The Candice Malcolm Show - One Party Rule in Canada! How the Liberals are rigging the system

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. We have a great show for you this

00:00:12.720 morning. We are going to get into all of Trump's recent comments over the weekend calling Justin

00:00:17.900 Trudeau a loser. And first we're going to get into this ruby dollar situation because from best I

00:00:25.120 can tell the fix is in. The Liberal Party has done everything in its power to try to remove obstacles

00:00:31.460 for the coronation of Mark Carney. Mark Carney is the one that they want. He's the one that has been

00:00:36.880 chosen. He has been selected. He comes from the World Economic Forum. He's a central banker. He's

00:00:41.600 been centrally cast to be the prime minister of Canada and the Liberal Party, the liberal machine

00:00:46.800 will do everything in their power to make sure that he's prime minister, including apparently

00:00:51.700 wielding the CBC and turning it into their personal propaganda machine. We're going to get to

00:00:57.200 all of that. I'm very pleased today to be joined for the whole show by Professor Bruce Party. He's a

00:01:02.860 legal scholar, professor of law, Queen's University, and he is always an interesting guest. So Bruce,

00:01:08.760 thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Candace. Pleasure to be with you.

00:01:13.960 Okay, let's get into the ruby dollar situation because we learned on Friday that she has been 0.62

00:01:19.300 disqualified as leader in the race. So the Liberal Party committee voted unanimously, we're told,

00:01:26.320 to disqualify the former MP from the leadership race. The committee claims to have found 10 serious

00:01:31.900 violations, including breaches of party rules, potential violations of the Elections Canada Act,

00:01:36.580 and a failure to disclose a non-citizen's involvement in her campaign, which they argued could amount to

00:01:42.680 foreign interference. This is the best part, though, Bruce. Ruby Dalla learned about her

00:01:48.160 disqualification live on air on CBC. She was invited to do a CBC news hit, and apparently

00:01:55.680 CBC got the memo before they even informed their own candidate that she had been disqualified. 0.90

00:02:01.900 Here is what that looked like, folks. This is CBC, Friday, February 21st,

00:02:06.480 unbelievable power and politics with David Cochran. Let's play that clip.

00:02:10.180 Have you received official word yet from the Liberal Party on your disqualification from this race?

00:02:15.760 I haven't as of yet. It's quite interesting that I turned on CBC news and read your headline that I

00:02:22.900 was being disqualified from the race. I checked my email, my campaign team has, and as of this moment,

00:02:28.900 we have not received any indication from the Liberal Party as to that type of decision.

00:02:34.540 I just, I can't even believe, like, what kind of country do we live in, Bruce, where the state

00:02:39.400 broadcaster has information about a campaign that the candidate themselves doesn't even have?

00:02:44.400 They're closer, in closer cahoots in communication with the Liberal Party than the candidates. What do

00:02:50.600 you make of all this?

00:02:52.560 Well, it tells you more than you want to know, doesn't it? So there's a,

00:03:00.780 we think of political parties as public institutions, and we expect them to behave as though they are

00:03:07.780 parts of the state. And I think that's our first mistake. They are actually not. They're more or

00:03:13.460 less semi-private organizations. And it's simply because the Liberals and the Conservatives, but the

00:03:19.660 Liberals, you know, the natural governing party of Canada, are in power so often. We think of them as

00:03:27.360 sort of synonymous with government, but they're not. The people on the inside, the Liberal Party,

00:03:32.960 we control the party, and our expectations are misplaced. This kind of event

00:03:40.480 pulls back the curtain to show us all how it really works. And so when you have the candidate

00:03:49.360 on CBC and CBC telling her that she's been disqualified, that's the way it really works.

00:03:55.940 And the people on the inside have voted to disqualify her. Now, who knows what the actual

00:04:00.000 facts are? You know, I'm myself, I'm a little dubious that these disqualification events are

00:04:06.440 real, but who knows? But the bottom line is, the people inside control who gets to be the candidate,

00:04:12.820 who gets to be the leader. And we have to stop insisting that our expectations are real instead

00:04:20.560 of seeing things for what they actually are. Well, I mean, you're obviously right,

00:04:25.840 because this isn't democracy. This isn't a grassroots selection process. This is clearly

00:04:30.520 a top-down decision. And I don't think that Ruby Dalla was a particularly strong candidate. I don't know

00:04:36.580 that she would have even stood a chance against Mark Carney, because, you know, that's where all the

00:04:41.460 institutional inertia is going towards him in the leadership race. But the fact that she was a bit

00:04:47.240 of an outsider, yes, she'd been an MP, but she hasn't been in the Ottawa bubble for a decade.

00:04:52.160 She was talking about different kinds of issues. And I think that she did pose a unique threat. 0.98

00:04:56.780 She spoke to Ruby Dalla, joined Juno News' Cat Canada in an exclusive interview over the weekend.

00:05:02.360 And she basically just said, look, they didn't want me to be out there because I posed a threat to

00:05:08.420 Mark Carney. Here, let's play a clip of what that looked like.

00:05:11.460 I think that they wanted to complete the coronation of Mark Carney. They did not want to have Ruby

00:05:18.160 Dalla on that debate stage or on that ballot. And ultimately, they were denying, not Ruby Dalla,

00:05:23.440 but they denied the thousands of people that were supporting me and wanted to vote for a Liberal

00:05:28.900 party that would be brought back to the centre. And most importantly, a party where all the membership

00:05:34.600 and the grassroots would actually have a voice.

00:05:36.880 So she said that. And even further to her point, so speaking on CBC's power in politics,

00:05:44.520 this was on Thursday. So the day before this all happened, we had a former Liberal Party

00:05:51.620 insider, I believe, a senior advisor, Stevie O'Brien. Basically, say the quiet part out loud.

00:05:57.500 Let's play that clip.

00:05:59.200 I certainly hope that the party finds a legitimate reason to disqualify her candidacy before the

00:06:05.180 debate.

00:06:05.580 Really?

00:06:06.280 I hope so. I think that, you know, we've got a serious campaign. Canadians are looking for

00:06:12.680 a serious leader. I think that's one of the reasons that Carney is doing very well. I would

00:06:17.920 really hate for us to lose, as a partisan, to lose that momentum because someone's trying

00:06:23.680 to turn the debates into a circus.

