The Candice Malcolm Show - October 22, 2021


Ford stands his ground amid fake news narrative


Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

190.30266

Word count

3,760

Sentence count

270

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Saskatchewan Health Authority pushes total nonsense, and Margaret Atwood gets mobbed for saying a woman is a woman. It's Fake News Friday! Today's episode is all about the ridiculous tweet that went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.040 Doug Ford stands his ground amid a fake news narrative.
00:00:03.900 The Saskatchewan Health Authority pushes total nonsense
00:00:06.500 and Margaret Atwood gets mobbed for saying that a woman is a woman.
00:00:10.500 It's Fake News Friday. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:18.240 Everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the show.
00:00:20.740 Thank you for continuing to support The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:23.920 If you're watching this video on YouTube right now,
00:00:25.660 I'm going to ask that you stop, that you like this video,
00:00:28.240 that you subscribe to True North and make sure that you hit that little red notification bell
00:00:32.120 so that you never miss an episode.
00:00:34.100 If you're watching on Facebook, don't forget to like this video, share, leave us a comment
00:00:37.860 and make sure you go over and like the True North page.
00:00:40.880 Finally, if you're listening to this show in podcast form over at Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts,
00:00:46.300 don't forget to subscribe to The Candice Malcolm Show
00:00:48.040 and please consider leaving us a five-star review if you enjoy the show
00:00:51.880 and you like what we are doing over here.
00:00:54.100 Today is Friday, so every Friday I dedicate my show to dispelling the fake news narratives
00:01:00.140 that are out there in the legacy media.
00:01:02.080 I really believe that the legacy media in Canada is one of the biggest problems in this country.
00:01:06.980 The way that they basically make it seem like it's not okay to be conservative,
00:01:10.460 it's not okay to hold common sense positions in our society,
00:01:13.820 it's not okay to question the prevailing knowledge and facts
00:01:17.940 that are pushed by the government, which are often untrue and wrong.
00:01:21.560 They create such a problem in our country and it's so important that we push back against them,
00:01:27.260 that we criticize them, that we stand our ground when it comes to the common sense beliefs
00:01:32.420 helped by many Canadians and that we don't allow their narrative to basically bully us
00:01:38.040 into believing what they are pushing.
00:01:40.060 So I'm going to start today by talking about this tweet that went viral for all the wrong reasons.
00:01:44.040 This came from the Saskatchewan Health Authority
00:01:46.400 and basically what they're doing here is pushing total medical misinformation, total nonsense
00:01:51.820 and frankly they should have received one of those little labels that Twitter puts on tweets
00:01:57.580 that are full of misinformation because this is just absolute nonsense and it's so silly.
00:02:02.800 There's a good reason why everyone was mocking this on Twitter
00:02:05.560 because it is just absurd, so I'll read you this tweet.
00:02:09.660 So first we have a tweet from Health Canada with these two guys looking rather silly.
00:02:14.400 It says, I'm young and healthy, should I still get the COVID-19 vaccine?
00:02:18.920 Yes, yes, yes.
00:02:19.860 And then there's a comment here, it says,
00:02:21.900 COVID vaccine helps protect you from getting sick with the disease.
00:02:24.720 Even if you're young, healthy and fit, the vaccine will give your body a layer of protection
00:02:29.080 that it didn't have.
00:02:30.480 Get vaccinated and help protect everyone.
00:02:32.760 Okay, so whatever, that's just what we've come to expect from health authorities
00:02:37.720 and the fact that they're trying to appeal to young people by putting these two silly images
00:02:43.440 is sort of amusing.
00:02:45.700 Not that interesting though, not something that I would cover.
00:02:48.240 However, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the Twitter account at SaskHealth,
00:02:53.620 quote-treated this tweet and added their own comment,
00:02:56.940 which, like I said, is just completely full of misinformation.
00:03:00.460 It says this,
00:03:01.160 Your risk from COVID-19 is not determined by age, fitness level, or community.
