The Candice Malcolm Show - April 27, 2022


Standing up against the corporate media’s social justice agenda (Ft. Jamil Jivani)


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

179.80742

Word Count

6,685

Sentence Count

303

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The corporate legacy media fires yet another journalist who refuses to comply with the
00:00:05.500 woke left-wing ideology. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
00:00:20.820 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the show. So it seems like an all too familiar
00:00:25.300 story. The legacy media fires a bright and up-and-coming journalist for the crime of not
00:00:31.140 being woke enough. If you refuse to go along with the corporate media's social justice agenda,
00:00:36.020 if you fail to comply with the left's rigid, regressive, anti-scientific dogma, you very much
00:00:42.100 run the risk of losing your job. Now this is true in all sorts of sectors. I've heard of friends who
00:00:46.900 work at big banks who are required to put their preferred pronouns in their bio. Yes, you have to
00:00:52.500 tell the public whether you are he or she is if they wouldn't be able to tell from your name and
00:00:57.620 your photo. And here at True North, we've reported about how government workers are now often forced
00:01:02.160 to attend so-called anti-racist training, which is usually just filled with racist nonsense about
00:01:07.600 white people being universally oppressive and irredeemably bad. The woke mind virus, as Elon
00:01:13.640 Musk aptly calls it, has infected just what every company in corporate Canada, but it seems to be
00:01:19.140 the media that is hardest hit. There are anti-conservative purges happening in editorial
00:01:24.020 sections and managerial rooms across the country. Among the legacy media, I found that this is
00:01:29.800 particularly true in the world of talk radio. So talk radio used to be a medium that was dominated
00:01:34.860 by conservative voices and conservative ideas, but that has dramatically changed in the past decade.
00:01:40.500 We used to hear passionate and heated criticisms of never-ending leftist dogma. Well, today's the
00:01:45.660 opposite. We hear cheerleading of woke dogma. We used to hear voices ranting against things like
00:01:50.400 political correctness and government overreach, rants against progressive forces undermining family,
00:01:55.820 tradition, and the values of our society. Well, today, talk radio, again, champions all those things.
00:02:01.000 It sounds completely different. It's soft. It's effeminate. It's progressive. It's unapologetically
00:02:06.480 woke. The most trusted conservative voices in the talk radio world are long gone. Voices like
00:02:11.480 David Rutherford and Andrew Lawton. They have been pushed off the airways. The ones that still remain
00:02:16.840 like long-standing conservative voice Charles Adler. I once worked for him. Well, he's done a
00:02:22.500 complete 180. Adler used to be the voice of Canadian common sense. That was his tagline. That was what he
00:02:27.960 based his show around. Well, now it's the opposite. He's abandoned common sense, and he's become a pro-Trudeau
00:02:33.620 leftist voice cheerleading the liberal agenda at every possibility. It's unbearable to listen to. He routinely
00:02:39.620 thanks the government, and he calls conservatives the enemy. That's someone who used to be
00:02:44.080 a strong conservative voice. Well, I guess he did what he needed to do in order to keep his voice
00:02:49.220 on the air. Well, today, I'm pleased to be joined by a conservative who did the exact opposite,
00:02:54.160 a conservative who refused to bend the knee. He refused to parrot the left's deranged, woke ideology,
00:02:59.900 and he refused to be muzzled by the corporate legacy media. I'm talking about Jamil Javani. So,
00:03:05.420 Jamil, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:03:08.340 Thanks for having me, Candice.
00:03:10.580 So, for those who are not familiar with Jamil, this is the first time he's come on the program.