00:06:26.960 So that was a former chief of staff to a Liberal cabinet minister. And she basically said it.

00:06:31.660 I hope we find a legitimate reason to kick her out because we don't want difficult questions 0.89

00:06:37.000 and we don't want to turn it into a circus, meaning we don't want legitimate questions

00:06:40.620 that could derail Mark Carney's walk into the park of being prime minister. What do you think,

00:06:46.360 Bruce?

00:06:47.660 Well, I think that clip and this event shows how little they fear being exposed for how

00:06:57.460 the thing actually runs. I mean, their control is so complete, not only over the party, but

00:07:06.280 over the country, that they're not concerned about how it looks. And that, to me, is the biggest

00:07:14.980 indication of a problem. I agree with you that I don't think, as a candidate, she probably 0.99

00:07:19.800 amounted to a very serious threat to his eventual victory. But apparently, they didn't want to

00:07:28.740 have a contentious conversation during the debate, which one would think that that's what a debate

00:07:33.960 is for. So they're almost drunk on their own power. If a person like that is willing to say that

00:07:43.560 out loud, then that has become the norm in the way that they think. They think it's okay for,

00:07:50.520 in a liberal leadership race, to find a reason to disqualify a candidate because of the way

00:07:55.940 she will appear to the public.

00:08:00.380 Well, it's interesting. Just a couple of further pieces of context here, right? When Justin Trudeau

00:08:05.260 resigned, or at least stated his intention to resign, he's still the prime minister, but

00:08:08.940 on January 6th, he resigned. And he said that the Liberal Party will have a robust leadership campaign

00:08:15.140 where the leader will be chosen from the grassroots. That's obviously not true.

00:08:20.080 He also said, after Donald Trump was re-elected, President Trump was re-elected down in the States,

00:08:24.240 he said that the American population missed out on the opportunity to elect its first female

00:08:29.560 president, and was sort of looking down his nose at those Americans who didn't make the right choice

00:08:35.340 and elect a Democrat. And so there's just so many layers of irony here. It's like they don't care

00:08:40.400 about democracy. They don't care about women. They don't care about anything. They don't care

00:08:43.380 about minorities. They're happy to kick out the people of Indian descent from the leadership race 1.00

00:08:48.420 so that we have like three white front runners. And that's really what the Liberal Party is all

00:08:53.540 about, even though they like to say that they're all about diversity and all these other things.

00:08:57.880 All true. But the most telling thing is that it's so transparently true. And yet it doesn't seem to

00:09:07.160 matter. Right? And that's not the fault of the people who are speaking. I mean, the hypocrisy is

00:09:14.460 obvious. But the real problem is that it continues to work. Why is it that so many Canadians have such a 0.64

00:09:22.820 short memory so that this kind of propaganda, and that's really what it is, succeeds? You would like

00:09:30.920 to think that eventually, you know, a critical mass of people would recognize it for what it was,

00:09:37.240 for what you just described it as. But apparently that doesn't seem to be so. And the same thing with

00:09:41.680 the disqualification of Della. Like, it doesn't seem to matter. And so why wouldn't they continue

00:09:48.440 down this path? Well, I mean, help us understand, because we've seen the Liberals have a bounce. I

00:09:54.320 don't know if it's a resurgence. I don't know if the polls are picking things up accurately. But

00:09:58.300 many, many polls, if not almost all of the polls over the last six weeks have shown a huge bounce

00:10:04.220 in the Liberals. Some of them show the Liberals up to being neck and neck with the Conservatives. It

00:10:08.340 was just in December before Trudeau announced his intention to resign that it looked like Pierre

00:10:13.160 Polyev was going to walk into one of the biggest majority governments in Canadian history. And now it's 0.86

00:10:18.100 like a coin flip. I don't even know that he's for sure going to win. So how is it that with a

00:10:24.100 Liberal Party being so callous, so, like you said, unabashedly willing to change the rules, to kick

00:10:31.400 people out, to even say it out loud on CBC for the whole country to see, we're going to rig it,

00:10:36.940 we're going to get our guy in. And yet Canadians are, presumably, I mean, maybe the polls are wrong,

00:10:43.020 and maybe it's all part of a coordinated attempt to make Canadians think that there's,

00:10:47.600 enthusiasm and support and love from Mark Carney. I'm not sure. But like, like, you live in Ontario,

00:10:55.260 help us understand these Ontario voters. Why is it that they'd be so willing to forgive

00:11:00.500 a party like the Liberal Party? I wish I knew. I really, I really wish I knew. I don't know if

00:11:06.680 these polls are valid or not. I don't know if they're fake or not. I really don't know. I'm,

00:11:11.980 I'm surprised that there'd be such a change in such a short time. So they might be manipulated.

00:11:18.640 But part of their purpose might be to lead to a further manipulation to make people think,

00:11:23.720 oh, well, now things are different. And now I'm going to rethink what I was going to do before.

00:11:28.840 But it's all part of the same play, right? The powers that be have learned over a long period of

00:11:35.640 time that the public can be manipulated. And they're not wrong. That's the real problem.

00:11:41.100 They're not wrong that the public can be manipulated. And why particular voters in Ontario or elsewhere

00:11:46.960 would be willing after these past nine years to, to, to, to think that maybe things are not so bad

00:11:54.320 after all, couldn't, couldn't begin to tell you.

