The Candice Malcolm Show - September 02, 2025


Poilievre demands SELF-DEFENCE laws for Canadians in their home + Smith WRECKS Edmonton School Board


Episode Stats

Length

30 minutes

Words per Minute

184.30496

Word Count

5,581

Sentence Count

325

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

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

Candice Malan talks about a new proposed law that would allow Canadians to defend themselves and their families in the case of a home invasion. She also discusses the recent home invasion that left a father and his four-year-old daughter dead.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:04.880 Hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day long weekend.
00:00:07.500 That's it, folks. Summer is over. Back to school.
00:00:09.940 Hopefully you're getting your children into a routine.
00:00:12.600 It's always a bit of a relief to get the kids back on schedule and busy with school.
00:00:18.280 I want to talk about an interesting development,
00:00:22.800 a very good development from Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives.
00:00:26.640 This episode today is sponsored by Macamie College, and a little bit more on them later.
00:00:31.280 So Pierre Polyev is proposing a stand-on-guard principle for self-defense.
00:00:36.900 He is talking about bringing in something like Castle Law.
00:00:39.520 This is a huge area of discussion in Ontario.
00:00:43.020 So much crime, so many terrifying examples of home invasions.
00:00:47.240 I can't imagine anything more frightening and more scary
00:00:49.640 than a criminal gangster breaking into your house in the middle of the night.
00:00:53.220 And I will tell you that if anything like that ever happened to me,
00:00:56.640 I would use the full extreme extent of my abilities to defend myself and my family,
00:01:02.900 and so would my husband.
00:01:04.060 And the idea that Canadians often get charged for defending themselves in their home
00:01:09.380 is outrageous and ridiculous.
00:01:11.020 So it was great to see Conservative leader Pierre Polyev advocating for a change
00:01:15.360 to the criminal code that would allow Canadians to defend their families inside their homes.
00:01:20.940 It is very ridiculous.
00:01:22.500 This isn't already a law, but I want to play this clip of Pierre Polyev in Brampton on Friday
00:01:26.900 announcing a proposed amendment saying your home is your castle,
00:01:30.320 and you should have the right to defend yourself even using lethal force if necessary.
00:01:35.200 Let's play that clip.
00:01:36.900 Conservatives are standing here today.
00:01:39.220 Based on the principle that your home is your castle,
00:01:43.900 we're calling on the government to introduce and immediately pass the stand-on-guard law.
00:01:50.480 Our amendment instead will change Section 34.2 of the criminal code
00:01:56.900 to say that the use of force, including lethal force,
00:02:01.440 is presumed reasonable against an individual who unlawfully enters a house
00:02:09.000 and poses a threat to the safety of anyone inside.
00:02:13.740 100% agree with Pierre Polyev on that one.
00:02:17.800 Now, Canada's Attorney General, Liberal Minister of Justice, Sean Fraser, jumped in.
00:02:22.380 And first, he shared on X a little small clip of Polyev there saying using lethal force if necessary.
00:02:28.800 Yes, if someone is breaking into your house and they have a weapon
00:02:32.000 and they may be willing to use it on you and your family,
00:02:35.300 you should be able to use lethal force to protect yourself.
00:02:38.500 So he took a little clip of Polyev saying that, and then underneath he writes,
00:02:42.360 this isn't the Wild West, it's Canada.
00:02:44.880 Canadians deserve real solutions that make us safer,
00:02:47.280 not slogans that inspire fear and chaos for Polyev's political survival.
00:02:52.380 Well, actually, Sean Fraser, it's in part due to your time as Immigration Minister.
00:02:57.380 You flooded the country with not the high-quality immigrants that Canada is used to getting,
00:03:02.260 but just anybody who wants to come.
00:03:03.820 So we have millions and millions of people in our country,
00:03:05.940 many of them who shouldn't be here in the first place, contributing to the crime wave.
00:03:10.140 Now, you're Attorney General.
00:03:11.360 A large part of the problem is because of your governance.
00:03:15.240 Individually, you, Sean Fraser, you, the things that you have done to our country,
00:03:18.680 and broadly speaking, the government that you're a part of, including the Trudeau government,
00:03:22.320 and continued now under Mark Carney.
00:03:24.720 And so, yes, Canada does feel a little bit like the Wild West.
00:03:28.340 So saying that it isn't the Wild West and it's Canada on Friday, that didn't age very well
00:03:32.380 because the big story that came out over the weekend is that, yes, Canada does feel very,
00:03:36.640 very much like the Wild West.
