The Candice Malcolm Show - March 12, 2022


Out with the Canadian flag, in with the Ukrainian one


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

191.18092

Word Count

7,570

Sentence Count

408

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, everyone, and welcome to a special live edition of Fake News Friday here on the Candice
00:00:10.560 Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candice Malcolm. And as you know, we love Fridays here at True
00:00:15.360 North and here at the Candice Malcolm Show, because it gives us an opportunity to look back,
00:00:19.060 reflect on the media and how dishonest they are, how they spin, how they manipulate the truth,
00:00:23.540 how they try to manipulate you. Fortunately, you're too smart for that. You don't fall for
00:00:28.320 their tricks, but so many people do. And we like to go through in some detail of the dishonesty
00:00:33.420 in the legacy media. So joining me today is my producer here on the Candice Malcolm Show and
00:00:38.020 journalist here at True North, Harrison Faulkner. Harrison, thanks for joining us today.
00:00:43.140 Yeah, glad to be on, Candice, and glad to do a live FNF. It's something I think that we should
00:00:49.040 try and look to do more. Exactly. Yeah, we did a live show on Wednesday, and it was really fun. So
00:00:54.220 we thought we would try it again here on Friday. So one of the things that's become a theme
00:00:58.500 in Canadian media is that all of these Canadian symbols that they used to relish in, they used to
00:01:04.600 rally around, they used to promote, have now suddenly become passe and unacceptable, whether it be
00:01:10.760 the name, the word freedom itself, apparently, we're told is hateful and represents extremism or
00:01:18.920 something like that. And the Canadian flag, we've seen more and more people in the legacy media
00:01:23.920 telling us on Twitter and through news stories, fake news stories, that the Canadian flag does not
00:01:28.900 represent anything good anymore. It now represents sort of the worst of the worst. And it's just so
00:01:33.540 interesting and almost ironic, Harrison, that exact time as they're throwing out the Canadian flag,
00:01:38.780 saying it represents something beyond the pale and reprehensible, we see them rallying around the
00:01:43.640 Ukraine flag, which I get it, we're in a conflict. There's a global conflict between Russia and
00:01:48.220 Ukraine, the world is getting sucked into it. And generally speaking, Ukraine is a side that was
00:01:54.760 attack provoked, and therefore, that's, you know, that's the side that we're on, apparently. And, you
00:02:01.080 know, total unwillingness to look critically at Ukraine, to look at the fact that this is a young
00:02:05.560 country, it is a deeply corrupt country, a country without the same kinds of institutions, and
00:02:10.840 connection to freedom, liberalism and democracy like we have in Canada. So it's just bizarre that all of
00:02:16.900 these sort of pristine liberals, media people, who, you know, think of themselves as elite, they have
00:02:23.320 no time for Canada, and all the time in the world for a country like Ukraine. And of course, we see
00:02:27.240 the complete whitewashing of Nazis, the infestation of the Nazi ideology and neo-Nazis in Ukraine is
00:02:34.980 becoming a serious problem. So we're going to talk about all that today, Harrison. Let's start with the
00:02:39.980 Canadian flag thing, because we definitely saw this during the Freedom Convoy, where, you know, legacy media
00:02:45.660 journalists were just triggered by the flag. The whole, the very sight of the flag is something
00:02:50.180 that upsets these journalists. If you fly one from your flag, if you fly one from your truck or
00:02:56.020 your vehicle, be careful, you're going to, you know, make some liberals cry out there, apparently. But
00:02:59.920 we have Linda Steele, who is a radio personality down in Vancouver over at CKNW 980. And she wrote this
00:03:07.600 on Twitter, Harrison, she writes, it makes me sad that now when I see someone flying a Canadian flag from
00:03:13.080 their vehicle, I immediately feel uncomfortable, sad face. So I don't really know what, you know,
00:03:21.500 why, what led her to tweet this, I guess she might have been driving on the street and seeing a Canadian
00:03:26.380 flag made her feel uncomfortable. So, so, so as we know, the Freedom Rally, the Freedom Convoy had a huge
00:03:35.340 uprising of national unity and patriotism. I've really haven't seen much like this in my life. I've said
00:03:41.540 this before, Harrison, I volunteered at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. And I was there at the,
00:03:47.640 at the, in downtown Vancouver, right at the stadium when Canada won the gold medal in the men's hockey
00:03:52.800 against the United States. It went to overtime. Sidney Crosby scored the game-win goal. It was
00:03:57.300 the biggest moment in sports at the time. And Vancouver erupted into this huge patriotic showing
00:04:02.800 of just like, like love for country. It was a really incredible, amazing experience just to be part
00:04:08.560 of it. And I remember there was some talk afterwards about how Canada had, you know, we're becoming a
00:04:13.460 country of our own and we were embracing our own type of patriotism separate from American patriotism,
00:04:18.980 separate from British. We were just coming into our own kind of thing. And I think that the Freedom
00:04:23.200 Rally did something similar. It was this moment of patriotic uprising where Canadians spontaneously
00:04:28.720 went out to truck stops, to overpasses, to the freeways, to cheer on these brave,
00:04:35.380 courageous truckers who were taking a stand for all of us, for our freedom. It was an incredible
00:04:40.120 patriotic moment. I know you were down in Ottawa during the rallies and I think you had a similar
00:04:45.920 experience of the patriotism and the love of country and, and, and the symbolism of the flag
00:04:50.860 back to its original purpose, which was representing freedom or the freedom that we had, the freedom
00:04:55.760 that we fought for. You know, we fought in several wars as a nation to defend freedom, not just here,
00:05:01.040 but abroad. And, and so to me, that's all so positive. And it's so strange that some people
00:05:05.820 out there, uh, journalists in our profession are triggered by the very side of it. What, uh, what's
00:05:11.200 your take and, and, and maybe tell us a little bit about what it was like in Ottawa and, and, and how you
00:05:15.880 saw the flag in relation to the freedom convoy. Yeah. Well, it's funny that you bring up the 2010
00:05:21.460 Winter Olympics as an example, because that's when I was in Ottawa, that's what I kept thinking about.