00:11:57.820 You know, it reminds me of the provincial politics. You know, you had the Dalton McGinty government

00:12:03.100 back in the early 2000s and, you know, they ruled with popular appeal for many years. And then all

00:12:09.120 of a sudden there was just too many scandals and too much waste. And there was this huge boondoggle

00:12:13.260 with the gas power plants being canceled in the middle of the election. And so they got rid of

00:12:18.640 Dalton McGinty and then they just put Kathleen Wynne in. And I couldn't, I couldn't believe that Ontario

00:12:23.160 voters rewarded her with a, with a government, but they did because I think they saw, even though

00:12:28.660 Kathleen Wynne was a minister in McGinty's government, I think they, they saw there was

00:12:32.100 enough change, right? It's, it's, it's not McGinty anymore. It's this new, it's this fresh face,

00:12:35.780 this woman, she's going to be different. And even though it was just the same party, the same 0.98

00:12:39.420 apparatus, the same people behind the scenes, they, they saw it as enough of a change and, and gave her

00:12:44.860 another government now, to be fair, in the next election after that, Doug Ford won, and he's now

00:12:49.540 set to win his third straight majority government. So I don't know that it paid off in the long run

00:12:54.440 for the liberals, but it's interesting that voters would be willing to, to forgive a party with it,

00:12:58.480 with a new face on the front. It's the power of a brand, right? We, this is, you know, goes back to

00:13:05.340 my original point. I mean, the liberal party has a brand and people associate things with the brand

00:13:10.420 that maybe aren't true, but that doesn't matter because it's in their head. It's like, it's like

00:13:15.040 Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a brand and the brand sells the product. The branding of the political

00:13:21.420 party sells the product, even if the product stinks. And, and so there's, there's real value

00:13:26.860 and the, and the, and the, the brand is essentially a private one, privately held. People think that

00:13:34.500 the natural order of things in Canada is, or for that matter, in a province, Ontario, say the

00:13:39.760 natural order of things at the, is it the liberals or the conservatives have to be the government

00:13:44.420 because that's the way we do things. I mean, I know there are NDP exceptions, but essentially

00:13:48.100 the voters won't entertain the possibility that a newcomer to the political arena might,

00:13:56.820 might be a better go. This doesn't happen. And so if you are able to take control of one of these brands,

00:14:03.720 then you've got a shot. If not, you're, you're out in the political wilderness. And that's a very

00:14:10.560 hard thing to shake. Even if the parties themselves spend years denigrating their brand, people don't

00:14:17.980 seem to notice. It's a very, it's a very powerful, um, um, deeply held, uh, perception and, uh, and

00:14:26.560 difficult to shake.

00:14:27.240 Well, a huge part of the liberal party's brand is sort of this appeal to anti-American sentiment. I think

00:14:34.320 that lives strongest in the minds of central Canadians and Laurentians that they really define themselves as

00:14:40.100 Canadians as just being not Americans and counter to the American. And the stronger that anti-American 0.63

00:14:44.500 sentiment is, the better the liberals seem to do. And so we can enter Trump into the conversation.

00:14:51.060 And he was really ramping up the rhetoric over the weekend. Now, on the one hand, as a conservative,

00:14:57.160 that's, you know, I like Donald Trump. I like, I like a lot of the things that he says and does,

00:15:01.980 um, in the States. I think that the Canadian conservatives would be better picking up some

00:15:06.640 of those things, not all of them, but some of them. Um, I like Trump. I think he's hilarious.

00:15:10.400 And I think he's good for the country, for the U S. Um, but some of the things he's doing is just not

00:15:14.720 helpful to us Canadians and conservatives. And I'll give you a few examples. So, uh, first we'll talk

00:15:20.160 about his appearance on Fox news with Brian Kilmeade and president Trump calls Justin Trudeau a loser, 0.96

00:15:27.360 says he always has been. Let's play that clip. 0.96

00:15:29.120 He won the first game and the second game was a great game. We could have gone either way. Justin's a loser,

00:15:35.520 always has been. And, uh, you know, he's, he's, uh, he's just a guy that really doesn't, I think he's 0.99

00:15:43.600 done a very bad job for Canada. He's taken it radical left. Justin's, uh, uh, sort of a nice guy,

00:15:50.560 but he's a loser. Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your 0.98

00:15:56.480 mouth. Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light, rich, creamy, chocolatey arrow

00:16:02.960 truffle. Feel the arrow bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.

00:16:08.640 Okay. All right. Thanks for your opinion there, president Trump. Uh, we know that president Trump

00:16:12.800 doesn't have a lot of time for Justin Trudeau because, uh, when, when, when Justin Trudeau was

00:16:17.760 speaking the night that they introduced the retaliatory tariffs to Trump's tariffs, Trudeau let

00:16:24.080 it slip that he has been trying to get ahold of president Trump and Trump won't take his call.

00:16:28.800 Let's play that clip. What does it tell you about your relationship with president Trump

00:16:33.280 that you've been trying to get ahold of him and he hasn't been speaking with you?

00:16:39.120 I think, um, this is a time where we've all remarked on just how active president Trump has been

00:16:46.560 in engaging, uh, with a wide range of topics, uh, in his first weeks in office.

00:16:52.480 So, so we know that Trump doesn't like Trudeau and those of us who don't like Trudeau either,

00:16:58.640 we, we, we like this fact. It's funny. And I think that Trudeau deserves a bit of trolling

00:17:03.120 and a bit of mockery that he gets. But then at the same time, it sort of fuels this liberal brand.

00:17:08.320 Like the more that Trump is angry at Trudeau and takes it on Trudeau and makes these remarks,

00:17:13.600 somehow the stronger the liberal party gets in Canada. What do you make of all this?

00:17:17.360 Well, of course the, you know, the, the, the reactionary knee jerk anti-Americanism is,

00:17:26.400 has always been, or maybe, I don't know, I don't want to overstate it, but that has been one of the

00:17:32.000 primary characteristics of the Canadian identity. We come by it honestly too. It's in our cultural DNA,

00:17:40.560 if you like, uh, a lot of people who ended up in Canada at the time of the American revolution

00:17:45.440 came to escape the American revolution. We, we, the Canadians were Canadian because they didn't 0.72

00:17:51.840 want to be American. And, and, and let's put it another way over the past, let's say five years or so.

00:18:01.280 Um, a lot of, of the Canadian chattering classes have decided that Canada is a terrible country,

00:18:09.120 a settler country, an oppressive country, uh, you know, uh, uh, an evil capitalist Western country. 0.91

00:18:15.760 And it seems like the only country that they think is worse is the United States.

00:18:23.040 Uh, so it's, it's, it's hilarious to have watched them denigrate the Canadian flag, for example. And now

00:18:29.600 suddenly when the Americans and Trump are trolling them, now they want to wrap themselves in the Canadian flag. 0.90

00:18:35.120 It's just, it's just another piece of the hypocrisy we've been talking about. And the question is, 0.84

00:18:40.720 is anybody noticing? Is, is the Canadian population noticing the hypocrisy, the inconsistencies, the,

00:18:47.840 the, the shrillness of the response? Um, and I, I fear that the answer is that it won't be a very

00:18:55.200 large proportion of the population. It almost feels like we're back in COVID hysteria, Bruce. It's like,

00:19:00.720 it's like, you remember back then when they said that you couldn't go to church,

00:19:04.080 you couldn't go to like your community group. I couldn't go for a walk in the park with my kids.

