The Candice Malcolm Show - September 26, 2022


Fake News Friday ｜ The legacy media rushes to defend Trudeau


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

198.99289

Word Count

6,336

Sentence Count

394

Misogynist Sentences

8

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary

This week, Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner are joined by the host of the excellent show Ratioed, to discuss Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's rendition of Queen Elizabeth II's hit song, Bohemian Rhapsody.


Transcript

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00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to you all.
00:00:42.500 This is another edition of Fake News Friday, September 23rd, 2022.
00:00:47.560 That part's not fake news.
00:00:48.720 We like to just throw you a little nugget of real news, even if it is as small as just getting the date right.
00:00:53.780 Which, to be honest, CBC, I don't even think could land that on a lot of days.
00:00:58.000 Which is why this show exists and why we often have so much material to work through.
00:01:02.080 I am Andrew Lawton with you for the next However Long This Takes.
00:01:06.220 Joined, as always, by my colleague Harrison Faulkner, host of the fantastic show Ratioed on True North.
00:01:13.980 I just set the stage.
00:01:15.340 I'm always aware of generational gaps.
00:01:17.900 What does Ratioed mean?
00:01:19.180 Ratioed, for those that aren't aware, is basically when someone on social media, usually it's about Twitter, but it's when the like-to-comment ratio is totally out of whack.
00:01:29.660 So there's more comments than there are likes on a tweet.
00:01:32.220 That's usually the telltale sign that you missed the mark, Andrew, or somewhere you've made an error in your tweet.
00:01:41.040 So we basically just made a show about that to try and mock a lot of the people that do this, particularly in the media space.
00:01:48.660 So it's turned out to be a bit of, people have found it to be quite interesting.
00:01:52.300 I was informed there wouldn't be math on this test.
00:01:54.520 And now you're talking about like ratios and the like-to-tweet index and all of that.
00:01:59.320 So you explained it very well on your show.
00:02:01.400 So for those who hadn't watched it, I wanted to give you a little bit of a primer there.
00:02:04.620 Because it's useful.
00:02:05.980 Some of the tweets that we'll be talking about today, I believe, have gotten the old ratio on Twitter.
00:02:11.000 And let's begin.
00:02:12.080 I know it happened last week now, but this has been like, as far as a fake news-themed show, this has been the gift that keeps on giving.
00:02:19.860 If you haven't heard the most famous geopolitical global vocal piano bar solo yet, here you go.
00:02:27.680 I hate the song that we got.
00:02:30.940 Is it how?
00:02:32.300 Is it how?
00:02:33.260 Yes, shockingly, this is real life.
00:02:44.960 It's not a fantasy.
00:02:46.440 I don't know if we're caught in a landslide, but we're certainly caught in something.
00:02:49.140 If this is what our Prime Minister is doing when he's overseas representing Canada at Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral.
00:02:57.720 It wasn't at the funeral, at least.
00:02:59.100 I mean, even Justin Trudeau would be a little bit, just a little bit too much self-awareness to do that.
00:03:04.740 But two days before it, in the piano bar of the Carinthia Hotel, belting out the Queen track, Bohemian Rhapsody.
00:03:13.800 And I should say, first and foremost, that my issue is not with the Prime Minister singing.
00:03:19.500 Stephen Harper did that.
00:03:20.720 He did a duet with Yo-Yo Ma on stage, which I thought was quite good some years ago.
00:03:25.380 The issue is, I think, what's causing it, which is Trudeau wanting to be the center of attention and also the time and place, which is on a state visit for the Queen of Canada's funeral.
00:03:36.520 The former Queen of Canada, I should say.
00:03:38.680 So all of that out of the way, the focus, I think, shifts from Justin Trudeau to the media.
00:03:45.320 And we saw, as you can see on the screen there, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, Fox News, all of them understanding what this is and understanding why this is a problem.
00:03:55.580 UK, US, Australia as well.
00:03:58.220 But you look at the Canadian media, the Parliamentary Press Gallery members, the people whose outlets are receiving that $600 million bailout, and they're the ones not only saying they don't see an issue with this, but actually taking aim at people who do.
00:04:11.920 Well, we've been doing this show, Andrew, for I can't even, many months now.
00:04:16.100 And by this point, I've come to expect what we usually get from the legacy media.
00:04:21.040 But I have to say, when I was watching this whole story unfold in the legacy media in Canada, I was actually surprised at just how far they were willing to go to defend Justin Trudeau over this.
00:04:31.480 It surprised me how shameless they were in defending the Prime Minister, the man who, of course, pays most of their salaries.
00:04:38.660 Not all of them, but most of them.
00:04:40.200 And I just thought, look, this is obviously perfect.
00:04:43.200 This is cannon fodder for Fake News Friday.
00:04:44.840 This is exactly what this show is all about.
00:04:46.280 But leave it to Canada's legacy media to be the only ones who don't understand what's going on here.
00:04:52.500 It was only the legacy media journalists in Canada that couldn't figure out, A, what was wrong with this, or B, why they shouldn't be defending it.
00:05:01.560 Of course, the legacy, or not the legacy media, but the tabloid press in England, and the Americans, of course, made a meal out of it.
00:05:08.120 And, of course, they would, because it's just, it's perfect.
00:05:10.640 You've got Justin Trudeau going full Freddie Mercury there, you know, acting as though no one in the world can see him.
00:05:16.280 And he just really embraces that inner drama teacher of, and just goes for it.
00:05:20.920 It's just embarrassing.
00:05:22.160 But, again, leave it to the legacy media to be the only ones not knowing how to approach the situation.
