The Candice Malcolm Show - December 07, 2021


The hypocrisy of protecting critical infrastructure

Topics
unelected committee old growth logging protests coastal gas link protests
Hosted by
Candice Malcolm
Mentioned
Aaron Gunn Trudeau Erin Jordan Peterson David Suzuki Ferry Creek Politics Explained Merry Christmas Alice Ross Kitimat John
Does ANYBODY still care about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms？ Critical Race Theory is not a conspiracy. It’s real and it’s here in Canada.

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

178.34

Word count

4,041

Sentence count

208

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Aaron Gunn is an independent journalist, a common sense pundit, and he recently ran for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party. We re going to get into all of the juicy details about that. Aaron Gunn is one of the few voices in British Columbia that advocates for common sense and for respect for the taxpayer. With over 50 million video views and thousands of followers, Aaron Gunn has become a steadfast opponent of cancel culture and identity politics.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.360 Radical left-wing environmentalists are still wreaking havoc on our economy and undermining the rule of law in Canada.
00:00:07.100 They must be stopped. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:15.340 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:19.080 I'm really pleased today to be joined by my friend Aaron Gunn.
00:00:22.720 Aaron is an independent journalist, a common sense pundit, and he recently ran for the leadership of the BC Liberals.
00:00:28.720 We're going to get into all of the juicy details about that.
00:00:32.280 Aaron Gunn is one of the few voices in British Columbia that advocates for common sense and for respect for the taxpayer.
00:00:38.200 With over 50 million video views and thousands of followers, Gunn has become a steadfast opponent of cancel culture and identity politics.
00:00:45.640 Gunn couldn't stand by while politicians appeased the woke mob and disrespected taxpayers.
00:00:50.480 This is why Aaron Gunn decided to run for the leader of the BC Liberals on an explicitly conservative platform.
00:00:56.620 But unfortunately, after gaining the support of thousands of members, he was unfairly barred from running for the upcoming leadership race by the BC Liberals Leadership Election Organizing Committee.
00:01:06.540 It's a wild story. We're going to talk about all of it on the show today.
00:01:09.600 But first, Aaron Gunn, thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:14.000 Thank you for having me, Candice. It's great to be here.
00:01:16.760 Thank you.
00:01:46.740 I'll tell you right off the bat, we're definitely just getting started.
00:01:49.380 But what happened was we were in the race for about two weeks.
00:01:52.800 We had signed up and garnered the support of thousands of British Columbians in a party, the BC Liberal Party, that was in pretty rough shape.
00:02:04.400 And just to take a step back, this is a party that's supposed to be, brands itself as a free market coalition of liberals and conservatives.
00:02:11.840 And they asked for my help during the last election.
00:02:14.700 One of the candidates asked for my endorsement, asked for me to campaign for them.
00:02:18.800 And they asked me to run as a candidate for them.
00:02:21.260 So we put our name forward. We tried to mobilize social media following.
00:02:24.260 I think that the people that control the party got scared that we were going to pull this off and win.
00:02:32.900 And then out of nowhere, they basically came out and said that my views were somehow inconsistent with that of the party.
00:02:40.180 They mentioned reconciliation.
00:02:41.680 And without providing any examples whatsoever, it basically nixed the candidacy right there.
00:02:47.680 So a lot of people ask me, how can they do that?
00:02:50.540 It's just an unelected seven-person committee.
00:02:53.000 And of course, the irony and the hypocrisy of all this is that unelected committee, none of the people on it are Indigenous.
00:03:00.880 And the one Indigenous person in the race, Alice Ross, has appeared in my videos and supported my entry into it.
00:03:07.000 So I think it was just about a small group of people trying to hold on to the little enclave of political power that they've carved out for themselves.
00:03:16.740 And they viewed me as a threat to that.
00:03:20.460 Well, rightfully so. I mean, you are a threat.
00:03:22.480 And it's, you know, in the best kind of way, you're a threat because you're an actual, you know, you speak for the people.
00:03:29.200 And your message really resonates, which is why you have such a big following online, Aaron.
00:03:33.140 And, you know, it's interesting because I hear a lot of people complain when elections roll around that they don't like any of the candidates.
00:03:38.840 It's like, really, you know, this is the best we can come up with.
00:03:42.860 And, you know, it doesn't really feel like true democracy when you're kind of given a selection of like three or four very similar politicians.
00:03:51.400 And it seems like the saga with them blocking you is exactly the problem because they have these, the political parties hold so much power in our system.