00:03:37.720 Here in Vaughan, just a suburb outside of Toronto, as Joe Warmington writes,
00:03:42.860 a father was fatally shot in front of his children in the middle of the night, in his home, in his house.
00:03:50.220 He was killed during a home invasion early Sunday morning.
00:03:53.960 Abdul Aleem Faruqi, 46, was merely asleep in his Vaughan home with his wife,
00:03:58.680 and three children armed robbers broke into his house, demanded valuables.
00:04:02.820 What happened next is still under investigation by York Regional Police folks,
00:04:06.900 but the horrifying reality is that, as Joe Warmington writes,
00:04:10.980 what did occur is horrifying for an innocent family who were minding their own business
00:04:14.760 in their home in the middle of the night on the long weekend of summer 25th.
00:04:19.360 He was shot trying to protect his four-year-old daughter.
00:04:22.040 Goodness gracious, this is happening in Canada.
00:04:24.580 It is just so unbelievable.
00:04:26.720 And yes, this happens all the time.
00:04:28.020 This happens all the time in Ontario.
00:04:29.260 As we saw, home invasion at a local Ontario inn leaves two assaulted,
00:04:34.660 and the suspects are still at large.
00:04:36.620 A little motel in Renfrew, Ontario, was also broken into over the weekend.
00:04:41.140 Police say at 9 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to an inn on Gibbons Road
00:04:46.240 after hearing reports that two males had entered a room,
00:04:49.000 assaulted its occupants, and used what was believed to be bear spray,
00:04:53.760 sold some property before leaving.
00:04:54.980 This happens all the time.
00:04:56.180 And so, yes, we need something more to protect ourselves.
00:05:00.000 Our country is descending into chaos because of the liberals.
00:05:04.520 And so for someone like Sean Fraser to say it's not the Wild West,
00:05:07.280 you can't defend yourself in your home, is absurd and patently ridiculous.
00:05:11.440 All right, folks, I want to take a minute to thank today's sponsor,
00:05:14.360 which is Macamie College.
00:05:15.840 So Macamie College has an applied politics and public affair program.
00:05:19.740 It's a two-year evening online program available across Canada.
00:05:23.940 Thus, students have the opportunity to learn to run political campaigns,
00:05:26.860 organize grassroots movements, and push policy in the right direction.
00:05:30.780 Students will also have hands-on placements in their community
00:05:33.380 or with the party they believe in.
00:05:35.800 So when they graduate, they have real job-ready experience.
00:05:38.360 Applicants only need a high school diploma or homeschooling equivalent
00:05:41.700 to apply intake starts in September and January.
00:05:45.180 And folks, we are very excited to announce that anyone who applies
00:05:49.240 and is successful in enrollment will get a $500 scholarship from Juno News.
00:05:55.500 So apply using our link.
00:05:56.880 It's in the description.
00:05:57.600 You can go to candicemalcolm.com slash MACAMI.
00:06:00.300 That's M-A-K-A-M-I.
00:06:02.500 And if you apply through that link and you're successful,
00:06:05.140 you get a $500 Juno News scholarship.
00:06:08.560 You know, I went to the University of Alberta and studied political science.
00:06:11.560 And the thing you realize when you're doing a university degree
00:06:14.340 is that it doesn't lead you to a job.
00:06:16.260 And so for me, after three years of being a political science student,
00:06:20.100 I looked around and realized I had no job skills.
00:06:23.000 I had never worked in politics.
00:06:24.360 Everything was theoretical.
00:06:25.440 It was all in the classroom.
00:06:27.020 And I had to start working on political campaigns just to get my foot in the door.
00:06:31.060 The hard thing about politics is that you need experience to get a job,
00:06:34.920 but jobs require experience.
00:06:36.500 And so doing something like this, I mean, the fact that you can do it online,
00:06:39.160 the fact that you can do it on the evening is really helpful.
00:06:41.600 If you're interested in politics and you're watching the show, I presume you are.
00:06:44.400 This is something that you really might want to consider.
00:06:46.260 Or, hey, maybe one of your adult children might be interested in doing something like this.
00:06:51.220 So, again, check out this link at CandiceMulcom.com slash MacamieCollege.
00:06:56.460 And I'm pleased to welcome our guest on today's show, which is Erika Baruch.
00:07:00.840 She is the Department Head of Applied Politics and Public Affairs at Macamie College.