00:03:07.120 Your risk is determined by vaccine status.
00:03:10.200 About 78% of all new cases and hospitalizations in Saskatchewan in September
00:03:15.000 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
00:03:17.940 And you could just look here to see the ratio.
00:03:20.560 We like to call this being ratioed on social media land.
00:03:24.020 And when your tweet has way, way more comments than it does, likes or retweets,
00:03:29.020 well, you can't comment on this because Saskatchewan Health limited their tweets.
00:03:33.680 So you can see all the quote tweets.
00:03:35.020 There's over 4,000 quote tweets compared to just 140 retweets and 230 likes at this point.
00:03:41.020 And so if you go through the quote tweets,
00:03:44.420 you'll just see that this tweet has gone viral for all the wrong reasons.
00:03:47.680 It's mostly filled with people just saying this is totally fake and totally wrong.
00:03:51.600 And it is.
00:03:53.000 And even if you're just going by government information,
00:03:55.740 this tweet directly contradicts the government of Canada's own website on COVID
00:04:00.780 when it talks about vulnerable people.
00:04:02.580 So this is what the Canadian government says.
00:04:04.940 So it specifically talks about vulnerable populations.
00:04:07.280 And it says vulnerable populations may include older adults,
00:04:10.680 increasing risk with each decade, especially over 60,
00:04:13.520 people of any age with chronic medical conditions,
00:04:15.920 for example, lung disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes,
00:04:19.340 kidney disease, liver disease, stroke, and dementia.
00:04:21.600 People of any age who are immunocompromised,
00:04:25.220 including those with underlying medical conditions,
00:04:27.580 and people living with obesity with a body mass index of 40 or higher.
00:04:32.940 So just right off the bat, everything we know about COVID,
00:04:36.580 that your risk of COVID is exactly determined by your age and your fitness level.
00:04:41.200 Those are the two most important things,
00:04:43.220 your age, your fitness level, and your health,
00:04:45.680 your underlying health conditions or your health status.
00:04:48.080 And so the idea that only thing that matters is vaccination is just wrong.
00:04:52.640 It's a lie.
00:04:53.380 It's fake.
00:04:54.020 And it deserves to be mocked, which is why it is being mocked.
00:04:57.660 So here we are where we have the government of Saskatchewan pushing out information that is just not true.
00:05:03.980 And this is why so many people are skeptical of public health and public health experts
00:05:08.080 and the government officials who say that they are the only ones who provide the truth.
00:05:13.640 It's like, no, you're pushing propaganda.
00:05:15.740 You're pushing fake news.
00:05:17.200 This isn't true.
00:05:17.960 Anyone with a brain can see that this isn't true.
00:05:20.240 Stop lying to us.
00:05:21.360 We can handle the truth.
00:05:22.820 You can say that, look, if you're older, you're more likely to get sick from COVID.
00:05:27.380 If you have underlying health issues, you're more likely to get sick from COVID.
00:05:30.240 If you're obese, you're more likely to get sick from COVID.
00:05:33.740 However, everyone should still get vaccinated because you want to protect yourself
00:05:36.520 and, more importantly, protect others.
00:05:38.660 You can just tell us the truth.
00:05:39.820 You don't have to lie.
00:05:40.900 And the more that government officials and public health experts push this kind of propaganda
00:05:45.000 and nonsense to try to pull the wool over our eyes, the more people will be skeptical
00:05:49.200 and not believe it.
00:05:51.100 All right, I want to get to the big story of the week now, which has just been really amusing to watch.
00:05:57.020 This is the sort of origin of a fake news media narrative.
00:06:01.720 This is what they do, especially against conservatives.
00:06:04.180 They try to push a very, very sanitized public discourse.
00:06:09.000 So you can't really say what you think.
00:06:10.700 You can't really say what you believe.
00:06:12.040 If you say something that's ever so slightly offside with the legacy media, with the latest
00:06:17.340 woke trends, they will go after you.
00:06:19.780 They will attack you.
00:06:20.780 And they will be relentless in the way that they cover you.