00:19:08.160 My kids couldn't play on the playground because somehow that was going to be dangerous for COVID.

00:19:11.760 And yet you could walk into the local Loblaws or Costco or any of these big box stores and they

00:19:17.920 were open for business. And it's like, how, how many make sense of that? Right? Like, how is it not

00:19:23.200 only that they can impose these ridiculous rules? Um, but that, that the vast majority of Canadians will just 0.53

00:19:30.320 go along with it. Right. It's like the buy Canada campaign where, you know, I, I read on X, uh,

00:19:35.280 someone was recounting a story about how they were in a Costco in Ottawa about to buy something. And

00:19:40.880 then they got scolded by a fellow shopper saying, you can't buy that. That's made in America. You 1.00

00:19:44.960 have to buy something in Canada. It's like, it's like, hello, you're in Costco. Like Costco is like,

00:19:49.520 the mindset of like, you know, you can't buy something American, but you're, or, or, or all

00:19:56.640 the people who, who say, um, you know, they hate Elon Musk, uh, whilst engaging on X is, it's just

00:20:02.400 inherently contradictory. And yet somehow it works. Somehow the liberals have managed to use this

00:20:09.200 momentum, uh, to, to, to boost themselves in the polls. I'm going to play another example. So, uh,

00:20:14.640 again, this is the kind of thing that as a Canadian conservative, I find it hilarious,

00:20:18.320 um, but not helpful, not helpful. Um, so president Trump was speaking at the Republicans

00:20:23.040 Governors Association in Washington, DC. And he said, I guess rather benevolently that,

00:20:28.240 that he likes the Canadian national anthem. And that when Canada becomes a 51st state,

00:20:32.800 we can keep our national, we can keep O Canada. Uh, let's play that clip.

00:20:36.440 Uh, you heard the people booing the national anthem, but I think ultimately they'll be

00:20:41.760 praising the national anthem. We'll have to work out some deal with it. Cause I do like the O Canada,

00:20:47.680 uh, right. It's a beautiful thing. I think we're going to have to keep it for the 51st state.

00:20:52.400 I call him governor Trudeau. I said, governor Trudeau is doing a wonderful job. I think it's

00:20:57.920 actually cost him his election. If you want to know the truth.

00:21:02.320 No, president Trump, it hasn't cost him the election. It's helping him. It's helping his party.

00:21:06.720 Every time Trump says 51st state, it helps the liberals.

00:21:09.440 Well, so, but this is a kind of moment of truth for Canada really. Right. And, and I know people

00:21:16.000 want to focus on Trudeau and the present liberal government and fair enough, but, but this is a much

00:21:22.960 bigger picture than that. Right. Uh, our, our main threat today, in my opinion, comes from inside,

00:21:33.200 not from outside. Now the, there, there are lots of threats from outside as well. But part of the

00:21:37.840 problem is that our threats from inside are colluding with those outside threats.

00:21:43.280 And so it's not just Trudeau to get rid of Trudeau. The problem's not solved. Carney is going to be a

00:21:47.920 problem, but he's not the problem. I, the conservatives, listen, I have to say this.

00:21:52.320 If the conservatives get in, that is not solve the problem. Like I'm not partisan about this.

00:21:57.920 I think we have some real serious structural constitutional problems in this country that

00:22:03.600 we are pretending to not exist. One of the things I think that a lot of COVID dissidents in Canada

00:22:10.320 discovered was that the country that they thought they lived in does not actually exist.

00:22:23.200 It's a figment of their imagination. And a lot of people are defending now, I think,

00:22:28.400 the country they have in their imagination. That country does not exist. Our main problems are

00:22:35.760 internal. It's the way the country is organized. It's the people who lead us. It's our elites.

00:22:41.120 It's our chattering classes. It's the idea that we need to be managed as a country. It's a,

00:22:46.240 it's in our cultural heritage. We have to rethink, I think, what this country is.

00:22:52.400 And Trump, for all this trolling, and I, I, I understand what you're saying about,

00:22:56.880 you know, the, the, the political moment, but, but Trump has opened the door to a conversation.

00:23:04.240 Now, maybe the conversation will go badly. I don't know. But it is at least now possible

00:23:10.080 to speak about what Canada is and what our fortunes, where our fortunes lie, where they, where we,

00:23:15.760 what we should do now, because this country is in a mess.

00:23:19.200 I tend to agree. I, I mean, I raised this on an interview I did last week with Professor

00:23:24.400 David Haskell from Wilfrid Laurier, where like Canada's, I think Canada's at rock bottom.

00:23:29.680 I can't, I can't imagine the economic situation getting any worse. I mean, when the loonie went

00:23:34.720 down to 68, it's, it's popped back up a little bit, but you know, you have a declining dollar,

00:23:39.440 you have just every single economic problem, cost of living, cost of housing, cost of groceries, 0.96

00:23:44.720 cost of fuel, everything compounding from the liberal government agenda. But then on top of

00:23:49.920 that, you have this social division, not just the separatist movements, but at a local community

00:23:55.520 level, like people don't feel safe in their homes, in their communities. And I talked to so many people

00:23:59.680 who, every time I talked to people from Toronto, it's like that all they're talking about is home

00:24:03.600 robberies, home invasions, carjackings, and the rampant problem of illegal immigration and legal

00:24:09.520 immigration. And even among immigrant communities, it has completely divided them. Like people just 1.00

00:24:14.400 don't feel safe on the streets of Toronto. And even in safe suburbs, they don't feel safe.

00:24:18.640 And to me, like Canada is just not in a good place. And I, and I agree with Pierre Paglia,

00:24:24.560 the conservative leader, when he says Canada is broken, of course it's broken. It's been broken

00:24:27.680 for a long time. It really came to the surface during COVID. And now again, with this hyperinflation

00:24:32.880 and with crime. And, you know, if there were to be a time where Canada could fall, I mean,

00:24:39.840 having this offer from Trump, it's like, it's like this would be a time where more, more Canadians

00:24:44.560 than usual, I think might be open to the idea of it. So I think it's an interesting conversation.

