The legacy media rushes to defend the Liberals
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Summary
The Canadian press pretend to be the arbiters of truth, the legacy media lean in to defend Mary Amonsef, and the Toronto Star sends a pathological message on its front page. It's Fake News Friday, and we're taking fact checking to the next level.
Transcript
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The Canadian press pretend to be the arbiters of truth, the legacy media lean in to defend
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Mary Amonsef, and the Toronto Star sends a pathological message on its front page.
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It's Fake News Friday, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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It is Friday, so we are going to do Fake News Friday, where we run through the legacy media
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and point out how fraudulent they are, how much they lie, how they push misinformation,
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So we're going to start with this Canadian press report.
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The sort of theme of the week, being pushed by the Liberals and being picked up, of course,
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by the mainstream media, the legacy media, is that Erin O'Toole supports more private delivery
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The Liberals put out that doctored, manipulated video early in the week, and because of that,
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because Twitter slapped that label saying it was manipulated, we saw a lot of mainstream
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media covering for the Liberals and pushing their views.
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So what does CP, what does the Canadian press decide to fact-check?
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Instead of fact-checking the Liberals, who were caught pushing misinformation on Twitter,
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instead of fact-checking them and their partisan spin that has been exposed as being untrue,
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instead the CP acts like good little journalists doing what the Liberals want,
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doing the Liberals' dirty work, and goes ahead and fact-checks the accusation against Erin O'Toole,
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which is that he wants to privatize healthcare.
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So we saw this report go throughout the Canadian press, is the wire service, so their reports
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go throughout the legacy media in newspapers across the country.
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It was featured in the Toronto Star and many, many other publications.
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So this is taking fact-checking to the next extreme, because the Canadian press, instead
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of just calling it a fact-check, they call it a truth test, a truth test, because they
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want you to believe that they are the arbiters of truth.
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Whatever they determine to be true is the truth.
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And so let's go through this truth test, this fact-check that the CP has done against
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The truth test is a project of the Canadian press that examines the accuracy of statements
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Each claim is researched and analyzed to provide Canadians with facts instead of spin.
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Okay, so we are being told that these are facts and this is not spin.
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And so the statement that they're looking at is Erin O'Toole saying,
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I support a public and universal system, full stop.
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So it gives a bit of background of the whole liberal, pushing, manipulated media issue and
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Now let's go down to the analysis part, because this is where we're told that we're going to
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get the truth, that we're going to get facts and not spin.
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The issue comes down to the question of whether more private, for-profit health services can
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be offered without undermining Canada's universal public health care system.
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Advocates for a universal public system say it can't.
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Okay, so we're told that we're getting facts here, not spin.
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And yet the entire analysis is rested upon advocates for universal public systems.
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This is a subjective opinion of people who are activists and advocates for the current
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Okay, let's read a little bit from what these activists say.
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So here we have an activist doctor from an organization called Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
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So we know exactly where this person will stand.
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I would say that introducing more private pay into the health care system undermines our
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universal public health care, regardless of whether or not you're saying you're going
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Using our limited resources to service select few patients who can actually afford to pay
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privately leaves less resources for everyone else in the system and worsens things off for
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So we found a doctor here that basically agrees exactly with the liberal talking points and
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dumbs us all down to like the very narrow understanding of Canadian health care.
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As I talked about on the show yesterday, we know that more than half of the Canadian health
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And Canadians pay either out of pocket or through private insurance, more than half, 55%.
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And that's looking at everything from prescription drugs to dentistry to going to see an eye
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So overall, most of our health care is already private.
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What they're talking about when they talk about this universal public care is a very narrowly
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defined few areas of health care, mainly going to a hospital or seeing a family practitioner
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And this doctor is saying, if you introduce more private delivery into these, it will hurt
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everyone, which again, is exactly the liberal position.
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She says, we have a limited number of doctors, nurses, health care professionals in Canada.
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So when you create these private clinics, you're not actually taking pressure off the public
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You're taking professionals away from the public system, which leads to longer wait times in
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the public system, which is the point of access for far more Canadians.