00:06:23.340 And so, of course, I'm talking about Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who, let me just say from
00:06:28.180 the start, I've been rather disappointed with Doug Ford.
00:06:30.820 I think that he has great instincts and that he is conservative deep down, but he allows
00:06:36.080 himself to get convinced of positions.
00:06:38.360 And so we see him flip-flop, like we saw him flip-flop on vaccine passports.
00:06:42.100 He originally took the right position, saying that I don't want to split up society like
00:06:45.960 that.
00:06:46.400 And then he got pressured to bring them in.
00:06:48.060 A lot of the lockdown stuff, it seemed like he just sort of defers to the public health experts
00:06:52.800 on his, in his, in his department and allows them to make decisions.
00:06:56.780 But when we see the real Doug Ford come through, it's refreshing.
00:07:01.440 It's nice to hear.
00:07:02.380 And I'm so happy that he is standing his ground, that he's not caving to this nonsense media
00:07:08.460 narrative that's being built around him.
00:07:10.400 So here's the context.
00:07:11.640 He was at a press conference on Monday.
00:07:13.640 He was talking about the labor shortages on Ontario, trying to make an appeal for people
00:07:17.460 to come to the province.
00:07:19.080 And he said flat out something that, you know, it's not, perhaps it's not politically
00:07:23.720 correct, but it's true and it's obvious.
00:07:25.880 And so I'll just play this clip.
00:07:27.460 This is, this is a whole controversy.
00:07:29.020 This is what everyone in the media is so worked up about.
00:07:31.580 Let's play this clip.
00:07:32.440 We need people.
00:07:34.180 And so folks, if you have some hardworking people, I just have one criteria.
00:07:39.620 You come here like every other new Canadian has come here. 0.99
00:07:42.740 You work your tail off.
00:07:44.040 If you think you're coming to collect the dole and sit around, not going to happen.
00:07:48.020 Go somewhere else.
00:07:49.240 You want to work, come here.
00:07:50.840 We have so much work.
00:07:51.760 We can't keep up with it right now.
00:07:54.020 And the reason we have so much work, we've created the environment and the conditions
00:07:58.160 for companies to come here and thrive and prosper and grow.
00:08:01.920 And the words out there around the world, come to Ontario.
00:08:05.320 We are now competitive.
00:08:07.700 We took $7 billion of burden to be competitive against our U.S. friends.
00:08:13.580 And everywhere else.
00:08:15.240 So as soon as he said this, the left and the mainstream media immediately pounced on Ford,
00:08:19.660 accused him of being a racist, a bigot, anti-immigration, even though the whole point of his comment
00:08:24.300 was that Ontario needs more immigrants to fill jobs.
00:08:27.160 And he talked about how immigrants are good, how most new Canadians come here and work their
00:08:31.600 tail off.
00:08:32.400 And that that's what we need.
00:08:33.880 That's what we continue to want.
00:08:35.440 And he was making that appeal.
00:08:36.720 Was it perfectly sanitized and politically correct?
00:08:39.040 No, but he was being authentic.
00:08:40.340 He was saying what he believed.
00:08:42.060 And rightfully so.
00:08:43.100 He's standing his ground.
00:08:44.020 So there has been a huge, huge groundswell from the NDP opposition, as well as the legacy
00:08:48.260 media, calling him a racist, interviewing everyone they can who believes he's a racist
00:08:52.440 to try to build up the mounting evidence that he must be racist because of this opinion
00:08:56.960 that he held.
00:08:57.660 Which, quite frankly, it's not controversial what he said.
00:09:00.820 He just said, we have hardworking people here.
00:09:03.200 We want more hardworking people here.
00:09:04.700 Come here if you're hardworking.
00:09:05.860 That shouldn't be controversial.
00:09:07.680 But of course, the media is just obsessed with, again, pushing sameness and demanding
00:09:13.380 that everyone has the exact same opinion and uses the exact same words or trying to eliminate
00:09:18.560 any kind of difference in thinking.