00:24:48.640 I want to bring this, tie this to your recent Substack piece that you wrote last week,

00:24:52.720 a declaration of independence for Alberta. And you're not from Alberta, you're not, you're not an

00:24:57.600 Albertan, but you believe that Alberta potential would be greater if they were independent or

00:25:04.560 potentially part of the United States. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

00:25:07.840 Yes. So as you say, I'm, I'm not from Alberta, I'm an Ontario boy. And so it's really not my place

00:25:14.480 to do this. But I thought, listen, I might as well express what I would say if I was from Alberta,

00:25:19.520 because I perceive that they've not just Alberta, but, but Alberta, first and foremost,

00:25:24.000 really has had a raw deal in Confederation for, for, for quite a while. And, and I know that there

00:25:31.440 are a lot of people in Alberta who feel that way, and it might not be in a majority, but there's a

00:25:35.520 lot of people that I have encountered who, who very firmly think that their fortunes would be much

00:25:40.720 better off either independent or as a part of, of the US of A. And, and this is all part of the,

00:25:48.480 the part of the results of the, of the flaws in this country, as they have come to be.

00:25:55.360 So let's just talk about Alberta first, in particular, Alberta, Alberta's primary industries

00:26:01.280 have been intentionally impeded over a long period of time, while both by the federal government,

00:26:08.480 and by other provinces. So for one example, Quebec refuses to approve pipeline, to move Alberta oil

00:26:16.240 from where it is to the East Coast. The federal government over a period of time has done its

00:26:23.680 best to undermine Alberta's constitutional jurisdiction, through things like the Impact Assessment Act.

00:26:30.560 And there is the bugbear of equalization. For a long time, the wealth of individual Albertans has

00:26:37.360 been taxed by the federal government and then redistributed across the country. And, you know,

00:26:41.920 it's a federation, so it's cooperative. And so sometimes, you know, we help out other places,

00:26:45.840 but this has been going in one direction for a long time. So I do not blame Albertans at all,

00:26:51.920 those who think that they, their fortunes might be better somewhere else. I, I completely understand

00:26:56.720 where they're coming from. The, the thing is that a lot of these problems, I think, can be traced to

00:27:03.040 our Canadian history. Because there was a moment, and I alluded to it earlier, there was a moment where,

00:27:08.560 when the Americans were deciding that they did not want to live under the thumb of the British King

00:27:14.320 anymore, they would have taken us on board and said, let's all do this together. We'll be, let's be a

00:27:21.440 continent. And the Canadians at the time refused. They, they, they wanted to be subject to the King.

00:27:28.960 And, you know, maybe for them, that decision made sense at the time. I can't put myself in their shoes,

00:27:35.120 but nevertheless, that is the legacy of this country. And so there's a determination on the

00:27:41.360 part of many Canadians, and some of them, I would think don't understand why they're so committed to

00:27:47.280 this. But they're committed, number one, to being not American. And number two, they're committed to 0.57

00:27:53.200 being under the thumb of the crown. And I don't think that either one of those two things as a knee

00:28:01.280 jerk reaction is very helpful. I think it's important for us to take this moment, this opportunity

00:28:07.280 to rethink the decision we made in 1775, to rebuff the Americans and say, well, hold on.

00:28:14.800 Let's just rethink this again. We have another choice now, that we have the choice again.

00:28:20.480 What would it mean to, to join the Americans? That's not going to happen as a country. I mean,

00:28:26.320 I know Trump's been trolling us as a 51st state. I don't think there's any prospect at all of Canada

00:28:33.200 as a unit becoming the 51st state. The embedded interest in our federal system, in our national

00:28:43.280 system simply will not stand for that because their status and fortunes depend upon having this

00:28:50.720 small pond. They're big fish in a small pond, the small pond has to continue. But there's no reason

00:28:56.080 why an aggrieved province like Alberta couldn't step out and say, you know what, we've been mistreated,

00:29:02.960 we're out. And once you had one or maybe two, my colleague Lawrence Solomon has suggested this,

00:29:09.040 that maybe two at a time might be appropriate. And he's suggesting Alberta and Newfoundland.

00:29:13.920 Newfoundland is the most recent entry to Confederation. It for a time looked like it wanted to join the

00:29:19.760 United States. There's still some rumblings of that around, I understand, in Newfoundland.

00:29:25.360 Alberta and Newfoundland together, once you had one or two, even if it wasn't finished yet,

00:29:32.160 even if they started on the path, that might start a cascade, a domino effect. And suddenly,

00:29:41.440 we would be in a different territory in terms of talking about what we ought to do as a country.

00:29:47.920 And that's, that's a conversation I think we have to have.

00:29:52.160 And then, I mean, if we were to play out this hypothetical scenario where Alberta

00:29:56.640 and Newfoundland said, okay, we probably would have a better go at things if we were part of the US,

00:30:02.160 you know, lower cost of living, more purchasing power, higher standard of living, all these things

00:30:06.960 that we've talked about so much on this show. I mean, what would, what would happen to the rest of

00:30:10.560 Canada at that point? Well, I, so I would think that the rest of Canada, maybe province by province

00:30:19.280 or region by region would then consider whether or not it wanted to go to undergo the same process.

00:30:25.520 So I would imagine, let's just hypothetically, we're blue sky here, but let's just imagine,

00:30:29.920 let's say Alberta and Newfoundland were, were either accepted as states or on the way to becoming states.

00:30:36.400 I would have thought that the people in Saskatchewan, for example, would immediately say, well, us too.

00:30:41.680 Don't leave us behind. We want to, we want to join and so on. I suspect, this is just a guess,

00:30:47.440 but I suspect that, that Ontario and Quebec would be the, the holdouts because they have the most to

00:30:53.360 lose because that's where the power base in Canada is. All the, all the Laurentians live there. 0.99

00:30:58.240 Who knows? Quebec might decide that finally, it does want to be an independent country.

00:31:02.720 I don't know. Ontario might be the last man standing.

