The Candice Malcolm Show： What it means to be conservative
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Summary
Coronavirus is now in Canada, but are we prepared? And why isn t the mainstream media talking about the origin of this deadly virus? Could it be linked to China s biological warfare program? Plus, we ll talk about the conservative leadership race and what it means to be a conservative in 2020.
Transcript
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The coronavirus is now in Canada, but are we prepared? And why isn't the mainstream media
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talking about the origin of this deadly virus? Could it be linked to China's biological warfare
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program? Plus, we'll talk about the conservative leadership race and what it means to be a
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conservative in 2020. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for joining this podcast. I'm going
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to do a quick pitch for our news website, tnc.news. You can keep up with all the breaking news. We
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have investigative reports, plus a couple of other podcasts. So tnc.news, stay up to date with
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everything happening in Canadian politics and more. I'm going to talk about the coronavirus
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today. It's kind of all over the news. Now, I typically kind of roll my eyes this kind of
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coverage because I do think that it's overblown, you know, just a couple of cases so far, and
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basically more people are going to be affected and killed, frankly, by the common flu this year
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and every year than these viruses. But this one's a little different. It's now in Canada. It's all
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over the world. The origin, of course, is in Wuhan, China, and we're going to get to that a little
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later on. But first, there's been now two confirmed cases of the coronavirus, both in Toronto, a husband
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and wife who were on a plane coming from Wuhan province. Ontario's Ministry of Health has confirmed
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a second presumptive case of the coronavirus in Canada days after the first was confirmed at
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Sunnybrook Hospital. That's in Toronto. In a news release sent on Monday morning, the province says
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chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, has confirmed that the wife of the first
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coronavirus patient in Canada has also tested positive for the virus at Ontario's public health
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laboratory. Public health officials have said the woman's husband, a man in his 50s, had been showing
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mild signs since his flight from Hongshu, China to Toronto. They've since been reaching out to those
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aboard China Southern Airlines flight and those who sat within two meters of the man. Canada's
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chief public health officers has said she believes there will be more cases imported into Canada
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because of global flight patterns. But she notes there's little risk of becoming infected here.
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So basically, the only people that are affected are those at this point, the only people who've been
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affected are those who were on a flight from this region in China. The illness originated in a very
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small part of China, which is why so many people are comparing it to the SARS outbreak back in 2002.
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That was the severe acute respiratory syndromes known as SARS, which originated also in China.
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It killed 44 people in Canada and about 800 worldwide. The Chinese government says it has ruled out SARS,
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bird flu and influenza as a cause of this current outbreak. Now, a lot of people are criticizing the
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Canadian government for not doing enough, not doing enough. My colleague, Anthony Fury, colleague both at
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True North and at the Toronto Sun, notes that flight tracker sites now show that at any given time,
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there are always about 12 planes in the air from China to Canada, the same sort of flight that our
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first infected case was on. Officials have so far said little about their monitoring and prevention
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strategies. Then he notes again, interesting contrast. The UK has clinicians stationed at airports
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and is tracking and testing passengers connected to Wuhan, even without symptoms. This is proactive,
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whereas Canada doing none of this so far is being reactive. And Ezra Levant makes a very similar
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point. He notes that while Trudeau is taking a second vacation of 2020, other Western leaders are
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evacuating their citizens from Wuhan. Here's the US, here's France, Russia, Australia, and the UK,
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but not Canada. So it's an interesting point. What is Canada really doing to prepare for this?
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Should we really be doing a lot to prepare for this? Like I said, more people will be affected
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every year by the common flu. But, you know, this could just be the very beginning of what could become
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a very large and global problem, again, just given flight patterns. So a lot of people are concerned
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about that, especially if you have visited China or someone you work with or someone in your family or
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someone who you interact with frequently has visited China and might have been on a flight with
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someone else who was infected. Now, this is the angle that I'm a little bit more worried and
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concerned about, which is interesting because nobody else is covering it. Nobody else is covering it.