00:05:25.800 The fact that, you know, there was so much patriotism and so much pride in being a Canadian.
00:05:31.600 Uh, the only time, the only thing I could compare it to was what it was like during the Olympics in
00:05:35.540 2010. Um, and I actually think that this was even bigger than that because there was, there was the
00:05:41.780 whole, there was basically the domestic scale of it, which traveled across the country. We saw people
00:05:48.040 lining up over, lining overpasses, waving Canadian flags, uh, but also the Canadian flag made its way
00:05:54.240 across the world as a symbol for freedom, kind of, it restored what it was all about, um, around the
00:06:00.260 world. And so, yeah, in Ottawa, um, as many people have, have described it, it was like Canada day, but
00:06:06.800 every day for three and a half weeks or for, for however long they were there for two and a half
00:06:12.220 weeks, it was, it was really incredible to see. And, um, it's, it's, it's kind of crazy that we're at
00:06:18.000 the point where journalists are now triggered at the site of the Canadian flag. Um, it makes you
00:06:24.320 wonder where do, where do these people go from here, right? Because, uh, there isn't a freer
00:06:29.160 country or there, well, there, there, one could make the point, but Canada is one of the freest
00:06:33.780 countries, uh, in the world. That flag has always represented that and always represented the Canadian
00:06:39.840 way of life that so many around the world seek, um, and, and fight tooth and nail to, to get to Canada.
00:06:45.740 And so it's really, it's, it's kind of like the height of, of, um, you know, taking the country
00:06:51.840 for granted. You take our freedoms for granted so much so that even the sight of our flag triggers
00:06:57.060 you. It's, uh, it's, it's really kind of nuts. It's yes. It's fundamentally a lack of gratitude and
00:07:03.120 a lack of awareness. I mean, maybe some of these people on the left have some kind of a utopian idea
00:07:07.680 of, of a freer country or an even better country. The reality is that you're right. Canada is built on
00:07:13.700 all of these institutions and, and this history that we need to preserve, not take for granted
00:07:18.620 and not, you know, dismissed just because it isn't, isn't trendy. Well, uh, uh, Linda Steele
00:07:24.160 over at CKNW wasn't the only one triggered by the flag. Uh, here we had a response from a person
00:07:28.680 called Min Dariwal, who is a CBC Edmonton employee. And she says this, she says, you're not alone,
00:07:35.620 Linda. I saw two big flags on the back of a pickup whipping down the white mud the other day.
00:07:41.380 And it made me instantly think of how much disrespect and negativity has been associated
00:07:46.220 with it lately. That'll change. It has to, we've come too far. And so I, I, again, the, the, the way
00:07:53.620 that these people see the convoy, the way that they see the uprising, uh, of people saying to government
00:07:59.500 enough is enough. You've destroyed our country through your overzealous government COVID policies.
00:08:04.580 It's been a disaster. We need to end that now we need to move on. And, and, and, you know,
00:08:10.080 because it was a group of trekkers, it was a group of working class people who, who don't typically
00:08:15.320 engage in politics and policy, these sort of like snobby, um, middle-class, comfortable, elite
00:08:22.580 thinking, you know, Laurentian elite wannabes who live in, in places like Edmonton and Vancouver,
00:08:28.240 uh, looking down their nose and, and just the sort of, uh, you know, it's dripping in, in classism
00:08:35.040 and vitriol towards people that, that, that, that they don't, you know, their disrespected
00:08:39.220 negativity associated with it. It's, it's like, these people are so out of touch Harrison, and
00:08:44.360 they don't even, they don't even recognize it.