00:31:06.480 To its detriment. But, you know, so be it. A lot of Ontarians that, that don't want to,

00:31:13.520 to be the last man standing might move elsewhere so that they can join the people who are moving off.

00:31:19.680 Who knows? I mean, there's so many different scenarios and, and maybe Alberta would decide 0.99

00:31:23.840 to be independent and not part of the United States. Who knows? Who knows? The point is that

00:31:28.320 the status quo has proven to be not very good. And we now have choices in front of us that we need to

00:31:36.160 talk about in a, in a way that's not the knee jerk reaction we're having right now.

00:31:43.520 It's so interesting because I mean, when you hear the, I think, I think the whole conversation was

00:31:47.920 designed to annoy Canadians and specifically the election elites. Like, that's why I, I, I held

00:31:52.480 up for a long time that I did think Trump was joking. I, I didn't think that he was serious. I

00:31:56.080 thought that it was, you know, if you read the art of the deal, he says like, throw out the most,

00:32:00.080 you know, to start a negotiation, throw out the most outrageous demands. And then, you know,

00:32:04.640 by the time you get back to what you want, it sounds much more reasonable. And it's, it seemed,

00:32:08.320 it seemed like trolling. It seemed like he was just kind of putting it out there. But then,

00:32:11.600 like I said, you know, we're at this low point in Canadian history and in just so many ways.

00:32:15.920 And it's like, well, like, I mean, some of the things that Trump says is accurate. Like Canada

00:32:21.760 doesn't have a real military. We don't hold our own weight. We don't really protect our Arctic. And

00:32:26.800 if you look at it from like perspective of, for instance, uh, a journalist, uh, Sam Cooper,

00:32:31.200 who's done deep dive investigation, Chinese infiltration into so many different aspects of our

00:32:37.520 society, you know, it's not just political interference, which the liberal government's

00:32:40.480 happy to just sweep under the rug, but it's also like our financial institutions and the police

00:32:44.160 stations. And there's just, you know, corporate SPS, there's just deep, deep levels of Chinese

00:32:48.480 integration. And you think, you know, in what way is Canada sovereign state today? We can't even

00:32:53.280 protect ourselves from these nefarious foreign actors. I mean, you know, it's not even to get into 1.00

00:32:58.800 different sort of Islamist operations that happen in Canada or the Iranians that, that have these

00:33:03.040 cultural community centers there to like influence the culture. Like we, we, we don't have this

00:33:09.680 sovereign independent country. We have all of these influences that we can't even protect ourselves

00:33:15.440 against. So if you look down the road, like 25, 50 years, um, would you rather be under China's 1.00

00:33:21.600 influence or would you rather be part of America? I think even the most anti-American, um, you know,

00:33:27.680 loyalists and the historic loyalists in Canada would, would still probably say that they, they

00:33:32.480 would rather be under the American influence than the Chinese. Um, I think, although given 0.99

00:33:37.600 the fact that the liberals have allowed so much of this, maybe they would prefer the Chinese. I don't 1.00

00:33:41.280 know. Yeah. I think, I think a lot of Canadians don't appreciate one of the reasons why the Americans

00:33:47.760 are now interested in acquiring Canada, why Trump is trolling us like this. It's because we have become

00:33:55.440 a threat to them because we have allowed this infiltration that you're referring to. I mean,

00:34:00.640 we have not been a serious country for quite a while and we've assumed a kind of Canadian manifest

00:34:07.120 destiny that we are, we are, we are do certain things, but here's the, here's the hypocrisy or

00:34:11.760 the irony of Canada. At the same time that we carry our anti-Americanism on our shoulders, we live under

00:34:17.920 their umbrella. You know, we, we benefit from economic integration with them. We, we depend upon them

00:34:24.640 for military protection. We've assumed for forever, or at least since World War II that,

00:34:29.920 that if anybody attacked us, the Americans would defend us. If, if not for our benefit,

00:34:34.080 then certainly for theirs. And as long as we were a benign, you know, a secure source of,

00:34:43.120 you know, resources and nice people, everything for the, as far as the Americans were concerned,

00:34:48.080 everything was fine. But we have allowed our country to be influenced in very bad ways. And

00:34:53.840 we've gone down downhill. You, what you say about the military is correct. We couldn't defend our

00:34:58.320 own borders if we, if we tried. And, and, uh, there are foreign powers now knocking on the Americans

00:35:06.160 door because of us. So we are now, we are now a threat and they're not going to put up with that.

00:35:12.320 So we either have to, we either have to fix ourselves, which would be a very difficult thing

00:35:16.480 to do because of all the, of the internal problems or the Americans are going to come in and fix it

00:35:22.400 for us. I want to bring in something that Ben Shapiro, so daily wire co-founder and conservative,

00:35:27.920 probably the most famous, uh, conservative, uh, pundit in the States. Uh, he wrote the following on

00:35:33.840 Facebook this morning. He wrote, I still don't understand why we're levying 25% tariffs on Canada.

00:35:40.080 I've got to be honest with you. I don't understand that one. I get it on Mexico. I get it on China.

00:35:44.480 In fact, I think we should have much higher tariff on China because China is an actual geopolitical 1.00

00:35:49.840 enemy, but I don't understand exactly what we're trying to pry out of the Canadians. 0.58

00:35:54.560 So Bruce, tell me, what is it that Ben Shapiro doesn't understand?

