The Candice Malcolm Show： Fake protesters everywhere
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Summary
Fake protesters are paid to support a Huawei executive, and more fake protesters are fighting against the pipeline. Meanwhile, real protesters in Virginia are maligned as white supremacists. Plus, we ll do fake news and talk about the conservative leadership race.
Transcript
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Fake protesters are paid to support a Huawei executive, and more fake protesters are fighting
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against the pipeline. Meanwhile, real protesters in Virginia are maligned as white supremacists.
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Federal spending reaches an all-time high under Justin Trudeau. Plus, we'll do fake news and talk
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about the conservative leadership race. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
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So, Huawei executive Meng Wangzhu was in a Vancouver court this week. As you probably know,
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she is fighting against extradition charges. She's been under house arrest in Vancouver since she was
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arrested flying into Vancouver on her way to Mexico. She was held. She is being charged with crimes in
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the United States for breaking U.S. sanctions. She is alleged to have been wheeling and dealing with
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the terrorist state of Iran, which breaks U.S. sanctions. And so, she is going to trial this
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week. Well, she showed up at a Vancouver courtroom, and there was something fishy going on. There was
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something fishy going on. There were a group of protesters outside the court, supposedly in support
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of Ms. Meng. And basically, they just looked like a group of young students or perhaps out-of-work
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actors. When journalists started pressing them, asking them questions, they basically folded.
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There was incredibly awkward moments. Let's play a little clip of that.
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No, what's your name? You got a free Ms. Meng sign? What school do you go to?
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I don't think you're allowed to ask us personal questions like that.
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I'm a reporter. I ask personal questions. Are you paid to be here?
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Yeah, so those don't really look like grassroots protesters. They couldn't really even explain what
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was going on. They didn't know anything about the extradition treaty. Well, one of those
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individuals has come forth to say that, yes, she was an actor. She was responding to an ad that she
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saw, and she basically thought that she was going to a set. She's an actor, and she responded to an
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ad. An actor who was part of a group of young people protesting outside of Huawei's CFO Meng
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Wangzhu's extradition here on Monday said she thought she was performing as an extra in a film
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shoot, not attending a real protester. So Julia Hack's staff says, this reporter started asking us
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questions. I don't know how much time it was. It felt like forever. It was probably just 20 to 30
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seconds. But then I realized, no, this is a real reporter. Amidst the media circus surrounding the
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extradition trial of Huawei's CFO Meng Wangzhu, a group of young protesters stood out. On Monday,
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reporters noticed a group of young people standing with hastily made signs that read,
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Bring Michael home, Trump stop bullying us, and Free Miss Meng, Equal Justice. The protesters couldn't
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tell reporters their names or what group they represented. But some are now coming forward after
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footage of the awkward encounter between real reporters and pretend protesters was spread
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widely on social media. Wow. So there's news that they were being paid $100. Another report that they
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were getting paid $150. Well, you know, that's that's kind of what you expect when you're dealing
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with a communist regime like China and a state owned company like Huawei. And those weren't the only
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protesters out in British Columbia this week. Bigger protests, the protest has expanded for people
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against the coastal gas link pipeline out on Vancouver Island. This time, they blocked a ferry
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terminal, a very popular ferry route going from Vancouver out to Vancouver Island. They came up with a list of
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demands for the British Columbia government, and they claimed to be representing and supporting a First Nations
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group. Well, the only problem with this, and this is what we talked about last week with the United Nations report that
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condemned this exact same project is that First Nation groups were consulted in the approval of this
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pipeline. And many First Nation groups actually support the building of this pipeline. As we've mentioned
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earlier, 20 different First Nations groups have signed on to this pipeline. They are in support of it. So it's a
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little bit rich when you see these sort of spoiled young kids having a temper tantrum, blocking, you know,
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important infrastructure in the province, in the country, making demands, saying that you can't build a
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pipeline. But then if you like, look at the demands, they go against the people who are affected by this.
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So this is from a story earlier this week, a collective of First Nations who support the liquefied natural gas
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industry in British Columbia say human rights advocates failed to do their research when they called for the
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coastal gas link pipeline project to be halted. Karen Ogden Taos, CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance,
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says in a letter to human rights commissioner that the pipeline was approved through a democratic process
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that indigenous people participated in freely. And neither the committee nor the commissioner
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consulted supportive indigenous groups before taking a position. So the process by which this pipeline was
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approved was democratic. It included First Nation groups involved, and many are supportive of it.
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So again, why are people protesting it? Why can't we just have a functioning country where projects are built,
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where we take pride in our natural resource development that, by the way, provides incredibly well-paying,
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good jobs, not just to First Nations people, but to all Canadians, especially Canadians that have working class
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backgrounds or blue collar background. It is an amazing opportunity for people to get well-paying jobs.
