monk, who's the managing director of the World Economic Forum.
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And he takes direct aim at this statement, this You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy, as previously
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And the title of the piece is How Own Nothing and Be Happy Sparked a Misinformation Campaign
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So again, this author, he begins by calling out where he believes the origin of the You'll
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And of course, he does mention that it was published by the World Economic Forum.
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But then from that point on, from about the second or third paragraph, he completely abandons
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that and then basically goes into saying that the comment defending the World Economic Forum,
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The comment came and became popular through 4chan, which he describes as an unmoderated messaging
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board used by operators of a Russian propaganda campaign.
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And then he writes in the article, the intent was apparently to spread disinformation in a
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bid to stir far-right outrage about COVID-19 and perpetuate domestic extremism.
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The means was often via bots that would push far-right conspiracy theories to communities
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So what you're seeing here, I think, is a cleanup operation from the World Economic Forum
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to go after the big slogans that have dominated their brand for the past couple of years and
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I think pretty much ruined the brand of the World Economic Forum in the public eye.
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They're trying to send out their best and brightest to combat what people are starting
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to learn about this group and basically label any criticism, any direct quotation of the
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World Economic Forum as this statement is, as Russian misinformation, as far-right.
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They even, you know, they even use the word anti-Semitic to describe using the terms, using
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They're trying to sweep it all under the rug, Andrew, and they're using the Globe and Mail
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I mean, they couldn't have picked a better outlet to run a story like this, if you ask me.
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Yeah, it's a weird one because, I mean, if you look at it in depth, it's anything but
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trivial, he says, and there's valuable insights we can take away from how misinformation is
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created and why it's essential not to perpetuate its spread.
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And I'm not saying that people who believe in conspiratorial things about the World Economic
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Forum or other aspects of this have not taken this and, you know, used it in whatever they
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believe, but the whole point is let's strip away all that and look at the facts themselves.
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This was a think piece that was put out by the World Economic Forum.
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Their argument or defense might be, well, we publish things by any number of people, but
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this is a vision that really talks about the eradication of property rights as being a
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prerequisite for happiness and as being the antidote to all of these terrible things they
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say like climate change and droughts and famines and all of that.
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So whether or not, and this is coming from an elected representative, not a Canadian, a Danish
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MP, but I guess the point is at what point does that become Russian?
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If you have the discussion we're having now, is that allowed?
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At what point is it a conspiracy and no longer something that people can bring?
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Just because something is on 4chan does not mean it does not exist.
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And I always encourage people with anything, even if you hear it on my show or your show,
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go to the source, check out the source document, the raw material.
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And in this case, you don't need to get it filtered through 4chan.
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And I've tried to give as accurate and fair a recap of that piece as I can.
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Read it for yourself, not on 4chan, on the WEF website.
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Yeah, so I think, Andrew, to answer your question, it becomes Russian propaganda.
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It becomes, you know, right-wing disinformation as soon as it becomes critical.
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That is the point, I think, at which all of the talk about it becomes this awful sort of Russian campaign to, you know, influence ideas.
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I mean, that's, to me, really where this all comes from.
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And to not lose sight of the Polyev derangement syndrome taking place, in this article, they actually dropped Pierre Polyev's name.
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And I want to read the quote because it's pretty, it actually is pretty insightful to see where the WEF is coming from on this.
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So the paragraph starts off by mentioning Russell Brand's video that talked about the WEF video and saying, the article writes,
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And just before that, he labeled the saying as people who use that saying as dog whistling.
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So you immediately see the connection between, Andrew, between them saying, using this slogan to discredit the World Economic Forum
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and to discredit politicians who are themselves connected to the World Economic Forum, that's dog whistling, that's far right, and that is dangerous territory.
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I mean, it's pretty transparent, Andrew, I think, when it comes to the Cleanup Act that's taking place right now.
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And just to clarify one more thing, in the article, the WEF actually pulled that article.
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Of course, it's on the Internet, so it lives forever.
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But in this article, in the Globe and Mail, the author mentions the fact that they ended up pulling the story to protect the author of the original
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You'll Know Nothing and Be Happy, basically because of all the death threats, all the comments they were receiving.