00:05:26.420 I think everyone in Canada saw that and thought, yeah, that's yet another embarrassing moment for our Prime Minister.
00:05:31.840 But it was the legacy media, Andrew, who wanted to do this whole elaborate, you know, scheme to defend the Prime Minister.
00:05:38.520 Multiple layers of defense.
00:05:39.780 When one layer of defense failed, they moved on to the next.
00:05:42.160 So they started off by saying, of course, that, no, Andrew, this is a fake story.
00:05:46.580 You see the cars in the background, the length of his hair.
00:05:49.760 It's not quite right.
00:05:50.500 It's got to be from the Jubilee.
00:05:51.880 Then when that turned out to be fake, then, of course, they went to the whole idea of it.
00:05:55.020 It wasn't Sunday.
00:05:55.720 It was Saturday.
00:05:56.380 It wasn't the eve of the funeral.
00:05:57.380 It was Saturday.
00:05:57.940 That makes it all the better.
00:05:59.160 And then when that didn't turn out to stand with the Canadian people and with the rest of the world,
00:06:03.420 then they decided to say, Andrew, that, actually, it was in tribute.
00:06:06.620 The Queen, it was in tribute to the Queen.
00:06:08.160 No, you skipped one there because originally they tried to, like, do the Zapruder-like analysis, as you mentioned.
00:06:14.520 So, oh, that bus in the background.
00:06:15.960 I don't know if that's recent.
00:06:17.060 But then they did, Global did the big fact check on the location because the original tweet that blew up on this,
00:06:22.360 and I don't know where they pulled the video from, said, oh, this was at the Savoy Hotel in London.
00:06:26.680 And then Global News is, like, fact checking it.
00:06:28.480 They're like, no, it's at the Carinthia Hotel in London, not the Savoy.
00:06:32.960 Oh, okay.
00:06:33.980 Yeah, that totally made it.
00:06:35.160 I mean, that would be like when Bev Oda got in trouble years ago for having a $16 glass of orange juice at the Savoy Hotel.
00:06:42.760 I would love for the conservative defense to that have been like, um, no.
00:06:47.060 She had a $16 glass of orange juice at the Carinthia Hotel.
00:06:51.700 Yeah, exactly.
00:06:52.420 And the worst part of it.
00:06:53.060 I think that's what you do.
00:06:53.780 I'm trying to be sassy.
00:06:54.700 Is that how you do it?
00:06:55.960 I think, I think.
00:06:57.000 But in this case, it's the CBC.
00:06:59.860 Could you imagine the CBC going, no, actually, it was the wrong hotel.
00:07:03.500 Bev Oda was not drinking at the Savoy.
00:07:05.620 That's how absurd it is.
00:07:06.880 It's this idea that it's the media doing it for him.
00:07:09.340 And I was saying this, I thought, I thought about this yesterday on Ray Show, which was, you know,
00:07:14.520 imagine one of the journalists at the Daily Mail or one of the journalists in the UK or US calling up their friends at the CBC or CTV.
00:07:21.940 I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that some of these legacy media journalists have friends.
00:07:25.060 So imagine this, a journalist from outside of the country calls him up and just says, what are you doing?
00:07:29.640 You guys look ridiculous.
00:07:31.180 This, this, this like Soviet style, North Korean style defense of the prime minister saying, oh, this, this drunken scene was in, was in tribute.
00:07:39.140 He was toasting Canada's late head of state.
00:07:41.360 Exactly right.
00:07:42.340 And then the last line of defense, when again, that one didn't stick with, with Canadians was, ah, Andrew, it's not a big deal.
00:07:47.980 Why are we getting up in arms about this anyway?
00:07:49.620 No, no problem at all.
00:07:50.900 Well, yeah, I like this tack because it's interesting after you've spent a considerable time and effort and energy fact checking it to be like, well, it doesn't really matter, I guess.
00:08:01.780 It's like, well, then why were you fat?
00:08:03.680 Like, why were you talking about it?
00:08:04.860 Why were you investigating it?
00:08:06.020 Why were you trying to look at, like, the tile pattern on the floor to figure out exactly which hotel lobby this was in if it was no big deal?
00:08:12.680 And there are a few examples of this.
00:08:14.340 Aaron Weary at CBC, I refuse to believe that anyone truly and genuinely cares about the prime minister singing in a hotel lobby on Saturday night.
00:08:23.520 That was, I think, a great example.
00:08:25.020 We saw a lot of that from people.
00:08:26.940 And you look at, again, the foreign reaction versus the Canadian reaction.
00:08:31.300 And just like Justin Trudeau's India trip, the world sees what I think a lot of Canadians see, and the Canadian media refuses to see it.
00:08:39.920 I mean, this clip from Talk TV in the UK, I think, is very telling.
00:08:43.760 Since then, I've realized he's an arch-narcissist-controlling, fascist sociopath.
00:08:49.020 There's no reasons there.
00:08:50.400 Well, I mean, just as well he became a politician then, because that's exactly the qualifications that you need.
00:08:55.140 Absolutely.
00:08:56.420 The specific reason I'm making him my plank is actually I am doing this on behalf of Canada.
00:09:03.360 There have been 500,000 tweets in the last couple of days all saying Trudeau must go.
00:09:09.620 Now, this has gone viral.
00:09:11.660 It's a great Twitter trend.
00:09:13.560 And what people are doing is saying who they are, what they do, and saying that their views are too extreme for Trudeau and Trudeau must go.
00:09:19.180 They're mainly objecting to the vaccine mandates.
00:09:21.940 You know, Canada's still living in this kind of viral handmaid's tale world where you can't go anywhere unless you're back.
00:09:28.580 Well, they've got all of them, and they're all still completely straight.