00:04:00.920 And, you know, it's a decision of a small, like you said, unelected group of people who are claiming to speak for an entire big tent party that's supposed to be the girls and conservatives.
00:04:10.880 So, so, so, so, so, so what, what, what's next for you?
00:04:14.440 I know, I know you said that you're just getting started.
00:04:16.140 I know that there were some rumors out there that you might be running an independent campaign or going over and joining the BC Conservatives, which is a very small party.
00:04:25.180 But, but, you know, maybe, maybe with someone with your, you know, star power, you might lift the fortunes of that party.
00:04:31.640 What are you, are you going to seek out another party or what are you going to do?
00:04:34.860 Well, first off, I have to agree with you 100% that the political parties in Canada wield way too much power.
00:04:42.520 Obviously, in other countries and other systems, there's a lot more limits on that, on that power.
00:04:47.620 And that's, that's a really unfortunate thing.
00:04:50.040 Now, the solution to that, or the only solution to that is to go and create new parties or breathe life into kind of small existing parties.
00:04:59.900 So that's exactly what we're looking to do.
00:05:02.420 Kind of a wrap-up event, we had a big event in Chilliwack.
00:05:06.200 We, or I promise that during the next, or by the time of the next provincial election, there will be a new common sense alternative that British Columbians can vote for without holding their nose.
00:05:16.760 Now, whether that's a new party, whether that's the BC Conservatives, as we've been talking to people there, that still remains to be seen.
00:05:25.740 And we're going to make sure we do our due diligence before we reveal all our cards.
00:05:29.860 But the status quo in British Columbia, like much of the country, I might add, is just not, not, in my opinion, not acceptable.
00:05:39.300 And I think British Columbians and Canadians, generally speaking, deserve a lot better than the choices that they've been given recently.
00:05:45.860 So it's interesting, Erin, because one of the criticisms I've heard from the political left in British Columbia is that they're not happy with the NDP government because they think that the government is going too hard against these blockades and these protesters.
00:06:02.480 And, you know, the left thinks that, what, the premier should step in and cancel all these projects and block them all.
00:06:09.860 I know that you, through your independent reporting, through your excellent political series, Politics Explained, you know this issue inside and out.
00:06:18.320 So for us, the rest of us watching in the rest of the country, it almost feels like deja vu.
00:06:24.420 It's like, wait, protesters are up in Ferry Creek again.
00:06:27.960 And OK, now they're blocking coastal gas link.
00:06:30.580 Like, is this just going to happen again and again?
00:06:32.900 So I'm wondering if you can help us understand.
00:06:37.700 Let's start with the Ferry Creek ones, because those were the ones that were going on earlier this fall in September.
00:06:43.480 And that's up on Bigger Island.
00:06:45.920 I believe you visited that site.
00:06:47.920 Can you talk a little bit about what that project is and why the protesters are, what the protesters are doing and what they hope to accomplish?
00:06:56.080 Yeah, well, the first thing I think I should just mention, you listed them off, Ferry Creek, coastal gas link, throw TMX in there as well.
00:07:04.900 These kind of ongoing blockades and acts of breaking the law to try to make a political point that have continued through BC.
00:07:14.100 The thing you have to understand, or that Canadians have to understand, is that this is an industry.
00:07:19.140 This is a protest industry.
00:07:21.160 So just like any industry, they have to keep money flowing in and they have to keep their activities going.
00:07:25.740 So they will always find something to protest, regardless of the facts on the ground.
00:07:30.000 With regard to Ferry Creek, that was just a run-of-the-mill cut block in British Columbia that a company called Teal Jones bid on and had the rights for the provincial government.
00:07:43.400 And that activists clung to, it's about two hours outside of Victoria, and started protesting and started trying to paint as somehow the last old growth or ancient forest in British Columbia, which just isn't true.
00:07:55.880 They're 10 million hectares, so billions of trees that are already protected in provincial parks and old growth management areas.
00:08:03.080 And they were just cutting down a really small part, as is done throughout British Columbia.
00:08:09.800 Forestry is our most important industry.
00:08:11.480 And the amazing thing that just shows the hypocrisy of these activists, you're talking about an industry that is 100% sustainable and renewable.
00:08:18.800 We have the highest environmental standards in the entire world, much like oil and gas and mining.
00:08:23.360 And the other thing is, that particular cut block up in Ferry Creek was 100% in partnership with local First Nations.
00:08:35.440 And then now the NDP government, under the pressure from the activists, has deferred about a third of old growth logging in British Columbia, or so-called old growth logging.