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I noticed this story in the Washington Times over the weekend. It says virus hit Wuhan has two
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laboratories linked to Chinese biological warfare program. So the deadly animal virus epidemic spreading
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globally may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory linked to China's covert biological weapons program,
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according to an Israeli biological warfare expert. Radio Free Asia this week rebroadcasted a local
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Wuhan television report from 2015 showing China's most advanced virus research laboratory known as the
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Wuhan Institute for Virology, Radio Free Asia reported. The lab is the only declared site in China
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capable of working with deadly viruses. So Danny Shohan, who is a former Israeli military intelligence
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officer who has studied Chinese biological warfare. So the Institute is linked to Beijing's covert
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biological weapons programs. This is a quote from Shohan. Certain laboratories in the Institute have
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probably engaged in terms of research and development in Chinese biological weapons, at least
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collaterally, yet not as a principal facility of the Chinese biological warfare alignment. He told the
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Washington Times work on biological weapons is conducted as part of a dual civilian military research and is
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definitely covert, he said in an email. Mr. Shohan holds a doctorate in medical microbiology from 1970 to 1991.
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He was a senior analyst with the Israeli military intelligence and biological and chemical warfare
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in the Middle East and worldwide, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. So that is a little bit
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concerning. I mean, we don't know anything and I'm not going to speculate, but I'm just saying that,
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you know, an expert who knows what he's talking about is linking this. We don't really know exactly what
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the origins are. Nobody in the media is talking about, but it is definitely worth knowing that China's
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covert biological weapons is centered in the exact same city where this virus was originating. I'll
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just leave it at that. Not going to speculate, but I think it's interesting, worth noting. Not sure why
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my colleagues in the mainstream media are completely ignoring that fact. Okay, let's move on. Let's talk
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about the conservative leadership race because it's really, it's really kind of dismal at this point.
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There's not a lot of people running. Pierre Polyev, who many believed was the front runner,
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very surprisingly announced last week that he is no longer considering running. He said that he wanted
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to spend more time with his family, which is a little bit of a cop-out in my experience. You knew
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going into it that you would not get to spend that much time with your family. So why would you announce
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that you're going to run and then like two weeks later say, okay, never mind. I don't want to make
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that sacrifice for my family. I think what Pierre Polyev did was scared off a lot of other potential
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people in the race who decided not to run because they thought that he was going to run. And now
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that he's not running, there might be kind of scrambling left to say, okay, well, somebody has
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to run. Who's going to be the sort of blue conservative in the race? Who's going to be
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the one that's pushing forward more traditional conservative values or pushing for more fiscal
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restraint? I mean, Pierre Polyev was sort of the mantle of that. He was this sort of, I mean,
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he is this, you know, very strong fiscal conservative, someone who understands the
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cultural issues as well. And I'm really not sure when I look at the field right now and who's
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running, it's pretty sad. You know, Rona Ambrose is out. As I said, Pierre Polyev is out. Brett
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Wilson is not running. Jean Charest is out. We know that Jason Kenney is not going to be running.
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Doug Ford is not going to be running. A lot of the really high profile conservatives in this country
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are out, which really just leaves basically Peter McKay, Erin O'Toole, and a bunch of people that
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no one has ever heard of. So this is really concerning news for the conservative party as
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well as sort of the conservative movement in Canada. You know, the fact that the person who
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becomes leader of this party may very well become prime minister. I mean, Justin Trudeau is vulnerable.
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He was reduced to a minority. The conservatives won the popular vote in the last election,
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which doesn't really mean anything other than just to say that more people cast their ballot for
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conservative than any other party. You know, you would think that running this party would be
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something that would attract a lot of talented people from not just the political realm, but
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other aspects of civil society. You know, business leaders, community leaders, people who are
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conservatives in other levels of government, you know, entrepreneurs, people from tech, people from
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finance, lawyers. You would think that there would be so many people lining up to take this position.
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And the fact that there really isn't. And at this point, it's just Peter McKay as a front runner.