00:08:46.800 No, absolutely. And I think it was at the very beginning of this or right when, um, in, in
00:08:52.300 our live show, when Trudeau enacted the Emergencies Act, um, and you and Andrew and our editor
00:08:58.020 Harley run a live program, I remember Harley made a point about how the divide is so obvious
00:09:04.040 now that the same, the same words that are said are the same symbols that are shown by,
00:09:09.700 uh, by different people mean totally different things. So when, when these people, when these
00:09:14.620 journalists, and like you said, these sort of elites and Laurentian elite wannabes, when
00:09:19.700 they fly the Canadian flag, it means something different than when a working class Canadian
00:09:24.180 flies the Canadian flag. And that is, I think that's clearly becoming, uh, that, that these
00:09:31.180 people have such a different vision or view of this country. And they're, like you said,
00:09:35.600 they're just very, very far removed. Well, I want to, I want to move on to this, this segment
00:09:41.120 here. And we missed this cause it was, it's a few weeks old, but we had to cover it on this
00:09:44.880 program because it's just so, it's so insane. Um, city news ran a segment, uh, basically calling
00:09:52.860 into question the Canadian flag itself, saying that the Canadian flag, just exactly like Linda
00:09:57.740 Steele wrote, the Canadian flag must represent something horrible and evil now that it was
00:10:01.680 being flown at the trucker convoy. So, uh, we're going to, we're going to move to this
00:10:05.340 clip, but before that, I want to just read the tweet that city news prefaced, uh, that they
00:10:11.080 used to write this video. And the tweet says, is the Canadian flag being sullied by the truck
00:10:16.520 convoy images of the flag have been associated with the demonstrators. And many people are
00:10:21.520 now weary to fly the flag in support of team Canada at the Olympics in case they are mistaken
00:10:26.440 as convoy supporters. So God forbid they're mistaken as people who just want their freedoms
00:10:31.360 back, who are. Well, well, there, there is some validity to that Harrison, because you
00:10:35.400 wouldn't want to be mistaken if it meant that Chrystia Freeland was going to seize your
00:10:38.520 bank account. So, so the, so that's the only thing, you know, I would be careful flying the
00:10:41.840 flag too. If, if I thought that Chrystia Freeland was out there, you know, willing to steal all
00:10:45.560 your money basically. Oh yeah. So let's throw to this clip so we can just watch this absolutely
00:10:50.740 absurd legacy media piece. It's such a shame that people now have to think carefully about whether
00:11:00.800 or not they want to be carrying with pride, the Canadian flag. It's one of the saddest outcomes.
00:11:07.940 I think of this protest as people cloak themselves in Canadian flags, put them on their pickup trucks
00:11:13.180 or just carry them upside down throughout demonstrations. The questions being asked is the
00:11:19.620 meaning behind the flag starting to change, seeing the Canadian flag so closely aligned with these
00:11:26.700 protestors wearing it, flying it, you know, showing it off on their vehicles and so forth is starting to
00:11:36.700 have an impact on the image of Canada and on the image of that flag, which for so many decades has been a
00:11:45.180 flag that represents freedom and pluralism and progressiveness.
00:11:49.820 There's, there's so much to get into.
00:11:53.580 Yeah.
00:11:54.100 There's stuffy elites that they have sitting there, like again, looking down their nose and saying
00:11:59.520 that the Canadian flag used to represent freedom. It's like, what do you, what do you think the,
00:12:04.680 what do you think the current protests are about? Like, it's so bizarre that, you know,
00:12:08.640 the whole idea is, this is a freedom convoy. These are people who want their lives back after the
00:12:13.220 government has made a terrible mess of our society, not just in terms of its COVID response,
00:12:17.560 but in every element of our society, you can look at education, you can look at our civil society,
00:12:23.080 you could look at businesses, small businesses, you can look at the mental health crisis. There's
00:12:27.220 so many issues that have come out of the government's absolutely colossal handling of COVID. And all these
00:12:36.080 people want, Harrison, is their freedom. And now you have these stuffy elites saying that the flag used
00:12:40.600 to represent freedom and now it represents a different kind of freedom that we don't like. And then I like
00:12:44.860 how he just kind of adds in the Canadian flag is also always represented pluralism and progressivism.
00:12:49.780 It's like, I guess it's one of those things you can read into it, whatever you want. Like,
00:12:53.660 you know, oh, to, you know, to me, the Canadian flag has always represented tradition and family.
00:12:58.680 Like you can, you can, you can read anything into it, but really how is that news? You know,
00:13:03.780 this is, this is just a sad state of affairs in Canadian news.
00:13:08.200 No, I mean, there's so much there. This, this piece, they interviewed this guy,
00:13:11.980 Clive Veroni, who's basically a no name. I've never heard of this guy. Apparently,
00:13:16.620 I guess he's some sort of expert on the flag, but they couldn't find one person to,
00:13:21.480 to defend the Canadian flag or to basically say, well, no, I actually do think that the Canadian
00:13:26.800 flag still represents what it represents to everyone in the world. And so, you know, there's,
00:13:30.740 there's a lot, there's a lot there, but one thing I, one thing I found interesting about being in
00:13:36.560 Ottawa and talking to the protesters who had, who had, you know, traveled with the convoy across the
00:13:41.360 country was that they said that seeing the flag at these events and this, the event itself gave
00:13:48.980 them new hope in Canada. It actually restored their faith in their own country and gave them a,
00:13:53.760 gave them a sort of a new sense of patriotism. And another thing too, is that the trucker convoy
00:13:59.700 inspired protests all over the world for freedom. The whole idea of these protests that we see in
00:14:05.280 France and in Australia and in other countries in Europe is all about wanting, wanting to have
00:14:12.860 people get their freedoms back. And what greater, what greater symbol to do that? And, you know,
00:14:18.340 then the Canadian flag to have, to see that being flown at all these protests around the world. I mean,
00:14:23.860 to me, that's, that's an incredible thing to see. That's a, that's the kind of thing that makes me,
00:14:28.840 makes me love the flag. The fact that it is a symbol for freedom around the world.
00:14:32.500 Yeah, it is. And to me, if I was abroad, it is happens, you know, when, if you're flying,
00:14:37.360 if you're traveling around somewhere else and you see a Canadian flag, to me, I get really excited and
00:14:41.760 I get really happy. I guess, I guess that doesn't happen to everyone. Here is David Coletto, who is
00:14:46.200 a liberal pollster. And he, this was during this, we had to go back a couple of weeks to find this.