00:07:04.720 She's a former Principal Secretary to Daniel Smith
00:07:07.040 and the founding president of the United Conservative Party.
00:07:10.760 Erika, welcome to the program.
00:07:12.020 Great to see you.
00:07:13.140 Yeah, I'm very happy to be here.
00:07:14.700 Okay, I want to hear your opinion.
00:07:16.200 I believe you are a gun owner.
00:07:17.620 That's my producer's opinion.
00:07:18.240 I am restricted and unrestricted.
00:07:21.140 So I'm just so excited that this happened.
00:07:24.740 I was like, where was this during the campaign?
00:07:27.160 Because public safety was such a big topic.
00:07:29.740 And the fact that I think that would have been a big contrast to this liberal government.
00:07:36.060 Like, Sean Fraser has two kids.
00:07:37.880 How can you sit there, regardless of ideology, sit there and actually think, like,
00:07:42.800 if someone came into my home, I'm not going to protect my children.
00:07:46.820 Like, it's mind-boggling that this is even something that's being now having to talk about this.
00:07:54.620 And those stories that you read, the stories Pierre talked about, I just, I can't believe we're in a world
00:07:59.520 where we have to say people that went through their pal and our pal have a right to defend their house.
00:08:05.780 Any Canadian has a right to defend their property is actually just mind-boggling.
00:08:10.680 Well, it's so true.
00:08:11.320 I don't have a gun license.
00:08:12.360 I didn't grow up, like, I don't have a background with guns.
00:08:14.440 But I did go out and purchase a non-lethal gun because, legally purchased through Canada.
00:08:19.900 Because of these terrifying stories in the GTA about crime,
00:08:22.800 it's not something that I ever expected to happen in Canada.
00:08:25.380 And I feel like under the liberal government, you sort of have this, like,
00:08:28.080 toxic brew of, like, mass open borders immigration plus a revolving prison system,
00:08:33.080 revolving door, bleeding-hard justices, judges that just let criminals off the hook.
00:08:38.120 And then on top of that, they are taking away gun rights
00:08:41.240 and taking away legal gun owners' rights to defend themselves in comments like this.
00:08:46.160 It's just, it's actually unbelievable.
00:08:47.960 And I think you're right that the public safety issue should have played a larger role in the election, Erica.
00:08:52.380 I don't know what it's like in Alberta, but in Ontario,
00:08:54.700 I feel like every time I'm talking to friends or talking, you know, at a family barbecue or at an event,
00:08:59.280 everyone's talking about their fear of home invasions and carjackings.
00:09:03.460 It's just become, it's just unbelievable that this is a major problem in the GTA.
00:09:07.920 What is it like out in Alberta?
00:09:10.000 I mean, it's the same.
00:09:11.460 I think we have a big conversation, too, around rural properties.
00:09:15.480 And I know Alberta's put some things in place to look to protect rural property owners
00:09:22.360 from people coming on, stealing or messing with big equipment.
00:09:25.360 And those do not come with, you know, a low ticket price.
00:09:29.040 That's someone's livelihood if you're coming and destroying farm equipment or something to that effect.
00:09:34.880 But regardless, I think it is a coast-to-coast issue of public safety.
00:09:38.840 And again, like Pierre talked about making, like, we need to be in a place where villains are villains
00:09:45.220 and victims are victims.
00:09:46.320 And we've kind of flipped the script because of the liberal government.
00:09:50.540 So I'm really happy to see this.
00:09:52.540 I'm really happy to see that they're carrying it forward, one, as a gun owner,
00:09:57.240 to not feel in a country where we do have significant process.
00:10:02.180 I mean, it's higher than getting your nexus to get your gun license.
00:10:04.980 And rightfully so, we have really great parameters on who should own a gun.
00:10:10.100 But the fact is, if someone came into my house and I can only use my rifle for the back end to hit someone
00:10:16.180 or to do anything to protect myself, I mean, like, there are stories where people are using any type of component
00:10:24.040 in their house, kitchen utensils to protect themselves.
00:10:27.000 And the fact that someone, it's violating it on as is to be in your home and have someone intrude,
00:10:34.300 let alone hurt your loved ones.
00:10:36.420 I just, again, I'm glad to see this.
00:10:38.880 I am going to probably be very disappointed when the liberals don't vote on side of this,
00:10:43.600 even though I think that this is, you know, less ideological than the liberals are making it out to be.