00:09:31.280 And so the thing is that he kind of projects this image of being really reasonable, and he's popular.
00:09:36.280 But Twitter trends don't tell a lie.
00:09:38.940 And he's got half a million tweets from his home country saying he must go.
00:09:43.320 Now, I mean, Laura Dodsworth was absolutely spitting fire there.
00:09:47.200 I'm not saying that singing Bohemian Rhapsody makes you a narcissistic-controlling-fascist sociopath.
00:09:52.340 But the whole point is that the Canadian media just refuses to accept that there is another side to this so often.
00:09:59.060 No, exactly.
00:10:00.080 And then I think, Andrew, one of the funnier clips we got was from Greg Gutfeld at Fox News when he said he'd rather take Hunter Biden as president of the United States than Justin Trudeau.
00:10:10.260 So watch this.
00:10:11.240 Some want to throw him in the pokey for his weird attempt at karaoke.
00:10:17.940 While Brits' hearts ache, Trudeau parties at a wake.
00:10:23.140 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, otherwise known as a poor man's Gavin Newsom,
00:10:29.180 is being accused of disrespect for singing Bohemian Rhapsody in a London hotel lobby while visiting for the Queen's funeral.
00:10:37.180 Canadians are too nice to criticize him, but we're not like that.
00:10:40.440 You know what?
00:10:41.060 This is the worst example or the best example of nepotism ever.
00:10:44.320 He only got his job because of his last name.
00:10:45.940 His dad was Prime Minister, right?
00:10:48.000 His, you know, whatever.
00:10:49.360 Who cares?
00:10:50.100 But I'd take Hunter Biden as president over that bull.
00:10:54.860 Yes, I would!
00:10:55.920 Oh, boo yourself!
00:10:57.320 Boo yourself!
00:10:58.460 No!
00:10:59.360 No!
00:11:00.220 Don't turn on me!
00:11:01.600 Don't turn on me!
00:11:02.780 So, Andrew, we see Justin Trudeau going full Freddie Mercury, full as, you know, acting as if no one in the world can see him.
00:11:09.940 And luckily for him, if he didn't have the legacy media in Canada bought off, I'm afraid it would be a lot worse for him.
00:11:16.020 He would get the treatment that he's getting from the rest of the world.
00:11:18.700 But luckily for the Prime Minister, we can say that he doesn't have to bear the brunt of the international media when in Canada.
00:11:27.760 Well, in keeping with the Freddie Mercury theme, we can say the Canadian media are going Radio Gaga for Justin Trudeau.
00:11:34.060 In this, this, this next story, Andrew, I thought was, you know, just another example, I think, of the legacy media trying to, maybe it's taking their job too seriously.
00:11:46.700 But when I first saw it, I thought, they really think Canadians are stupid.
00:11:50.800 They really have, they really look at Canadians as though they're, they're almost like children.
00:11:54.520 They have to, they have to speak the obvious to us when we know what we're looking at is, is, is jokes.
00:11:59.060 It's a, it's a fake meme.
00:12:00.440 So there was a, there was a fake tweet of Justin Trudeau going around that I think almost every single person who saw it, maybe barring a couple, knew that it was fake.
00:12:08.760 Because it's a picture, it's a screenshot, it's not that difficult to understand what you're looking at.
00:12:13.100 The, the, the, the supposed fake tweet from Justin Trudeau read,
00:12:17.140 It has come to my attention that hashtag Trudeau must go has been trending for more than 24 hours.
00:12:22.000 This is nothing more than the work of Putin and the CPC in an effort to discredit me.
00:12:26.140 This is precisely why our government has committed to regulating and censoring Canadian online content.
00:12:31.200 So Andrew, I think the majority of people who saw that knew exactly that it was fake.
00:12:35.880 When, after reading the line about Putin and the CPC, I'm hoping that everyone at that point realized, ah, this is a good joke.
00:12:42.780 Uh, they're just, they're just poking fun at the prime minister.
00:12:44.960 But of course, the legacy media journalists, I just don't think are connected to the people that they supposedly serve, the people they write for.
00:12:52.140 They think that we're really that stupid, so they do the whole fact check army comes out in full, in full force.
00:12:57.820 You've got the AP, you've got the, you've got Reuters coming through.
00:13:00.920 And then you've got Mercedes Stevenson and some of these other legacy media journalists in Canada writing this, you know, this is a fake tweet, everyone.
00:13:08.820 This is not real.
00:13:09.540 The prime minister didn't actually write this.
00:13:11.660 Of course he didn't, Andrew.
00:13:13.060 Mercedes Stevenson wrote,
00:13:14.300 There's a tweet circulating that appears to be from PM Justin Trudeau talking about the hashtag Trudeau must go.
00:13:19.300 Mr. Trudeau never tweeted it.
00:13:20.700 The tweet is manufactured and it's going viral.
00:13:23.320 One online literacy simple trick, check the actual accounts timeline.
00:13:26.780 Wow, thanks for that.
00:13:28.000 We really needed that lesson.
00:13:29.480 Yeah, I gotta say, I'm conflicted on this because for starters, I think there's nothing in this tweet that Justin Trudeau probably doesn't think.
00:13:36.920 So in that way, it may actually be entirely believable, even if it's not the way that, you know, he would normally communicate because it's clear and you understand what he's saying in the tweet.
00:13:45.940 So it must have been fake.
00:13:46.820 However, I have seen this proliferation, especially in the last few months, of just manufactured news story headlines, manufactured tweets that go around.
00:13:57.440 And people do.
00:13:58.260 I don't know how many of them.
00:13:59.160 I don't know what percentage it is.
00:14:00.440 10, 15, 20.
00:14:01.420 People do believe these things.