00:08:44.640 And who gets hurt by that the most, not the big corporations who just take their money from British Columbia and go buy sawmills in the United States, but local First Nations and small forestry dependent communities that now have no local economy and have no more local jobs for people in those communities to go work.
00:09:03.220 So it's a really damaging decision.
00:09:06.020 But, of course, even with the moves by the NDP government, these activists always want more and more and more and honestly aren't going to rest until all of our industries are put out of work.
00:09:17.140 It's interesting because I hear the rumbling from the political left saying that they want the NDP government to do more.
00:09:23.240 But you make an excellent point that it's like whenever the NDP is in power in British Columbia, the forestry industry suffers.
00:09:30.340 I remember in the 90s, growing up in BC, and there were so many communities that were devastated by the closure of pulp and paper mills.
00:09:37.380 A lot of young men were just moving to Alberta because there were no opportunities in British Columbia.
00:09:42.740 And it seems like that might be happening again, except for now we're in an unfortunate position where, you know, those kind of jobs don't exist in Alberta in its large numbers.
00:09:51.300 Let's shift gears then and talk about the coastal gas link, because that was the one that we saw multiple protests throughout November, including arrests.
00:10:00.180 And that was the pipeline that David Suzuki said that it would be a shame if someone blew up this pipeline, basically alluding to domestic terrorism and giving it a pass.
00:10:12.080 And you had the CDC defending it until David Suzuki finally came out, clarified and apologized.
00:10:16.820 So I understand that you visited this project as well.
00:10:21.300 And it seems like a similar story that has the blessing of the First Nations communities.
00:10:25.060 And then there's just a couple of really loud activists that are trying to disrupt it.
00:10:29.980 So can you tell us about that?
00:10:32.520 Yeah, the coastal gas link pipeline is the perfect example that shows just how shameless these protests are.
00:10:38.740 This is a pipeline that's exporting Canadian natural gas to Asia, which is the cleanest natural gas in the world.
00:10:45.060 It's going to Asia to displace coal-fired plants.
00:10:47.800 So it's good for particulate pollution.
00:10:49.840 It's good for CO2 emissions, which is what the activists claim to be so concerned about.
00:10:55.060 And it's also supported by all 20 elected First Nation bands along the pipeline route.
00:10:59.560 So if you were looking for some kind of pipeline that you could put up on a pedestal as kind of the ideal pipeline, this would be it.
00:11:06.720 And yet they're still protesting relentlessly against it.
00:11:10.240 And it's actually shameful what they've done is they've gone into these communities.
00:11:13.520 They've taken, again, these are not homogeneous communities, First Nations like anybody else. 1.00
00:11:20.080 They've taken one or two First Nations people, they've put them up on a pedestal and then said that somehow the pipeline is violating their rights.
00:11:27.940 Again, even though all 20 elected First Nation bands from Fort St. John all the way down to Kitimat, where the LNG export terminal is, I've signed on and support the pipeline, including the Wet'suwet and First Nation band.
00:11:41.440 So it's disgraceful what's going on.
00:11:45.620 I visited these protesters and at the end of the day, when you visited them and I had these conversations with them as part of my documentary series, it's clear that they don't have any idea what's going on.
00:11:56.400 They don't know the details.
00:11:57.480 A lot of them are professional protesters or, you know, they're given kind of free room and board at these protest camps that have been erected.
00:12:08.840 And then the protest groups use the free media, earned media off of that to raise money to continue to fund themselves and to shop themselves around to billion-dollar U.S. foundations.
00:12:18.740 So that was quite evident in what's happening.
00:12:21.320 And the sad part is, is again, it's not so much the big corporations that are getting hurt.
00:12:26.540 It's the small First Nation groups and small communities in northern B.C. that would have the most to gain from a project like this.
00:12:33.580 Such a shame.
00:12:34.600 I mean, the way that you explain it so clear cut, and yet it seems to be this real, you know, difficult issue that our politicians don't really know how to solve.
00:12:44.860 I wonder, I remember from your Politics Explained documentary series, you were confronted by some of these protesters.
00:12:52.620 Was that Coastal Gas or was it somewhere else?
00:12:54.480 Can you walk us through what happened there?
00:12:57.360 Well, I guess you could say I was confronted both at, well, it's very free at Coastal Gas Link Pipeline up by Houston, and then also someone or a group of people called the Tiny House Warriors that were protesting the TMX pipeline.
00:13:13.160 Now, the confrontation that happened at TMX, which is just north of Kamloops, was probably in a place called Blue River, was the most animated, to put it nicely.
00:13:28.220 And it just goes to show that so many of these people are unhinged, and they don't know the facts of what they're talking about.
00:13:33.000 I mean, I was up at Ferry Creek talking about the forest industry.
00:13:36.940 You know, none of these people actually know what they're doing there.
00:13:39.700 It's the same with Coastal Gas Link, and it's the same with TMX.
00:13:43.720 So, you know, these protesters, I think, I don't know what's going on in their own personal lives, but they're searching for some kind of philosophy that's greater than themselves, and they just latch on to it without actually knowing what they're talking about.
00:13:57.200 But, of course, the people running these movements know exactly what they're doing, and it is an industry.
00:14:01.620 It's a multimillion-dollar industry, but, in fact, probably closer to a multibillion-dollar industry.
00:14:07.560 Well, yeah, the point you just made reminds me of Jordan Peterson's chapter in his book, you know, Get Your Own House in Order Before You Go Out and Change the World.
00:14:15.240 If only these people on the political left would bother trying to learn from what Dr. Peterson has to teach.
00:14:22.420 So, Erin, what can we do about these groups?
00:14:26.900 Because, you know, the way that you're describing it, it seems like, you know, a group of people, just their goal is to upend the rule of law,
00:14:35.040 to try to overrule the democratic will of the people, to have their way, like, basically just stop our industry,
00:14:42.140 which would have devastating effects, not just on the individual workers, but on the whole economy.
00:14:46.880 Like, I don't know what they want, if not oil and gas.
00:14:50.320 Like, sure, you can have a dream of 100 years from now where we don't use fossil fuels, but that's not the reality today.
00:14:57.100 And stopping Canadians from being able to produce this good that is in such a van, I mean, it's just frustrating to watch.
00:15:06.680 So, I mean, you studied the issue carefully, you did these documentaries on it.
00:15:10.960 What do you think needs to be done?
00:15:13.560 What can Canada do to make it clear that, you know, we uphold the rule of law and we respect industry and, you know,
00:15:20.640 we want to have a cleaner, safer environment, but, you know, the way that they're going about it is not going to solve those things.
00:15:27.660 Yeah, I would say that the number one thing that this country is missing, that it could use a lot of right now is, well, there's maybe two things.
00:15:37.940 But the first thing would be political courage.
00:15:39.980 So, I think politicians, regardless of political party, need to draw, you know, a line in the sand, a red line that says,
00:15:47.000 if you want to protest peacefully on the side of the road, that is 100% your right will always be your charter protected right in Canada, or it should be.
00:15:54.400 But that line's crossed when you start infringing on the rights of everybody else, and we start trying to really take anti-democratic elections.
00:16:04.300 I mean, a lot of these pipelines were issues in provincial and federal elections that yielded certain results.
00:16:10.220 And by going out and breaking the law and obstructing people from going into work, like in the case of Coastal GasLink or blocking highways in Victorian Vancouver,
00:16:18.800 you're really thumbing your nose at democracy and the democratic decisions that Canadians made.
00:16:22.820 So, I think that needs to be a red line in the sand, and it's time to actually get tough on these protesters.
00:16:28.460 And I actually think also cracking down on groups who are knowingly financing legal activity and financing the illegal discord in Canada.
00:16:37.580 The second thing I would say is it comes down to people like myself and people like you can as a true north,
00:16:46.220 to continue to bring the truth to these issues, and for Canadians who want to hear the truth and know what's actually going on,
00:16:52.080 to continue to support groups like this.
00:16:53.940 Because we do, I think, have a deficit in the mainstream media of good, solid reporting.
00:17:00.560 So, it's important to get the facts out there.
00:17:05.720 Well, I couldn't agree more with that second point.
00:17:07.940 I want to ask you about that first point, though, because, well, there's two things.
00:17:11.100 First of all, we saw the Trudeau government remarkably pass a law in this legislature.
00:17:16.140 So, you know, we had a shortened parliament.
00:17:18.020 It was the Trudeau waited until the very end of the year, basically, to have the House of Commons sitting in.
00:17:22.460 One of the only pieces of law that he introduced was this law making it illegal for protesters to block hospitals,
00:17:29.420 you know, gearing against the sort of anti-forced COVID vaccine crowd.
00:17:36.900 People who, you know, in my estimation, are rightfully protesting, being fed up with a system of lockdowns and politicians who lie.
00:17:46.520 But Trudeau went out of his way to put this heavy-handed law out there where protesters, if they are blocking,
00:17:53.100 and obviously no one should block hospitals, no one should harass hospital workers.
00:17:56.060 That's uncalled for. But, you know, the politics behind targeting these people, you know, it's noticeable that these are the people that he's trying to punish.
00:18:06.380 Well, the other people, but all this stuff is happening in British Columbia, all this stuff is happening all the time.
00:18:11.140 You know, they kind of turn a blind eye to it.
00:18:14.000 So I wanted to get your take on Trudeau passing out a lot of block hospitals.
00:18:17.840 And then also in Alberta, we saw the Kenney government do this long report studying who were behind all of these sort of shadowy anti-Alberta oil and gas campaigns.
00:18:31.160 And I mean, the report was super interesting, but I don't really know if it's going to lead to anything.
00:18:36.380 So I wonder if you could comment on those two issues.
00:18:39.180 Yeah, well, first on Trudeau's law, I might mention that you might not be familiar with it, but BC actually introduced, I don't know exactly where this is, or shockingly, it hasn't been challenged yet, but they actually introduced like a bubble zone legislation.
00:18:54.760 So you can't even protest on the sidewalk within a certain distance from hospitals.
00:19:01.240 It's like a couple of kilometers or something like that.
00:19:04.160 And again, at the same time, we're basically allowing activists to shut down highways and arteries.
00:19:11.440 And in many cases are actually important for people actually trying to get to the hospital, among many other important things.
00:19:18.020 So I think that, yeah, it shows a double standard, but I think it also shows when it comes to the environmental groups, this isn't just an assortment of individual people who are fearing being arrested.
00:19:35.640 This is an organized campaign.
00:19:37.160 Up in Ferry Creek, they know exactly what they're doing.
00:19:39.500 People sign up, who's prepared to be arrested?
00:19:41.420 Have you been arrested before?
00:19:42.700 Okay, maybe you don't want to do it because the judge will be harder on you.
00:19:45.160 They've got people waiting to grant you bail, to pay all your legal fees.
00:19:49.840 So it's an organized campaign of illegal protests.
00:19:53.200 And I think that's the big difference, and that's why they've been more resilient.
00:19:56.740 But again, it just comes down to political courage, where you need to have politicians who are willing to take them on and not to basically get pushed around by what really is like 1-2% of the population who thinks that extremist tactics can dictate their will to everybody else.
00:20:15.160 And then what did you think about the study out of Alberta?
00:20:18.460 Do you think, did you look into it?
00:20:20.540 Do you think that that kind of initiative is helpful?
00:20:23.460 Do you think it'll lead to anything?
00:20:25.160 What's your take on that initiative?
00:20:27.120 Well, I think that it could lead to something as far as the potential of financing groups that are engaging in illegal activities.
00:20:41.020 And maybe there's some law that, again, it would take political courage from the federal space.
00:20:45.500 But beyond that, I think, look, these left-wing groups, we all know they're getting big dollar funding.
00:20:51.840 They're getting U.S. funding to wage these campaigns. 0.69
00:20:56.300 And it's up to people that are proud of Canada, want to stand up for Canada, Canada's resource industries and independent media to stand up against them and for people to support those individuals, such as yourself at True North.
00:21:10.140 So as far as having the information war, the misinformation war, trying to combat these narratives, I mean, that is part of democracy.
00:21:20.840 I think that, and the fact that we've been able to shed light on it, I think is a good thing.
00:21:26.040 But I think the bigger thing, actually, is that conservatives, but particularly conservative politicians, need to step their game up and go after these groups and shine the light on what they really are.
00:21:37.460 And I think Canadians are smart enough to make the appropriate decisions if politicians actually take the lead, if that makes sense.
00:21:45.200 Oh, absolutely.
00:21:46.020 I think that there would be a huge appetite for a politician who is willing to speak out against this chaos, this lawlessness.
00:21:52.700 And, you know, you make a good point about how we protect hospital workers, as we should.
00:21:57.500 But why don't we extend that same courtesy to the blue-collar workers in northern British Columbia and northern Vancouver Island who are just trying to go to work in the same way as doctors and nurses?
00:22:06.700 There really is a double standard.
00:22:08.660 And, you know, it speaks, I think, volumes about the sort of snobbiness of the legacy media and politicians who cheerlead, you know, the laws against protecting doctors and nurses and then completely, like we said, turn a blind eye.
00:22:24.740 Well, Erin, it's been such a pleasure.
00:22:26.300 Thank you so much for joining the Candace Malcolm Show.
00:22:28.020 I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a Merry Christmas.
00:22:32.300 Thank you, Candace.
00:22:33.040 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well.
00:22:36.320 All right.
00:22:36.740 Thank you so much.
00:22:37.420 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is the Candace Malcolm Show.