00:10:50.420 It's about, like you said, people stealing cars.
00:10:54.040 And the message was to put your keys out your front door in order to have the criminal,
00:11:01.280 someone that's breaking the law, have access and ease to your personal belongings.
00:11:05.700 Like, again, I just, I'm glad this is in place.
00:11:09.860 I wish this would have come up in the election because I think, again, people that maybe aren't conservative supporters
00:11:15.740 can see the common sense that this is bringing forward to protect your own land and your family.
00:11:21.600 I saw a funny meme that was circulating on social media, and it was like the difference between Americans and Canadians
00:11:26.800 when it comes to Castle Law.
00:11:28.400 And the Americans they had, it was like, I don't know, maybe I'll try to find and get the guys to put in posts.
00:11:32.500 But it was a sheriff saying, you know, if someone breaks into your house, you should kill them.
00:11:37.000 And we prefer that you do.
00:11:38.120 And we have courses at the local community center that will teach you how to use your firearm
00:11:41.740 to kill someone coming into your house.
00:11:43.200 And then it flipped to, you know, in Canada, and it was a sort of infamous police officer,
00:11:50.020 I believe it was in Etobicoke, saying, just leave your fobs at the front door
00:11:53.360 so that when the criminal breaks into your house, they can just take the car and leave
00:11:57.080 and they don't have to disturb you, you can just keep sleeping.
00:11:59.060 And it's like, you know, just the mindset of, you know, in Canada, it's like, well, just give them your stuff
00:12:04.760 and no one gets hurt.
00:12:05.520 That's sort of what the liberals are saying here.
00:12:07.400 It's that, you know, you shouldn't be violent.
00:12:09.840 Just because someone comes into your house to be violent doesn't mean that you should be violent back.
00:12:13.800 And it's not saying, I mean, I don't think the encouragement by the conservatives is to use force
00:12:18.260 and be violent, right?
00:12:20.360 I mean, my dad lived in Louisiana for 25 years where everyone has multiple guns.
00:12:26.540 They are all taught properly how to use them.
00:12:28.620 I mean, it's very much like it's also a sport larger down there, but you're right.
00:12:33.080 Like they have that sense of security in their own home.
00:12:36.680 However, in Canada, we're very different.
00:12:38.540 And this is not, it's apples to oranges on how our gun policy works.
00:12:42.340 I'm very proud of our gun policy and all the hoops and bells and whistles I had to go through to become a gun owner.
00:12:48.360 And I think that the society that we live in under this liberal government is telling me, like, I'm a bad person
00:12:53.820 and I shouldn't be doing this.
00:12:56.140 Like, that's not the solution and it's not my intention of having it.
00:13:00.400 A lot of us use it for the sport of guns and firearms or going to, like, clay shooting and things like that.
00:13:08.320 That, you know, I don't know why we're feeling like horrible people or meant to feel like horrible people.
00:13:14.020 And so you're right.
00:13:15.180 I've seen that meme.
00:13:16.360 I think it's quite comical.
00:13:17.880 I mean, I don't think we're encouraging Canadians to be at that root of here, go get your gun and protect your home.
00:13:25.100 But again, it comes back to, like, the whole concept of this is you own your home or you live in your home.
00:13:32.940 It is your safe space.
00:13:34.520 You have your family there.
00:13:35.800 You want to protect your family.
00:13:37.440 I think anyone, any Canadian or anyone in the world wants to put that priority first.
00:13:42.000 And the fact that we have a government that's limiting that is so disappointing, not just as a gun owner or as a conservative, but as a Canadian.
00:13:50.920 I can't believe that we're even having a conversation where we have to have and have people push back on the idea of protecting their own family.
00:13:58.660 A family man himself, Sean Fraser.
00:14:01.080 And I doubt that if someone was breaking into his home, he would be like, come on in.
00:14:06.720 Let's have a cup of tea.
00:14:07.660 Here's all my jewels or here's all my assets.
00:14:10.800 Exactly.
00:14:11.320 And the idea is it is a last resort, right?
00:14:14.200 Like you're not out there swinging your gun around saying, come on in, right?
00:14:17.340 It's like if you're in a horrible situation, which I pray that none of us find ourselves in, but if something horrible like that were to happen, you know, it's part of it is having the assurance of mind that, you know, I know how to protect myself and my family.