00:35:58.880 Well, I don't know. Just from that, from that passage, he might not understand the degree to

00:36:03.760 which China has, and not just China, other, other powers as well have, have, um, infiltrated and

00:36:10.720 influenced, uh, what's going on in Canada. Uh, you know, I, and Sam Cooper knows an awful lot more

00:36:17.200 about this than I do, but, but, uh, you know, it's not, and it's not just fentanyl. It's organized

00:36:22.640 crime. It's political interference. All of these things have been alleged. Uh, there, there's,

00:36:28.240 I've certainly heard credible accounts that they're real. Um, and so the, the 25% tariff,

00:36:34.960 I mean, who knows it's Trump, right? And one of Trump's strengths is that he's unpredictable

00:36:42.320 and he does throw things out to rattle you and it, it's very effective. I mean, the Canadians are

00:36:48.800 rattled. Uh, and so I don't know what his end game is, but, but to try and predict what he's going to

00:36:54.480 do is, is very difficult and not the point. The point is that you and I here are now talking about

00:36:59.520 this along with a whole lot of other people in this country. And, and that's a good thing. And

00:37:04.960 that's probably what, what they want. They want as many Canadians, I think as possible to understand

00:37:10.480 we have some problems and the Americans have noticed and, and they're not going to allow us

00:37:16.080 to become a threat to them. So if you don't want interference from the Americans, then get rid of

00:37:22.000 the interference from other places. I, I completely agree with you. It's interesting. I want to play in

00:37:26.400 this other clip because Marco Rubio, the secretary of state was on with CBS journalist, Catherine

00:37:31.920 Hedgebridge over the weekend, former CBS journalist. And he basically said that this whole 51st state

00:37:37.760 thing came from Justin Trudeau, that it was Justin Trudeau's comments at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago that

00:37:43.920 basically started it all. Let's play that clip. In a hot mic moment, Canada's prime minister said

00:37:50.400 that absorbing Canada is a real thing. Is it a real thing? Look, you know how that came about?

00:37:56.400 President's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well, if you impose, if you even out our trade

00:38:00.240 relationship, then we will cease to exist as a country. At which point the president responded

00:38:04.880 very logically. And that is, well, if you can't exist without cheating and trade, then you should

00:38:09.680 become a state. And we know this because Fox News' Peter Doocy reported this right after that meeting

00:38:17.120 in Mar-a-Lago. So interesting, Bruce, because Trudeau came back. We didn't hear anything about this from

00:38:23.760 the Canadian side. And it wasn't until American reporting on this dinner. Peter Doocy said the

00:38:29.200 same thing. We have that clip, so let's play that. And tonight we're getting some new details about

00:38:34.240 that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when Trudeau told

00:38:40.480 President-elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada

00:38:46.800 can't survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion a year, then maybe Canada should 0.96

00:38:53.520 become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.

00:38:59.520 So why would Trudeau give that away, right? Like, it's like you're entering a negotiation with someone

00:39:04.480 who, like you said, is very unpredictable, who has the better hand, right? The Americans have much more

00:39:09.920 power and control over this relationship. It's true that Canada has, even though we have free trade,

00:39:15.840 we have a huge number of subsidies and even playing field, all kinds of subsidies around

00:39:21.760 sort of core Canadian industries, including things like dairy and cheese and all that kind of stuff.

00:39:27.760 So why would Trudeau say that? Why would Trudeau say that? I mean, I don't think that Trudeau is

00:39:33.120 someone who's like thinking ahead and playing 3D chess and is like, let me get into this because

00:39:37.760 the Canadian people will turn against Trump and then that'll help me in the polls. But,

00:39:41.520 you know, this idea is that Trudeau came out and said, if we actually had an even playing field for

00:39:47.600 trade, Canada wouldn't exist as a country. I mean, we should be mad at Trudeau, not Trump.

00:39:53.520 Well, yes. So here's a metaphor that keeps running through my head. Canada is like a little brother.

00:40:01.680 The Americans are the older brother. Canada is the little brother. And the little brother assumes 0.97

00:40:07.760 that the older brother is going to look after him because that's just the nature of

00:40:11.520 the thing. Right? And the little brother can still get away with slagging the older brother

00:40:18.080 because he's a little brother. But when they go to school together and the bullies pick on the

00:40:22.640 little brother, the big brother is going to protect him and get away with insulting the big brother

00:40:29.440 because he's a little brother. And the big brother is fed up with it. The big brother is saying, no,

00:40:38.720 you know what? We're both adults now. You stand on your own two feet. And if you can't, then I'm done

00:40:44.560 with you. I'm not going to step out now and protect you because I've been doing this for a long time and

00:40:52.000 I'm not doing it anymore. So, so, you know, put up or shut up. Either this relationship becomes 0.92

00:40:58.160 equalized. And of course it can never be equalized because we're not equal countries. Access to the

00:41:04.160 American market is the thing that every country in the world wants. And we've had it. Largely,

00:41:12.400 we've had it. And we think we're entitled to it because of who we are and where we are and our

00:41:17.280 relationship with them and so on. They're fed up with this. And I don't blame them in some respects

00:41:23.600 because we've been taking a lot of things for granted. And so how do you think, let's turn back

00:41:29.040 to the conservative side, because I think in some ways Pierre Polyev is stuck between a rock and a

00:41:34.880 hard place. Donald Trump is such a wedge even on the conservative side. You know, half the conservatives

00:41:39.040 in the country love Donald Trump, half of them hate him and don't want the Polyev party, 1.00

00:41:45.200 the conservative party to come even harder and stronger than what Trudeau is saying,

00:41:49.520 like with retaliatory tariffs and with anti-American sentiment and Canada first.

00:41:55.760 If you were advising Mr. Polyev, what would you tell him to do?

00:42:00.480 Well, geez, I'm not a political strategist, so he probably shouldn't take advice from me. But if

00:42:05.280 he did it the way I would like to see, I would like him to pick a lane. Like, come on, come on,

00:42:10.080 man. Where do you stand on this? And I would like him to say, know what? We have problems in this

00:42:17.120 country. We have to fix these problems. You know, Trump is trolling us and maybe we don't agree with

00:42:22.080 what he's proposing, but he's got a point. And the point is we have to fix our own house,

00:42:28.800 put our own house in order. I don't really hear that from anybody right now in this country. And

00:42:34.640 that's a shame because that means we're not going to get anywhere. And it means that we're not going

00:42:40.400 to take advantage of the opportunity, this open door that we have. I'm not saying that we have to

00:42:45.440 walk through it. I'm just saying that we have to figure out what to do given the choice. And that's

00:42:50.720 the kind of thing that the conservatives and the liberals and everybody else in the political realm

00:42:57.040 right now is refusing to do. I want to just bring in one more topic to this conversation, Bruce. And

00:43:02.320 that is a, this is, this is so ironic to me. Thousands of Canadians have signed a petition asking for the

00:43:08.880 Canadian government to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship. So this comes from NDP MP Charlie Angus. He's

00:43:15.120 sponsoring this e-petition saying, Elon Musk is a dual citizen with Canada and the United States. His

00:43:21.120 mother was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. Musk himself attended Queens University, where you teach.