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This makes you consider there's so few people that are interested. It's not just because they
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know that the mainstream media is going to absolutely tear them apart, that there's going
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to be a microscope over every aspect of their personal life. And then it's, of course, it's going
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to be a tough, tough journey few years. But you would think that the prize is so big. I think it says
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something to the sort of state of conservatism in Canada right now that this position is so
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unattractive. I also think that a lot of the rules that we have put in place, not official rules,
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but just sort of like de facto rules, also prevent a lot of people from running. I mentioned this on
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a previous show. But the fact that, just for instance, that the conservative leader in the last,
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you know, two decades, it's sort of become a mandatory thing that they must speak French, that they
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must be fluently bilingual in both French and English, not just sort of have a basic working
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understanding of French, but be able to participate in high level debates. I think that makes a lot of
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people who would otherwise be very good candidates for this position not want to run, especially in
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the business world. You know, a lot of people who are interested in politics, people who become MPs,
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people who are lifelong politicos, they take the time to learn French because it's in their best
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interests. But, you know, most people who have great leadership capacity, have great, you know,
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ability to run institutions, you know, they're not really focused on learning French, especially if
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you're based in, you know, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, basically any city other than Montreal
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and Ottawa. Ottawa and Montreal, those two cities have a culture where the sort of well-educated,
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cream of the crop people learn French, but the rest of the country just doesn't really have that.
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And I think that this weird rule that we've created that you must speak French,
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it doesn't really make sense. And perhaps it's time the Conservatives sort of move past that,
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especially given the performance that the Conservative Party has in Quebec. It's not like
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they're winning a lot of seats. It's not like a lot of people in Quebec are lining up to vote for this
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party. So why is there such an emphasis on trying to communicate to people who have basically have
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no interest in voting Conservative? I had a call in the sun on Sunday where I was pretty harsh against
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Andrew Scheer. You know, the more that I consider what he's done to the party and how he's left the party,
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I really think he has done a great disservice. I'll tell you what I'm talking about.
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Andrew Scheer really struggled during the election to articulate his own values,
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to describe his personal religious social conservative values in a way that sort of put
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the question to bed, that put the issue at ease in the minds of Canadians. Yes, the media were very
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unfair. They were sort of bullying him and they didn't let it go. But that's partially because of
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the way that Andrew Scheer treated the question. And I think by failing to really close that door
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and give Canadians the assurance that they needed, he's reopened the issue in a way that it hasn't
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been reopened for decades, frankly. You know, the divisive issues, the divisive social issues that
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Conservatives really just don't want to talk about, that they want to avoid mainly gay marriage,
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but also to some extent, your position on abortion. I think that these two issues under Stephen Harper,
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he sort of successfully said to the public, you know, rest assured, we're not going to talk about
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these issues. We know that they're divisive and Canadians don't really want to have a huge national
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conversation again. We kind of already did that in the 2000s. We don't need to do it again in,
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you know, 2018, 2019, 2020. Whereas Andrew Scheer just failed to do that. And now he's sort of
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emboldened the craziest of the crazy to come out and again, try to relitigate these issues. So
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last week, last Wednesday, a prospective Conservative leadership candidate named Richard
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de Carré went on CTV with Evan Solomon. Now this guy is basically an unheard of Quebecer who's never
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been elected to public office. I understand he used to be a Quebec separatist and then at some point
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he came in to advise Stephen Harper, but he's not a sort of public Conservative. He's not really in the
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game. Most people have never heard of him. But the mainstream media love to promote these kind
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of fringe candidates to try to accuse all Conservatives of holding these kind of views.
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So de Carré, basically, he did what Andrew Scheer failed to do. He flat out said,
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yes, I'm a social Conservative. I think that gay marriage is wrong. Not only that,
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he said that being gay is a choice. And then he said that he would defund abortion. So he took the
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most sort of divisive issues that most Conservatives want to avoid talking about and he just put them
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right out there. The media love this. This is what the mainstream media want. This is what the
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mainstream media dream about. They all dream about doing what Evan Solomon did. Evan Solomon made
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this candidate look like an absolute fool and like a bigot. What about same-sex marriage?
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My point of view is that marriage is exclusive to a man and a woman. And traditionally it used to be
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for religion, from religion point of view. And people are mixed up. When we talk to real people on the
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street, when we go across the country, we are hearing the same things. We are all mixed up. Our
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LGBTQ people are real people too. I'm just trying to figure out your terms. Are they not real people?
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I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don't talk about people that way. I talk about persons. And I think
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we all need the full respect for being a human being, simply.
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Oh, so, okay. So you don't think that being gay, you don't think, what, do you think that's a choice?
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And this is the problem. This is the problem. Andrew Scheer sort of opened up the Pandora box
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of social conservatism, which makes other candidates more emboldened. Because the lesson that the
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mainstream media and talking heads in the media said about the election was basically that you can
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no longer be a social conservative and become prime minister. Andrew Scheer proved that point.
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You cannot have personal religious convictions. You can't be a Catholic, a practicing Catholic,
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and be prime minister. But for many conservatives, and I will say myself included in this package,
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I don't think that that's why Andrew Scheer lost. I don't think the mere fact that he was a social
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conservative is why he's not prime minister today. I think it was because of the way that he
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articulated his social conservative values, or more accurately, the way that he failed to
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articulate his values. He failed to explain to Canadians what it was that he believed,
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and how that would differentiate from how he would govern. That's why he lost. And so to many
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conservatives and many social conservatives, the idea would then become, well, if it was only about
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how Scheer communicated and not the actual values that he held, then maybe someone else can articulate
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them better. And I think that's what this individual is trying to do, just trying to say, yes,
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I have these values. I'm not going to be shy about it. I'm not going to be passive about it,
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like Scheer was. I'm just going to put it right out there, and I think I can win on these issues.
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Well, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I'll say, I consider myself a social conservative,
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and I'll tell you why. I believe in tradition. I think tradition is very important. I think that
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changes in our society should happen slowly, deliberately, cautiously, that we should really
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try to think things through before we just jump the gun and, you know, adhere to the latest fad or
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tradition because we don't really know what the underlying issues might be, these sort of
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unintended consequences of changing too quickly. And more importantly, I believe that families are
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the central institution of society, that strong families mean strong society and strong people.
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And so I think that that's sort of the origin of my beliefs. I also obviously believe in freedom,
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personal responsibility, and equal rights for everyone. And I think because of these values,
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I think that conservatives, even social conservatives like myself, should be for
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gay marriage. I mean, this is a conversation that happened like 20 years ago, so it's almost
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weird to be rehashing it, but I think there's some value in doing it. I think that social
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conservatives should be for gay marriage because we should want family and the traditions within
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family to extend to everyone. We shouldn't want to exclude someone because of an innate feature
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that they're born with or characteristic. So we should want marriage for everyone. We should want,
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we should encourage marriage as a social institution and encourage people, whether they're gay or
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straight, to get married, to go down that path, to start families, have families. That's the important
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thing in our society. And so, you know, this idea that we're going to all of a sudden try to turn back
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the page, try to say, no, being gay isn't real and you shouldn't have marriage equality. This is the wrong
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approach. And I just cringe when I see interviews like that. I don't think that the conservative
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party should be promoting people with these views. You know, sure, there's room in the party for
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all views, all conservative views, and we can have those sort of debates. But having someone like this
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as a front runner or as a leadership candidate that gets invited on the big programs and gets
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humiliated by one of the most famous journalists in Canada, not a good look. And I do blame Andrew
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Scheer for that because I don't think that, I think that if Scheer had taken the approach that Stephen
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Harper had taken, which was, you know, these are my views. We're not going to legislate on this.
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And he was firm and he was forthright and he was honest and he was transparent, which were all issues
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that Andrew Scheer had problems with. We wouldn't be going down this path now where we're sort of
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scrambling and herding cats and saying, no, no, no, conservatives don't actually think that
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gay marriage is something that should be rolled back on. So, like I said, I'm really hoping that an
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outsider candidate will come in right now. We just have a lineup of career establishment politicians,
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really insider type people, no one that's really exciting, that has new views, outsider views,
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a different perspective. So I am holding out that someone new will join the race. Hopefully
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the barriers aren't too high. And someone with, you know, not a lot of political experience, but
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has shown, you know, their capacity for leadership, for managing a large organization, someone out there
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will decide to throw their hat in the race and shake things up because I don't think that it's very
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good for the Conservative Party to just have a lineup of only career politicians. And to stay up to
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date on all things related to the Conservative leadership race, check out tnc.news. We are
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writing reports. We have other podcasts that are focused on this and we're devoting more time and
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attention than anyone in the mainstream media. So tune in to tnc.news and to this podcast. We will be