00:14:03.300 And part of it has become, has been because we're in the period right now in which satire is just so misunderstood.
00:14:09.720 People think just making something up is satirical, but it's not.
00:14:13.580 I mean, satire has to have a little bit of intelligence.
00:14:15.660 It can't just be fake.
00:14:17.080 So people do believe in this.
00:14:18.300 And I did see people that shared that tweet thinking it was real because this is a guy who has talked about not tolerating the unvaccinated.
00:14:26.080 It's a guy who's called his political enemies a fringe minority with unacceptable views, who's called people that protest him racist, misogynist, neo-Nazi, swastika flag waver.
00:14:36.820 So I think to a lot of people who may not be the most technically literate, this was actually believable.
00:14:43.600 Now, I do think you're right about how the fact-check army devotes so much attention on these things and not others.
00:14:50.560 So there's a selective fact-checking.
00:14:52.760 When people are spreading misinformation about conservatives, I genuinely believe that they're a lot slower on the uptake to do it.
00:14:59.120 But at the same time, I also don't think it's a negative thing when something like this is circulating.
00:15:04.060 If there is any ambiguity, if there's any reasonably sized contingent that's believing it to say, hey, this is nonsense.
00:15:10.660 But you should just say that and then move on.
00:15:12.960 Yeah, I think there's a good debate to be had here.
00:15:14.940 You're exactly right, Andrew, that, of course, we can't really be having fake statements from world leaders that are obviously fake but are being believed.
00:15:22.880 I mean, obviously, we need to do something about that.
00:15:25.100 And there needs to be some sort of checking of it.
00:15:29.520 But, of course, there's also that whole idea that when I read it, when I see it, it just reads to me as though these people need to be educated on the most basic things.
00:15:38.780 And maybe that's just because we have different, you know, we have different media.
00:15:41.340 Yeah, there is a lot of dumbing down to people, for sure.
00:15:43.780 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:15:44.920 Well, so why don't we just move on to the next story here?
00:15:47.340 Because this is such a perfect example, in my opinion, of the tricks that legacy media try and pull on Canadians.
00:15:53.800 They do these little things where they place certain statements in their articles, they play with the headlines to trick the reader into believing something that isn't exactly as it reads, as a headline.
00:16:04.340 So CTV came up with this article, and the headline is Justin Trudeau slightly favored over Pierre Polyev for prime minister, new poll.
00:16:11.780 So when you read that, you probably think to yourself, well, the Liberals are, you know, they're edging up past Pierre Polyev's Conservatives.
00:16:18.000 You probably think that more Canadians are willing to vote Liberal.
00:16:21.620 But the problem is, actually, that's not the case.
00:16:24.940 Because if you read past the first couple headlines, it says very plainly that 28% of respondents to the poll said they would cast a ballot for the Liberals,
00:16:33.460 and 34% of respondents said they would part their vote with the Tories.
00:16:37.340 Now, I'm no mathematician. I know we talked about math earlier on in the show, Andrew.
00:16:40.900 I'm no mathematician, but when I read that, it appears to me that more people in that poll would vote for the Conservatives than the Liberals.
00:16:48.760 So why exactly they think they can go along with the headline of Justin Trudeau slightly favored over Pierre Polyev for prime minister,
00:16:55.080 when, you know, the numbers itself say that the Liberals would have fewer votes than the Conservatives, obviously speaks volumes.
00:17:01.800 It's only 11 paragraphs into the story, Andrew, where they finally say that in a preferred prime minister poll,
00:17:09.660 which doesn't actually matter that much, in my opinion, on the national scale,
00:17:13.980 preferred prime minister, Justin Trudeau edges Pierre Polyev by two percentage points.
00:17:18.380 So they're playing tricks with us there.
00:17:20.180 It's classic fake news, in my opinion.
00:17:21.800 It's just exactly what they've been doing for many years now.
00:17:25.440 This story is actually, I think, a test case in how media bias can work,
00:17:32.060 because what they said is not inherently untrue.
00:17:35.340 The poll does say that, but it also says what you know,
00:17:38.180 and what I actually think is a more reasonable and more useful metric,
00:17:41.720 that more people would vote Conservative than the Liberals.
00:17:44.720 I mean, there was that old meme that circulates every now and then of, like,
00:17:47.880 two people staring at a number on the ground,
00:17:50.180 and one of them is convinced it's a six and the other is convinced it's a nine.
00:17:53.340 And the premise of that is that, well, you know, both people can be right.
00:17:56.960 It depends on your perspective.
00:17:58.140 And then the retort to that is, well, no, one of them is wrong,
00:18:01.100 even if they don't know they're wrong.
00:18:02.600 Like, someone put that down there knowing it was going to be a six or a nine.
00:18:06.840 And here you've got multiple people that can look at the same poll
00:18:09.740 and draw wildly different conclusions from it.
00:18:12.200 And I think that, you know, the headline could be, you know,
00:18:15.720 voters favor Justin Trudeau but would vote Conservative.
00:18:18.620 Like, what is that?
00:18:19.280 Like, that's actually, I think, a very useful and very concise headline.
00:18:23.020 Or you could even talk about how, you know,
00:18:25.220 Pierre Paulievre is still introducing himself.
00:18:27.160 There are a number of ways to frame it.
00:18:28.780 But just picking one or the other, which is what media does here,
00:18:32.500 gives a very skewed version of this.
00:18:34.640 And I actually think this story, in a way, could be taught
00:18:37.780 and should be taught in journalism programs
00:18:39.340 because you do have a poll that has an inherent contradiction in it.
00:18:43.420 And it's amazing how media like to just pick the one
00:18:45.720 that benefits them the most and use that.