00:14:50.600 This was during the height of the protests in Ottawa. And David Coletto writes this, he says,
00:14:55.360 I'm in California for a few weeks and on the drive into town, there was a group cheering the
00:15:00.180 freedom convoy on an overpass and a few Canadian flags waving. Okay. Again, if I'd seen this,
00:15:04.840 I would have been thrilled. I've been like, wow, our flag is making our way, making its way around
00:15:08.380 the world. Not, not David Coletto. Note to everybody watching that David Coletto has a
00:15:14.180 Ukraine flag in his bio. And right there, he's saying, he's saying no to Canada. That's not good.
00:15:19.680 He says, not thrilled at all that our flag has become a symbol of this. Meanwhile, he's got the
00:15:24.580 Ukraine flag right front and center. So you couldn't have a better contrast there. Out with
00:15:29.680 the old, in with the new. Canadian flags cannot be used to represent freedom folks. But the Ukraine,
00:15:35.320 we're all about the Ukraine flag. Put that in your bio and everybody stand together. Again,
00:15:40.840 to me, Harrison, this is kind of an interesting, again, maybe the class divide. It's like,
00:15:44.240 there's kind of two Canadas, right? There's like the people who go out and work for a living,
00:15:47.560 people who work with their hands, people who work with the elements. Canada has always been
00:15:50.620 a country whose economy is based on resource extraction. So the people who work in the resource
00:15:54.860 industry, broadly speaking, the people who keep the country running, right? And then you juxtapose
00:15:59.880 that with the sort of Laurentian class of people who, who, you know, they live in downtown cities,
00:16:05.680 not even necessarily along the St. Lawrence seaboard, which is where the name came from,
00:16:10.660 Laurentian. It used to sort of represent the sort of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal corridor. But I think,
00:16:15.340 I think there's a little Laurentian elite cities around universities in Canada. And these people just
00:16:20.020 have a totally different impression of Canada. Like to them, Canada is multicultural, it's progressive,
00:16:25.480 it's liberal, it's, you know, the exactly what Trudeau represents. And to them, seeing the other
00:16:31.900 side of Canada front and centre and representing their country on a world stage, you know, it was
00:16:35.880 no longer the Justin Trudeau, the prim and proper French speaking, you know, sophisticated metropolitan
00:16:42.960 man representing Canada. It was these sort of rugged blue collar truckers who were out doing
00:16:48.740 interviews and being the face of Canada. And I think that that really, really triggered and
00:16:55.220 shocked the sensibilities of many. And it was, it's just really interesting to see, because to me,
00:16:59.320 you know, I was cheering on the, the uprising for freedom. And so many people were clearly dismayed
00:17:06.520 about that. And, and, you know, even seeing, seeing the flag abroad triggered them. But I want to,
00:17:12.880 I want to, you know, we talked about the Canadian flag here. So I want to talk about Ukraine,
00:17:16.460 because it's such a stark contrast, right? It's like, you can no longer be proud of Canada. That's
00:17:20.940 out. That's passe. Let's everybody rally around Ukraine. Now, look, Canada has its problems,
00:17:27.660 they pale in comparison to the problems in Ukraine, you know, being invaded by a larger power,
00:17:34.620 the bloodshed, the killing the wars is truly awful. Ukraine itself, though, it's not perfect,
00:17:39.680 right? And yet the dichotomy that we are being expected to be fed here is that Ukraine can do no
00:17:44.860 wrong. And that everything that's bad about them has to be whitewashed and covered up.
00:17:49.880 Andrew Coyne, another journalist, liberal journalist, wrote this from, ringing lines
00:17:55.360 from Chrystia Freeland. So he's quoting the deputy prime minister, ringing lines from Freeland.
00:17:59.860 There are moments in history when the greatest struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down
00:18:03.480 to one fight in one place, which is waged for all humanity. So she's like channeling her inner
00:18:08.940 Winston Churchill here, she says, in 1863, that place was Gettysburg, 1940, it was the skies above
00:18:14.820 Britain. And now it is Kiev in 2020. Today is Kiev. And so this whole idea is that we are all we're
00:18:23.300 all Ukrainians. Now we're all in Kiev, we're all fighting on behalf of this, we whether we like it
00:18:28.040 or not, whether we've signed any official war declaration, or whether this has anything to do
00:18:34.360 with Canada, that's all out the window. We're all fighting for Ukraine, we're all Ukrainian now.
00:18:39.340 And so it's so interesting that you can't be proud of Canada anymore. But let's all show our
00:18:45.420 patriotism towards a foreign country involved in a foreign conflict, which is the chant of war. And
00:18:51.780 that's the direction that we're heading. That's where they're pushing us. And then, of course,
00:18:55.820 you can't say anything bad about Ukraine, despite all of this new appearances that we keep seeing
00:19:02.040 pop up of really bad stuff going on in Ukraine. And I know, Harrison, we've covered this on previous
00:19:07.140 shows, a steady stream of fake news and lies coming out of Ukraine that are often debunked days later.
00:19:14.400 We know whether we see the corruption that happens in the Ukrainian government. And now, it seems like
00:19:20.100 the Ukrainian military has a bit of a Nazi problem, a little bit of a neo-Nazi problem.