00:14:30.500 But also just given the news and given what's happened in our country and in our cities over the last number of years, being secure in the fact that you know that you're not going to go to jail if some thug breaks into your house and you have to stop him using force before he gets to your children, heaven forbid.
00:14:46.240 Okay, I want to move on and talk a little bit about what's happening in Alberta with the schools and the book ban.
00:14:51.240 So a little bit of background on this.
00:14:53.060 Earlier this year, the UCP government and Premier Daniel Smith announced a ministerial order effective October 1st, 2025, that all K-12 school libraries must remove books with illicit sexual content.
00:15:06.840 And then there will be further restrictions coming in in January 2026.
00:15:11.440 And so there's been a lot of pushback.
00:15:12.740 I know Nahid Nenshi, the leader of the NDP party, really opposes this.
00:15:16.300 And they sort of tried to politicize it, making it seem like, oh, these conservatives, they're bigots, they're trying to ban books.
00:15:21.440 So Danielle Smith came with receipts.
00:15:23.940 She showed up at a press conference on Friday showing the press and journalists exactly what she's talking about when she says which books need to be removed from kindergarten classrooms and K-12 schools.
00:15:37.740 So let's play this clip of Daniel Smith on Friday.
00:15:40.660 Look, I think I'm going to have to show the screen here because people aren't kind of getting what it is we're trying to do here.
00:15:50.000 We are trying to take graphic pornographic images out of elementary schools so that kids are not exposed to age-inappropriate material.
00:15:59.620 So I'm going to leave it on for 15 seconds.
00:16:02.020 I'm warning you that the content may be disturbing and it's not appropriate for young users.
00:16:07.740 Viewer discretion is advised.
00:16:10.200 I know that the cameras probably can't print it on the evening news tonight without probably facing some kind of broadcast standards council complaint.
00:16:18.420 And I know that I would get delisted from Facebook for showing these kind of images on Facebook because they're pornographic.
00:16:24.620 That is what we are trying to address.
00:16:26.780 There's another one here.
00:16:27.660 Please take a look at it so that and might invite all of the school trustees to take a look at it too.
00:16:34.180 We have tried to be as polite about this so that people understand what it is.
00:16:40.040 Here's another one.
00:16:40.740 So you can have another look at the kind of material that we think should not be exposed to young children aged seven years old.
00:16:49.160 And I think we've got one more that we would like to show you as well.
00:16:51.760 Here is another example.
00:16:52.920 So I don't know how much more clear we could be that what we are aiming to this all began because these were the images that parents were showing us that were accessible to children in elementary school libraries.
00:17:07.720 So it's just absolutely vile that seven-year-olds would have to see.
00:17:12.180 I mean, we blurted out, folks, don't want to expose you to pornographic images, but we're talking about like gay sex acts written out in children's novels and cartoon characters acting out like sexual acts and gay sex acts for small children.
00:17:26.420 It's just so perverse.
00:17:28.020 It shouldn't be controversial at all.
00:17:29.720 And so what ended up happening?
00:17:31.600 Well, this is sort of silly.
00:17:32.680 So the Edmonton School Board took Danielle Smith's edict saying we're going to remove the pornographic sexual content from public schools and Catholic schools.
00:17:42.400 And then they decided that they were going to remove more than 200 books from their library, including some very excellent books.
00:17:50.180 Actually, I looked at the list here of some of the ones.
00:17:52.680 And these are all books that I read in high school and university that I think everyone should read.
00:17:56.700 So we're talking about Brave New World from Huxley, 1984, George Orwell, Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald, Alice Shrug, one of the best books that I read growing up, as well as The Had Man's Tale, you know, a book from Maya Angelou.
00:18:10.060 So like really just important mainstream books.
00:18:12.260 It seems like the Edmonton Public Library was trying to, I don't know, combat Premier Danielle Smith.
00:18:18.100 Maybe you can give us some further insight into what exactly is going on here, Erica.
00:18:22.380 Well, I would love to say that I understand the rationale of pulling all of these books off, you know, in resort.
00:18:32.320 But the only image that comes to mind is like a toddler that gets their toy taken away and then says, oh, OK, then I'm taking all of the toys and runs out of the room.
00:18:40.920 Like that's literally how I feel that Edmonton is handling this.
00:18:45.260 I mean, to be fair, again, like coming back, I don't want to sound like a pessimist when I'm consistently on the show, but it is.
00:18:55.520 It's like, why is that the action that's taken?
00:18:59.420 I have watched the Minister of Education roll all of this out over the last few months.
