Is Elon Musk really spreading āmisinformationā about Canadaļ¼
Episode Stats
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Summary
The Toronto Star recently published an article claiming that Elon Musk is spreading misinformation. Well, what did Elon Musk do? Well, he said that Canada doesn t protect freedom of speech. Now, at the same time, the CBC released a smear campaign against the same man, accusing him of hate speech and encouraging censorship on his platform X. Which one is it, Legacy Media? Does Canada support free speech or does Canada support censorship?
Transcript
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The Toronto Star recently published an article claiming that Elon Musk is spreading misinformation.
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What did Elon Musk do? Well, he said that Canada doesn't protect freedom of speech.
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Now, at the same time, the CBC released a smear campaign against the same man, Elon Musk,
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accusing him of hate speech and encouraging more censorship on his platform X.
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So which one is it, Legacy Media? Does Canada support free speech?
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Or does Canada support censorship because you can't have it both ways?
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It's Fake News Friday. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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So I have been waiting all week to tell you about this op-ed.
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I love Fake News Friday. It's my favorite show of the week because I want to talk to you about this op-ed
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that was published over in the Toronto Star earlier this week.
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Elon Musk's misinformation about Canada, a dangerous sign.
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Musk's remarks were a stark reminder that misinformation can come from the most unexpected sources,
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So why is the Toronto Star attacking Elon Musk?
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And what exactly did Musk say that was so dangerous?
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It is from a summit with the New York Times when Elon Musk just sort of has a throwaway line
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where he talks about Canada and says two quick things about Canada.
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And, you know, a lot of these, a lot of things that we take for granted here in the United States
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There's not enough constitutional right to freedom of speech in Canada.
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So, you know, and there's no Miranda rights in Canada.
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People like think like, you know, you have the right to remain silent.
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He's talking about freedom of expression in the United States and protecting that.
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And then he just sort of decides to compare it with Canada.
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So if you're looking at it from a Canadian perspective, you have to know the context
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that he is talking about Canada in comparison to the United States.
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The United States has the most robust constitutionally protected free speech.
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They have a culture that really, really takes seriously their First Amendment,
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It's something that the Supreme Court takes seriously.
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So in comparison to the United States, Elon Musk is saying that Canada is not a country
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Now, as you could see in that clip, it was just two quick lines in an interview.
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So all we really have are the two statements to work off of claim number one,
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that there's no constitutionally protected right to free speech in Canada, and claim number
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two, that there are no Miranda rights in Canada, like the whole idea that you have the right
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OK, so those two quick claims led to the writing and publishing of this entire article.
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Let's go through that article to see how the author and how the Toronto Star justify the
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claims that what Elon Musk said is dangerous and misinformation.
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So my colleague Harrison Faulkner went through this article or mentioned this article on a show
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Go check that out because he did a great job of just pointing out the absurdity of this article.
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But basically, the premise is this individual, I suppose, is from Afghanistan.
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He's talking about how life under the Taliban was really scary and horrible, and they came
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And now hearing this statement from Elon Musk left them feeling, quote, uneasy about the possibility
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And so what does he have to say specifically about Musk's claims?
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Section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms unequivocally protects fundamental
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So again, there's not really a lot of substance to this article other than that one claim that
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he just says that Canada unequivocally protects fundamental freedoms.
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Now, I don't want to get too deep into constitutional theory, but look, every country in the world
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Every country in the world can write things down in a constitution, but that doesn't necessarily
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Those are values that are upheld at every level of government, every level in society
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And so the main difference between the country like the United States, as I mentioned, is
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that they have this commitment, this cultural commitment, this government commitment to
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freedom of expression that is unlike any other country.
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And right there, it says that we have the right to freedom of expression.
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But just because it's written down doesn't mean that it is an absolute right.
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So I'm going to read from the Government of Canada's own guide to the Charter of Rights
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This is what the Government of Canada has to say about our rights and freedoms in the
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It says this, however, the rights and freedoms in the Charter are not absolute.
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They can be limited to protect other rights or important national values.
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For example, freedom of expression may be limited by laws against hate propaganda or child
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Section one of the Charter says the Charter rights can be limited by law so long as those
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limits can be shown to be reasonable in a free and democratic society.
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But it shows that Canada's commitment is not to absolute fundamentalist freedom of speech.
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We've seen example after example of the government abending freedom of speech.
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I mean, just look at the Trudeau government censorship regime.
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Look at the way that they interfere in the free press.
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They're obviously not committed to freedom of expression in a real way.
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And I will continue to demonstrate that throughout this episode that Canada doesn't have the same
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If you're going to make a claim, if you're going to make the headline of your story saying
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that a public figure is spreading misinformation, you better be right.
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You better have receipts and you better be able to defend yourself with facts.
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They just had that one line that says that Canada unequivocally respects freedom of speech.
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They don't provide that context that Elon Musk was comparing Canada with the United States.
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Remember, the United States is a country with the best constitutionally protected freedom
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In fact, interestingly, and a little ironically, I will say, the United States is frequently criticized
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by the likes of the Toronto Star and others for being too militantly pro-speech.
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This is an article from the Toronto Star, it's about a decade old, but it is when then
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper repealed Section 13 of the Human Rights Act.