00:03:14.840 He's a former radio host, and he is now a Senior Fellow for Diversity and Empowerment, I like that title,
00:03:20.600 at the McDonnell-Laurie Institute. He also sits on the Premier's Council on Equality and Opportunity,
00:03:25.640 and is an advocate for community opportunities in the Ford government. Jamil used to be the host of
00:03:30.720 Tonight with Jamil Javani on News Talk 1010 here in Toronto, but he was recently fired by Bell Media and
00:03:35.620 iHeartRadio for refusing to parrot left-wing talking points. Jamil is a graduate of Yale Law
00:03:41.920 School, one of the best and most selective law schools in the world, and he's the author of the
00:03:45.260 book, Why Young Men? Rage, Race, and the Crisis of Identity. So, Jamil, it's such an honor to have
00:03:51.220 you on the show. I know you and I talk, but this is the first time you've come on the Candice Malcolm
00:03:55.060 Show. So, welcome, and let's talk a little bit about your background. So, what got you interested in
00:04:01.540 the world of media? I know you went to law school, you're a lawyer by training. Why did you choose to
00:04:07.040 go into media and not into law? Yeah, well, it's great to be with you, Candice, and, you know, I've
00:04:12.780 been a listener to the show for a while, so it's cool to be on with you. You know, basically, my
00:04:18.180 interest in media came from doing advocacy work and activism on behalf of the communities that I
00:04:24.480 serve and that I have lived in. And, you know, I did about, you know, routinely doing interviews and,
00:04:30.720 you know, writing op-eds, eventually turned into some relationships in the media. And I think a
00:04:37.000 tipping point for me was the summer of 2020. In particular, you know, the Black Lives Matter
00:04:43.020 protests, some of which turned into riots in the United States, were happening. There was a church,
00:04:48.920 a very famous, and one of the oldest churches in Washington, D.C., that was burned down. You might
00:04:54.120 remember, it's the famous church where Donald Trump took a picture with an upside-down Bible.
00:04:59.160 And when that church was burned down, it just was very troubling to me to see how everyone was
00:05:07.400 pretending that this was somehow the will of Black people, that Black people wanted churches burned
00:05:13.420 down, that we wanted riots, that we wanted police officers being attacked. I just, that is not the
00:05:20.620 experience I've had as a Black person, both living in the United States and in Canada. And it's also not
00:05:26.380 what anyone who I worship with at church or who I see in community centers, what anyone wants,
00:05:33.240 regardless of their racial background. So it was very frustrating for me to see that. And that's what
00:05:38.260 made me kind of say, okay, maybe I need to spend a bit more time in the media space, because there's
00:05:43.640 got to be somebody to speak against this stuff. And to show that, you know, the average working
00:05:49.240 middle-class Black family has the same political priorities as the average working middle-class
00:05:55.740 family of any other race, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever. And this idea that the media is
00:06:02.580 consistently sort of manipulating certain communities to be, in my view, Trojan horses for
00:06:09.440 a left-wing agenda. I just think that needed to be, you know, rebutted. And that's where the radio show
00:06:16.220 came in, where I sort of said, okay, I'm interested in doing more media now. And I had a radio show
00:06:21.220 pitched to me, and I said, okay, I mean, it's different than anything I've done before. But
00:06:24.780 at that point, I felt like my voice, and frankly, the voice of the guests that I wanted to bring on was
00:06:30.260 necessary. It's so interesting. I want to go back to that summer of 2020 episode, because it was such an
00:06:37.220 interesting sort of turning point in retrospect, right? You had COVID in full-fledged. Everyone was
00:06:42.420 ordered to stay at home. It was a new edict that we're all sort of getting used to. We were told two
00:06:47.300 weeks to flatten the curve. And then, as we know, that turned into many, many months of lockdowns. And in
00:06:51.820 the midst of all that, there was this huge traumatic event that was captured on film, and it sort of
00:06:57.340 captured the imagination of the entire world. I'm talking about the death of George Floyd, the murder at
00:07:04.240 the hands of a police officer in Minnesota. And that kind of really powerful story exploded into
00:07:13.080 just uncontrollable riots all over the country. It seemed to me the media was really kind of cheering
00:07:20.660 that on. They wanted to undermine Donald Trump's authority. They knew that the election was coming
00:07:24.660 up, and they wanted to paint the picture of a lack of stability and complete chaos under Donald Trump's
00:07:31.040 watch. I'm wondering, from your perspective, how did things get so out of hand? And you said that
00:07:36.940 the demands of people and the actions of the rioters and the protesters, there's peaceful
00:07:42.920 protesters mixed in with the sort of chaotic rioters, was not the will of the sort of typical
00:07:48.540 middle-class black family or black people. So how did that get so separated? And what do you think
00:07:56.620 of the fact that this issue of policing and police brutality aimed towards the black community
00:08:02.640 sort of got so separated from the best interests in protecting and ensuring stability and lawfulness
00:08:11.100 in black communities?