00:19:06.720 It shouldn't be surprising of pornography, sexually explicit.
00:19:10.980 Like the fact that a minister has to stand there and say within the education system for our primary education levels,
00:19:19.280 we have found that these are in the libraries and that kids can go and access them.
00:19:25.540 And, you know, the fact that we're even there is is one thing I've heard from a lot of folks across all party lines of like,
00:19:34.540 I didn't know this was in the classrooms.
00:19:36.100 I'm glad the government's doing something about them.
00:19:38.760 I don't think it became a partisan issue.
00:19:41.400 And now we have, you know, Edmonton taking a very political stance on this.
00:19:49.540 And I live in Edmonton.
00:19:51.480 It's quite disappointing.
00:19:52.620 We had my stepchildren going back to school.
00:19:55.040 Now, thankfully, they're in 12 and 14 and they're not maybe exposed to this same situation.
00:20:02.920 But we had a conversation with them.
00:20:05.660 And, you know, the fact that they would even see this is disturbing as a parent.
00:20:11.980 It's so disturbing.
00:20:12.780 I mean, you have to really protect your children and almost have like pre-conversations with them
00:20:17.580 about what they're going to encounter at school because it's so woke and so politicized and, in this case, so sexualized.
00:20:24.680 I mean, it's just silly because Edmonton Public Library, I mean, the way that this was covered, here's Global News,
00:20:30.600 Edmonton Public School Board is yanking more than 200 books from its library shelves this year
00:20:34.460 to comply with provincial directive on banning books containing inappropriate sexual content.
00:20:38.520 So even the way it's framed, it's like this is to comply with the USB government and, again, using that term banning books.
00:20:46.420 Really, they're just removing books that are not appropriate.
00:20:50.060 Here is Danielle Smith replying and slamming the school board, just saying that they're doing a little bit of vicious compliance here,
00:20:57.760 trying to, I guess, embarrass Danielle Smith.
00:21:00.620 But she flips it around and calls them out rightfully.
00:21:03.200 Let's play that clip.
00:21:03.780 We ask school boards to use their discretion to identify books that might not be age-appropriate for elementary school children.
00:21:14.600 And then to, and Edmonton Public is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is.
00:21:21.520 And so if they need us to hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate for senior high school students,
00:21:30.060 what kind of materials are appropriate for junior high school students,
00:21:34.520 and what kind of materials are appropriate for elementary school students,
00:21:38.300 we will more than happily work with them to work through their list one by one
00:21:43.580 so we can be super clear about what it is we're trying to do.
00:21:47.800 So, Erica, you know the Premier quite well.
00:21:50.180 She seems quite annoyed by this entire exercise.
00:21:53.120 I mean, I think it's good for them politically.
00:21:54.820 But what did you think of her response there?
00:21:57.860 I mean, wouldn't you be annoyed when you're bringing something forward
00:22:00.560 and someone takes it so extreme and politicizes it and it's about children?
00:22:05.980 I completely understand now.
00:22:08.620 You know, I've sat in those rooms briefing her.
00:22:11.920 Maybe that's not the tone you want to come across.
00:22:14.620 But in fairness, I actually think that's probably the tone of a lot of parents hearing this.
00:22:18.580 Like, to me, if the Edmonton public school was not politicizing this,
00:22:24.240 wasn't taking a woke agenda on this,
00:22:27.460 wouldn't their list match every other school district in Alberta?
00:22:33.380 And we haven't seen that.
00:22:35.100 So why is Edmonton the only one with this robust list?
00:22:40.040 To me, that screams and points to the fact that it's not meeting those thresholds of the government,
00:22:45.960 but instead a political play.
00:22:48.580 That we're seeing.
00:22:49.560 I mean, this is amidst the ATA that's based in Edmonton,
00:22:53.640 fighting the government, walking away from the mediation table,
00:22:59.000 potential teachers strike.
00:23:00.580 Like, to me, this is a very, very hyper-political move
00:23:04.760 by the Edmonton Public School Board.
00:23:08.020 And to say that we have kids in the Edmonton public,
00:23:12.400 I will say it was quite disappointed.
00:23:15.240 Well, 100%.
00:23:16.920 And again, the kids are the ones that get let down
00:23:20.300 because they don't get to have access to these great books
00:23:22.860 that every young person should read.
00:23:25.220 And so I will give credit.