00:18:47.760 Well, the journalist, you're exactly right about it being a case study,
00:18:50.820 and it should be studied in journalism schools.
00:18:52.340 The journalist knew exactly, as you said, Andrew,
00:18:54.960 they had two, they had really two avenues to go with the story.
00:18:58.040 Well, three, really.
00:18:59.020 They could go down the middle and try and blend the two together,
00:19:01.340 as you said in the headline.
00:19:02.460 Or they could take the one that counts or the one that doesn't count.
00:19:05.640 They knew that the opinion polls of the preferred prime minister,
00:19:10.040 which really mean nothing when it comes to the ballot,
00:19:12.620 they knew that that...
00:19:13.380 Yeah, if you're prepared to vote Conservative,
00:19:14.980 but you're like, ah, you know, I guess I'm not sure about Pierre,
00:19:17.020 but I vote Conservative anyway.
00:19:18.080 That is almost more useful.
00:19:19.460 There's no room on the ballot to write your thoughts about the leader.
00:19:22.700 It's just, you just circle the name and that's it.
00:19:24.980 That's all you get.
00:19:25.840 So they knew, however, that the preferred prime minister poll itself
00:19:29.380 was not as important as the voting choice.
00:19:32.840 That's why they put it 11 paragraphs down into the story.
00:19:35.960 But they chose to lead with it in the headline.
00:19:38.000 That, I think, speaks volumes to where the legacy media is coming from,
00:19:42.040 what they're prepared to do,
00:19:43.620 and just how willing they are to try and play tricks on the audience.
00:19:47.320 And I think that's just, it's just, it's not right.
00:19:50.200 And I think that it happens all the time.
00:19:53.780 That's why we talk about on the show, there's a bias of omission.
00:19:56.420 There's also, you know, there's also,
00:19:58.200 I consider it to be bias of placement in the article.
00:20:00.900 Most people will never get 11 paragraphs into the story
00:20:03.060 because they're busy.
00:20:03.880 They're doing other things.
00:20:05.040 They want to skim the headlines and get the story there.
00:20:07.620 I just think it's a classic trick that the legacy media play
00:20:10.480 and more Canadians should be aware of it
00:20:12.500 and they should get called out for it.
00:20:13.680 So I'm glad we're doing it on this show.
00:20:16.680 Yeah, for sure.
00:20:18.100 We've got to go back to the Queen's passing for a moment here
00:20:20.840 because certainly we acknowledge the disrespectful nature
00:20:24.180 of Justin Trudeau's solo.
00:20:25.740 But the takeaway, I think, from this show has to be
00:20:28.840 that he has not been the most disrespectful
00:20:30.860 to Her Late Majesty's passing.
00:20:33.620 That award goes to the Hill Times
00:20:35.460 where columnist Erika Ifill gets right to the point
00:20:38.660 in her headline,
00:20:40.220 the Queen is gone and I'm glad her reign is over.
00:20:43.900 Now, you look at that and say,
00:20:45.940 okay, well, that's a little bit on the nose.
00:20:48.240 What does she mean?
00:20:48.920 Is she just talking about transition?
00:20:50.420 Is she just talking about, you know,
00:20:52.240 not being a fan of the monarchy?
00:20:53.520 Well, her tweet is a little bit more pointed.
00:20:56.420 Good morning.
00:20:57.380 Well, good morning to you too, Erika.
00:20:58.600 How are you today?
00:20:59.180 I wrote 1,241 words about the Queen
00:21:02.360 and how I'm glad she's dead.
00:21:04.740 Good riddance to bad rubbish.
00:21:06.780 This goes out to those who have been inundated
00:21:08.860 with lies and deception regarding the greatness
00:21:11.960 of this monarch.
00:21:14.520 Ma'am, this is a Wendy's.
00:21:16.300 Like, this is a fight that no one asked for right now.
00:21:20.680 Even people, even the IRA,
00:21:22.720 were more respectful of Her Late Majesty's passing,
00:21:26.160 given the fact that she was a tremendously popular woman.
00:21:29.340 She accomplished great things.
00:21:31.120 And this point that Erika is attempting to make here
00:21:34.100 doesn't even go down that road
00:21:35.460 that everyone goes down of,
00:21:36.680 well, I like the Queen, but I don't love the monarchy.
00:21:39.500 And yeah, the Queen was fine, but colonialism bad.
00:21:41.900 She's like, you know what?
00:21:42.980 That evil B word is dead and I'm glad she's gone
00:21:46.120 and screw all you that like her,
00:21:48.480 you've all been lied to.
00:21:49.640 Like, not only is it an unhinged position,
00:21:53.320 but it's one that's like devoid of knowledge,
00:21:55.620 devoid of historic context.
00:21:57.540 And if you read the column itself,
00:21:59.520 which I don't recommend,
00:22:00.820 but if you can painfully make your way through it,
00:22:03.460 it isn't even supported by anything she's saying.
00:22:06.360 Like, she actually doesn't even know
00:22:07.820 about what she's speaking.
00:22:09.720 She just has this hot take of,
00:22:11.640 I'm glad the old lady is dead.
00:22:13.560 No, exactly.
00:22:14.420 And I should say,
00:22:16.180 if we think that the headline
00:22:17.600 which the Hilltimes have run with
00:22:19.220 was the original headline proposed by Erica Eiffel,
00:22:22.720 then I think that's not the case.
00:22:24.600 Yeah, that's an editor's headline.
00:22:26.160 That's not a columnist headline.
00:22:27.220 The editor came in and said,
00:22:28.400 okay, here, let's just take out this ridiculous language
00:22:31.700 and let's just write something a bit better as a headline.