00:08:13.840 Well, the unfortunate reality is that a lot of us who may be considered, you know, symbols of diversity,
00:08:21.500 whether it's black people, indigenous people, women, the LGBT community, often we get used by elite
00:08:29.740 liberals who have their own political agenda, whatever it may be at the given time, whether
00:08:35.200 it's an attempt to draw up voters, or whether it's an attempt to push forward a new policy framework,
00:08:41.880 or increase corporate power in a certain industry, a certain aspect of our lives, like big tech,
00:08:48.820 for example, we get used. And it's unfortunate, because a lot of us do believe, and you know,
00:08:56.000 it's, it's, I don't say this dismissively, a lot of us do believe that these liberal elites are the
00:09:01.340 only way for our communities to have a voice. And so we're all too willing to accept being manipulated
00:09:07.940 and being used by them. And I think that's what happened in the summer of 2020, which is, you know,
00:09:14.160 the Democrats wanted to get black voters in particular, but I think all sorts of voters
00:09:19.980 angry at the Republicans angry at Donald Trump, so that they could count on their support in the 2020
00:09:27.180 election. And I also think that a lot of corporations who benefited, frankly, from pandemic policy,
00:09:35.260 because they were big businesses and small businesses, their competitors are being put out.
00:09:40.020 And so embracing race politics became a way to brand themselves as compassionate and thoughtful
00:09:47.880 and caring, at a time where masses of people were being locked down, and big business profits were
00:09:55.600 skyrocketing. So I really don't believe there's a lot of heart for disadvantaged people of any race
00:10:03.680 among these liberal elites. I think a lot of it is using us as pawns. And I think the clearest example
00:10:10.000 of that, as you mentioned, Candace, would be the way policing has been dealt with in the last two
00:10:15.020 years. The reason why what happened with George Floyd is so tragic, in addition to him losing his life
00:10:21.860 and his family having to mourn him, is that police are necessary in all of our communities, but especially
00:10:28.920 where children are exposed to crime. No parent wants their son or daughter walking home from school and
00:10:36.520 having to worry about a stray bullet hitting them. So in those sorts of situations, police violence is
00:10:43.300 doubly tragic. One, because of the violence itself, and two, because it undermines a really important
00:10:50.920 role for government services to have in creating an even playing field for people who are living in an
00:10:57.740 environment where crime may be a greater influence over their public safety than in other places.
00:11:03.020 And what we saw liberal elites do is instead of leaning into that complexity and saying, okay,
00:11:08.840 how do we try to solve this problem so we can have safe streets, but also make sure that police powers
00:11:14.440 are used in safe and restrained ways, they decided to just to make police the enemy. And we've seen
00:11:21.740 homicide rates in many areas in the United States increase dramatically since then, because liberal elites
00:11:28.840 have created narratives and fan flames of division between police officers and the communities that
00:11:34.320 they serve. So if liberal elites have a heart for our communities, if their genuine interest is in the
00:11:40.120 betterment of black people, indigenous people, women, LGBT, whatever minority group, or in the case of
00:11:46.120 women, majority group that they're claiming to have a concern for, I just think that outcomes would be
00:11:52.640 different and policy choices would be different. And I think that exposes, I think, the real intention behind a lot of this,
00:11:58.420 uh, so-called activism.
00:12:00.380 Well, it seems like there's so many contradictions, Jamil, in the left world, left-wing worldview and
00:12:05.920 ideology, because I'll just give you another example. You know, the left, uh, has also been sort of
00:12:10.540 championing this idea of, um, aboriginal reconciliation and, you know, doing the similar kind of routine where
00:12:16.640 they look the other way when, uh, statues are torn down and churches are burned down in Canada. Um, and so that they
00:12:22.460 really pretend to take an interest in, uh, you know, improving the lives of First Nations people.