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And yet we have protesters who are just absolutely demanding things that are having a very negative
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effect on the country. Again, sometimes it seems like our country is just broken. We can't get
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anything done. And meanwhile, every other country that has natural resources is going full steam and
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developing them. It's just Canada that can't seem to get past this issue. So we have these two instances of
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protesters in British Columbia protesting pretty dubious things that have kind of been shown to, you know, be
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protesting in, let's say, bad faith. Meanwhile, there was a real protest on the other side of the continent over in
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Virginia. The Democratic lawmakers passed a very extreme gun control legislation in a state that's, you know,
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pretty much a Republican or red state typically where, you know, there's a lot of landowners and gun owners
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and sort of more traditional people with traditional values. So after the Democrats passed these gun control
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laws, thousands of gun rights activists from around the country rallied peacefully at the Virginia Capitol on
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Monday. You know, this was a huge peaceful protest. There was no reports of any kind of violence or anything
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untowards. It was just a large protest of, you know, patriotic Americans. They were chanting USA,
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USA and standing up for their rights as Americans to, you know, carry guns. It's right there in the
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Second Amendment. They have the right to bear arms. And they did. And they were protesting very peacefully.
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But that doesn't change the way that the media covered the protest. And this, you know, this is going to be
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my This Week in Fake News as well, because it really, really was unfortunate the way that the media
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aligned these protesters. This is like one of the biggest criticisms that people have about the
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mainstream media is that they are reporters by and large are made up of these coastal elites who have
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never really interacted with people from the center of the country, either in Canada or the US. They don't
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have any experience with rural people. They don't understand gun culture whatsoever. So they see a bunch of
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people carrying guns and trying to protest. And all that the media see are a group of, you know,
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deranged, far right lunatics. And that's the way they cover it. That's the way they cover it. So this
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is an exclusive over at TNC.News. CBC ran with a story that was also on CNN and MSNBC, in which they
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basically accused people at this rally of being white supremacists and white nationalists. There's a whole
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montage that someone created of those left wing television networks in the US, basically just
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maligning these people with no evidence and no good reason. Virginia on the edge. How concerned are you
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that there might be some people in this crowd that may want to get violent? There's certainly a lot of
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concern here. Raising fears of a dangerous confrontation. It could be violence. There is real
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concern there about what the intention is behind this. So the media see Trump supporters. They see people
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waving Trump flags and they just assume that it's going to turn into some kind of a violent rally,
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again, with no evidence and, you know, pointing to peaceful protesters, calling them extremists,
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calling them white nationalists and repeating over and over again that you're worried about violence.
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There may be violence. Violence might happen. You know, this is just this is a problem with the media.
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And again, this is why people don't tune in in large numbers anymore, because it's just, you know,
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they they take a story. They don't know how to cover it fairly. They don't know how to cover it
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neutrally. And because of that, they end up just completely disgracing themselves. All right,
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let's move on. The federal government is spending at an all time high, according to a new study from
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the Fraser Institute. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's liberal government has recorded the highest ever
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per person spending by any Canadian government in Canadian history. The study found includes governments
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that were fighting world wars or that were facing huge recessions. They've never spent as much as
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Justin Trudeau. The high level of spending could lead to rapid deterioration of federal finances should
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the economy continue to slow or worse enter into a recession, reported co-author Jake Fuss. The study
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tracked annual per person program spending adjusted for inflation by prime ministers since Confederation,
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found that spending in 2019 was almost $10,000 per Canadian, which topped the previous
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record of 8,800 set by Conservative leader Stephen Harper back in 2009. So three of the four highest
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spending years on record, 2017, 2018 and 2019, are all under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his tenure.
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So by comparison, the height of the Second World War in 1943 per person spending in 2019 dollars reached
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$7,500 before dropping back down to $1,700. That's how much the government used to spend before the rapid
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expansion of the welfare state and the entitlement state, which is what we're living in. Scary times
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considering the economic outlook. A lot of people are predicting a recession and, you know, the Canadian
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government has no plan for that. It's spending more than ever, it's borrowing, it's piling up debt and this
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is in relatively good, stable fiscal times. What would they do if that turned? Yeah, I mean, this is
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the problem with electing liberal politicians who have no restraint and believe that they can just
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spend and spend and spend and, you know, someone else can deal with the consequences of that.