00:43:27.040 And they are saying that he should not have the privilege of being Canadian. Now, I find this

00:43:33.840 ironic because it was just a decade ago that we heard from Justin Trudeau that a Canadian is a

00:43:38.400 Canadian is a Canadian, and that even terrorists should get to keep their Canadian citizenship,

00:43:42.880 even if they are involved in active terrorist plots against Canada, that Canadian citizenship is

00:43:49.120 totally above the fray of partisan politics. And yet now you have an MP from the Liberal

00:43:56.160 from the NDP, Liberal Coalition, saying that we should just take people's citizenships

00:44:01.040 away because we don't like them. What do you think?

00:44:05.200 Oh, this is, this is just pathetic. This is small. This is just virtually signaling. I'm 0.99

00:44:10.800 sure he's not expecting it to happen. He's just trying to, you know, wave the flag in his own way to

00:44:17.840 satisfy the supporters and people who feel the same way. I mean, I think it's ridiculous. It's sad. It's, 0.97

00:44:24.480 it's, it's a sad idea from what has become a, uh, a, well, I don't want, I don't want to call

00:44:30.160 Canada a sad little country because it's, because like we, we are all committed and loyal and, and

00:44:38.320 we are all committed to the country. And so we are all committed to the country. And so we are

00:44:42.800 to be fond of our own country. We want the best for it, but the responses that this country is generating

00:44:45.440 to this moment that we have are kind of pathetic and disappointing. I would like us to have a much 0.86

00:44:53.200 more sophisticated conversation, an open-eyed, open-minded conversation about the, the position

00:45:00.800 that we're in. And I, I just don't, I just don't hear very much of it happening now in some places

00:45:06.720 it is happening. There are, there's a small group of people who understand, I think I perceive the

00:45:12.960 understand that, that, that this country has found itself in a mess, but, but the, but the numbers are

00:45:20.640 still too small. Well, certainly if you look at the polling and you see the resurgence and surge

00:45:26.080 on the liberal side, it's, it's alarming that, that so many Canadians, um, can sort of succumb to

00:45:31.920 the narrative that they're being told that, um, America is the enemy and that, you know, we have

00:45:36.640 to wrap ourselves on the flag and the liberal flag, not just the Canadian flag, but the liberal party is

00:45:40.480 the one that can protect us. Hopefully, uh, you know, there's still time and hopefully

00:45:46.000 more Canadians will, will, will come around to this idea that, you know, we're not,

00:45:49.440 we're not angels and we have an opportunity to improve our country. I don't think that joining

00:45:54.880 the United States is really in the cards, but I mean, the, the, the way that you laid out and

00:45:59.440 the idea that maybe Alberta, um, should just consider, I'll mention, I did raise this question.

00:46:04.160 I interviewed Premier Daniel Smith, Alberta Premier, and I did ask her about this specifically. And she,

00:46:10.240 she basically just said that she understands why many Canadians would want to become Americans. I mean,

00:46:17.440 specifically, I think 45% of young males, uh, age, uh, 18 to 34 say that they would take American

00:46:23.760 citizenship. And, and she says she understands because of the economics of it. Like, it's not,

00:46:27.680 it's not a matter of love of country or patriotism. It's just a matter of pure, like,

00:46:32.080 where can I have the best life? And for many that, that is the United States. I don't know if you caught

00:46:35.680 that interview, but did you, did you want to comment at all on that? Well, so I, I, I totally understand

00:46:41.360 why federal politicians wouldn't want to endorse this idea. And as I say, that's not going to happen

00:46:47.200 as a, as a unit. I understand, uh, Danielle's hesitation to, to, to put her eggs in that basket.

00:46:55.920 It's politically difficult to do that because an awful lot of people are not there yet and maybe

00:47:00.320 they'll never be there. Maybe it's a loser idea politically. I don't, I don't know. Um, but,

00:47:05.600 but I have to say that, that a politician in the position of, of Premier Smith, uh, would, would,

00:47:14.960 I mean, she just imagine this again, I'm blue sky, but imagine, imagine that this actually happened

00:47:20.160 with Alberta and she became the first governor of the state of Alberta. I mean, that would be pretty

00:47:27.200 cool. It'd be cool for her. It'd be cool for the, for, for Alberta. And so at the same time that I

00:47:33.840 understand their hesitation to jump in with both feet, I hope that in some corner of their brain,

00:47:40.640 they will be thinking, well, you know, how could this, how could this occur? And I don't think,

00:47:48.640 my guess is that there won't be any official referendum and referenda on this, even in Alberta.

00:47:55.120 But what I've been suggesting is, and we have history with this because of Quebec, right? We have

00:48:00.720 a Supreme court decision setting out what would be needed to start this process. We even have a

00:48:05.280 federal statute setting out what would be needed. Although the federal statute, you know, is a

00:48:09.600 statute only, but, but you'd need a referendum in Alberta with a clear question that a majority of

00:48:17.840 people approve. And that would start it. It wouldn't finish it. It would start it, start the progress

00:48:21.920 process of negotiating what, what was going to happen. And that referendum is a, in an official

00:48:29.280 sense is not going to happen anytime soon. And so what I've been saying is to Albertans, it's like,

00:48:35.040 hold your own, like go out there and organize your own referendum. It won't be binding. It won't satisfy

00:48:41.840 the requirements, but if you get a good result, it will then require the powers that be to hold an

00:48:47.280 official referendum. And you got, and you got to start somewhere and who knows where it will lead.

00:48:54.480 Try not, try not to worry about the end and instead worry about the next step. And let's,

00:49:01.280 let's see what happens. Well, it's very, very thought provoking and interesting.

00:49:05.280 Bruce Pardy, thank you so much for joining the podcast and thank you for your thoughts as usual.

00:49:10.560 We appreciate your time. It's been a real pleasure, Candice. Thanks for having me.

00:49:13.840 All right. Let's do it again soon. Okay. Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:49:16.560 That's it for us today. We'll be back again tomorrow with all the news.

00:49:19.200 Thank you. And God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - February 24, 2025

One Party Rule in Canada! How the Liberals are rigging the system

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript