The Candice Malcolm Show - June 30, 2021


The Left in Canada is turning on the symbols they created

Hosted by
Candice Malcolm
Mentioned
John Diefenbaker Lester Pearson Pierre Trudeau John A. Macdonald Matthew Hayday Al-Hébert
The Trudeau government is trying to legislate cancel culture Churches burned on Canada Day long weekend, and the media is partially to blame

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

178.93

Word count

1,608

Sentence count

82

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

It's a tough year to celebrate Canada Day because the media and the Laurentian elite in this country have turned on Canada. They've turned on our first and founding prime minister, Sir Johnny MacDonald, and the early and often failed policies regarding First Nations. But here's the thing: The media and elite in Canada have never aptly represented Canada or Canadians. They invented their own narrative, a myth that was never really that true.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I won't deny that this is a tough year to celebrate Canada Day.
00:00:03.440 Hi, I'm Candice Belcombe, and this is the Candice Belcombe Show.
00:00:10.920 In years past, on this Canada Day, or as I typically call it, Dominion Day,
00:00:15.560 here at True North, we would unabashedly celebrate Canada as the best country in the world.
00:00:20.760 Canada is safe, secure, free, and open, and Canadians are gracious, friendly, welcoming,
00:00:26.220 and great stewards of our tradition of ordered liberty that dates back to the signing of the
00:00:31.660 Magna Carta. That's the world's first written constitution, limiting the powers of government
00:00:36.700 and enshrining the rights of the individual. Canada is a beautiful country, and there's
00:00:41.740 nothing better than getting outside, exploring the natural wonders of our country, and spending
00:00:46.120 some time in the great outdoors. Canadians are adventuresome, we're tough as nails, loyal,
00:00:51.600 and we're committed to developing and building up our great country, despite the natural
00:00:56.160 challenges, and often up against all the elements. But I say it's a tough year to celebrate Canada,
00:01:01.840 because the media and the Laurentian elite in this country have basically turned on Canada.
00:01:07.160 They've certainly turned on Canada's first and founding prime minister, Sir Johnny MacDonald,
00:01:11.780 and they've turned on Canada's early and often failed policies regarding First Nations.
00:01:16.220 But here's the thing. The media and the Laurentian elite in Canada, the ones who are now turning on
00:01:22.160 Canada, they've never aptly represented Canada or Canadians. They invented their own narrative,
00:01:28.080 a myth, that was never really that true, never really that accurate. These Laurentian elites sneered
00:01:33.360 and turned their noses at everyday Canadians, and instead invented their own anti-American
00:01:37.980 narrative to define Canada. The left in this country pulled Canada away from its British roots
00:01:43.440 and identity as being part of the mighty British Empire and crafted a new post-British identity
00:01:48.580 after World War II. At that time, Canada was known as a mighty ally and a country with grit,
00:01:54.980 determination, and innovation. Canada punched well above its weight in the Second World War
00:02:00.040 and helped to secure a victory against fascism and against the Nazis in Europe. But the new leftist
00:02:06.420 narrative of Canadian identity was defined as a softer, more progressive, more enlightened,
00:02:11.640 and more worldly version of our American neighbours. The left launched a campaign to replace the
00:02:17.420 symbolism associated with Canada's historical connection with the British Empire and introduced
00:02:22.900 new, broad, and generic symbols to represent Canada. In the mid-1960s, the Liberals pushed a bitter
00:02:29.480 debate in Parliament over introducing a new flag. At the time, Canada used both the Union Jack and the
00:02:35.680 Red Ensign, both interchangeably, as our national flag. The Liberals wanted a new flag, some form of a
00:02:41.120 maple leaf, which had long been a secondary symbol for Canada. The Tories at the time, led by future
00:02:46.500 Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, opposed the new flag, saying it abandoned Canada's British tradition.
00:02:52.580 Diefenbaker accused Liberal Prime Minister at the time, Lester B. Pearson, of trying to use the flag
00:02:57.620 debate as a distraction from his scandal plagued an unpopular government and governing record.
00:03:02.760 Public opinion was basically split among English Canadians, and according to Pierre Trudeau at the time,
00:03:08.220 French Canadians didn't really care either way. Some historians opposed the change, calling the
00:03:13.860 new flag innocuous, and saying it would not promote national unity, but would merely produce an
00:03:18.600 indifferent response. Pearson eventually got his way, and the new flag was officially hoisted at the
00:03:24.620 Peace Tower on Parliament Hill on February 15th, 1965. John Diefenbaker said this to Lester B. Pearson,
00:03:31.380 he said,
00:03:31.780 you have done more to divide the country than any other Prime Minister. And in fact, when John Diefenbaker
00:03:36.880 died in 1979, his coffin was draped with both the red ensign and the new maple leaf. But the Liberals
00:03:43.500 weren't done. Next, in 1982, another Liberal government first changed our Bill of Rights and
00:03:48.620 wrote a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they also changed the name of our national holiday.
00:03:53.700 From the moment our country was formed in 1867, all the way up till 1982, July 1st was celebrated as our
00:04:00.460 national holiday, but it was known as Dominion Day. Then, on one hot day in July, Dominion Day was