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All right, and the conservative leadership race is beginning to take shape. There really isn't a lot
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of people willing to throw their hat in this time around. You know, you can compare this to last time,
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there was just a huge list. There was like hundreds of people that wanted to succeed Stephen Harper
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and become the next leader of the conservative party. They were hungry to fight against Justin
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Trudeau in an election and there was just really a lot of like interesting, competent people. You
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know, you had different wings of the conservative party represented. Maxim Bernier was more on the
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libertarian side and he was also feisty and willing to talk about issues that other conservative
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politicians are afraid of. You had Kevin O'Leary coming in from the private sector talking about sort of
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the business, no nonsense approach. And then you had kind of, you know, the range of sort of
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establishment conservatives, a lot of Harper cabinet ministers jumping in. But still, you had
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people interested in talking about ideas. Recall, Kelly Leach proposed the idea of a values test. Now,
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she got completely demonized and destroyed by the mainstream media, but at least we were talking about
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ideas and issues. This time around, I mean, the candidates, again, it's just a group of people who have been
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involved in conservative politics, basically their whole life. You have Peter McKay, Erin O'Toole,
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and Pierre Polyev, who appear to be the three front runners. These were all Harper era MPs for
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the conservatives, all longtime players. And we're not really seeing anyone coming from the outside.
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I think we should reflect on what happened in the last election. A lot of people are taking the lesson
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that, hey, Andrew Scheer was too socially conservative. And therefore, what we need to have this time around
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is a socially liberal or socially progressive candidate who just wants to talk about fiscal
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issues. Well, the problem with that is that there are already so many parties on the left
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that cater to that audience. If you are a sort of fiscally conservative or fiscally agnostic person
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with progressive left-wing values, you can vote for the NDP. You can vote for the Green Party. You can
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vote for the Liberals. What about people who have conservative values? What about people who have
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traditional values? Maybe they're religious. Maybe they're just weary of the rapidly changing norms
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that are happening and being pushed by the progressive left. I mean, defining yourself as
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a social conservative isn't simply about the two issues that the media are obsessed with talking
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about. They're always talking about support for same-sex marriage and support for unlimited abortion.
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There's also a lot of other issues, I think, that would define whether or not you're a social
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conservative. I mean, if you're a social progressive these days, you basically believe that gender is
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a social construct, that biology, that biological sex is a social construct, that words amount to
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violence, that Canada is this racist white supremacist country. You know, there's a whole slew of things
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that the left is constantly pushing. Those are the extreme positions in my view, but they never get
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pushed under a microscope in the same way as social conservatives seem to always be demonized by the
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media. I think the important lesson from Scheer's time as leader is that, you know, the conservative
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leadership job is not an easy job. If you look at the way that the media just absolutely destroys you,
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you know, they dig into any aspect of your personal life to try to embarrass you,
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and they really push you on these issues. Andrew Scheer clearly wasn't prepared. He didn't want to talk
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about his personal social views, and he didn't have the ability to articulate them. He didn't have the
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ability to push back against the mainstream media that was trying to force him to take a position,
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take their position on the issue. I think that, you know, they've created a situation, the media
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and also the Conservative Party have created a situation where it's just such an undesirable
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job. You know, Justin Trudeau is the golden boy. The media are always going to have his back and
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to sort of take the courage to, you know, define yourself as a conservative, perhaps even be a social
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conservative and take that message to the Canadian public. You know, there's so many barriers that
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you have to go up against, not only in the media, but in your own party now. So many people are just
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saying, you know, don't take social conservative positions. And we've seen that already with Pierre
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Polyev, who's already saying that he's not going to talk about abortion, he's not going to legislate.
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On that, again, you know, where are social conservatives supposed to go in this country? I think that,
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you know, there's been some interesting ideas put out through thought leaders in the media. There
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was a really interesting article by Ken White in the Globe and Mail, and he made the argument that
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the conservative leader should not be bilingual, that conservatives should just pick a person who
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represents, you know, conservative values, who's articulate, who's going to run a good campaign,
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who's confident, who can provide leadership, who has leadership qualities. And, you know, that one
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component of whether or not they can speak French well, that you can always sort of appoint a deputy
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in Quebec. You could always find someone to speak for the party in Quebec, aside from the leader.
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And that would really open up the pool, instead of just having, you know, a small circle of basically
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career politicians who have forced themselves to learn French, or, you know, someone who's from an
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elite family in Montreal or Ottawa. Those are really the only two groups of people in the country that
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are truly bilingual. And, you know, that just really excludes so many potential good candidates.
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I think that's good advice. I think that if you got rid of that one component of saying that you have
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to speak French, a lot more people, you know, people from the business community, people from other,
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you know, areas that have different backgrounds and different expertise, they may be willing to throw
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their hat in and create an actual interesting leadership race, once again, where we talk about ideas,
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where we have, you know, people who are willing to defend ideas instead of these like super polished,
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super vanilla politicians, which is what we have right now. I would like to see that. I think that,
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you know, nothing against Peter McKay or Pierre Polyev, maybe they would be good leaders. We really don't
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know much about what their policies are and what they stand for just yet. So we'll continue to watch that
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and report on that. But I think that it would be good for the party and good for the country if there's just
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more people in the leadership race and more ideas being put forth, to have an actual debate about
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ideas and really pick the leader that has the most leadership qualities that can lead us into the
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election and have a shot at representing conservatives and becoming prime minister.
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Okay, I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will be back again next week.