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Now, again, this is a very limited way of thinking about health care, because the idea is that
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And if you start allowing for private delivery, those doctors will go over to that system,
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They go to other countries where they can actually make more money.
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There are tons of very talented doctors that move down to the U.S. for that exact reason.
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So presumably, if there were more opportunities, more options in Canada to make money, to do
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more services in Canada, many of those doctors would come back.
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There are so many people that want to come to Canada.
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There are so many people who are qualified medical professionals, doctors, nurses, who
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come to Canada and can't practice because of our ridiculous system of credentials.
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So this idea that we sort of have like a zero-sum game of health care professionals and anyone
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who moves to the private sector leaves the public sector with fewer resources is just
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So what we're really seeing here is spin from health care professionals who are advocates
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for one certain position, which happens to be a position that goes against what the
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Conservatives are advocating for and aligns with what the Liberals are advocating for.
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So I don't understand how this is a fact check.
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I don't understand how this is a truth test as the Canadian press are reporting it because
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really what I'm seeing here is just opinions from doctors.
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Now, let's keep reading because we have even more opinions from doctors coming in.
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So next, we hear from another individual named Stephen Staples, who is the National Director
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of Policy and Advocacy for the Canadian Health Coalition.
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And again, he just criticizes the Conservative position.
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He says, by increasing for-profit players in the health care system, you create a two-tier
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system, which is, again, the very partisan, very narrow, limited, liberal attack line.
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That's what we hear Justin Trudeau saying all week.
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That's what we heard Chrystia Freeland saying all week.
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The Canadian press has just found two people who are health care activists, health care
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advocates, who make the exact same point as the Liberals.
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And we're, again, supposed to believe that this is truth.
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This report totally omits the fact that O'Toole has actually pledged more money than the Liberals
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Or just the idea that we're talking about increasing the amount of money in health care,
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both on the private side and the public universal side.
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So CP just basically runs an opinion piece about how they agree with the Liberals and then
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And unbelievable, but this is exactly what you expect from the legacy media.
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Now, speaking of the legacy media carrying water for Liberals, especially when Liberals
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make mistakes and make gaffes and embarrass themselves, let's talk about the story of
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Maryam Monsef, the Minister for the Status of Women in the Trudeau government, Member of
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Parliament, who's running as a Liberal candidate in this election out in Peterborough.
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Well, earlier this week, she was talking to the Taliban and she called them our brothers.
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It was perhaps the stupidest thing that I've ever seen a Canadian politician say, the most
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embarrassing and absolutely despicable thing that a Canadian government official could
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say on the world stage, speaking to Canadian journalists, but also apparently speaking directly
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And yet, and yet, we saw many, many journalists jump in to defend Maryam Monsef and say that
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So here we have an individual named Mark McKinnon.
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He is a senior international correspondent for the Globe and Mail based in London.
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Dear Canada, Maryam Monsef decided to make a plea directly to the Taliban, calling on them
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She's using the language that she, as an Afghan Canadian, feels would be most effective.
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Can we do the politics and point scoring later?
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Well, first of all, no, because we're in the middle of an election, an election that the
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Liberals decided to trigger, the Liberals decided to call.
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And here we have a Liberal cabinet minister calling one of the most despicable terrorist
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organizations on Earth, on planet Earth, our brothers.
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And unfortunately, during an election, you're going to see point scoring.
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So we can't all of a sudden say, let's just rise above the partisan fray in the middle
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Next, this idea that somehow Maryam Monsef was doing this brilliant game of diplomacy by
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talking to the Taliban and using friendly language and calling them our brothers, like
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I've got news for Mark McKinnon, apparently a very senior international correspondent.
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Perhaps he would know that the Taliban have absolutely no regard for women, especially
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They are not going to listen to anything a woman says.
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They're not going to listen to anything a Western woman says, like Maryam Monsef.
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They're not going to listen to anything a woman who is not wearing a hijab says.
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So here we have Maryam Monsef, a Western cabinet minister for a liberal government in Canada.