00:22:34.820 Because when you read the article,
00:22:36.580 she immediately goes to the very worst accusations.
00:22:39.120 She says that, you know,
00:22:40.320 this is for all the people that have been inundated
00:22:42.220 with lies about the Queen's greatness.
00:22:44.880 Well, if you're sick and tired of being inundated
00:22:47.520 with lies about the Queen's greatness,
00:22:48.620 how about you read this Hilltimes story
00:22:50.480 where it's chock full of mistruths
00:22:53.100 about the British Empire and about this Queen.
00:22:55.580 I should note as well, Andrew,
00:22:56.760 that no point in this article
00:22:58.420 does Erica Eiffel bring up
00:23:00.460 the residential schools argument.
00:23:02.200 So it's a Hilltimes story.
00:23:04.040 It's a Canadian publication.
00:23:05.460 She's a Canadian herself.
00:23:06.880 But she's not talking about the Queen's reign in Canada,
00:23:10.040 which is odd, I found to be.
00:23:11.780 Instead, she decides to actually,
00:23:13.880 in really a disturbing way,
00:23:17.040 she decides to defend the Irish Republican Army
00:23:19.940 who assassinated Louis Mountbatten.
00:23:23.100 She says, the Irish Republican Army did us a solid
00:23:25.720 when they eliminated Louis Mountbatten,
00:23:28.200 who is the architect of the partition of India.
00:23:30.620 So she immediately defends the assassination
00:23:33.820 of a high-ranking member of the royal family.
00:23:37.140 She says that the British Empire
00:23:38.760 raped their way to the colonies.
00:23:40.920 Again, no evidence to back that up whatsoever.
00:23:43.420 And she basically says that these people are evil
00:23:48.120 and that she has no interest at all
00:23:50.420 in celebrating their life.
00:23:53.440 I don't know where to go with this
00:23:55.980 other than to say this is just a,
00:23:57.560 really a disgusting article.
00:24:01.160 Something just chock full of mistruths
00:24:04.360 and really of this almost,
00:24:06.220 it's almost really an unhinged diatribe
00:24:09.420 which ventures quite close, in my opinion,
00:24:11.680 not to a criticism of the queen or of the monarchy,
00:24:14.640 but, in fact, of almost white people
00:24:16.900 because she actually says it here.
00:24:19.000 The same empire that initiated a calcified
00:24:21.060 and calcified a political, administrative,
00:24:22.840 and socioeconomic structure
00:24:23.860 that put white Anglican Christian men on top
00:24:25.960 to rule over gender, class, economic,
00:24:28.320 and racial disparities.
00:24:30.180 And then she writes,
00:24:31.180 ask yourself,
00:24:32.100 where would Britain be without the sugar plantation
00:24:33.700 to the West Indies,
00:24:34.520 the tea and the spices from India,
00:24:35.980 and they still can't cook?
00:24:38.440 So it's really, Andrew,
00:24:39.300 not even necessarily a cogent
00:24:41.380 and detailed criticism of the monarchy
00:24:44.320 of Queen Elizabeth.
00:24:45.860 It's just this unhinged diatribe
00:24:47.560 about the British
00:24:48.580 and, I think, really, of larger,
00:24:51.240 of the people that consider themselves
00:24:53.900 to be monarchists,
00:24:54.720 that consider themselves to be royalists.
00:24:57.520 It's shocking,
00:24:58.440 and I can't believe the Hilltimes
00:24:59.440 even let this be published.
00:25:01.440 No, I mean, it doesn't,
00:25:02.660 I mean, it's the Hilltimes.
00:25:03.860 Like, this is where I go to find out,
00:25:04.940 like, the boring stuff,
00:25:06.080 not, like, the crazy stuff.
00:25:07.320 But I do want to dive into a couple of the,
00:25:10.320 I guess, in the broadest sense, points.
00:25:13.140 But I use that word very hesitantly
00:25:14.700 that she tries to make here
00:25:16.140 because most of her grievances
00:25:17.820 are with colonialism itself.
00:25:20.540 And I mean,
00:25:21.000 that has nothing to do with
00:25:22.460 Queen Elizabeth II,
00:25:23.440 who presided over a great period
00:25:25.540 of decolonization.
00:25:27.120 And also, by the way,
00:25:28.280 British Empire ended slavery
00:25:30.020 before anywhere else in the world did.
00:25:31.900 So I think that's an important point
00:25:33.220 that oftentimes the ahistorical set forget.
00:25:35.420 But nevertheless,
00:25:36.680 talking about Queen Elizabeth II,
00:25:39.040 Erika Eiffel acknowledges
00:25:41.540 that Queen Elizabeth II
00:25:43.340 presided over a period of decolonization.
00:25:46.060 But her criticism is that
00:25:47.640 she didn't, like, single-handedly
00:25:49.060 go in and start cracking skulls
00:25:51.480 to end apartheid.
00:25:52.420 When even, you know,
00:25:53.540 people like Nelson Mandela
00:25:54.700 and those who did work tremendously
00:25:56.400 to end apartheid in South Africa
00:25:58.040 do not blame Britain for that.
00:26:00.220 They don't blame the Queen.
00:26:02.580 So that in and of itself
00:26:03.960 is a bizarre point.
00:26:05.040 And then she makes this quote
00:26:07.860 that supposedly came from the Queen.
00:26:11.040 But if you read the source material,
00:26:13.360 it's not actually clear
00:26:14.820 the Queen ever said it.
00:26:16.400 And that's about
00:26:17.280 the International Civil Court
00:26:19.240 and acts of enslavement.
00:26:20.340 And I don't want to get too down
00:26:21.380 into the weeds here.
00:26:22.340 But she goes on further
00:26:24.000 and further and further.