00:04:06.080 officially thrown out, in something that can aptly be described as a coup. A Liberal from Quebec
00:04:11.460 introduced a private member's bill to change the holiday's name to Canada Day, and a near-empty House
00:04:16.520 of Commons rushed to push through this bill. Let me read a passage from the Dictionary of Canadian Politics.
00:04:22.760 According to historian Matthew Hayday, 13 members of Parliament remained in the House of Commons on a hot
00:04:27.680 Friday afternoon in July, and began debating a private member's bill, tabled by Quebec MP Al-Hébert
00:04:33.740 to amend the Holiday Act, so as to change the name from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
00:04:39.300 As Hayday told the Canadian press in 2019,
00:04:42.620 no one actually asked the Speaker of the House to verify that there was still quorum. Unless someone asks,
00:04:47.900 it's assumed that it still exists. But there were some doubts as to whether, in fact, there were enough members of
00:04:53.440 Parliament in the House. Undeterred, the MPs held first, second, and third reading in under 10 minutes
00:04:59.840 on that hazy Friday afternoon. The bill eventually passed through the Senate, and it became law later
00:05:04.380 that year. So with the stroke of a pen, Dominion Day was out, and the more on-brand Canada Day was in.
00:05:10.280 So 13 MPs decided to ditch Dominion Day. Not very democratic. And interestingly, it was the Globe and
00:05:16.640 Mail newspaper that led a campaign to save the old Dominion Day. In the mid-1990s, the now left-wing
00:05:22.360 newspaper launched a national campaign called Bring Back Our Dominion Day, selling t-shirts and posters.
00:05:28.220 But alas, the campaign did not get anywhere, and it was a lost cause at that point. But there is just
00:05:34.020 a little bit of delicious irony to hear liberals and leftists today calling for our country to cancel
00:05:40.560 Canada Day, since Canada Day was the holiday that they invented and they imposed. I know that there are
00:05:46.580 some conservatives out there who chuckle a little bit when they see the Cancel Canada Day
00:05:50.480 trending on social media. You know, they might shrug and say, sure, cancel Canada Day, but bring back
00:05:56.380 Dominion Day. And of course, that's not the only example. As recently as 2015, the Trudeau liberals
00:06:02.480 forced another change to our national symbol. This time, they awkwardly changed our national anthem.
00:06:08.440 They alleged that it wasn't gender neutral. They got rid of the line, in all thy sons' command,
00:06:13.380 and replaced it with a really clunky and awkward-sounding, in all of us command.
00:06:19.160 Liberals have a habit of changing our national symbols to make them more broad,
00:06:23.020 more generic, and less British. Their attempts to whitewash our past, whitewash our history, 0.99
00:06:28.360 and to define the country's national identity based on left-wing government policies like
00:06:33.380 universal government healthcare and subsidized university was always set up to fail.
00:06:38.560 That's because their self-righteous purity is based on fiction, not fact. As much as the liberals
00:06:44.960 try to distance Canada from its history and its British past, its British roots, it can't.
00:06:50.800 Canada, just like every other country in the world, and just like every other civilization in human
00:06:55.300 history, is complex, and its history is rife with examples of war, fighting, killing, cruelty,
00:07:02.440 abuse of power, and illiberal lapses in judgment. Canada, of course, is no exception, or no different.
00:07:07.840 So now Canada's Laurentian elite face a crisis. Their projection of their Canada doesn't hold up
00:07:14.480 to scrutiny. The image that they propagated over the years has been shattered. But let me be blunt,
00:07:19.980 this is their problem. They're the ones that will have to reconcile their self-constructed myth
00:07:24.600 of Canada with the reality that early Canadians were anything but kinder, gentler, more progressive
00:07:30.660 versions of our American neighbors. For the rest of us who maintain a more realistic image of
00:07:35.700 ourselves and our country, not much has changed. Canada's history is comprised of sacrifice,
00:07:40.880 grit, and perseverance. We get a lot of things right, but we also get a lot of things wrong.
00:07:45.880 And when we did, we acknowledge our mistakes and we do our best to learn from them.
00:07:50.380 Canada today is a wonderful and pluralistic country, a place where we share basic principles,
00:07:55.620 traditions, and values. But this allows for a great deal of freedom, individualism,
00:07:59.740 and diversity to grow on top of these shared values. Canada's commitment to basic principles
00:08:05.000 like human dignity and individual freedom mean that fewer people get left behind, but that there's
00:08:09.760 also true opportunity and upward mobility, unlike almost every other part of the world.
00:08:14.820 Canada makes lots of mistakes, and our political leaders are often misguided and often plain wrong.
00:08:20.000 But we have mechanisms to protect ourselves from tyrannical government, and we have the ability
00:08:24.220 to hold politicians accountable and elect new governments. That is part of the reason why
00:08:29.080 people come from all over the world to live in Canada. That is why Canada routinely ranks at or
00:08:34.820 near the top of global indexes measuring economic freedom, quality of life, happiness, good governance,
00:08:40.180 and safety. Canada is one of the least corrupt countries in the world, and yes, Canada is one of
00:08:44.980 the least racist countries in the world. So this Dominion Day, ignore the media narrative,
00:08:49.440 ignore the smug Laurentian elites, and raise a toast to this great country that we call home.
00:08:55.000 Happy Canada Day, happy Dominion Day. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.