00:23:28.600 We have one daughter that was in Edmonton Catholic last year,
00:23:32.100 and one of the teachers actually wrote home
00:23:33.880 saying some of the kids are bringing some of their novels
00:23:36.220 to school from their home for our reading period,
00:23:39.320 and they actually, you know, don't meet that threshold.
00:23:43.340 We encourage if you want to have your children read those books at home,
00:23:46.680 that's fine, but they don't comply with what is part of our curriculum
00:23:51.220 or what is within the requirements or age-appropriate books.
00:23:55.420 And so I will say that it's not a blanket statement
00:23:59.080 on all education in Edmonton or Melbourne.
00:24:02.420 I think these are just, these are bad actors playing political.
00:24:05.440 And so we, I really appreciated that the teacher had shared that with us
00:24:09.100 and just requested, that's your choice as parents,
00:24:12.440 but in the classroom, that's not appropriate.
00:24:15.180 Well, it's good to hear that there are still some good teachers out there,
00:24:17.660 even in Edmonton.
00:24:19.220 Erica, I want to talk to you a little bit about the Canadian economy,
00:24:22.260 because there was a report that came out last week
00:24:24.940 that shows that, you know, the economy is barely chugging along
00:24:30.120 and the private sector is in deep decline.
00:24:32.800 So I want to share this StatsCan table.
00:24:36.060 First of all, you can see this is 2025 so far.
00:24:40.000 You can see that the overall economy, not good,
00:24:44.160 but the blue line there is the public sector.
00:24:46.500 We have not seen growth in the public sector at all since October 2024.
00:24:50.060 And the only reason that we're not in a full-blown recession
00:24:52.840 is because of the growth of government spending, basically,
00:24:56.380 which is not a good way, not a good indicator for the economy.
00:25:02.280 I'm wondering, like, what is your, what is your view?
00:25:05.200 I know that the media will sort of blame this on trade and Trump,
00:25:08.960 but I think that there's something deeper happening here.
00:25:11.820 You can see it with the loss of investment into our economy.
00:25:16.680 Billions of dollars are being pulled from bond markets.
00:25:20.000 Like, it's not a rosy picture.
00:25:22.280 It's pretty concerning for the future.
00:25:24.280 What do you think?
00:25:25.240 Yeah, and I think that's where, you know,
00:25:27.660 outlets like yours are so refreshing,
00:25:30.480 where they're actually driving the facts
00:25:32.600 and driving the actual current situation.
00:25:34.600 Because if we go back six years ago,
00:25:37.700 like, we were already on a decline.
00:25:39.340 We were already accumulating massive debt, to your point,
00:25:43.940 pushing money into public sector,
00:25:46.960 thinking that that's job creation,
00:25:48.900 when ultimately it's just hurting taxpayers in the long run.
00:25:54.040 And so this is a decline we've seen.
00:25:56.640 I think the reason why it's more top of mind
00:25:59.760 is because of the tariffs that exposed
00:26:02.280 how weak our economy actually is
00:26:04.980 and has become in the last 10 years.
00:26:07.020 It's limited interprovincial trade.
00:26:09.700 It's limited our self-reliance.
00:26:12.580 It's limited the ability for us to get our resources to market
00:26:16.660 and be an international player.
00:26:19.140 Instead, we crippled under, you know,
00:26:22.020 the U.S. relying solely on them.
00:26:25.760 And under a Biden administration,
00:26:27.860 you have an individual that's putting his own country first,
00:26:30.980 like we should.
00:26:32.020 And now we're in a situation
00:26:33.800 where I think it is more top of mind to folks
00:26:36.200 of how weak our economy was.
00:26:38.880 But this isn't something from yesterday
00:26:40.320 and it's not something that's changing tomorrow.
00:26:42.880 This has been almost a decade in working
00:26:44.780 to get our economy to be such a weak player
00:26:47.880 in the even G7.
00:26:50.280 And so I'm not surprised.
00:26:53.180 I think there's lots of people that thought
00:26:55.240 that Mark Carney's resume,
00:26:57.280 even though if you would have checked his references,
00:26:59.120 they were probably not that great,
00:27:00.700 but his resume was going to put us
00:27:03.380 in a very positive economic position.
00:27:07.400 I mean, he introduces an act that I will say
00:27:09.840 I initially support.
00:27:11.300 I was happy to see the Building Canada Act,
00:27:13.440 but the devil's in the details.
00:27:14.900 And I think that's really going to limit
00:27:16.660 what he can actually get for a return on investment
00:27:19.500 on that piece of policy.