00:19:24.700 And as much as people in the media can deny it and say it's fringe, and it's nothing,
00:19:28.740 and it's being overblown, and that's Putin propaganda, we keep seeing it. And so earlier
00:19:34.160 this week, we had International Women's Day. And we saw NATO post a tweet in response to
00:19:43.400 International Women's Day. It says this,
00:19:46.000 all women and girls must live free and equal. This International Women's Day, we think of the
00:19:50.420 remarkable women of Ukraine, their strength, bravery, and resilience are symbolic of a nation,
00:19:54.620 great message there. And we've got four images here. But uh-oh, uh-oh, let's take a look at that
00:20:01.140 top left image, the Ukrainian female soldier here. Well, what happens when you zoom in? You see that
00:20:08.600 there is a neo-Nazi label logo on her uniform. That is a neo-Nazi black sun symbol that represents a
00:20:17.180 Nazi battalion within the Ukrainian military. Oops. Better delete that tweet, NATO. Maybe you should have
00:20:23.400 had someone looking at these images a little more closely. So Harrison, you've done a little bit of
00:20:28.260 research on this symbol, the black sun. What does it mean? Yeah, well, just in our preparation for
00:20:33.920 this show, I wanted to make sure I did a quick little Wikipedia search about what this is to get
00:20:39.240 a good understanding of it. And just reading from the Wikipedia page here, it's a Nazi symbol
00:20:44.240 that has been employed in a post-Nazi Germany context by neo-Nazis, and also in some strains
00:20:50.260 of Satanism, which is nice. Like, it's the kind of symbolism that, you know, you could basically,
00:20:58.940 in that NATO photo, you could kind of excuse someone for not doing that zoom in, to not look
00:21:04.780 exactly there, to look exactly for it. But the problem is, Candace, is that that photo is not the
00:21:12.260 only time we've seen that black sun image come up. I believe we've seen it in other photos as well.
00:21:19.940 I think there was a CTV tweet, if I'm correct. There was a CTV tweet where they also showed this
00:21:26.920 black sun image on two female soldiers. And so much so, it got so much attention that CTV News
00:21:33.700 had to put up a correction tweet, which basically apologized for airing this segment or this image
00:21:40.840 with this image on it. So the tweet reads, CTV News Vancouver aired a story Tuesday that included
00:21:47.920 an image of two female Ukrainian soldiers who are wearing an offensive symbol on their uniforms.
00:21:52.620 They go with offensive symbol, Candace, instead of neo-Nazi symbol. And it says, which was regrettably
00:21:59.140 not recognized before being broadcast. The image has been removed from our coverage. So there you go,
00:22:04.280 Candace. I mean, at least they're owning up to it. But I would say that's a little light on
00:22:09.520 on the apology. Well, and you hit the nail on the head there when you said an offensive symbol,
00:22:15.800 right? That's a euphemism. They're trying to make you think that, oh, there was an offensive symbol,
00:22:20.520 like maybe it was a profanity or maybe it was a swear word or something like that. No, a Nazi symbol.
00:22:26.880 It was a Nazi symbol. Why wouldn't you just straight out say it? Because no one wants to say
00:22:30.380 anything bad about Ukraine right now. No one wants to throw off Chrystia Freeland's message that this is
00:22:35.820 an all in out civilizational existential war between freedom and tyranny. And we all have to side with
00:22:41.720 freedom, which has been assigned to the Ukrainian team. And therefore, you cannot question it. Well,
00:22:47.460 it gets even worse because it wasn't just NATO. It wasn't just CTV. We had a former Trudeau era
00:22:54.220 cabinet minister, former environment minister under the Justin Trudeau government, Catherine McKenna,
00:22:59.760 who also shared a picture also celebrating two female soldiers also wearing neo-Nazi symbols.
00:23:06.280 So Catherine McKenna posted this on Twitter. She said that this International Women's Day,
00:23:12.720 standing with the brave women across Ukraine, defending their freedoms, their rights and their
00:23:17.760 country. Look, I agree with this message. I think it's a nice message. I think that there are a lot of
00:23:22.140 tremendously brave women out there in Ukraine, tremendously brave men as well, much many more
00:23:27.360 tremendously brave men defending their freedoms, defending their country, defending their rights.
00:23:32.400 That's all good. But again, Catherine McKenna doesn't know what she's talking about, because
00:23:36.620 right there, top right corner, you can see the female soldiers, the black vest right there. You can
00:23:43.180 see that Nazi sun. And once you see it, once you know that that that's what they use, and that's how
00:23:48.140 they recognize that's how they identify themselves, you can't unsee that. And, you know, I know that
00:23:53.360 Catherine McKenna doesn't have the geopolitical insight and the knowledge, like Chrystia Freeland,
00:24:00.520 our deputy prime minister does. Remember, it was last week that that our deputy prime minister,
00:24:05.620 Chrystia Freeland, was posing with a bandera scarf, the scarf that represents a Nazi from Second World War,
00:24:12.620 someone who had his hand in overseeing the murder of 100,000 plus Poles and Jews. And there she was,
00:24:20.600 you know, someone who knows Ukraine inside and out, who's lived many years in both Kiev and Moscow.
00:24:27.640 Chrystia Freeland cannot be forgiven for making that mistake. She knew exactly what she was holding,
00:24:31.120 what she was doing. Catherine McKenna, on the other hand, I don't think that she really has that
00:24:35.480 knowledge. So she unfortunately left that tweet up for several days. I know that Ezra Levant,
00:24:39.700 the rebel, was heckling her about that, saying, like, why haven't you deleted this? Don't you have
00:24:44.240 anyone to tell you this kind of thing? But here's the beauty of being a liberal, Harrison.
