Liberals inch closer to a MAJORITY ｜ Carney’s new Trudeau Cabinet ｜ Keean and Candice DISAGREE about Alberta’s future
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Summary
Candace Malm and Kian Bexley talk about the latest recount in the federal election and recount in Terrebonne, Quebec, where a woman claims she voted for the Liberals but they refused to accept her vote.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for
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you today. After the federal election, I did a broadcast where I talked about the good
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news about the election. One of the things that I thought was pretty good was the fact
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that the Conservatives were able to hold the Liberals to a minority government and I predicted
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there'd be another election inside two years. Well, I may have to go back on that prediction
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because it seems like the Liberals are, by hell or high water, going to find a way to
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get a majority government in Canada, find a way to rule this country, one party rule.
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And so we are going to go through the latest shenanigans when it comes to Elections Canada
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and the recount. And joining me today, I'm very pleased to welcome Kian Bexley, co-founder
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of Juno News and journalist based in Calgary. Kian, welcome to the show.
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Hi, Candace. It really is recount and count again until you win, hey?
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This is unbelievable, this story. OK, let me walk you through it, folks, because this is
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the headline over at CBC. Liberals won in Terrebonne, Quebec by one vote. But this woman's
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ballot wasn't counted. So the original story is that there were several recounts in this
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writing in suburban Montreal. It went back and forth. So when you read the details, it's
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unbelievable. Let me just read the story. Elections Canada says it is investigating after a voter
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in a Quebec writing came forward with an envelope that had been returned to sender. Inside was
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a vote for Bloc Quebecois in the Terrebonne writing. Where it stands, as it stands, incoming
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Liberal MP Tatiana Agusta was declared the winner by one vote after several recounts. So
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they recounted this thing several times. Turns out they found that the Liberals won by one
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vote. And then a woman shows up and says, wait a minute, I voted for the Bloc, but they
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never accepted my vote. And so I don't see a way how this is going to stand. Let me just
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again go through the details because it's really stranger than fiction. Elections Canada said
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the return address printed on the elector's return envelope was incorrect, specifically part
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of the postal code. We're still working to gather all the facts. We'll be able to get back to you
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as soon as we have more information, the agency said in a statement to CBC News. The voter, however,
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remains irked, obviously, because she said that she sent it on time. So according to the, you know,
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the Elections Canada, Canada Post tracks this. So she said that her vote was mailed on April 5th.
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So plenty of time before the April 28th election. And then it was returned to her after the election
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on May 2nd. And of course, you can see that the postal code was incorrect, but she didn't write
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the envelope herself, right? When you have a special ballot, when you vote by mail, Elections Canada
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gives you a pre-written envelope that has the address. So it was Elections Canada that made the
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mistake. And so I don't see how this is going to stand. I think that there will be some kind of,
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like this, they'll take this to court for sure. But let me just read the details about what happened.
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On election night, Terrebonne initially went to Augusta, so the Liberal, by 35 votes. But after
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a standard validation process, the result flips to the incumbent Bloc MP, Nathaniel Sinclair
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Desanets, by 44 votes. So did you catch that, Kian? So initially, the Liberals won by 35 votes.
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Then they did a recount, and they found that the Bloc won by 44 votes. So it's not even in the same
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universe. We're talking about a difference of 79 votes. And then they did another recount. This
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triggered an automatic judicial recount. Days later, it showed that Augusta had won by a single vote. So
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they found 35, disappeared to 44, back down to one. And unbelievable, this thing has switched back and
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forth. And now it's just 1%. So when you look at the official numbers there, you see just how
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unbelievably, incredibly close it is. Terrebonne, the Liberals got 23,352 votes, and the Bloc 23,351.
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What a mess, right? We're supposed to believe in the integrity of Elections Canada. We're supposed
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to say, oh, you know, we trust that the election was sound. You know, there's been so many stories,
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let me just go through a couple of them. Elections Canada failed to count hundreds of ballots
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left in a Vancouver office, 822 special ballots. Oops, we found them after the election. They don't
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count. We have two other recounts underway. One in rural Newfoundland, riding where the Liberals
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had a 12-vote lead. That is Terranova, the Peninsulas. And then another one, a judge approved
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a ballot recount in Windsor, Tecumse, Lakeshore. So here we are, three weeks after the election,
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two and a half weeks after the election. There's still some outstanding votes. We know that the
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Liberals need 172 seats to get their majority. Right now they stand at 170, which means they
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are two seats away, even with the Speaker, of getting to a majority. All they have to
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do is just convince one or two Bloc or NDP or Elizabeth May to come over, jump over to
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the Liberal side, and we could be seeing a four-year nightmare scenario. What do you think, Ian?
