Candice talks about the coronavirus outbreak in China and why we should be worried about it. Plus, we talk about the Super Bowl and the Trudeau government's attempt to crack down on freedom of the press in Canada.
00:00:25.840Not so much just the virus, but the reaction to it, which has been just completely deranged across the board in Canada.
00:00:31.960Now, if you watch my show, you watch the podcast regularly, you know that I've been talking about the coronavirus.
00:00:36.820But I've been on the side of, you know, thinking it's not that big of a deal.
00:00:40.160Thinking that, yeah, sure, take precautions.
00:00:42.220But it isn't the huge sort of chaotic, you know, rush to, you know, protect us from this dooming, impending illness that's going to sweep the whole world.
00:00:51.920I think that that's overblown, and I think that the best way to react to these kind of things is just to sort of, you know, wait for information and wait for things to unfold.
00:01:00.020And like I mentioned several times, you know, more people are going to be affected every year by the common cold, by influenza, than by, you know, this thing that's getting tons of attention, tons of media, you know, coverage.
00:01:13.880And, you know, the natural reaction is to sort of create panic and create fear.
00:01:18.280So I was kind of warning against that.
00:01:19.880You know, the thing that I was interested in more so was the origin of this virus, which seems to have been sort of this, the question seems to have been sort of settled.
00:01:29.200Well, if you trust the Chinese government, which I absolutely don't, I think the Chinese government is known for lying and we shouldn't really trust anything they're saying.
00:01:36.380But they say that it came from a food market within Wuhan.
00:01:40.900Again, still really big coincidence that it happened to, like, originate in the same city where China has its covert biological warfare unit.
00:01:49.320But there isn't, it doesn't seem to anyone, doesn't seem to be anyone major linking those two aside from that one Israeli intelligence officer that I mentioned.
00:01:56.920That's not what I want to talk about today.
00:01:58.720What I want to talk about is, so the virus has gotten bigger.
00:02:01.640It's affected more people, impacted more people around the world.
00:02:06.100We have, as I mentioned last week, we have a few cases in Canada.
00:02:09.600There's four known cases at this point, three in Toronto, one in Vancouver.
00:02:14.020As of February 3rd, approximately 17,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide.
00:02:19.940That's included every provincial division of China.
00:02:24.240The first confirmed death was back on January 9th.
00:02:27.300And as of February 3rd, there have been 362 confirmed death.
00:02:31.100Again, we have to rely a lot on information from the Chinese government.
00:02:34.500And I'm just not inclined to trust the Chinese government.
00:02:37.260So for all we know, this is a way bigger deal in China and they're lying about it.
00:02:41.460Or perhaps for all we know, this is over-exaggerated.
00:02:45.340And there haven't been this many deaths.
00:02:47.080But again, it requires us to rely a lot on China.
00:02:50.440There have been a few cases of transmission outside of China.
00:02:53.520So the first local transmission of virus outside of China occurred in Vietnam when a father passed it on to his son.
00:03:03.080The first transmission not involving a family member happened in Germany, where a man passed it on to a work colleague.
00:03:11.180And then the first reported death outside of China has happened as well.
00:03:14.580And that happened in the Philippines, where a 44-year-old Chinese citizen was confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus and passed away.
00:03:22.200Anyway, so as a result of what's happening in China, China is massively cracking down on civil liberties, massively cracking down on the ability of travel.
00:03:33.260Basically, there are 57 million people in that country that are on lockdown, that are on full or partial lockdown, including the termination of all public transportation, all outward transport, train and long distance buses.
00:03:48.000And as you know, you know, it was a Chinese New Year that just happened.
00:03:51.660So a lot of those local festivities were shut down by the Chinese government over fear of this virus.
00:03:59.220So it's important to keep that all in mind, you know, for all of the reaction that we're having in the West right now.
00:04:04.400Just keep in mind the place where this is originating in Chinese, communist China, fascist dictatorship.
00:04:10.060They are really, really cracking down on individual liberty and freedom of movement and other freedoms.
00:04:16.200So we should keep that in perspective when we're criticizing the West for how they're reacting.
00:04:21.880I think that there's a reasonable argument that you could make that Canada specifically is not doing enough when it comes to coronavirus.