00:09:21.020 I want to just give you a little bit of an example.
00:09:23.460 This is a CTV story.
00:09:25.400 And I'm going to play it.
00:09:26.520 It's two minutes.
00:09:27.180 But you get the idea of just how absurd this is.
00:09:30.040 So here is a news report that's framed from the issue that Doug Ford has said something
00:09:34.360 horribly wrong, that he is horribly racist, and that all it does is bring up old racist
00:09:39.940 tropes against immigrants, and then just keep track of all the people who are interviewed
00:09:43.620 in this story and how they all have the same opinion.
00:09:46.540 They've found five or six people who are all somehow experts in communication or immigration.
00:09:51.200 They're all immigrants, and they all hate Doug Ford. 1.00
00:09:53.280 They all think that he has said something horribly wrong.
00:09:55.960 They couldn't have found one person to say, look, Doug Ford's comments were pretty harmless.
00:09:59.900 He obviously said it in a positive way.
00:10:02.300 He was trying to appeal to more immigrants.
00:10:04.820 He was complimenting immigrants by saying that they work hard and most of them work their
00:10:08.100 tail off.
00:10:09.060 So really, this is just a nothing burger of a story.
00:10:12.080 But instead, they find five or six people who are all outraged over this really rather
00:10:16.060 silly story.
00:10:17.160 So let's play this clip.
00:10:18.480 ...in positions of power still can't stop old stereotypes from getting kicked around.
00:10:23.140 Ontario's Premier refusing to apologize for comments directed at new immigrants despite
00:10:28.700 the backlash.
00:10:29.860 CTV's Heather Butts reports.
00:10:31.780 Thank you for coming.
00:10:32.840 Touring southwestern Ontario in a campaign-style stop yesterday, Premier Doug Ford's appeal to
00:10:38.280 help fill a labour shortage backfired with this comment about immigrants.
00:10:42.560 Well, I just have one criteria.
00:10:44.520 You come here like every other new Canadian has come here. 0.99
00:10:47.660 You work your tail off.
00:10:49.340 If you think you're coming to collect the dole and sit around, not going to happen.
00:10:52.600 Go somewhere else.
00:10:54.120 Those remarks were described today as hurtful and divisive.
00:10:57.680 His words undermine the thousands of new Canadians who have helped Ontario through the past year
00:11:03.560 and a half.
00:11:04.440 Will the Premier apologize for his reckless comments?
00:11:08.120 Instead of an apology, the Premier was on the defensive today.
00:11:11.940 I am pro-immigration.
00:11:14.140 I have been pro-immigration from day one.
00:11:16.840 The lack of an apology shows ignorance in putting forward harmful stereotypes, says this
00:11:21.780 communications specialist.
00:11:23.560 Feeds into that kind of very discriminatory and, yes, racist rhetoric of go back where you came from.
00:11:30.880 So there's a lot here that is very, very inappropriate.
00:11:35.000 Ford's comments struck a nerve with immigrants across the country.
00:11:38.300 It's so sad when you hear such comments.
00:11:40.920 George Swanaker says the hard work begins before you arrive.
00:11:45.100 And let me tell you, it took 14 years to get to this place.
00:11:49.600 It's not about coming here for fun.
00:11:50.700 It's about coming here based on merit.
00:11:53.320 So when you come here, you have to make sure they are working so hard, one, to survive, and two, to also contribute to the economy of this country.
00:12:00.020 Those who help newcomers say Ford's comments fuel frustration and distrust.
00:12:04.640 This is the government that oversaw the crisis in long-term care, that saw the outbreaks in farm work.
00:12:10.020 The fact that they can come out and try to tell anybody to do their job is not about the truth.
00:12:15.560 It's about divisiveness.
00:12:16.960 And the founder of Canadians United Against Hate is also calling for an apology, saying the comment is dangerous and demonstrates his lack of commitment to fight racism.
00:12:27.460 Morella.
00:12:28.300 Heather Butts in Toronto.