00:26:26.360 And there isn't actually
00:26:27.720 an indictment about the Queen,
00:26:30.480 who was the monarch
00:26:31.860 in a time of constitutional monarchy,
00:26:34.320 when Britain had a government,
00:26:36.140 when the Commonwealth
00:26:37.440 did not actually exist
00:26:39.460 in the form it is in today.
00:26:41.200 And I think that there is
00:26:42.780 a big problem
00:26:44.000 when you get people
00:26:44.900 that just want to jump up and down.
00:26:46.420 And it's not to say
00:26:47.160 that the Queen has not had
00:26:48.280 her share of criticism
00:26:49.160 from other people.
00:26:49.980 Like, I don't think
00:26:50.460 this is going to be the thing
00:26:51.800 that, like, destroys
00:26:52.540 the Queen's legacy.
00:26:53.540 But I do think
00:26:55.080 it's important to note
00:26:55.980 that, like,
00:26:56.420 there is no argument to this.
00:26:58.760 So it's like,
00:26:59.080 if you're going to come out
00:26:59.660 with the hot take
00:27:00.340 that, you know,
00:27:01.160 the Queen was a terrible person,
00:27:02.300 it would be nice
00:27:02.780 to actually try
00:27:03.400 to support that thesis.
00:27:04.560 But you can't.
00:27:05.580 But you actually can't.
00:27:06.840 And I think that's
00:27:07.380 the important point
00:27:08.140 to note here.
00:27:09.320 Yeah, exactly.
00:27:10.000 And I want to just highlight
00:27:10.800 this other point.
00:27:11.480 As you mentioned,
00:27:12.480 she talks about
00:27:13.080 how the British Empire
00:27:15.280 heavily influenced,
00:27:16.220 constructed,
00:27:16.720 and international law
00:27:17.480 at the time,
00:27:17.980 the slave-trading countries.
00:27:19.200 It's the globalization
00:27:19.760 of the white supremacy hustle.
00:27:21.660 Britain and its European brethren
00:27:22.900 are the original architects
00:27:24.200 of white supremacy
00:27:24.960 through the path
00:27:25.920 of slavery,
00:27:26.840 colonialism,
00:27:27.300 and imperialism,
00:27:27.960 and benign authoritarianism.
00:27:29.280 So my only thing,
00:27:30.000 as you said, Andrew,
00:27:30.620 the British Empire
00:27:31.580 abolished slavery
00:27:32.640 well before everyone else did.
00:27:35.180 And if this is how
00:27:36.400 the British Empire
00:27:39.620 and the monarchy
00:27:41.360 in England are viewed,
00:27:42.840 then I shudder
00:27:43.580 at the thought
00:27:43.980 of what Erica Eiffel
00:27:44.780 thinks about the United States
00:27:45.940 or about some
00:27:46.620 of the African countries,
00:27:47.480 as we all know,
00:27:48.120 who facilitated
00:27:49.000 the slave trade.
00:27:50.300 So, again,
00:27:50.980 if this is her criticism
00:27:51.740 of the British royal family,
00:27:53.900 I can't imagine
00:27:54.560 what she has to say
00:27:55.340 about the Americans
00:27:56.280 who took many years
00:27:57.460 to abolish slavery afterward
00:27:58.600 and, of course,
00:27:59.440 the African countries themselves
00:28:00.720 who played quite a role
00:28:02.200 in that slavery too.
00:28:03.640 Yeah, very well said.
00:28:05.280 And we always try
00:28:06.540 to end things
00:28:07.300 on a bit of a lighter note,
00:28:08.740 especially after this one.
00:28:09.800 It's been a rather heavy show.
00:28:11.620 What do you got for us today?
00:28:12.500 This is a sports story,
00:28:13.420 so I'm not even going
00:28:14.020 to try to take the lead.
00:28:15.240 So what a surprise, guys.
00:28:16.260 This one comes from the CBC.
00:28:18.180 I know, shocker.
00:28:19.000 And the story,
00:28:20.080 the headline is,
00:28:21.000 Toxic Masculinity
00:28:22.080 is Part of Elite Hockey.
00:28:24.420 We Need a Culture Shift.
00:28:25.740 So this story
00:28:26.420 comes from this woman,
00:28:27.560 Alexis Peters,
00:28:28.380 who I guess
00:28:29.260 studies toxic masculinity
00:28:32.020 in hockey
00:28:32.600 or in sport.
00:28:33.740 Very, you know,
00:28:34.700 sort of bizarre.
00:28:35.520 Is that like,
00:28:36.100 can you do a degree in that now?
00:28:37.460 I don't recall that
00:28:38.300 as like an option
00:28:39.360 when I was picking my courses.
00:28:41.280 Yeah, well,
00:28:41.780 she writes about
00:28:42.560 her academic credentials
00:28:43.660 in this piece.
00:28:44.600 In fact,
00:28:44.880 she alluded to it
00:28:45.400 in the sub-headline,
00:28:46.100 I did my PhD
00:28:47.260 on this problem
00:28:47.900 23 years ago.
00:28:49.180 Let's hope the message
00:28:49.860 gets heard now.
00:28:51.100 So this woman
00:28:51.820 does some sort of,
00:28:53.320 conducts some sort of study
00:28:54.400 where she has,
00:28:55.720 sends out a questionnaire
00:28:56.420 to, I guess,
00:28:57.540 junior hockey players,
00:28:58.820 Ontario junior hockey players.
00:29:00.500 And the results,
00:29:01.440 she says are,
00:29:02.260 well,
00:29:02.380 she doesn't say this,
00:29:03.020 but I imagine in her thought,
00:29:04.180 the results she gets
00:29:05.520 are horrible,
00:29:07.740 sickening,
00:29:08.240 gross.