00:04:26.980Just given the fact that we know that transmission is human to human and we don't know exactly how it's being passed on.
00:04:35.120I think because of that, we probably should be taking more precautions, especially with people who have just come from China.
00:04:41.980At any given time, there's about 12 planes coming from China to Canada.
00:04:46.120And so we're talking about, you know, tens of thousands of people, if not more, that have come from China to Canada in the past few weeks here.
00:04:54.220And as far as sort of any kind of like quarantine, any kind of like, you know, you know, taking someone as they get off the plane and keeping them away,
00:05:03.720doing, you know, in-depth screening of people as they're getting off those planes, that's still not happening at this point.
00:05:08.920And I think that that's a lot of the reason why anxieties are spreading because, you know, we're watching other countries take major precautions.
00:05:15.900And then we see the Canadian government, which, you know, they've handled the situation OK.
00:05:19.680They're answering questions and, you know, they're being more transparent than they usually are with these kind of like public interest stories.
00:05:26.820But at the same time, you know, you look at the United States just declared a public health emergency and suspended all entry of foreign nationals who visited China.
00:05:37.940So, you know, many people in Canada might say that's the kind of that's the kind of reaction that we should be taking.
00:05:42.700We should be acting firmly right now because we just don't know the, you know, what's causing this virus to spread.
00:05:49.080All we know is that it's going human to human, whereas Canada has not done that at this point.
00:05:53.900So the declaration went into effect on Sunday at 5 p.m.
00:05:57.840U.S. citizens returning to the United States who have been in China's Hubei province in the two weeks before their return will be subject to a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
00:06:08.320U.S. citizens returning from the rest of mainland China in the two weeks prior will face a health screening at a select number of ports of entry.
00:06:15.760Those citizens will also face two weeks of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they pose no public health risk.
00:06:21.400President Donald Trump signed a proclamation suspending the entry of foreign nationals who have traveled in China in the last two weeks.
00:06:29.040So, you know, that's a pretty firm response.
00:06:31.480And I think a lot of people are looking to Canada saying, you know, why aren't we doing something like that?
00:06:35.580Why aren't we at least taking more steps to ensure that, you know, this issue is being dealt with?
00:06:42.780Well, I'll tell you why Canada isn't doing that.
00:06:45.820Because Canada has a totally different concern when it comes to the coronavirus.
00:06:49.240They're not so much concerned about people who have been to China, not so much concerned about the human transmission, not so much concerned about quarantine or screening off planes.
00:07:38.300Watch how smug she is and how much joy she takes out of accusing Canadians of being racist.
00:07:43.700It's like she knows she firmly believes that Canadians are racist.
00:07:47.620And here's just another opportunity of you Canadians being just racist.
00:07:52.100And instead of, you know, being friendly and nice when it comes to how we deal with the coronavirus, you know, they're just these bigots showing their true color.
00:08:47.000So we have the mayor of Toronto, John Tory, basically making similar comments.
00:08:52.620He gave a statement, they gave a press conference where official after official after official got up and scolded Canadians, scolded Torontonians for being racist.
00:09:03.740I've been very troubled to hear of reports, one as recently as at lunchtime today, of people treating our Chinese-Canadian community differently.
00:09:13.860That they in some way are being or should be shunned or quarantined or suggesting Chinese businesses should be avoided.
00:09:20.920Okay. Now, what John Tory said is just over the top, of course.
00:09:25.000And the idea is that, okay, should Chinese-Canadians be quarantined?
00:09:29.880Should they be accused of carrying disease?
00:09:33.080Of course you shouldn't make accusations towards someone just based on how they look or whatever.
00:09:37.280But when he says, you know, the Chinese-Canadian community are being treated differently, well, look, if you went to China, if you're a person who lives in Canada and has family members back in China or you personally went back to China for Chinese New Year and you came back to Canada, yeah, you should be treated differently.
00:09:56.020You should be treated differently than someone who didn't go to China.
00:09:58.600Because if you went to China, you're at much, much greater risk of having, being contracted of the coronavirus.
00:10:04.760And the thing about the coronavirus is that people don't immediately show signs of it.
00:10:09.340There's no, there's no immediate, you could be a carrier of the coronavirus without showing signs of it.
