Fake News Friday ｜ Toronto Star misrepresents doctor who questioned lockdowns
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Summary
In this week's Fake News Friday, we take a look at the fallout from a controversial interview with Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Matt Strauss, who has been a vocal critic of the government's pandemic response to the opioid crisis.
Transcript
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Welcome everyone to another edition of Fake News Friday here on True North.
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Rounding up all that's happened in the week that was.
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We are sifting through the sands of deception and dishonesty and trying to make sense of it.
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Or, at the very least, just relentlessly mock it so that we can all just laugh as the Titanic is sinking.
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The week was good, but I have to say I'm a little jealous of your upcoming week, Andrew.
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Going off to hang out with all your young global leader friends.
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I have to say I've never been this close to a young global leader.
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And I'm not even actually physically that close, but virtually, it almost feels the same.
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It's a pretty incredible feeling to be interacting with a young global leader like yourself.
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For those that don't know, I have not actually been made a young global leader.
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Actually, like five minutes after we finish wrapping up this show.
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So if you are tuning in on Friday, this has been pre-recorded.
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And I'm already in Switzerland trying to find where I can get some sautéed crickets.
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But let's dig into what was happening last week in the world of fake news.
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It involves Matt Strauss, who's been on True North.
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He's one of the only, if not the only, chief medical officer in Ontario
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who's been pushing back against the government's pandemic response.
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And he, to his credit, did an interview with Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star,
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who is on the more alarmist side of the COVID spectrum.
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And you'd think this might be an opportunity that two people who disagree
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could at least understand and respect each other.
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But at the end of it, when the story was published,
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Matt Strauss went to Twitter and said that things he had said had been misrepresented.
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It was not an accurate representation of anything that had happened.
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And he was trying to get some changes, which so far have not been made.
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You're telling me that the Toronto Star misquoted an officer of health
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that didn't quite go along with their narrative.
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That's, this is like totally breaking news to me.
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Well, basically what happened here is, as most of you can imagine,
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Dr. Matt Strauss, the medical officer of health for Haldeman Norfolk,
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He was basically, as you said, Andrew, the only medical officer of health that I know of,
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And I may be wrong here, but the only one that really didn't go along 100%
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with the, the kind of messaging we were getting from Dr. Tam and from Dr. Moore in Ontario,
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And I think that's why partially he had the gig in Haldeman Norfolk.
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He was, he, he, he questioned the decisions to lock down the way we did.
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He questioned the efficacy of mandates for the shot and for masks.
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So of course, by doing so, he became the target of, as you say,
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the alarmists on that, on the other side of the debate.
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So basically what happened here is Matt Strauss and Bruce Arthur came to a good faith interview
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with the, with the understanding, I think that Matt Strauss would have been quoted correctly
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and in context and his words wouldn't be taken out of, out of context.
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But it turns out, of course, that the article was completely out of context.
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It was designed to basically make Matt Strauss look to be someone he is not.
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And Matt Strauss, as you say, probably went to Twitter and called out exactly
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He says, I did not compare prom to a living death as the article in the Toronto star says he did.
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I did not compare mask mandates to the me too movement.
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And I did not say that the only randomized control trials are sufficient evidence for pandemic policy.
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which is just a perfect dunk on the Toronto star and a highly deserving one too.
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I understand that Bruce and the Toronto star are in an awkward position.
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They were wrong about vaccine mandates, wrong about mask mandates, wrong about border restrictions
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I wish Toronto star would acknowledge its mistakes rather than double down by misrepresenting
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I've texted Bruce, but so far nothing has changed.
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They were wrong about, as, as Strauss says, all of these things in the, in the pandemic.
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And yet now they're still trying to misquote doctors who in many, many people's eyes were
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And what was interesting is that Bruce Arthur decided to say that these were not factual
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He tweeted out, I see Matt Strauss has registered some complaints about the piece and he and I
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Needless to say, I disagree with his interpretations.
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Those agreeing with him are mostly distrustful of media and angry about COVID restrictions.
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So he views it, Bruce Arthur, as though anyone who takes issue with his reporting just is
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distrustful of the media and they don't like vaccine mandates and mask mandates.
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Now, this is particularly interesting when you take into consideration that the Toronto
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Star's public editor has interceded here and has actually made corrections and clarifications
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A previous version mistakenly said that Dr. Strauss compared mask mandates to the MeToo
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Now, I don't know what the difference between a clarification and a correction is here,
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Dr. Strauss didn't say that only randomized control trials are sufficient evidence for
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So I guess now the Toronto Star's public editor is to Bruce Arthur, distrustful of media and
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angry about COVID restrictions because he evidently didn't agree with Bruce Arthur's interpretation
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There are lots of things that you could have different opinions on, but the old line is
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that your facts have to be the same across the board.
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I mean, when your own editor is basically saying that you're wrong and then you go out on Twitter
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and say, well, those that think I'm wrong are distrustful of media, as you just say, then
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that's a pretty bad sign that you're kind of not heading in the right direction there,
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It's not really what we would consider to be, you know, right along the tracks of the journalist
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They're the same people that posted that hideous front page back during a few years ago, basically
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just saying that people in Canada are saying the unvaccinated can go to die.