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So, again, it's important to note that the Cleanup Act is in full flight right now.
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They're really trying to clean up what's been going on in the messaging of the WEF.
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But that article itself has been pulled from the website.
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You have to get it by going to the web archives.
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Yeah, no, and I appreciate you clarifying that.
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I meant people should, like, read their version of it, not things that have been quoted in clip.
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So even the big ideas piece now has had to be taken down.
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And does that make it misinformation on their part?
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We don't have any cricket-eating stories today, so we had to look elsewhere.
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But you noticed in your travels an advertisement from one of Canada's legacy media outlets
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that apparently is getting chuckles all over the country.
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Yes, so the Toronto Star, I guess they are not getting enough funding from the government.
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They need to advertise to increase their readership, maybe because it's crumbling.
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But on Facebook, they are putting out ads, which I just think deserve total mockery, Andrew.
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It's just hilarious what they're putting out here.
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So the Toronto Star ran an ad campaign on Facebook with a blank background that just reads,
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So they're really kind of talking themselves up there.
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And then the poster itself is a white background that just says,
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Now, I just want to remind people watching this.
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This so-called trusted news source, back in, what was it, August 26, 2021,
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they ran a front page, which is perhaps one of the most egregious acts of,
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I don't even know if you could call it journalism, perhaps journalism malpractice.
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It's absolutely horrendous what they ran on their front page.
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A series of quotes or tweets, whatever it was, which they ended up having to apologize for,
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which are just absolutely horrendous statements about unvaccinated Canadians.
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So this was what the Toronto Star, the so-called trusted news source,
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I have no empathy left for the willfully unvaccinated.
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So when I saw this, I immediately thought of that ridiculous CNN ad campaign
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where they show a white background with a red apple and they just have some narrator saying,
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People may say this is a banana or an orange, but it's really an apple.
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And then, of course, they end it by saying, facts first, CNN.
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So I guess they're trying to change the narrative about themselves,
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but I wonder if Canadians agree that the Toronto Star is a trusted news source.
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It's reminding me of the old, like, Rene Magritte painting,
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And we see, I mean, obviously, media outlets are commercial entities.
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But there is a big problem right now of these outlets
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really painting themselves as the final authority
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I mean, whether it's CNN saying that it decides what an apple is
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or the Toronto Star pushing itself as being a trusted news source
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despite a number of issues that people may have a lot of problems with
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and, I mean, no matter how many times, it's still amusing.
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people using the laugh react when you look at the responses to it.
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And the Toronto Star either, A, is way off on its targeting,
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it's ad targeting, or it is, in fact, a laughingstock
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to a lot of the people it's trying to endear itself to.
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And this actually, I find, to be quite troubling in this country,
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But I also feel that a lot of the reason that's troubling
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is because institutions have behaved in such a chronically untrustworthy way.
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You won't see Toronto Star adapting their practices anytime soon,
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as I don't think you'll expect to see that from other legacy media outlets
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who know, as a matter of fact, that their trust is dropping.
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I mean, they're not the dumbest people in the world.
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They are aware of the fact that Canadians are losing faith
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And this ad campaign, yeah, is probably in part to try and increase their reach,
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I think it's actually supposed to be a message.
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Yeah, them portraying themselves as the single source of truth.
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You know, them portraying themselves, them and perhaps other outlets
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like the Toronto Star, they are the ones that are trusted.
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The independents, perhaps, you know, the true Norths, the rebels,
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the Western standards, they aren't the ones that are trusted.
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I think that is an important point to bring up.
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And you highlight the point that institutional trust
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And, you know, maybe, perhaps if that's the case,
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Again, I don't think you're going to see any of that
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Look, the big takeaway of all of this is support True North.
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Support other independent media as well, but we're True North,
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If you like this show and the other content we have,
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I feel bad that I've probably missed, like, one person's.
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But, in general, all of the shows, you should check it all out.
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So, all of these great programs, as well as the news content,
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And this is Andrew Lawton, joined by Harrison Faulkner.
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We will catch you next week with more fake news.