00:10:14.920So just because someone's not like sniffling or sneezing or coughing doesn't mean that they couldn't potentially have the virus and just not be showing signs of it.
00:10:23.200There's also been cases of people who have passed on the coronavirus even though they didn't have it.
00:10:28.240So it's affecting some people, not affecting others.
00:10:30.720Obviously, in the situation where we just don't have the right kind of knowledge, you have to treat people differently because you have to be able to read through the information.
00:10:38.000And again, I'm not saying that you should, you know, refuse to work with or communicate.
00:10:47.380But the idea that you're not even allowed to treat people differently if they happen to have just been in China, that is totally absurd.
00:10:53.940And again, just one of many, many examples.
00:10:56.820You watch the rest of this press conference, you see over and over again, officials scolding Canadians and Torontonians for how they're reacting to this.
00:11:03.240We are facing an emergency, not necessarily in a public health sense, but an emergency within the trans-Canadian communities because we are being singled out.
00:11:12.480We are being stigmatized because of the coronavirus.
00:11:16.140We know that inaccurate information, misinformation continues to spread.
00:11:24.120And this is creating unnecessary stigma against members of our community.
00:11:30.300And again, here's a headline over at the CBC.
00:11:32.560Canada's chief public health officer condemns racist acts linked to the coronavirus outbreak.
00:11:36.940Again, why isn't Canada's chief public health officer more concerned about the virus and how we're handling all the people coming back from China?
00:11:44.780Why is she, why is it her role to be, you know, lecturing Canadians and talking down to them?
00:11:52.680Theresa Tam says that discriminatory slurs are unacceptable and very hurtful.
00:11:57.060OK, I agree. You should, you know, you shouldn't make discriminatory slurs.
00:12:02.500You shouldn't, you shouldn't say racist things.
00:12:04.120But the idea that the public health officer, the chief public health officer in Canada is concerned about how Canadians are reacting as opposed to actually treating the virus is concerning.
00:12:15.340And one of the other problems I have with this, all this coverage, is that there's never any specific examples, right?
00:12:21.200Like the specific examples are always like, oh, people are saying mean stuff on social media.
00:12:25.460Well, earth to like every journalist and every politician in the world, social media is filled with people saying not very nice stuff all the time, every day, 24-7, to every single group, to every single side.
00:12:37.540So this isn't just something like new and we really shouldn't take, you know, people's rhetoric on social media to mean that an entire country is racist.
00:12:47.620I mean, I'm just, I'm just so, so sick of this.
00:12:51.600And of course, whenever there's, whenever there's an accusation of racism or discrimination, trust Justin Trudeau to jump up and start lecturing Canadians.
00:13:01.280So here he was at a Lunar New Year event, scolding Canadians.
00:13:06.700Justin Trudeau takes so much joy in calling Canadians racist.
00:13:28.680There is no place in our country for discrimination driven by fear or misinformation.
00:13:35.320This is not something Canadians will ever stand for.
00:13:38.980Okay, again, so no real solid examples of Canadians actually being racist or any public figure or anyone, anyone actually saying anything that could be deemed as being racist or xenophobic or discriminatory against Chinese people in Canada.
00:13:55.620And yet, that's all we're hearing is these accusations.
00:13:58.760So the closest thing that you can say to be tied to Canadians actually being, you know, xenophobic about this issue is that there's been a couple petitions.
00:14:07.760So there was a petition in the York District School Board.
00:14:11.400York District is just north of Toronto.
00:14:13.720And more than 9,000 signatures were collected on a petition that were calling for the school board to keep children whose family members had recently traveled to China home for 17 days.
00:14:24.880And so because of this petition, a lot of people are saying, like, wow, look at those racist parents in York Region.
00:14:33.160They're calling on Chinese families who went to China to keep their kids home from school.
00:14:38.960And that's apparently a horrible, horrible example of racism.
00:14:43.940York Region is one of the most diverse areas in all of Canada.
00:14:46.700So not only did a lot of Chinese people sign this petition, but it's people literally from all over the world who came to Canada, new immigrants and all Canadians alike who signed this petition.