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Well, Elizabeth May is already committed. She said that she would join Cabinet. She said she
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would do whatever it takes to support Mark Carney. So you can just count the Green MP to be a member
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of the Liberal Party. Mark Carney, you know, we watched election night together and we saw the
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numbers just sort of slowly move to exactly what they needed for a majority. And then when they didn't
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get it, oh, it was the recounts and then a recount again and keep recounting until we get the result
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that we want. And now they're saying that that one specific writing that you were mentioning
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is within a one vote margin and some votes for the Bloc were thrown out. A lot of Canadians are
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saying right now, and I tend to agree, that these writings that were won by less than 400 votes and
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they have more than 400 spoiled ballots, Elections Canada should be obligated to store those ballots,
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scan them, and explain what happened to each and every rejected or spoiled ballot or damaged ballot
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or whatever it whatever it was. I've been on the inside count room of a lot of elections, both
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general elections as a scrutineer and in political nomination contests. And I can tell you whether a
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ballot is accepted or rejected is a very political process and very subjective sometimes too.
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You know, one rule is that you can't identify yourself when you're marking the ballot. And if you
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people put some really crazy, you think that people would just put an X on the ballot, but they don't.
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Sometimes they put a B, sometimes they put a one, sometimes they put a check mark, sometimes they
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put an X on the ballot. And the point of putting a ballot in the ballot box with nobody knowing who
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put that ballot in there, you know, there's a whole reason and process behind it. But at the end of the
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day, what matters is voter intention and being able to say, yes, the voter wanted to send this candidate
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to Ottawa one way or another, and they didn't identify who they were. And if you're able to do that,
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the ballot should be counted. And the fact that we can't see all those ballots and audit them with
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our own eyes, and we just have to trust that, oh, this writing had 500 spoiled ballots and the
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candidate won by one vote. It's like, hmm, the liberal incumbent won by one vote. Hmm, really?
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That's really strange to me, I think. And the fact that Carney is just getting right up to what
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he needs to get a majority government, like within a seat or two, it might even with the speaker,
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or he might actually have it with Elizabeth May not crossing the floor, but, you know,
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basically doing that with her vote. She said she would be a speaker or she would be in cabinet with
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Carney. And it's a bit of a joke that Mark Carney was able to steal this away from Canadians when they
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so obviously didn't want to give him a majority on election night. That's so true. And just the fact
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that you immediately had a woman come forth saying, my ballot was rejected because of a mistake by
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Elections Canada. It wasn't like she filled out the envelope herself. It was Elections Canada with
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a pre-printed return envelope that caused it. I mean, how many other ballots have we just not
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heard about, right, that the person doesn't know about or got returned to senator and got lost in
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the mail or something like that, right? Like the fact that they immediately had a person saying,
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wait a minute, one vote, this writing went by one vote, this entire country could actually flip
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to majority based on such a slim margin. Wow, folks, it really, really brings in the message.
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One vote could have given Mark Carney a majority government based on Elections Canada's own
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failure. You know, don't attribute to malice, but you can attribute to incompetence. And when it
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comes to bureaucrats, there's plenty of that to go around. It is really, really, really, you know,
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disappointing when you look at across the country, how individual writings were handled by Elections
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Canada. And it's just, you know, it's beyond the pale in some cases with what happened in that
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specific writing. Well, especially given what's happened in our country, say, over the last five
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years since COVID. Like I would say trust in institutions and big government institutions
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is probably at an all time low, especially with a subset of Canadians. Some of them are probably
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viewing this show right now that they just don't trust the government. They don't trust these
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institutions to do what they're supposed to. So yes, I agree. Don't attribute it to malice. It could
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just probably be sheer incompetence. But there is some malice out there as well. And I think that's
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why it's important to point some of these things out. Kian, I know we're on YouTube and we don't want to
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get censored. I do want to get to a couple of other topics here. I want to talk about
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Mark Carney introducing his new cabinet. He says that he has presented a small focus cabinet with
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fewer than 30 ministers and up to 10 secretaries of state. These were announced just earlier today.
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There was some speculation that Chrystia Freeland would not be appointed in cabinet. Well, that is
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not true. She has been demoted down to minister of trade. The original post that Donald Trump literally
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mentioned in the Oval Office last week that he really didn't like her in this role. And now here she is
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minister of trade. So we're going to go through that. And I want to talk to you a little bit about
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the Alberta separatist project. Because I know you're out in Alberta. I know you're a patriotic
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Canadian. You love our country. But you have been reporting on the ground. And we're going to talk
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about the Alberta prosperity project and how they are unveiling their referendum question.
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Yeah. I have a lot to say about Alberta separatism. And I want to set the record straight on what I
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actually think about it. Because a lot of people online sort of say that, oh, you know,
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Kian must be, you know... Wait, wait. Hold that thought. Hold that thought. I want to
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get your opinion. You're going to tell us exactly what you think. But folks, we're going to do
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something a little different today. So Kian and I are going to hop over to Juno News. And we're going
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to complete the show. We're going to finish the show for subscribers only. So if you want to watch the
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rest of our conversation, we're going to talk about Alberta separatism. We're going to talk a bit more
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about Mark Carney. And we also have some... We're going to read our hate mail. We have some hate
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mail, especially a couple of pieces from Legacy Media that have been... They've written about five
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hit pieces on us since we launched. Actually more than that, just since the election. So they really
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have a lot to say about us. We're going to read some fan mail as well. So if you want to join all of
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that, head on over to JunoNews.com. Become a premium subscriber. And we're going to do these
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fireside chats frequently with the founders of Juno News, myself, Candice Malcolm, and Kian Bexty. So
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join us over there. And we're going to have a lot of fun.