00:24:48.700 You can show Nazi symbols. You can wave Nazi flags. You can have that affiliation front and center.
00:24:56.700 No one's going to hold you account, aside from the independent media. The legacy media doesn't bat an eye.
00:25:01.420 They roll their eyes. They ignore it. In fact, they do even worse. They jump into the political fray,
00:25:06.080 and they begin defending the liberals against the accusations that they shouldn't be waving Nazi flags.
00:25:10.900 There's so many layers of hypocritical thinking and behavior, because it's like,
00:25:18.500 hello, you smeared the truckers for one guy waving a swastika. You said that they all were
00:25:22.380 waving swastikas. Meanwhile, we have multiple times now where liberals have posted pictures of
00:25:27.300 Ukrainians with Nazi symbolism, and the media is not only not holding them accountable account,
00:25:33.000 they're defending them and saying that people who are brazing it are Russian shills and propagandists,
00:25:38.020 as we've seen in the past. Yeah, and also, there's such a hesitancy from conservatives and
00:25:46.760 people on the right to go and make their voices heard on these opportunities. It's not all about
00:25:51.980 politics, but everyone knows that if a conservative were to post a picture like that, the media and the
00:25:57.820 left and liberals, everybody, would be ganging up on them. But it seems that there's so much
00:26:04.680 hesitation to call attention to this and to basically try and basically put up an even fight
00:26:11.400 when the liberals do it. And they know that they get away with it and they exploit it. Now,
00:26:16.020 one thing I want to say, I mean, the NATO tweet, there is, like I said, there is room, you could
00:26:21.480 basically say that someone didn't see that. We could even pull up the original NATO tweet there.
00:26:26.420 So if you look at it there, there's no way you would see that black, the black sun symbol.
00:26:30.400 But if you go to the Catherine McKenna tweet, it's very obvious. Like, you would have to really be
00:26:37.940 trying not to notice that. It's white on a black vest. So it's very clear what that is. You would
00:26:45.220 have to be really trying not to notice it to be sort of, I don't know, playing the ignorance card
00:26:53.320 there. So yeah, I'm not sure what was going on with McKenna there. But I mean, she wasn't the only
00:26:57.600 person to share that photo, right? That was that was shared by a lot of people.
00:27:01.500 Yeah, it's front and center. It's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it.
00:27:04.560 And there's a broader issue here, Harrison, that is at play, which is that the media have absolutely
00:27:09.340 no interest in looking into this, right? You know, two weeks ago, a month ago, everyone was
00:27:14.540 really, really concerned that there was some kind of a Nazi infiltration into the trucker convoy. It was
00:27:20.460 never proven. It was never substantiated. It was based on nothing. It was based on one provocateur
00:27:25.780 showing up at the rally for 10 minutes and then leaving. So there was no real basis for that.
00:27:31.640 But the media fixated on it. They were obsessed with it. Justin Trudeau talked about it over and
00:27:36.300 over again to the point of parody, where he accused a Jewish MP, a conservative MP of Jewish heritage,
00:27:43.580 of Jewish ethnicity, of standing with those who wave swastikas. So when it came to the sight of a
00:27:49.440 swastika in Canada, it was so horrendous to us that the media obsessed over it. Okay, I didn't
00:27:54.520 appreciate that. I didn't agree with that. But that was the standard that they created.
00:27:59.180 Now, here we have Ukraine, a country, a new country, a country that has a lot of civil instability,
00:28:05.880 a lot of infighting and tribal sort of hatreds that are coming up. There seems to be a pretty
00:28:11.780 clear issue when it comes to this Azov battalion and the neo-Nazi forces at play. But the media has
00:28:18.980 lost any interest in talking about it. As recently, Harrison, as November 2021, interestingly,
00:28:25.800 the media were interested in it. They had a fascination with it. In fact, there were many,
00:28:31.040 many stories from that time, from just five, six months ago, of the Canadian media looking into
00:28:37.720 this idea that there were neo-Nazi linked units in the Ukrainian military, and that Canadian officials
00:28:45.620 met with them. Canadian officials were linked to them. Canadian officials were training them. And so
00:28:50.600 here is one story from the Ottawa Citizen. It says, Canadian officials who met with Ukrainian unit linked
00:28:56.940 to neo-Nazis feared exposure by news media, according to documents. A year before the meeting, Canada's
00:29:02.280 joint task force, Ukraine, produced a briefing on the Azov battalion. You can see even in this news story,
00:29:09.860 you can see the swastika on the guy's helmet. I mean, this was a major problem. And the fact that the
00:29:14.700 Canadians were somehow involved with this was something that the media had interested. They
00:29:18.780 were investigating it. They were looking into it. But then suddenly, as soon as this conflict erupted,
00:29:24.580 and as soon as we had Christopher, we had Chrystia Freeland shown with that bandera flag, it was like
00:29:30.580 the media, and I can just say from personal experience, I posted that story. I think we were
00:29:35.040 one of the first of the first ones to report on it, Harrison. And I was getting so many, so much
00:29:39.940 heckling from our colleagues in legacy media on, you know, wouldn't you defend Chrystia Freeland? This is
00:29:47.020 obviously, she's obviously not a Nazi, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was just so interesting to see why
00:29:52.260 are you defending a politician against a journalist? Like, isn't it a job of a journalist to expose
00:29:57.680 politicians and hold them accountable? Why are you trying to hold me accountable? And then again, like, when it
00:30:02.800 comes to any of these stories, they just, they were interested in it five months ago. And now it's not
00:30:07.240 convenient to the Trudeau government's narrative. So you just don't cover it anymore.