00:12:27.500 Well, at the same time, they kill and cancel, uh, pipelines and, and projects that could give jobs and
00:12:34.880 give meaningful work to people in Northern communities. So, so while at the same time as
00:12:39.400 sort of pretending to champion the cause, um, the policies that they enact harm the, uh, the potential
00:12:46.200 of, of, of working and, and having meaningful, uh, you know, work in your life that, that, that enables you
00:12:51.660 so much more growth. I see the same kind of thing with Black Lives Matter. It's like, you know,
00:12:56.340 the, the, the, the, the people on the left, the spokespeople, the media, they, they, they pretend
00:13:01.020 to champion Black causes. They put up a Black square on their Instagram, but then they also
00:13:05.460 call for defunding the police. I know in, in Toronto, there was a big issue. The Toronto started
00:13:10.220 a big expose on the issue of carding and, uh, the idea that, that Black people were disproportionately
00:13:16.080 stopped by police, asked for their ID. Um, and the idea was sort of the proactive policing that
00:13:20.860 they, that they would go into neighborhoods that had higher crime and just sort of keep the peace
00:13:25.180 to prevent crime from coming down the road. Uh, after the Toronto Star investigation, they stopped
00:13:30.840 that practice and looked into it. And maybe there was some disproportionate racial profiling going
00:13:35.120 on, but it's, it's, it's undeniable that the crime rate in Toronto raised, uh, went up after that. And
00:13:39.500 we had more murders in Toronto than in New York city. Um, I think in 2018 or 2019. So it seems like a lot
00:13:45.260 of the policies that the left advocate for are actually worse off. I'm wondering if you can
00:13:50.040 comment on that. Well, yeah. So the, the police carding or street checks it's called in some parts
00:13:57.940 of Canada. Um, the, one of the reasons why it's a problem is that it allows for too much discretion
00:14:04.840 on the part of police officers to determine who is suspicious, who should be stopped, who should be
00:14:11.240 questioned. And I think, you know, as a conservative, I have a sensitivity to that, uh, because I think
00:14:16.820 it can enable government overreach into people's lives, but also as a black man, I have a sensitivity
00:14:21.840 to it because I experienced those sorts of policies and what it's like when a police officer just
00:14:27.680 arbitrarily decides to treat you like you've done something wrong when you haven't. So I understand
00:14:32.780 the concern and I don't think it's, it would be wise to dismiss why people get concerned about
00:14:38.440 these sorts of policies. But to your point about the Toronto star, for example, what it exposes that
00:14:44.640 when a problem is, uh, raised are people who sort of have a more nuanced balanced in my, from my
00:14:53.880 perspective, more sophisticated, uh, approach to trying to develop a solution actually prepared to
00:14:59.800 compete with the left-wing narrative that is going to sound the alarm and remove any kind of nuance
00:15:05.620 in the discussion at all. And frankly, misrepresent a lot of these communities, including many black
00:15:11.420 families, as though we are anti-police or we hate the police or don't understand how critical the police
00:15:17.600 are for us to have any sort of equality of opportunity in this society. So in my view, what the Toronto star
00:15:25.280 success is in shaping perceptions of police officers in this part of the country is a sign that we don't
00:15:33.200 have people sort of on the other side of the debate, well prepared to actually push back on
00:15:39.560 the Toronto star's efforts. I can give you a very clear example of that. We had, in my view, one of
00:15:45.120 the most talented judges in Canada, uh, justice Michael Tullock, write a report in 2018 about police
00:15:52.500 reform in Ontario. And a lot of his recommendations are applicable in other provinces as well. And in that
00:15:58.700 report, not once does a single black community organization that he interviewed, not once does a
00:16:05.380 single black mother or father that he spoke with or indigenous mother or father in that report say
00:16:11.500 the solution to any single problem is defunding police officers. All of their concerns could probably
00:16:17.640 summarize as mostly around training, building better relationships, police and communities. That is what a
00:16:24.060 black judge and all the black and indigenous community groups he interviewed. Those that was
00:16:29.960 their perspective. Now you would think that conservatives in power, whether it's a provincial
00:16:35.140 government here in Ontario, for example, might see that as an opportunity and say, okay, so these are
00:16:40.420 actually really reasonable, practical ways of addressing people's concerns about policing. We should get
00:16:46.180 behind that. It actually doesn't harm anyone. It doesn't take, uh, responsibilities or resources away from
00:16:52.720 police officers. In fact, it might lead to more resources for police officers. And yet conservatives
00:16:58.160 sat on that report for two years and did nothing. And then when the George Floyd thing happens,
00:17:04.300 the left is ready to push their agenda. And we had nothing to say in response because our work,
00:17:10.700 the work that was done on behalf of the working middle-class families that we should be thinking
00:17:15.120 about and prioritizing was just sitting on a shelf somewhere. So in my view, it's one, you know,
00:17:20.780 we can certainly be frustrated with the Toronto Star's alarmism or other examples of the left
00:17:26.620 being really successful in changing a conversation for the worse. But there's also tons of examples of
00:17:32.340 conservatives just not being ready to fight back and not being in a position to advance our own
00:17:37.260 worldview. And we can't blame anyone for that, but ourselves.
00:17:41.140 You're so true. You're so right. It's so true that conservatives are constantly on the defense.
00:17:44.840 And even when we have opportunities, like I would say that COVID presented a golden opportunity
00:17:48.940 for conservative governments to look at reforming our healthcare system, something that conservatives
00:17:53.080 have long complained about, the rigid government monopoly of healthcare. Well, here we have this
00:17:57.920 opportunity where healthcare system is failing and a lot of Canadians are noticing that. And rather
00:18:03.300 than conservatives being proactive and trying to push forth their own agenda, they're still sort of
00:18:07.560 playing defense on the latest cultural issues with liberals. It's so unfortunate, Jamil.