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I mean, that was the implication of that front page.
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I don't think many Canadians are going to forgive them for that.
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Even the editors have to come in and clean up the mess that their journalists are making.
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But seriously, I mean, this should be the basics.
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And just, I mean, Matt Strauss had made a very apt comment on this in response to Bruce
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And he said, you know, there's a very simple way to foster trust, which is to tell the truth.
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So I don't think that Bruce Arthur is doing his part to restore trust to the media by any
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But there's always one thing we can rely on when it comes to Fake News Friday.
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That is the CBC coming in to always give us something good to mock and make fun of.
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And this story came in from the CBC a couple days ago.
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The way, when you read it, you think to yourself, clearly what's going on here is the CBC is
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coming in to try and make an example out of an officer of the RCMP who dared dissent against
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the government, dared make fun of the prime minister.
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He needs to be made an example of and basically ridiculed on CBC.
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Very, very Eastern world, I would say, of the CBC here.
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Not like the, not like it's totally foreign to them.
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But this is what the article, this is the headline of the CBC article.
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BC Mountie's anti-Trudeau website raises concerns about discriminatory views within
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Actually, that just means an RCMP officer making fun of Justin Trudeau.
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So apparently, Andrew, making fun of Justin Trudeau is discriminatory views.
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But I want to read to you some of this before getting your thoughts on this because it is
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It starts off with this, the Church of Trudeau website was online last November and early
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December and featured theatrical performances by a man dressed up as multiple characters
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in what appears to be satirical political commentary about the prime minister and what the site
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referred to as, quote, left-wing liberal ideologies.
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CBC News has confirmed the identity of the man in photos and videos on the website as BC RCMP
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In one of the four videos CBC News has obtained, Lord plays the role of a character he calls
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Father B and professes to be the high prophet of the Church of Trudeau as he explains what
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our religion teaches the importance of socialism, of cancelling everyone that offends anyone,
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We'll talk about on the nose there because it turns out that for making jokes about the
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prime minister cancelling everyone, this poor RCMP officer for that exact thing is now being
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Yeah, and this is a challenging one because in general I think there are standards for police
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officers that are different than there are for people in other sectors, but they're allowed
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to have political opinions, they're allowed to have political views.
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I don't know which way the RCMP is going to land here.
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I mean, if he were tasked with protecting Justin Trudeau, I could understand how this might
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make people wonder if he was the best candidate for the job, but if he's just a general police
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officer, he wasn't doing this in uniform, he wasn't even mentioning his name on the
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website, I don't really think many people in the BC interior would care.
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He's not, you know, a private security detail of the prime minister or a cabinet minister,
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and it just kind of goes along this line, Andrew, of demanding ideological conformity.
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We saw this with the Freedom Convoy, and the CBC article actually brings this up.
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How many instances did we see of videos going viral where police officers either outwardly
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showed their support to members of the Freedom Convoy or protesters, or they themselves were
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seen, you know, just kind of not acting the way that, I guess, the Ottawa establishment
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wanted them to, which is completely hostile and almost nasty towards these protesters.
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If they weren't, you know, demanding that they stand down and yelling at them for daring
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to hold unacceptable views, then in the eyes of the CBC and Ottawa establishment, these
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officers were supporters of the Freedom Convoy, and we saw politicians, we saw news articles
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come out demanding that these officers face punishment.
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It's almost as if we're kind of losing humor in this country.
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It's like we can't joke about what's really going on.
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I think if you were to ask this RCMP officer to say, your job now, the prime minister is
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I don't think because he makes fun of the prime minister, he would be, he would all of
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I think it's just, I think we're just losing reality here.
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We're losing this sense of humor in this country.
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I think it's sad to see it's a humor is going to go to die here.
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If we can't have a laugh and have a joke, of course, the CBC goes out and demands comment
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from the RCMP demands comment from other former officers and former chiefs of police saying
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Let's just have some fun, have a joke here and there.
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And I think everyone will be fine at the end of the day.
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Well, the challenge with these sort of professional standards rules is that they only seem to
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We're seeing this Ontario in Ontario with Jordan Peterson and the College of Psychologists.
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You can mouth off about as much as you want about the left, lefty, wokey stuff.
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And no one seems to care if he were taking aim at some conservative thing.
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But because he's doing it against the Liberals, that is getting everyone's back up against
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I just, to your point about being able to have a laugh, there's this one former West Vancouver
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police chief that CBC quoted here, Cash Heed, who says when you're a public servant, especially
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with the RCMP, where you've taken that oath of service to Canada and you make those satirical
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videos, you have the memes of this particular character trying to be funny.
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Yes, nothing as disturbing as satire and memes and character acting.
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I mean, the guy may not be Daniel Day-Lewis, but I think he can do his little Father G or
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Kenny G or Papa John or whatever his character.
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In another video, the CBC article writes, Lorde gives a speech about federal immigration
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policy while wearing a jester's hat and claims the goal of the policy is to bring in one
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Hey, sorry, but you might be a little too on the money there, Andrew, for the CBC's liking.