00:12:29.540 And again, one of my biggest criticisms of conservatives in this country is so often when they're met with a media storm like this one.
00:12:37.920 They cave, they flip-flop, they turn their back, they apologize.
00:12:42.180 We saw this over and over again with Aaron O'Toole during the election.
00:12:46.180 Anytime that there was any kind of a media story where they just start pushing the left-wing liberal talking points, or in this case NDP talking points,
00:12:53.520 the conservative stops, apologizes, and reverses their position.
00:12:57.120 Good for Doug Ford for not doing that.
00:12:59.080 Doug Ford has been asked twice to apologize, and twice he has declined to apologize.
00:13:03.760 So on Wednesday he was out, and again, the media were pushing for him to apologize, and he didn't.
00:13:11.140 Instead, he said this.
00:13:11.960 He said, stop playing politics and let's speak the truth.
00:13:14.400 He said, you know the backbone of this province are great, hard-working immigrants.
00:13:18.320 Ford went on, he said, my phone is blowing up all night, all day, day before, from immigrants telling me their story.
00:13:24.340 I'm the biggest pro-immigrant premier we've ever seen.
00:13:27.740 And so, again, Doug Ford's saying he didn't do anything wrong.
00:13:30.940 He's saying he has support of the community, that he's pro-immigration.
00:13:33.640 He didn't say anything wrong.
00:13:35.120 Standing his ground, refusing to cower and apologize.
00:13:37.700 This is great.
00:13:38.260 This is what conservatives love to see.
00:13:40.500 Because, again, the biggest threat to our freedom in this country, the biggest force for pushing woke left ideology, is the legacy media.
00:13:47.360 And so when you have a conservative who just says, no, stop with the nonsense, this is not a story, and I'm not apologizing, I have nothing to apologize for, it diminishes the power of the media.
00:13:56.880 Because when they push a politician to apologize, they've won, and they've steamrolled their view to say that you must have this opinion.
00:14:03.120 When a conservative stands up, the media loses their power, they lose their ability.
00:14:07.840 And, again, I think this is a victory for common sense and small-c conservatism in Canada.
00:14:13.000 Okay, final story here I want to talk about today is this Margaret Atwood tweet.
00:14:17.600 Margaret Atwood was trending on Twitter.
00:14:19.440 And, again, this is just one of those examples of the left eating their own.
00:14:22.820 So, as you know, Margaret Atwood is a author, a celebrated author, and very much a cultural woke leftist who pushes the far-left view on basically every issue.
00:14:36.160 Well, she got mobbed on Twitter for the crime of sharing a Toronto Star op-ed that was written by Rosie DeMano.
00:14:43.460 And all she did was just share the tweet.
00:14:45.400 She didn't write the op-ed.
00:14:46.580 She didn't come up with the idea.
00:14:48.520 She just shared an article with the headline that came with the article.
00:14:52.160 The article said, why can't we say women anymore? 0.53
00:14:55.720 That was it.
00:14:56.300 That was all that she tweeted.
00:14:57.700 And she got absolutely mobbed.
00:14:59.800 So, the context of the story of the op-ed in the Toronto Star is that it says this.
00:15:05.660 The word woman is in danger of becoming a dirty word, struck from the lexicon of officialdom, eradicated from medical vocabulary, and expunged from conversation.
00:15:15.800 Yet, in 2016, the British Medical Association recommended staff use pregnant people instead of pregnant woman.
00:15:21.400 A British hospital now instructs staff on its maternity ward to use birthing people instead of pregnant woman.
00:15:27.860 The Biden administration's proposed 2022 budget substituted birth people for mothers, and so on, and so on, and so on.
00:15:35.780 And, of course, AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has talked about menstruating people instead of saying the word woman. 0.65
00:15:43.600 And so, as I said, the column over in the Toronto Star was written by Rosie D'Amano.
00:15:46.960 She's the only columnist over there that has a sense, a hint of common sense in her view.
00:15:51.780 And she's just talking about how, you know, not even taking a really strong opinion, but just basically talking about how this word woman is being erased, and there's this new trend that we see all over the place.