00:18:13.380 I want to go back to the whole situation with you at News Talk 1010 and what happened there. So you said
00:18:20.180 that you got approached and someone pitched a radio show to you in the midst of this social situation
00:18:27.000 that we were just commenting on. So tell us about your career with the radio station, what your show
00:18:33.940 was about, and how long you lasted on the air.
00:18:36.780 Yeah, so I was on the air for about a year and a half from summer 2020 until the end of 2021.
00:18:45.400 The person who was sort of directly above me in the very large bureaucracy that is Bell Media,
00:18:52.560 he was great. He understood that I was not a sort of token liberal, that I was a Black man with largely
00:19:00.420 conservative views on many issues, that I was not going to be a champion for Black Lives Matter,
00:19:05.520 that I had my own opinions, that I was going to bring on Black folks as guests who are not going
00:19:11.300 to be parrots for the liberal status quo. He knew all of that and he embraced it and he was a great
00:19:16.340 boss. But every single manager and executive above him was just like obsessed with trying to force
00:19:26.340 some sort of conformity on myself and on others on the air. And that was where a lot of the problems
00:19:32.640 existed, where it just felt like every day was an exhausting battle. You know, I knew anything I
00:19:39.660 said was going to be misinterpreted and I would be get some kind of weird email saying,
00:19:45.980 Driel, you know, we heard someone's upset about this. And I just, I just, it was like wearing me
00:19:51.780 down over time. That year and a half was brutal in terms of just not, I couldn't feel like I could just
00:19:57.460 do my job and then go home. It was like, I do my job and then I count down when someone's going to
00:20:02.440 complain about what I've said. Now let's keep in mind, what they're complaining about my opinions
00:20:07.840 are held by the majority of people in this country. I do not have fringe views on any topic. My views
00:20:15.480 on the air and my political opinions are informed by the reality that I grew up in an immigrant,
00:20:22.060 mostly immigrant community. I've lived and worked in middle-class communities all across Canada and
00:20:28.240 the United States. I'm very aware of the challenges people face. And I want to raise a political
00:20:34.980 conversation that I think actually responds to the concerns of the average mom and dad in this
00:20:41.620 country. So they're upset with me because I am not taking these ivory tower liberal positions,
00:20:48.340 whether it's on things like identity, race, and gender, whether it's on class issues like unionization,
00:20:55.760 whether it's on the power of the state to punish people who come from communities that I think have
00:21:02.940 historical reasons for being hesitant to get vaccinated and trying to encourage some sort of
00:21:08.780 sympathy and empathy for those families. Like it was just so weird to live in reality where most people
00:21:16.420 either if they, even if they disagreed with me, the average person I interact with at least can see
00:21:21.700 the reasonableness and all the positions that I take. And yet in bell media, these people who want
00:21:28.120 to sell you the internet and cell phones who in theory should be responsive to, you know, what the
00:21:34.720 masses of people think and believe in their priorities and their concerns and their debates wants to push
00:21:40.840 absolute conformity on a lot of these issues on the air. And that boiled over, uh, in Canada Day last
00:21:48.020 year, uh, where the day before Canada Day on June 30th, they wanted us to play a bunch of clips of
00:21:54.380 people complaining about how racist Canada is. They wanted us to go on the air and basically decry the
00:22:00.160 country as racist. And I was just like, this is not reality. Like I grew up in Brampton in a neighborhood
00:22:07.580 that is mostly black and Sikh. I never once heard people bad mouth the country. They may have issues
00:22:14.200 with, uh, discrimination in some cases or feeling like they're not getting an equal opportunity.
00:22:20.100 Sure. But I've never once heard people say, I wish I never came to Canada or I wish I could leave this
00:22:25.480 country or wow, how terrible. Never once, never. And so the fact that they were trying to take their
00:22:31.340 one black radio host and turn him into a whiny white, uh, graduate student, I just was, I just refused
00:22:41.100 to do that. And, uh, you know, these white liberal executives, I think took, uh, offense to the fact
00:22:48.600 that I was unwilling to do what they asked. And I was very, as you could probably tell from hearing me
00:22:53.700 now, very passionate about opposing their pressure. And, you know, unfortunately it's an industry,
00:23:00.440 as you know, well, uh, Candace full of people who are willing to bend the knee on everything,
00:23:04.760 even when they disagree privately, the media world in this country is like a giant country club
00:23:10.520 where people are afraid of offending their overseers because they may get kicked out.
00:23:16.160 And because of my background as a lawyer, because I work in policy and activism, I don't need the media.