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Yeah, we should wear jester hats into our show here.
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Yeah, maybe we should add some costumes, add some new dimensions to Fake News Friday.
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It's the fact that it's all out on, it's the fact that it's all out in the open and
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that we have the internet now is what has kind of played the opposite effect.
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I think a lot of people thought it would open up conversations, open up humor, but really
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I mean, I guarantee you that back in the day without the internet, RCMP guys would have
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been joking about the prime minister all the time, but it's because it's out there online.
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I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to have jokes about all this stuff.
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And people in the public service having a laugh, like, why can't we have that?
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Well, we will not be cowed by this because if you're not laughing, you're crying here.
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And I don't actually quite know what I'm to do with this next story here, which comes from,
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you guessed it, CBC, using my New Year's resolution to free my tree and myself from the
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So this one is going to be a little bit of a tough one to go through because I've read
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the column four times and each time I come out more confused about what it's actually
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So maybe, Harrison, you can explain this to me if I'm not getting it right.
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But the sense that I understand here is this woman, Marina Commanda Westbrook, who's writing
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And she didn't want to throw it out with the lights on because it was like a pre-lit tree
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So she instead took a pair of scissors and started to cut away the broken lights.
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And she snipped away at the wires and then she started feeling for the tree.
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And she said she recognized that she was releasing the tree from the bondage of appearance and
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And in the end, she said there were 30 meters of wire and broken bulbs.
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And this brought her back to her childhood where her family had a shiny silver aluminum
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tree that had lights that her dad checked and fixed and replaced.
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And she's attempting to rescue this fake tree from its broken lights.
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Now, here's where it gets a little bit weird, if it isn't weird already.
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She says that the wires have come to represent to her the bounds of colonization.
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And she was experiencing freeing her pretend tree from the wire bondage.
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But I have to say, Andrew, that was actually an excellent summary of this article.
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I know that the words mean, but when they're put together in that way, I actually don't
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I could have just given a recipe for French toast for all I know.
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Like, I don't even know what that means, what I just said.
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So, again, I'm not going to be any better at this.
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I also had quite a lot of difficulty comprehending this piece.
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From my perspective here, it looks as though she thinks that using real trees would be bad
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because you don't want to put a tree that'll go right back into the landfill and you don't
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So, you don't want to kill a good tree, so you want to use fake trees.
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She has a fake tree, and then she says that back in the day, 50 years ago, her family
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I'm assuming that that would be a fake tree as well, unless there's some sort of species
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of trees out there that I've never seen before.
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So, she's had fake trees now, but again, the lights are colonization.
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The lights are the bondage of colonization, and you don't want to...
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But again, you don't want to impact the environment, Andrew.
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So, the real tree is killing the environment, but also now the plastic tree is killing the
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environment, so you don't want to do that either.
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So, instead, we're just going to do no tree, right?
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We're going to have no tree anymore because, you know, heritage and traditions, you've got
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to axe the tree because it's a part of the Christmas tradition, so that's got to go.
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And of course, it's all wrapped up in colonization.
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Again, I am really struggling here because I make this assumption because at the bottom of
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the article, she writes this, instead of buying another artificial tree pre-bound in the wires
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that have come to represent to me the bonds of colonization, I will welcome my mitig relatives,
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So, I will welcome my tree relatives into my home and dress them honorably and brightly.
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Andrew, I have to tell you, this might be even more absurd than the crossword puzzle
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Yeah, so just to bring it up to speed a little bit here from what I understand.
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So, she believes as an indigenous woman, her family name translates to rotting wood.
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She has a connection to the earth and to trees.
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Now, I thought a fake tree wouldn't really trigger that.
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I feel like with a fake tree, that's not like a relative of yours, if you are the relatives
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Now, that's something she has a connection with, so that's fine.
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But so, because originally she was saying that she wanted to just take the lights off
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so that she could reuse the tree instead of just throwing the whole thing out because
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the lights were broken, which I think is actually quite important because we do just make things
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that are not meant to last and then we throw them out.
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But then she says she wants to like give it another season and then she's going to throw
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So, I feel like I'm still missing the point here.
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If she feels freed and liberated by snipping the lights off the tree, then who are we to
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I mean, I think at the end of the day, all we can look at this and all we can do is look
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at this and say, well, you know, the CBC, for all their faults, Andrew, you know, we like
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to make fun of them, but every now and then an article comes along like this and it really
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makes you question the relationship between humans and trees and nature and the really
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important questions that often don't get enough coverage in Canadian media.
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So, you know, with all of CBC's faults, I think we can say, good on you, CBC.
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This is kind of the kind of stuff that, you know, you can sit on for the entire weekend
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after hearing us talk about it and really ask yourself that same question.
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How do you feel like your pretend tree, you know, impacts the environment and adds to the
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I am off to Davos now, so do stay tuned to True North's coverage from the World Economic
00:21:11.680
Actually, starting this weekend, we'll give you a little bit of a scene setter there.
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But in the meantime, thank you and have a wonderful weekend, everyone.