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She's speaking in English and she's speaking on Canadian television.
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And if they were, they would just laugh at the idea of a woman trying to tell her what
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So no, that is not good insight over at the Globe and Mail.
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That is just blatant partisanship defending the liberals.
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Here we have Dale Smith from the Parliamentary Press Gallery, a freelance journalist.
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Of course, he's saying context matters, everybody, because Maryam Monsef constantly refers to
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Apparently, that makes it all okay for Maryam Monsef to call the Taliban our brothers.
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And now we have Stephen Marr, another freelance reporter and a frequent writer in McLean's.
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He says, this is unfortunate language for her to use, but I don't have much appetite for
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No one thinks that she's saying our brothers as if she's part of the Taliban.
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We think that she is making a huge mistake by equating the Taliban as an ally, as a friend,
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She's not speaking as an Afghan refugee or a Muslim woman.
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She's speaking in her capacity as a government official, and she's saying our brothers to
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So no, we're not saying that she's part of the Taliban, but we're saying that she's using
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despicable language to refer to a terrorist organization.
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And next, we have a CBC reporter who tweeted in French.
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She's from Radio Canada, which is the French language part of the CBC, and she says this.
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The Taliban call the Afghan women whom they beat and denigrate our sisters.
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And yes, there are women who speak to the Taliban.
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And if there are a few women that speak to the Taliban, maybe as intermediaries, they're
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The Taliban do not respect women, which is why we see the situation going back to the
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They don't believe in basic decency and any kind of kind treatment towards women.
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So this whole idea that the Taliban are going to listen to Maryam Monsef, okay, good luck
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All right, one more story that I want to cover.
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And it's mostly because I've never seen a front page of a newspaper with such a despicable
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So this was the front page of the Toronto Star on Thursday.
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And when I read it, I just really couldn't believe what I was reading.
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The boldened part of the front page here says, I have no empathy left for the willfully unvaccinated.
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I honestly don't care if they die from COVID, not even a little bit.
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So here we have the Toronto Star, the left-wing newspaper of the city of Toronto, probably
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And they are openly advocating the idea that if you're not vaccinated, you deserve to die.
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Now, usually the left-wing parties, the left-wing people are the ones who are the advocates for
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kindness and empathy and love and all these things.
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And yet when it comes to this debate over vaccines and how we're going to get past COVID,
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all of a sudden, the whole idea is that they have no empathy.
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The story that this front page was based on was an entire story about empathy and how we're
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just not seeing a lot of empathy between the two camps, between the vaccinated and the
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But pushing this message, I'm not even sure who this is a quote for.
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I read the entire piece and I'm not sure who is saying this, this thing that was written
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I have no empathy for the willfully unvaccinated.
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From best I can tell, it's just the author taking things from Twitter, pulling things
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off of Twitter, and they decided that they were going to put that on the front page.
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This is the most heartless thing perhaps ever written on a front page of a newspaper in
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So over at True North, we broke this story this week that the CBC has instructed their
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own employees that getting vaccinated is their choice, that it is a personal choice and they
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will not implement mandatory vaccines at this time.
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Interesting because they're pushing forward this partisan liberal campaign message and this
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wedge issue that Justin Trudeau has brought forth saying that we must have mandatory vaccines
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So the CBC, again, is carrying water for Trudeau in advocating this position, but they don't
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practice what they preach because they're not making it mandatory at the CBC.
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True North has also reached out to the Toronto Star regarding their vaccination policy, but
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This is getting into very dangerous, dicey territory.
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Where we have divided our country into the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, the we versus
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And we see the two sides being pitted against each other.
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Here we have a mainstream media organization, the Toronto Star, on their very front page pushing
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this insanely, insanely heartless, cruel message.
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This is a country we live in, a country we live in where we just shrug our shoulders and
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say, you deserve to die if you don't make the exact same medical choice that I do.
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I think that is an incredibly sad reflection on the country and even worse, a sad reflection
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Shame on the Toronto Star for putting out a despicable headline.
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I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.