00:23:22.640 And so I was not willing to let these people manipulate me into thinking I'll have no career
00:23:28.180 unless I do what they say. It's just not a position I was willing to accept. And I think
00:23:32.500 that more than anything is what led to them terminating me was they realized, you know,
00:23:37.020 they've got someone who might set a bad precedent. If other people in the industry look at me and say,
00:23:42.660 oh, you can have a career while like saying what you believe and standing up for yourself,
00:23:47.280 well, we can't have that. So they tried to make an example out of me. And I think they thought
00:23:51.240 they could, you know, uh, incentivize me with money or with additional job opportunities to
00:23:57.380 prevent me from telling the truth of what happened. But I was, I'm not willing to sign an NDA. I'm not
00:24:03.660 willing to take their, their bribes. I'm going to tell the truth. And, uh, you know, I know they're
00:24:08.560 upset about that, but that's what happens when you, uh, treat people this way. You know, they try to
00:24:13.520 dehumanize conservatives. Well, we're going to force them to recognize our humanity.
00:24:17.480 It's, it's so, there's so much irony in, in that story, Jamil, because they hired you, uh, to comment
00:24:24.280 on a very, you know, public social situation that was going on with George Floyd and Black Lives
00:24:28.480 Matter. And then they wouldn't let you have your own voice. They wouldn't let you say what you wanted
00:24:33.560 to say. They tried to pressure you. So you had white liberals pressuring a young black radio host
00:24:38.440 to, to, to, to repeat a certain type of, of ideas. And it's like, do they not realize
00:24:44.660 how sort of out of touch and, uh, propagandistic they are? It's, it's really, it's really wild.
00:24:51.840 I wonder, I know that you, uh, you, you said you started in radio in 2020. So you, you might not
00:24:57.000 have known what the industry was like sort of back in the day, but when I, when I was growing up,
00:25:01.160 I remember my dad would always listen to the news talk, uh, radio station in Vancouver. And it was,
00:25:05.700 it was right wing. That was, that was what talk radio used to be. It was, uh, you know, people
00:25:10.460 talking about how they wanted government, smaller government and basically to be left alone by
00:25:16.140 government. And that was sort of the theme that, that I would constantly hear. When do you think
00:25:19.860 that started to shift and when did this sort of woke, uh, dogma and, and, and the necessity that
00:25:27.160 everyone have the exact same opinion? Uh, when do you think that started to take over and what was
00:25:31.480 causing that? Well, one of the, one of the, a couple of things are happening here. So one of the big
00:25:37.460 issues is that, uh, too much, too many media outlets in this country are owned by a very small
00:25:44.120 number of people. So Bell media owns CTV news. They own a bunch of radio stations across the country.
00:25:51.120 They own TSN. They own a lot of media outlets. So even though, you know, the average consumer may
00:25:57.280 see these different brands at the end of the day, they're controlled by the same people. And what that
00:26:02.140 means for us as Canadians and living in a democracy is that a small board of directors, a small C-suite
00:26:10.160 set of executives get to decide what is politically acceptable on these outlets and what isn't. So the
00:26:17.380 centralization of corporate power over the media is a big part of what's gone wrong here, because what
00:26:24.080 you have in the case of Bell is the same company deciding what is politically correct on the radio or
00:26:30.420 on television is also a very risk averse company trying to sell you the internet and cable services
00:26:37.680 and cell phones. So they're taking a mindset of selling you products and applying that same corporate
00:26:46.120 philosophy to the media, which I think the average Canadian would say, we'd love it if our media were
00:26:53.060 independent enough to actually criticize big corporations. What if Bell media is doing something
00:26:58.980 that's harming the country? Like, for example, Bell media as a corporation takes positions on political
00:27:05.540 issues, like, for instance, systemic racism. And then now it spreads that philosophy and how they want
00:27:14.320 to talk about racism and race on all these media platforms. That seems like something journalists
00:27:20.360 should be talking about. Do we want corporations promoting their political philosophy from the top of a board
00:27:26.360 of directors all the way on down through its media platforms? We don't talk about that. The other
00:27:31.480 issue that comes from a Bell media is concentration of power is we know that Canadians are charged more
00:27:38.500 than almost any other country in the world, very high rates for cell phone services, and for internet
00:27:43.880 services. Bell media just raised its prices a few months ago. That seems like something Canadians might want
00:27:50.520 the media to report on. Should we be concerned? Should journalists be talking about why is it that
00:27:55.500 Canadians have to overpay for these things? Why is it that it's becoming increasingly difficult for the
00:28:00.840 average family, especially during a time like this, where everything's becoming more expensive? Why is it that
00:28:06.280 we shouldn't be making these things more affordable, especially, by the way, when the government's going to
00:28:11.100 force your kids to stay home and take classes online? Why is it now that Bell gets to raise the price of
00:28:18.320 the internet while more parents actually need the internet to give their kid a fair education? These
00:28:24.800 are all questions that you would want a fair and independent media to be exploring, and yet you see very
00:28:30.680 little coverage on these issues. So I think that's one big problem is the corporatization and the
00:28:36.300 centralization of corporate power in our media. Another issue, though, I would say that comes out
00:28:43.220 of this is a generation shift. And this is something that I think is really important for people to
00:28:48.920 understand. There is an older approach to conservative politics that I think is still welcome on a lot of
00:28:56.380 these platforms. And what I mean by that is, if you come out on the radio or on TV and say, we should be
00:29:02.260 cutting taxes. And I'm really mad at Justin Trudeau, because he's not cutting taxes. That
00:29:08.680 kind of conservatism is still embraced. Because frankly, a lot of these liberal executives, they
00:29:13.040 also want their taxes cut. They talk a big game, but they want to save money too. But the kind of
00:29:18.460 conservative politics that I would say is of our generation, Candace, where you're seeing, you know,
00:29:24.080 millennials, Gen Xers, Gen Zers talking about things like race and gender, and being, you know,
00:29:30.780 and having a clear view that is different from liberal orthodoxy, or talking about inequality,
00:29:36.540 and what we do about the fact that, you know, very small number of people got very rich during the
00:29:42.860 pandemic, that big tech power is growing and accumulating at an unprecedented rate. These are
00:29:50.040 the kinds of issues that I think younger conservatives are more inclined to talk about. These are the kinds
00:29:54.700 of things I talked about on my show. And they have a very strong problem with that. So they would love it
00:30:00.220 if they could trot out, you know, elderly people to repeat talking points from the 1980s,
00:30:07.960 because then they can caricature conservatives, they can say, Oh, these people are out of touch,
00:30:12.220 they don't know what's going on in the world right now. That's the kind of conservative they
00:30:16.000 would like. And frankly, you can see even some politicians that that mirror that approach to
00:30:21.920 politics, get a lot of support from the Bay Street type of crowd. But if you are bringing a different
00:30:27.880 perspective, one that might actually challenge these folks, it's yeah, it's gonna be a tough battle.
00:30:33.260 And I think that's, that's a big part of what's changed in the media landscape.
00:30:37.700 Well, it's so true, because there's always a certain brand of conservative that wants
00:30:41.480 strange new respect from the media. And I and I see it sadly, too often with conservative politicians.
00:30:46.620 Well, they'll they'll present themselves as being socially liberal, but fiscally conservative,
00:30:51.760 as if that's the sort of acceptable combination in the media, where you're completely right, the the
00:30:58.140 cultural battles of our of our time are really the defining issues. And and that's, those are the
00:31:03.680 ones that certainly the media and too many conservative politicians shy away from not talking
00:31:08.240 about social issues, I'm talking about cultural issues. And I actually feel, Jamil, that there's a bit
00:31:13.080 of a turning point, like the left has had a dominance for the last, I don't know, 20, 30, 40,
00:31:20.100 50 years when it comes to social progress, right, that the left has pushed its ideas through academia,
00:31:25.960 through the media, through corporations, big business, every everywhere you look, the left is
00:31:31.760 gaining ground. But I think I think they've gone too far. And there's a couple of big examples,
00:31:37.340 you see Ron DeSantis, the governor down in Florida, really pushing back against Disney. And it looks like,
00:31:43.140 you know, having having a victory in terms of, you know, pushing through legislation that protects
00:31:48.280 parents from their children being indoctrinated with the gender ideology in school, you know,
00:31:53.740 Disney pushing back, and then Disney losing their special status that gives them special tax and,
00:31:59.040 you know, exemptions from regulations. So on the one hand, that that cultural battle is being fought
00:32:04.740 out, and I think won by conservatives. And on the other hand, you have Elon Musk successfully,
00:32:09.560 it looks like buying Twitter and saying, I'm going to recreate Twitter to be what it was supposed to be,
00:32:13.760 a free speech platform. So I'm wondering if you can comment on these on these sort of victories that
00:32:19.380 conservatives have been having, whether you think that there is a shift and a turning point, whether
00:32:23.340 you would categorize these as victories, or if it's too soon to tell, what are your thoughts?