00:16:02.320 And it's usually the butt of a joke on social media where people are piling on about how ridiculous it is that so many officials are now afraid to use the word woman because they don't want to offend the trans community.
00:16:13.080 And so we're creating all of these really stupid made-up words to describe women instead of just saying women.
00:16:19.120 And, again, all Margaret Atwood did was just share that tweet with the title. 0.96
00:16:24.280 And, once again, she got mobbed.
00:16:26.420 She was trending on Twitter, and her tweet pretty much got ratioed.
00:16:29.860 She got almost 5,000 quote retweets compared to 1,700 retweets and almost 9,000 likes.
00:16:37.280 So not quite as bad of the ratio as the Saskatchewan Health Authority tweet.
00:16:41.160 But, instead, we saw a lot of sort of high-profile trans activists really going after her.
00:16:45.940 And so I'll just give you a couple of examples here.
00:16:49.200 Katie Mack, an account with over 400,000 followers, wrote this.
00:16:52.500 No one is banning the word woman.
00:16:54.180 Many organizations are rightly opting for precise language when talking about things that have to do with biological traits rather than gender identity.
00:17:01.540 It's not an attack on womanhood to not equate gender with specific biology.
00:17:05.980 That's basically the argument of the trans community.
00:17:08.080 Another account with 70,000 followers who identifies as a non-binary trans mom says this.
00:17:14.360 I'm disappointed.
00:17:15.440 You shared this because it's factually untrue.
00:17:17.880 We can still say woman, and we can also say people when it makes sense to use more inclusive language.
00:17:23.920 I'm non-binary.
00:17:25.080 I also menstruate and gave birth to three kids.
00:17:27.620 Saying people with periods includes women and me.
00:17:31.180 Try to wrap your head around that one.
00:17:32.500 Finally, we have Erica Infill, a U.S. activist and columnist, saying good morning to everyone except Margaret Atwood.
00:17:40.620 These second-wave feminists need to find the exit if they can't be intersectional. 1.00
00:17:45.800 So here you see the sort of young, woke, internet feminists going after the sort of old-school feminists. 1.00
00:17:51.960 We've seen that a lot.
00:17:53.260 The two communities really don't see eye-to-eye on some issues when it comes to sort of protecting womanhood, women's spaces, and it's really interesting to see this play out on the left.
00:18:05.320 And it also might be a little bit of karma because, remember, not too long ago, Margaret Atwood came after J.K. Rowling over a very similar kind of issue.
00:18:13.760 Atwood signed an open letter in support of the trans community from a group of U.S. writers and authors when J.K. Rowling was facing her being cancelled over comments about the fact that sex is real, biological sex is real.
00:18:26.720 J.K. Rowling's comment says, if sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.
00:18:32.180 And so instead of defending J.K. Rowling in the instance, Atwood signed the letter essentially denouncing Rowling and defending the people who wanted to cancel her and feeding into her cancellation.
00:18:44.200 And so it is just a little bit of delicious irony when you see someone like Margaret Atwood, when the tables have turned, she failed to defend a fellow woman writer in that instance, and now she herself is being mobbed again for just the stupidest comments.
00:18:58.500 I'm not a proponent of cancel culture. I think it is idiotic. And I think that the reaction to this Margaret Atwood tweet is just desperation.
00:19:06.740 It's just people who spend too much time online who are just desperate to virtue signal, to show their superiority.
00:19:12.560 They want excitement. They want someone to cancel. And so they have set their sights on Margaret Atwood.
00:19:17.580 And to Margaret Atwood, it's just a little bit of karma for the fact that she usually likes to be on the trendy side of the issues and for the crime of sharing this rather innocuous Toronto Star op-ed.
00:19:26.720 Instead, she herself is getting mobbed online. It's a crazy world out there, folks.
00:19:31.340 And, you know, the less time we spend on Twitter, the more sanity we maintain.
00:19:36.140 Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back next week. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:19:39.980 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.