00:30:10.940 Yeah, it's, it's, it's unfortunate, because we're not taking a side at True North. It's what we're
00:30:16.300 trying to do is just basically tell, tell what's happening from an unbiased perspective on this
00:30:22.620 issue to basically say that, yes, the deputy prime minister was holding a scarf that is a that has
00:30:28.120 neo Nazi connections, that is clear. And that's what we were doing. So the idea that the idea that you
00:30:34.120 are on the side of Russia, if you are criticizing government leaders for bad for for bad mistakes,
00:30:42.020 mistakes that they even admit to, because for them deleted that tweet. So if it wasn't a problem,
00:30:47.040 like the legacy media are trying to paint it as and she wouldn't she would have no reason to delete
00:30:51.080 that. McKenna would have no reason to delete her tweet. The idea that you are a Russian propagandist,
00:30:57.340 if you criticize the Canadian government is a slippery slope that people aren't really seem seeming to
00:31:03.320 pay that much attention to the fact that anybody who's critical of the government is some sort of
00:31:08.120 foreign agent. That's a that's a bad state for for our media to be in. Absolutely. I want to I want
00:31:14.940 to address something someone mentioned in the comments here. They said, please stop calling
00:31:17.980 Ukrainian people Nazis studied the history before speaking Nazi Ukraine became home to thousands
00:31:23.820 of thousands of Jews during the Second World War. So calling them all Nazis is untrue. Of course,
00:31:28.840 I completely agree with that. I don't think that the Ukrainians are Nazis by any means by any extent.
00:31:33.300 I think that there is a small group of people who have infiltrated and there's clearly a problem.
00:31:39.720 There is clearly a group of people in that country, not all of them. I don't even think it's a significant
00:31:44.740 percentage. It's a small group. However, they're part of the military. They have their own battalion.
00:31:51.040 It's called the Azov Battalion. So the fact that there is some something of appeal amongst this ideology,
00:31:58.600 this this far right group is a concern. And just to compare back to Canada, right? I don't think that
00:32:05.580 Canada has a real Nazi problem. I don't think that there's a real Nazi presence in this country. I
00:32:09.560 think it's really, really exaggerated. I think that there's a very if there if there are real Nazis in
00:32:14.180 Canada, I've never met one. I've never seen one. They're not active. They don't go. They're not
00:32:18.560 involved in the political system in any way, shape or form. There's no home for them anywhere.
00:32:22.360 Um, despite that fact, the media are constantly trying to invent this idea that there's a fringe
00:32:28.660 far right in Canada, and it's infiltrating the conservative party and conservative movement.
00:32:31.960 That is a lie. Uh, whereas when it comes to Ukraine, I don't know. I don't know the extent of
00:32:38.400 this issue. I don't know the extent of the of the influence that they have. I will just say from the
00:32:43.180 reports that I've read, and my analysis looking at the situation, it seems like that is a more of a
00:32:48.920 real accusation and more of a real problem or something there, there, um, where that isn't the
00:32:52.940 case in Canada. So, so that's, that's my only point here. And I, I, by no means believe, uh, and I
00:32:58.480 didn't say that Ukraine, Ukrainians are Nazis. That's, that's absolutely, uh, false. They, uh, they,
00:33:05.340 many most fought against Nazis during the second world war. And, uh, that's, that's, that's history as
00:33:10.760 well. So, uh, thanks for the question. And, uh, that's part of the fun, Harrison, of doing these shows
00:33:15.600 lives. You can, you can react and talk about, um, these people, but, but, you know, there, there were
00:33:21.020 several of these types of stories that were definitely of interest on the political left,
00:33:25.340 um, people pointing out the fact that Canada was through our military was connected to right-wing
00:33:31.540 extremists. Um, we were funding them and the government was, was well aware of that. Um, so I
00:33:36.980 don't expect the media to hold Justin Trudeau to his account. Uh, I don't expect him to have the same
00:33:41.460 standards, uh, as they hold to the conservatives and the opposition and the truckers. Um, but the,
00:33:46.500 the, the, the hypocrisy is just blaring on this one, Harrison, what do you think?
00:33:50.480 Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right that we are by no means calling all Ukrainians Nazis. That's,
00:33:55.940 that's clearly overblown. Um, what we're just saying is that there is a public interest angle
00:34:01.600 in Canada's engagement with Ukraine and what is being posted to social media. That is what our job is.
00:34:08.420 So that's all we're doing. Um, and I think it's, I think it's, I think when the prime minister
00:34:13.820 accuses conservative MPs of standing with swastikas, then, and, and, and then turns a
00:34:20.380 complete blind eye to what's happening in Ukraine with plenty of evidence to document, um, to document
00:34:26.520 what's going on, that's, that's then where journalists like us at True North have to step in
00:34:31.740 and to call it like we see it and say, well, basically do our job as journalists. So yeah,
00:34:37.540 I think it's important to clarify that, of course, we're not saying that all about all Ukrainians.
00:34:42.000 Um, but you're exactly right. We, we have to do a job that some people may not find comfortable.