00:32:29.060 Well, I think you're right that there is a pushback mounting. It's becoming more commonplace to see
00:32:35.020 people acknowledge like this has gone too far, this, this woke political movement, however you want to
00:32:41.760 label it. I think it's becoming increasingly common for people to feel more comfortable saying what
00:32:47.380 they probably believed two years ago, but didn't know how to say without potentially risking their
00:32:52.320 jobs, their reputations. So that is a good measure, I believe, of pushback growing is just seeing it be
00:32:58.780 more commonplace for people to express dissent from this very well funded, well financed political
00:33:06.820 movement. Where I'm a little bit concerned is what you know, with someone like Ron DeSantis, I think
00:33:13.600 he's on the right track, in terms of establishing some safeguards for how power is used in our society.
00:33:21.780 I don't see the Elon Musk thing really being an example of that, like it's really just switching
00:33:27.720 from one center of power to another, maybe he'll use it in a way that's more pro free speech. But even
00:33:34.640 Jack Dorsey's comment on this is that he doesn't really believe that Twitter should be a company,
00:33:40.460 a private company anymore. He said that. And he said, if it's going to be a private company,
00:33:44.500 he's glad Elon Musk is in charge, but he doesn't believe that it should be a private company.
00:33:49.840 And I tend to agree with that. And I think Ron DeSantis' views are in line with that too.
00:33:55.680 Now, I don't know if that means it should be considered a public utility. Some of these
00:33:59.920 big tech firms, you know, I'm not super confident that's the solution either. But broadly speaking,
00:34:06.800 I do think that we need some sort of regulations in place. And this is what Ron DeSantis has done
00:34:11.620 well, just to make sure that power accumulating in the private sector is going to have some checks
00:34:17.840 and balances, the same way conservatives rightfully want power in the public sector to have checks
00:34:23.620 and balances. So from my view, that should be the ultimate goal. And any change that happens that
00:34:29.720 doesn't increase accountability on powerful institutions probably could be a good first
00:34:35.220 step, but probably is not where we should be hanging our hats, I think. Well, it's interesting because we
00:34:40.220 talk a lot about how corporations, especially big tech, they are more powerful in countries. And we see
00:34:44.980 examples of that time and time again, but they're not governed by anything remotely like a constitution.
00:34:49.180 So there's no, you know, transparency or public disclosure in terms of how the algorithm works. You
00:34:54.300 have no idea why you're not getting the same kind of reach as you might have before. It's completely
00:34:59.720 secretive. And then when it comes to protecting free speech and freedom of association and, you know,
00:35:06.740 the right to have a platform, essentially the right to speak in the public, you know, they'll just erase
00:35:14.080 your account and disappear you without any kind of, again, transparency or due process. So it seems
00:35:19.120 like it is a bigger challenge than just who's at the helm. However, I think I can't help but feeling
00:35:25.840 like that we're reaching this cultural turning point where the left has just pushed us too far
00:35:31.000 in so many ways. And it's been adopted by all of the sort of elite fancy people that hold the same
00:35:36.200 opinion that we're starting to see a bit of a pushback. Maybe that's too optimistic on my behalf,
00:35:43.460 but it's starting to feel like maybe there's a cultural turning point happening. I'll give you the
00:35:48.420 last word to give your thoughts on that. I certainly hope you're right, Candice, that there's
00:35:54.800 a cultural turning point. And I think you've given some great examples of where we have reason to be
00:35:59.640 optimistic. The only thing I would say is that this is a consistent sort of up and down, ebb and flow.
00:36:07.140 And really what conservatives need to do, in my view, especially in Canada, is build institutions,
00:36:12.880 whether it's media organizations and policy organizations like True North, whether it's
00:36:18.720 think tanks or even businesses. Whatever realm of society you're in, having institutions that are
00:36:26.020 going to be steadfast in adhering to conservative principles and making sure that the ebb and flow
00:36:33.440 doesn't leave conservatives without a place to have our voices heard, to make our concerns known to the
00:36:39.940 public, and most importantly, to develop solutions on how we might make the world a better place.
00:36:45.220 I think we need those institutions. And I don't think we should outsource that to Elon Musk. So
00:36:50.480 my hope is that we all just keep, you know, fighting the good fight and building the kind
00:36:54.660 of institutions that can do right by, you know, the working middle class in this country.
00:36:59.780 Oh, that's such a good point. All right, Jamil, thank you so much for joining the show. It's
00:37:03.180 really been great to have you on. I look forward to having you on again. Thank you so much for
00:37:07.160 joining us. That's Jamil Javani. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.