00:14:56.420So, you know, a lot of Chinese people signed this petition just to say, hey, that's so racist that you created this petition.
00:15:01.980And also, if the school board had been taking precautions, if they had said, you know, anyone who went, maybe not anyone who went to anywhere in China,
00:15:08.160but if you were specifically in Wuhan and you came back, maybe those family members should just sort of self-quarantine and stay at home.
00:15:16.440Or, you know, like we could follow suit with what all the other Western countries in the world and make it mandatory.
00:15:22.220But instead, because, you know, obviously there'd be a lot of anxieties.
00:15:25.480Like if your child went to school with someone and you knew that there was kids in her class that were from China
00:15:30.900and that they had just been recently visited the, you know, ground zero outbreak of this virus,
00:15:36.440wouldn't you be a little anxious, too, about sending your kids to school?
00:15:39.840But no, we're not allowed to have any of these anxieties.
00:15:41.820We're not allowed to have any of these fears because that would be considered racist.
00:15:45.540And there was another petition from the University of Waterloo where a student called on the Ontario government to shut down all of campus to prevent the further spread of the virus.
00:15:53.280This was last week. And by mid last week, the petition had already garnered 30,000 signatures.
00:15:58.140So all that is just to say that a lot of Canadians feel anxiety, feel fear because of the lack of action that's happening from officials, from the government.
00:16:05.840That's not because they're racist. It's not because they're xenophobic.
00:16:08.380It's not because they're just, you know, waiting for an opportunity to like turn on their fellow Canadians.
00:16:13.120No, it's just that, you know, there's this global pandemic sweeping the globe.
00:16:16.420It originated in China. We don't feel like officials are doing enough to address the issue.
00:16:21.520And so people have, you know, fears about that.
00:16:24.300That doesn't mean Canada's a racist country and shame on all of the politicians and all of the journalists who are taking glee right now and accusing Canadians of being xenophobic.
00:16:33.220OK, let's move on. I want to talk about the sort of radical left.
00:16:37.900You know, there was a lot of talk a couple of years ago about how the, you know, the far right is a problem.
00:16:44.140There's a radical right that's risen up.
00:16:45.880And a lot of people said, you know, there isn't a good distinction between the far right and just sort of mainstream conservatives.
00:16:51.660That was like one of the favorite talking points among the media, among left-wing journalists.
00:16:55.840They would sort of accuse all conservatives of being part of the far right, which, of course, is total nonsense.
00:17:01.700But I think you could make a really reasonable case that that is true on the left, especially when it comes to the environmental movement.
00:17:07.720So, you know, we have people like Greta Thunberg, who is this sort of like huge global phenom.
00:17:12.500She was recently just nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
00:17:15.940She was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
00:17:18.160She is sort of like a mainstream leftist, let's say.
00:17:22.520She literally called for the end of all fossil fuel use.
00:17:27.400She said that our goal shouldn't be net zero carbon emissions.
00:17:31.240Our goal should be zero carbon emissions, as in shut off the entire planet, just shut it all down, shut it all down.
00:17:39.020We're all going to, you know, go back to the Stone Age.
00:25:44.180And I will say, I've spent the last couple of years in the United States.
00:25:47.240So I got so used to just watching the regular Super Bowl, I almost forgot that Canada still has this silly system where Canadians aren't allowed to watch the actual commercials for the Super Bowl.
00:26:00.460I could barely even enjoy the game because all I was doing was thinking about how frustrated it was.
00:26:04.980It's like you just feel like you're living in some kind of like a fascist society where they won't let you watch the actual commercials.
00:26:11.520So you have to watch these sort of like, you know, these horrible knockoff commercials that are like cringeworthy and Canadian content and just so bad.
00:26:22.780Like for me, the Super Bowl is a cultural event.
00:26:39.260So you watch it because of the commercials.
00:26:41.000This is a time where they're putting out all the best new ads that, you know, the companies are spending millions and millions of dollars to have that ad location.
00:26:48.440And because of that, they're introducing all kinds of new products.
00:26:50.720So it was always kind of fun culturally to just watch the ads.
00:26:54.820And the fact that you can't do that in Canada just makes you feel like, you know, you're just not as free.
00:26:59.200You don't have the freedom as our cousins do down in the United States.