00:34:47.220 That's often what, what happens in journalism. It's not comfortable to talk about. Um, but when
00:34:52.960 the prime minister accuses Canadians and conservatives of standing with people who have swastikas,
00:34:57.720 they should expect, uh, to get some sort of response when there is evidence and when there's
00:35:03.900 something to be said about that. Yeah, no, and it's so true. And even just, you know,
00:35:08.180 there's a large, uh, Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. I think Canada is the largest Ukrainian
00:35:12.040 population outside of Ukraine. So, so there's a lot of, a lot of people who have their own
00:35:16.660 connections, their own family history. And it's interesting. I have a lot of Ukrainian
00:35:19.380 friends. I lived in Alberta for many years, and there's a lot of people, especially in Northern
00:35:22.360 Alberta that are from Ukraine. And I've been trying to talk to as many of these friends
00:35:26.580 as possible, especially people who still have family back in Ukraine. And one of the things I found
00:35:31.040 is really interesting, Harrison, is that there's no one way of thinking about Ukraine and their
00:35:36.840 country. It really almost depends on what part of the country they're from, uh, what, you know,
00:35:41.460 where their ancestors were when they left and when they came to Canada, because Ukraine is a very
00:35:46.100 diverse place, right? So if you're Ukrainian, but a Polish heritage, you might have a very,
00:35:51.180 very negative idea of Bandera and the role that he played. Uh, whereas if you were someone that was,
00:35:57.240 uh, Ukrainian from Kiev or something like that, um, wanting to fight against the Soviets,
00:36:01.340 you would be more for that. So it's interesting when you, when, when we look at, at figures like
00:36:06.200 Bandera and look back at the second world war, uh, it's important to preface, and I always try to do
00:36:10.420 this in my reports, that some people view him as a national hero and there are statues and there
00:36:15.680 are streets named after him. And I'm talking about Stefan Bandera, the Nazi leader, um, who started
00:36:21.320 one of these movements, one of these, uh, far right movements today. It's not all seen in the
00:36:26.020 same light. And, and certainly, you know, I have Ukrainian friends that are Russian speaking that
00:36:29.560 come from Russian heritage. So it's, it's, it's definitely a complex place. And I think, I think
00:36:35.400 that our, our line of criticism mostly focuses back on Canada and of the just pure hypocrisy when it
00:36:42.220 comes to the way that the media and politicians criticize some flags and not others. And of course,
00:36:48.200 the great irony that we want to cover today was the fact that so many of these journalists are
00:36:52.500 saying out with the Canadian flag and in with the Ukrainian flag. So I'll give the final word to
00:36:57.100 you, Harrison.
00:37:00.940 What we've seen here is a outlets like True North and other
00:37:05.360 outlets that are best to, to tell like it is and not be biased, not by the government. It's why it's
00:37:15.120 so important because we've seen it time and time again, that journalists in this country, mainstream
00:37:20.220 journalists are, are taking a side and are sticking with that side and are excusing, um, what is
00:37:27.080 newsworthy. And so again, I just think it's, it, this goes to show exactly what's like True North are,
00:37:34.320 are, are so important because, you know, these conversations and we can't just gloss over the
00:37:40.160 fact. So there's a level of nuance and there's, there's context that without being part, without being
00:37:46.560 from Ukraine, without living there, we just don't know what it's exactly like. So, you know, journalists
00:37:51.980 are doing their best. Um, I think some could do a lot better than they are, uh, of course, but that
00:37:57.540 being said, I think, you know, what we, what we've discussed here is important stuff to talk about. Um,
00:38:02.680 and when Chrystia Freeland and Catherine McKenna engage in these sorts of issues, they should expect
00:38:07.080 that Canadian journalists are going to hold them to account. And if conservatives in parliament aren't going
00:38:10.860 to do that, or if opposition people in parliament aren't going to list, then I guess it'll end up
00:38:15.860 having to be us. Right. So that's kind of the way I view it. Yeah, absolutely. I think journalists could
00:38:22.280 be doing a lot better. And instead of blindly, uh, marching us towards a war that we really don't
00:38:28.880 understand a lot of the basis behind, and we really shouldn't be involved in at all, uh, journalists
00:38:35.360 partially play the role, uh, bear the blame for, for a lot of the misinformation. So do,
00:38:40.280 so do our leaders, by the way, who are so happy and so quick to censor and to try to shut down what
00:38:45.800 they call misinformation. You know, it's, it's kind of terrifying to see the, the United Act, uh,
00:38:53.260 against promoting Russians. Like there was even something on Facebook saying that they changed
00:38:57.600 their policies, allowing for people, uh, to basically incite violence against Russians right now.
00:39:03.760 They, they usually have a policy that prevents that, uh, but they're pausing it and allowing
00:39:07.300 people to temporarily incite violence, which is terrifying because it's like, you know, we have
00:39:12.420 these principles, we have these norms, we believe in liberty. And if we allow ourselves to throw them
00:39:17.420 out at a moment like this, uh, we're not going to be able to easily get those back. Well, Harrison,
00:39:22.120 uh, thanks so much for joining us for a live edition here. It's been fun. And, uh, we'll be back
00:39:26.080 again next week. That's Harrison Faulkner, True North journalist and producer here at the
00:39:29.860 Kenneth Malcolm show. It's fake news Friday. I'm Kenneth Malcolm, and this is the Kenneth Malcolm show.
00:39:33.760 Thanks for listening.