00:27:21.820 Well, at the end of the day,
00:27:22.420 if you're unwilling to develop your natural resources,
00:27:24.520 if you're ashamed of your natural resources,
00:27:25.860 if you don't believe in pipelines
00:27:27.380 and getting our resources to market,
00:27:29.120 it doesn't matter how many trade deals you sign
00:27:32.740 or how well you do on the international stage.
00:27:37.240 If you don't believe in your own economy,
00:27:39.000 it's not going to go anywhere.
00:27:39.680 I want to read a little bit from the CBC News article on this
00:27:42.240 because I have to chuckle with the way that they frame it.
00:27:44.420 So the headline says,
00:27:45.120 Canadian economy shrinks 1.6% in second quarter
00:27:47.460 as U.S. tariffs squeeze exports.
00:27:50.480 So they're blaming it all on Trump and the tariffs.
00:27:53.160 And then the byline subhead here says,
00:27:56.440 contraction was much larger than expected,
00:27:58.500 but higher spending softened the blow, right?
00:28:01.260 So it's like congratulating the Canadian economy basically
00:28:05.020 just for printing money and borrowing
00:28:07.000 because it would have been much, much worse
00:28:09.120 if it weren't for government spending.
00:28:12.000 It says here that the latest figures
00:28:13.480 for the Canadian economy grew an annual rate of 0.4%
00:28:16.600 in the first six months of the year.
00:28:17.960 The second quarter contraction
00:28:18.900 was the first quarterly slowdown in seven quarters.
00:28:22.200 So, I mean, we're just barely avoiding a recession
00:28:24.840 at this point.
00:28:25.340 It seems to me that the only reason
00:28:26.680 that we're not in a full-blown recession, again,
00:28:28.460 is because of our massive government spending.
00:28:31.160 Maybe that's why Carney blew out the budget so much.
00:28:33.120 You know, everyone expected him to rein spending in,
00:28:35.660 but instead he blew it out just like Trudeau did.
00:28:37.800 What do you think?
00:28:38.160 Well, he blew it out farther than Trudeau.
00:28:39.860 And I mean, if you're a news outlet
00:28:41.120 that actually exists because of public sector investment
00:28:45.360 by the government,
00:28:46.720 of course you're going to spin it that way.
00:28:48.480 And I think that's a disservice to Canadians
00:28:50.280 on what the actual facts are.
00:28:51.880 Like I said, this decline is coming
00:28:54.200 because one, we were exposed to,
00:28:57.820 I think that this was just inevitable
00:29:00.240 based on the ridiculous spending
00:29:03.380 and how we don't have stronger interprovincial trade,
00:29:08.860 interprovincial deals,
00:29:10.260 and are actually looking at where do we create revenue.
00:29:15.900 Justin Trudeau was horrible for it,
00:29:17.780 of hurting the West and limiting thinking solar
00:29:21.460 is going to be the only thing
00:29:22.920 that gets us out of debt and deficit.
00:29:26.200 And Mark Carney, you know, is very much the same.
00:29:30.340 It's the same people at the table.
00:29:31.860 And so unfortunately, I think things may get worse
00:29:35.460 before they get better
00:29:36.580 because we don't have a government
00:29:38.540 that puts money back in the pockets of Canadians,
00:29:42.040 nor do they let industry and business
00:29:45.920 create the revenue we very much need.
00:29:48.380 Well, that's so important, right?
00:29:49.520 It's like maybe we would have a stronger economy
00:29:51.280 if we didn't have the government
00:29:52.300 strangling every aspect of it
00:29:54.600 and holding it back, right?
00:29:55.900 It's not just the pipelines,
00:29:57.220 this massive regulation,
00:29:58.440 the red tape that are required
00:29:59.880 to do business in this country.
00:30:02.220 All right, that's Erica Brutz of Macme College,
00:30:04.360 former principal secretary to Daniel Smith
00:30:06.240 and the founding president
00:30:07.240 of the United Conservative Party.
00:30:08.660 Erica, thank you so much
00:30:09.420 for joining the show today.
00:30:10.640 Thank you for having me.
00:30:11.500 All right, folks,
00:30:12.400 that's all the time we have for today.
00:30:13.380 We'll be back again tomorrow
00:30:14.020 with all the news.
00:30:14.540 I'm Candice Malcolm.
00:30:15.140 This is Candice Malcolm Show.
00:30:15.880 Thank you and God bless.