00:29:09.180 So in the article,
00:29:09.760 they find that
00:29:10.340 these hockey players
00:29:11.140 between the ages of 18 and 22
00:29:12.440 score notably higher
00:29:13.800 than my control group
00:29:14.800 on the hyper-masculinity scale
00:29:16.160 as measured by three concepts,
00:29:18.560 danger as exciting,
00:29:20.060 violence as manly,
00:29:21.180 and more calloused
00:29:22.020 attitudes towards sex.
00:29:24.020 So what a surprise,
00:29:25.460 hockey players
00:29:26.140 have a,
00:29:27.440 view danger as exciting,
00:29:28.980 violence as manly,
00:29:29.740 and more calloused
00:29:30.420 attitudes towards sex.
00:29:31.440 Quick,
00:29:31.660 we must cancel
00:29:32.380 Canada's hockey,
00:29:33.980 Canada's sport of hockey,
00:29:35.100 or one of our
00:29:35.940 national institutions.
00:29:37.820 Ridiculous.
00:29:38.320 And it all stems,
00:29:39.500 Andrew,
00:29:39.660 because we find out
00:29:40.640 at the very beginning
00:29:41.280 of this story,
00:29:42.180 it all stems from this,
00:29:44.380 I guess you could say,
00:29:45.060 the continuation of the story
00:29:46.740 of the junior hockey players
00:29:48.200 and the sexual,
00:29:49.460 the group sexual assault
00:29:51.240 accusations
00:29:52.300 and the findings
00:29:53.380 and the investigations
00:29:54.180 going on right now,
00:29:55.220 which,
00:29:55.740 in my opinion,
00:29:56.940 have been used to take,
00:29:58.780 to represent a few bad apples
00:30:00.100 in the game,
00:30:00.980 and have decided that
00:30:01.780 we're going to use it
00:30:02.380 as a representative
00:30:02.900 of the entire sport.
00:30:05.000 Any young Canadian
00:30:05.780 who plays hockey,
00:30:06.940 you know,
00:30:07.160 is going to be tarnished
00:30:07.840 with this bad brush.
00:30:09.080 I don't really know
00:30:09.640 why they're doing this.
00:30:10.500 I don't know what this
00:30:11.120 whole urge to do this
00:30:12.120 from the legacy media
00:30:12.920 is exactly,
00:30:14.460 but I think it's very clear
00:30:15.580 that they do take an issue
00:30:17.120 with hockey.
00:30:18.040 They don't like the fact
00:30:18.940 that it's a group
00:30:20.600 where Canadian men
00:30:21.840 have a view
00:30:22.900 danger as exciting
00:30:23.940 and violence as manly.
00:30:24.860 I just don't get it.
00:30:26.680 Hockey is the one
00:30:27.300 with the puck, right?
00:30:28.580 That's right.
00:30:29.160 It is the one with the puck,
00:30:29.940 not the one with the ball.
00:30:31.620 Look, I don't pretend
00:30:32.320 to be a sports guy.
00:30:33.280 I know, like,
00:30:33.860 woke insanity,
00:30:34.780 so I guess I can weigh in
00:30:35.720 on this story slightly
00:30:36.640 in our closing moments here.
00:30:38.780 I think you are right, Harrison.
00:30:40.240 And they don't like the idea
00:30:41.380 that this exists.
00:30:42.180 And they don't like the idea
00:30:43.240 that there's a legitimate outlet
00:30:45.580 for people to have
00:30:46.960 a bit of aggression.
00:30:47.840 They don't like
00:30:48.260 there's a legitimate outlet.
00:30:49.580 I mean, it's the same people
00:30:50.420 that take aim at, oh,
00:30:51.740 boxing and UFC
00:30:52.880 and all of these other things.
00:30:54.300 But they don't realize
00:30:55.440 that there are biological
00:30:56.580 incentives for men
00:30:58.540 to engage in this sort of activity.
00:31:00.120 And in fact,
00:31:00.580 I think we should be very grateful
00:31:01.640 that as a culture,
00:31:02.480 we've evolved to such a point
00:31:03.960 where people can get out
00:31:04.840 their aggression
00:31:05.340 in safe, organized,
00:31:07.020 controlled ways,
00:31:07.720 and not by, you know,
00:31:09.140 just killing each other
00:31:10.080 in senseless battles
00:31:11.280 and senseless conflicts.
00:31:12.280 So I agree.
00:31:13.540 It is absolutely horrific
00:31:15.000 what's happened to
00:31:16.000 some people at the hands
00:31:17.620 of individual bad actors.
00:31:19.620 And if there are organizations
00:31:21.100 that as well are bad actors,
00:31:22.560 then that needs to be dealt
00:31:23.760 with as well.
00:31:24.460 But you can't just like
00:31:25.520 malign a sport
00:31:26.940 and a sex because of it.
00:31:28.740 So very well said.
00:31:30.180 That is, I think,
00:31:30.880 the last sports story
00:31:31.660 I'm going to do for a while.
00:31:32.560 I hit my quota for the year,
00:31:34.240 so I'm good for the next,
00:31:35.760 at least until the end of 2022.
00:31:37.720 That does it for us.
00:31:39.020 You can catch Harrison's show
00:31:40.140 Ratioed on True North every week.
00:31:42.320 You can also catch my own program,
00:31:44.160 The Andrew Lawton Show,
00:31:45.020 a few times a week as well.
00:31:46.460 Thank you so much
00:31:47.520 to all of you for tuning in.
00:31:48.540 Have a great weekend
00:31:49.320 and we'll talk to you soon.