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So those of you who remember, those of you who are paying attention to politics 10 years
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ago, know that this Section 13 was a real thorn in the side for free speech activists.
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It allowed basically the creation of these kangaroo courts, which were designed to punish people
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for things that they said that other people did not like.
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It basically turned hate speech into a weapon that you could use in Canadian courts or sort
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of fake Canadian courts to punish people who said things that were offensive or said things
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Stephen Harper repealing Section 13 was a huge victory for freedom-loving Canadians, especially
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for people in my field, in the journalism and commentary field.
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And so, of course, the Toronto Star at the time hated it.
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So here in this article, the Toronto Star is telling us how much that they loathe Stephen
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And the author calls those who support free speech members of the far right.
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And so here, I'll just read you a few examples from the story.
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He's talking about the philosophy behind Section 13, why it was created and what it did for Canada.
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He said, in Canada, there was to be freedom of speech, but also freedom from hate.
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So the Canadian way was going to be to balance freedom of speech with freedom from hate.
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If you're balancing a person's right to freely express themselves, balancing that with another
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person's right not to be offended, well, you can't really have both.
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And the emphasis in Canada is always on the latter, always on the person not wanting to
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And therefore, the former, the freedom of speech, doesn't really exist in a meaningful
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It says, this was challenged by advocates of American style free speech, an unholy alliance
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of media that wanted a few restrictions on content as possible, and anti-Semites and others
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American style free speech is used as a pejorative by the likes of the Toronto Star.
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And they claim that the only ones who are really calling for free speech are greedy
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Well, you can't have it both ways, Toronto Star.
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You cannot claim that Canada has some absolute right to free speech and that it is constitutionally
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protected, and then also say that hate speech is bad and that American style free speech
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Those two things cannot exist at the same time.
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But of course, the Toronto Star does want to have it both ways.
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They believe that so-called hate speech should be illegal.
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They believe in government control and government funding of the media, including their own newspaper.
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And they believe that vague concepts like denialism should be illegal in Canada.
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Here's a story that they wrote very recently about how Canada should consider legal options
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In this article, they basically advocate for new laws, making it illegal to deny claims,
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official claims about residential schools, which again, things that would never happen in
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the United States, things that would never happen in a country that has a serious,
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And that's the greater irony of this whole piece.
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This very article which calls Elon Musk's speech misinformation.
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It's part of a broader campaign designed to restrict and curb freedom of speech.
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And speaking about that mindset and that broader campaign to curb freedom of speech, a campaign
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where Justin Trudeau, by the way, is one of the leading figures.
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It is also about Elon Musk, but this time it is criticizing him for the exact opposite thing
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that the Toronto Star is criticizing him for it.
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So CBC calls this investigative journalism, but they're really just employing the exact
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same tactics that Media Matters employed recently against Elon Musk and X to try to
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get advertisers to flee X, to flee that platform.
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So Media Matters, for those who aren't familiar, is a U.S. highly partisan, far-left organization
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whose job is simply to take conservatives out of context.
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They clip conservatives or they find things that conservatives said.
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They take it out of context and they use that to try to get advertisers to leave conservative
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platforms to stop advertising for conservatives.
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Recently, they decided to take aim at Elon Musk.
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And Elon Musk, good for him, to his credit, he decided that he had had enough of their loathsome
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And he is suing them in what he calls a thermonuclear lawsuit.
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After Media Matters published a smear campaign against them, he writes, the split second courts
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X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded
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Well, the lazy state broadcaster, who, as we know, is really nothing more than a front
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They took the exact same hatchet job premise, the evil propaganda campaign, and they simply
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It says, CBC Investigates, Bell Media, Angus Reid, and other Canadian brands halt ads on
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Advertisers increasingly reticent since Elon Musk took over a platform a year ago.
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So the whole premise of the CBC article is that they've refreshed ads over and over and
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over again until they saw an ad from one of those companies next to a post that they
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And then they screenshotted that and pressured those companies to stop advertising on the
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It's really just bullying mixed with activism, mixed with really deceitful, dishonest journalism
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And it's all based on the premise that free speech is bad and employing cancel culture is
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And as Elon Musk said, it's a fraudulent attack.
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I really wish that Elon Musk would notice this and deploy the same thermonuclear lawsuit against
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the CBC for more or less doing the exact same thing as media matters.
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We have two legacy media outlets, two of the leading pro-Trudeau leftist publications in
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Canada saying at the same time that Elon Musk is guilty of misinformation for saying that
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But then also saying that Musk's platform doesn't do enough to crack down on free speech, saying
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that there is an unchecked rise in hateful content.
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The CBC in this piece is proving Musk right and showing that the Toronto Star is flat out
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Canada, under the Trudeau government, values censorship.
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The CBC is working very hard to shut down voices it disagrees with.
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Well, in that same interview where Musk said that Canada doesn't really value free speech,
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he also had a message for advertisers, a message for those woke and dying companies like Disney
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who followed the censorship recommendations by media matters and pulled their ads off of
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If somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money,
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Seriously, Elon Musk should say the exact same thing to the CBC, to the Toronto Star and
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the Trudeau government and the entire fake news censorship regime in Canada.
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I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm.