Why donāt politicians trust Canadiansļ¼
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Summary
Candice Malan talks about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada, and why politicians should have been more concerned about public safety than they were. Plus, Andrew Lawton's flip-flips, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending time with her family.
Transcript
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Politicians in Ottawa and Toronto rule out ending the lockdown.
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Meanwhile, Quebec, Saskatchewan, many American states, and much of Europe move to reopen
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their economies, which really begs the question, why don't politicians trust Canadians, especially
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Plus, Andrews share flip-flops, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending
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I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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We had been doing the True North update, where I was joined with Andrew Lawton.
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We're doing that every day to keep you up to date during the pandemic.
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Well, things have slowed down a little bit news-wise in terms of the pandemic, so we're
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back to a regular schedule of doing The Candice Malcolm Show plus The Andrew Lawton Show, so
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you can catch that every day as we used to do it before.
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There is a lot I want to get to today, so let's jump right into it.
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I think the big story that is now upon us here in Canada is, look, we have been in lockdown
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for weeks, coming on two months now, where we have been at home, we have been told that
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And a lot of people, frankly, can't work from home, which is why we have millions upon millions
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of Canadians collecting the new emergency benefit.
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We have countless small businesses, particularly restaurants and businesses in the hospitality
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industry going bankrupt, going out of business, a wage subsidy that's sort of too little,
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True North has been covering it, and I really encourage you to check out the work of my colleague,
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She has been interviewing small business owners and doing a lot of work just trying
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to understand how business owners are getting through this really tough economy, given all
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We've started to learn a lot more about the coronavirus.
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I fully admit, at the beginning of this all, it was an unknown virus.
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It was an unknown, mysterious virus that originated out of China.
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China is a repressive communist authoritarian society, so information is so tight, we just
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And so politicians were acting out of an abundance of caution.
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I was one of the people at the beginning saying, hey, look, I don't think that we should be going
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I think that the Canadian government took way too long to take action, particularly when
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it came to closing our borders, when it came to, you know, really alerting the Canadian
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public of the dangers of this coronavirus and encouraging people to stay indoors.
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You know, that was two months ago now, and I think that things have really changed.
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I think that we've learned that the coronavirus isn't nearly as deadly as we had originally
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It reaches a lot of people, but it doesn't kill nearly as many people as we originally
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Recall that the World Health Organization had originally said that the death rate for this
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It's now looking like it might be more like 0.3%, which is still deadlier than the flu.
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And given the fact that it spreads a lot faster, it is a deadly thing.
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However, not to the point where we have to shut down our entire economy and our entire
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society waiting, everyone just cowering at home, not allowed to leave their house, sort
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of fear of either catching the disease or getting arrested or getting fined by these ridiculous
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bylaw officers that seem to be picking on Canadians just going about their daily routine, trying
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to have our daily routine anyway, in terms of getting fresh air, getting exercise, getting
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out of the house, and not trying to get too close to other Canadians.
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And really, we've just created a society where everyone's at home, and we're living in complete
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We're living in fear, and our politicians are reinforcing that idea.
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But that's particularly the case here in Ontario.
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I think that there are some differences across the country.
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I used to point this out on the True North update almost every day.
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So many of the provinces across Canada have barely been affected by the coronavirus.
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I mean, Prince Edward Island is the example that I like to point to, where there have been
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And given that it's an island, given that Prince Edward Island could easily lock down security
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and control who comes and goes from the island, it makes no sense to me as to why they ever
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locked down in the first place, why they would ever shut down small businesses and restaurants
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and hair salons and force business owners to make really, really tough economic decisions
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So given all that, we're at a situation now where things have started to turn.
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People are starting to say, hey, you know, why is it that we're so paranoid over something
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that really, I mean, it's bad, but it isn't as bad as we thought it was originally.
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And one of the other things I find really, really interesting, it's highly underreported
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in my opinion, is the fact that here in Canada, of the deaths, of the cases, of the deadly
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cases of coronavirus, 79% of them have taken place at long-term care facilities and at senior
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centres, 79%, so nearly eight in 10 deaths in Canada have been related to long-term care
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facilities, which again, begs the question of why do all Canadians need to stay indoors?
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Why do all Canadians need to practice such heightened levels of quarantine and self-isolation
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and economic lockdowns, when we know that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority
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of cases target one very small, very vulnerable section of the population?
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Instead of having everybody locked down, why don't we take all the extra precautions to protect
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the most vulnerable people in our society, the ones that we know will be the most affected
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And part of the problem is that this conversation that I'm trying to lead, this conversation I'm
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The mainstream media is not having this conversation.
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Politicians basically refuse to acknowledge it.
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And when I say politicians, I mean the handful of people that are leading the efforts, Prime
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Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and people in their government.
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Because Quebec has had the worst number, the most number of cases with coronavirus, and yet
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their attitude is totally different than Ontario's.
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So in Ontario, you know, Doug Ford announced sort of a plan, supposedly, to be reopening the
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On Monday, Premier Doug Ford revealed Ontario's plan to reopen the province and ease coronavirus
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The framework is about how we're reopening, not when we're reopening.
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They just sort of released this framework idea of how they might reopen the economy eventually
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Ford said, progress doesn't mean we can quit now.
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And that's why I won't set hard dates until we're ready, because the virus travels on its
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The Premier emphasized the government will be basing their decisions on the advice of the chief
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But we know that Doug Ford has no interest in reopening society, reopening the economy,
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because over the weekend, there were a group of protesters who went to Queen's Park.
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Now, these protesters were harshly maligned in the mainstream media, and not just in the
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Doug Ford slammed this group of people for protesting.
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And he said that they were reckless and what they're doing is selfish.
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OK, first of all, I just want to note, just because we have coronavirus doesn't somehow
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mean that we have given up all of our democratic freedoms.
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We still live in a free democratic society where people have the right to protest.
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They have the right to protest against their government, particularly when the government
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is taking tyrannical steps to shut down the economy in defense of something that's basically,
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by all accounts, by most accounts, an overreaction, a massive overreaction.
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I think we'll look back at the early spring of 2020, you know, for years, for decades, and
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sort of scratch our heads as to what we were thinking when we shut down the global economy
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because we were afraid, because we're afraid of a mysterious virus and we massively overreacted.
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Just listen to the way that he condemns people who are exercising their democratic rights.
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These people that are absolutely irresponsible, it's reckless to do what they're doing.
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We have, you know, a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen's Park sitting there protesting
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that the place isn't open as they're breaking the law and putting everyone in jeopardy.
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Putting themselves in jeopardy, putting the workers in jeopardy, and God forbid, one of
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So Doug Ford thinks it's absolutely irresponsible and reckless, even though these protesters,
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from best I can tell, were practicing their own social distancing.
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They were following, generally, the medical health guidelines as to what you should do when
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Now, I won't defend all of them because I know anytime you have a group of protesters, it
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does attract fringe people who, you know, promote ideas that I don't necessarily believe in.
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For instance, you know, there might be people who are opposed to vaccinations.
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But that said, in a democratic and free society, not only should we allow space for people who
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want to protest, but we shouldn't outright condemn them as being reckless and yahoos and
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We still, again, promote the idea of a diversity of opinions and thoughts.
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That's what makes for a wholesome civil society where we can come to, you know, where we can
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reach a consensus on ideas that we disagree with.
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So outright condemning people just because they are protesting is not something that you
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I have a lot of time for Doug Ford, but I don't understand his really, his massive overreaction
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on this and condemning peaceful protesters and also his sort of resistance to any idea
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said this week, he said on Monday, that life won't return
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to normal until we have a vaccine, not until we have, you know, flattened the curve, not
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until we've gotten past sort of the worst of typical flu season, which is when the weather
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No, he says that we won't return to normal until a vaccine is developed, which he says
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First of all, there's no guarantee that we will ever develop a vaccine.
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There are many, many viruses that go around that simply don't have vaccinations against
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them, that are too complex, that are too, you know, they change too much and we cannot
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So there's no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine for coronavirus.
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And even if we do, he says that it could take two or three years from now.
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Even if it does take two or three years, what does that mean that life won't return to
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I mean, having the leader of a country come out and say that, this is what he said, what
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is normal life will take a long time to return.
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And even at that point, two, three years from now, even once a vaccine against COVID-19 is
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We will have taken measures as a society that will be different from what we used to do,
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Again, while leaders all over the world are coming up with proactive plans to get workers
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back to work for allowing small businesses to reopen their doors and really getting the
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economy going as well, while also, of course, being cautious about the spread of coronavirus
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and protecting, like I said, the most vulnerable people in Canada, our leaders are still stuck
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in this framework of we can't reopen because we can't risk a single case or a single death
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Well, I think that the rest of the world has sort of moved past that.
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It's now a time to consider balancing the rights and freedoms of the entire society that's
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stuck at home that harms their ability to provide for their families, to make money, to engage
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in the world and society, and the health of the most vulnerable.
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I think that we can open up the economy to young and healthy people, allow them to go back
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to work, allow people that are very, very low risk of contracting coronavirus or at least
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having a severe reaction to coronavirus, while also protecting and allowing measures to be
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maintained for people who are in that vulnerable situation.
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Like I said, 79 percent of deaths in Canada have occurred at long-term care facilities and
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We should not be imposing these rules over everyone.
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We should be protecting the most vulnerable people.
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And interestingly, other provinces in Canada seem to get this.
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So Quebec has announced that they will be reopening their economy.
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Premier Francois Legault said that the coronavirus pandemic is under control outside of long-term
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As long as that continues, the economy should be able to reopen gradually.
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Government already relaxed restrictions on some businesses that had been forced to shut
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Those included companies in mining, landscaping, gardening, as well as residential pool centres
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Residential construction was allowed to resume on April 20th, but only on projects that needed
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And then the big news was that Quebec will begin reopening its elementary schools and daycares
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So at the time, again, when the provincial government in Ontario and the federal government
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There you have Quebec really going ahead with their own plan.
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Saskatchewan has also been leading the curve in terms of reopening their economy.
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And again, there's no reason why Saskatchewan has to take the same precautions, since there
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were very, very few cases and very, very few deaths so far.
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So Saskatchewan reopened its economy and services in five phases, starting on May 4th.
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So Premier Moe said last week that the coronavirus curve had already flattened in its province
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and that reopening will be gradual and methodical.
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The first phase is reopening medical services that had previously been banned under the current
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And that includes dentistry, optometry, physical therapy, optricians, podiatry, occupational therapy,
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Also being rolled out in stages during the first phase is the resumption of low-risk outdoor
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activities with precautionary measures in place.
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So that includes fishing and boating, golfing, and other outdoor activities with maintaining
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The online reservation system for provincial parks will launch on May 4th with overnight camping.
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Starting on June 1st, park access is restricted to Saskatchewan residents.
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So a little bit of common sense that we're seeing in Saskatchewan, common sense that we're
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not really seeing in the rest of the country, unfortunately.
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I mean, the whole idea of the coronavirus and it being very contagious is that you shouldn't
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If you have to, you should wear a mask, which shows it really defies logic why we ever shut
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down outdoor parks, Canada's national parks, hiking trails, those kind of things, given
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You're not sharing the same air and having recycled air.
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And that should be the place where we're encouraged to go at a time where we can't go other places.
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But that's where we are with coronavirus policies these days.
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One of the other things that was pretty interesting, Ezra Levant over at The Rebel,
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I guess it had been floating around online, but I saw it through his Twitter account.
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So he posted a picture of Theresa Tam talking about pretty authoritarian measures to enforce
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Theresa Tam, of course, is Canada's chief medical officer.
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She is sort of appointed from Justin Trudeau, and she's really taken the lead on providing
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She's leading the charge as to why Canada shouldn't reopen their economy.
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She's sort of one of the leading voices encouraging us to maintain these really, really draconian
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measures to keep Canadians inside to stop the spread of coronavirus.
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Well, there was a 2000 video from the National Film Board in Canada, a documentary called Outbreak,
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which was based on Professor Michael Bliss's history of Montreal's smallpox epidemic in the 1880s.
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So basically what this documentary did was look at the historical outbreak that happened in
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The book is called Plague, the story of smallpox in Montreal.
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And then they juxtaposed that with a hypothetical 21st century pandemic, where they talk about
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what might happen if there was something like this that happened today.
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Really interestingly, it does feature Theresa Tam, Dr. Theresa Tam.
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And just listen to the language that she uses.
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Listen to how she talks about how a government could stop the pandemic and really impose all
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of these, again, authoritarian measures to enforce a quarantine.
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I think the public has to know this is one of the worst case scenarios in terms of an
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infectious disease outbreak in that their cooperation is sought.
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If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers
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that can quarantine people in mandatory settings.
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So you can hear Theresa Tam talking about how you could track people, put bracelets on them,
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have police enforcing the quarantine to ensure that people stay at home.
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That was sort of a hypothetical idea of how you would make sure that sick people remain quarantined
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Whereas we've sort of applied some of those rules anyway to all of society, not just to
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I'm not talking about tracking people or putting bracelets on them, but certainly the policing
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aspect where you have police officers patrolling large public parks, giving fines, basically trying
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to scare people into going back into their home, even as we're getting sort of nice spring weather.
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Again, it just sort of gives you a window into the mindset of these public health bureaucrats
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and how they think and really just the lengths that they're willing to go to prevent what could be
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the worst case scenario, even though we know that the worst case scenario isn't going to happen.
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To me, it fundamentally comes down to a question of trust.
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Do our politicians, do authorities in Canada, do those public health bureaucrats trust Canadians
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to be responsible, to socially distance, to wear masks if they have to, if they have
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They trust Canadians to keep their distance, to wash their hands, to stop the spread on their
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If the lockdowns were going to be let up, if they're going to be ending tomorrow, it's a
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I think that you're seeing in some parts of the country, some politicians like Francois
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Legault in Quebec, like Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, are exercising some level of trust saying,
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you know, we want you to get out, we want you to go outside, but we also want you to be
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So here's a framework for you to go back into society.
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Whereas the other politicians like the Doug Fords and the Justin Trudeau's, Theresa
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They think that government, heavy-handed government measures are absolutely necessary, as Doug
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Otherwise, these yahoos are going to be reckless and irresponsible and undo sort of all of the
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public health measures that his government has imposed over the past several weeks and
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So I ask this question to my audience on Twitter, to my followers and readers over there.
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Do you trust Canadians to be responsible and socially distanced if the lockdowns were to
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Of the people who voted, which so far there's been 4,300 votes, 80% said yes, people can
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Whereas 19.5%, so basically 20%, say no, we need government lockdowns.
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Obviously, it's not a scientific poll by any means.
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But it does show you that the people following me on Twitter anyway think that Canadians should
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And therefore, it might be time to let up on some of these lockdowns and let people get
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back to work, regardless of what Dr. Theresa Tam may say.
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And well, speaking of Dr. Theresa Tam, last week I thought this was just a really frivolous,
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The story of a conservative leadership candidate and MP, Derek Sloan.
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He released a tweet criticizing Theresa Tam and released a video sort of talking about
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how the World Health Organization has really dropped the ball.
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Chinese communist government has been unduly influencing the World Health Organization, and
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they have both had an undue influence on Canada.
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And therefore, he believed that Dr. Theresa Tam should be fired.
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Now, this was kind of misconstrued in the media or misinterpreted or maybe properly interpreted
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if you think that Derek Sloan is a bad person and a racist person.
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But again, you know, it depends on how you view him as an individual, I guess.
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But anyway, the media and all of liberals, all the liberals and many conservatives deemed
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that his criticism of Dr. Theresa Tam was malicious and racist.
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And it was really driven by her ethnicity as a person who is of Chinese ethnicity and not
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based on her competency as a public health official.
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So at the time, the conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, basically said that he wasn't going
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I really thought it was just a slow news day and that people were looking for basically
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it was almost like they hadn't had cancel culture.
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You know, the mob hadn't rightfully chased anyone from their position in a couple of months
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because we've all been so distracted by the coronavirus.
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And this was like an opportunity for the mob to jump back on their high horse and engage
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in cancel culture and basically call out a conservative for supposed racism, which is
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one of their favorite activities of the left and particularly the woke mob on social media.
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So at the time, Mr. Scheer, Andrew Scheer, said that he wasn't going to engage.
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He says, as a rule, I don't comment on leadership candidates or on policy announcements or positions
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Scheer said, ultimately, it will be up to conservative members to select the next leader of the party.
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It's up to conservative members to decide who their leader is going to be.
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Well, on April 28th, Andrew Scheer had a decisive flip-flop reminding us of why he didn't win the election in October,
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Basically, every time he's pushed on an issue, every time there's a tough situation in front of him,
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I do not agree with his position, with what he said.
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And I believe it is not appropriate to question someone's loyalty to their country.
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I believe that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make.
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OK, now, I'm not going to go too far in my way to defend Derek Sloan, because I think that the argument that he was making,
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while part of it was really accurate and dead on, I think that he was a little bit sloppy in the way that he was criticizing a public health official
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and not the political partisans who appointed them.
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And I also don't know Derek Sloan well enough to know whether he's operating in good faith or bad faith.
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But just on the surface, the idea that you shouldn't criticize someone just because they happen to be ethnically Chinese in this case.
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What is true is that Theresa Tam has been incompetent, that she has been taking her marching orders from the World Health Organization,
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which is lockstep, you know, shoulder and shoulder, shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese communist government.
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I think that there's so much corruption and so much wrong with that relationship between the Chinese communist government
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and the World Health Organization that all Canadians should be questioning why we are part of the World Health Organization.
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And that organization massively, massively needs to be held accountable for the terrible decisions that they have made
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And we should also be able to question why Canada is taking such orders and doing so much to defend the World Health Organization
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and ensuring that our policies are aligned when really our interests are not aligned.
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So the idea that we can't criticize a public health bureaucrat who has been incompetent
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and done a lot of things that put Canadians in danger and the fact that she has a relationship
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with this really, really corrupt institution, the World Health Organization and its relationship with China,
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And the fact that we now live in a society where you can't criticize someone
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because we all have to walk on eggshells and be so sensitive
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and be so nervous about the accusation of potentially someone misconstruing what we're saying,
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even if it's intentional, even if they're acting in bad faith.
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Basically, we live in a society where we can't have free discourse.
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We can't actually hold politicians accountable because we're so afraid of political correctness.
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I have no expectation of Andrew Scheer to be the person that sort of rises above that and condemns it and calls it out.
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But it's pretty disappointing to see him, you know, on April 23rd saying,
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And then on April 28th, you know, jumping over to the liberal side
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and basically groveling and apologizing for a conservative who expressed their opinion.
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But that's, you know, that's the Canadian media landscape that we live in today.
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I want to talk about is a story in the Toronto Star that's making the rounds
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about conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who is working from Oklahoma during the pandemic.
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So prominent conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who's the MP for Calgary Nose Hill,
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we learned that she has been working remotely from Oklahoma in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Rempel-Garner said she traveled to Oklahoma where her husband and stepchildren live.
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on an unexpected and urgent private personal matter before Canada and the U.S. imposed
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In a statement to the Toronto Star, Rempel-Garner said she has been in constant contact
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with conservative party whip Mark Strahl, and the party has advised her to shelter in place
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So Toronto Star journalist Susan Delacour tweeted,
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news to me, conservative MP Michelle Rempel has been living in Oklahoma throughout the
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Any other MPs working, living abroad, I wonder?
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So to me, this is totally a manufactured crisis and a fake news story.
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We know that just about every single member of parliament has been working remotely,
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Since the start of the crisis, a select few people from each party have gone to Ottawa to
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create the sort of shell parliament so that they can still pass legislation, the emergency
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And basically the media were the ones that were saying a couple of weeks ago, when the
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Conservatives were pushing for the government to come back, to have parliament have full
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sittings, the media were the ones saying, wow, it's so reckless, it's so irresponsible.
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They should not be having to go into the House of Commons to vote.
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But encouraging everyone to stay with their families, work remotely, work from home.
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And now we learn that a conservative is in Oklahoma, which is where her husband and her
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It literally makes no difference whether she is in Alberta, where her constituents are.
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She's pretty much in the same time zone, maybe an hour different than where she was.
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And she's with her husband and her stepchildren.
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I'm old enough to remember like three weeks ago when Justin Trudeau broke his own social
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distancing rules to go see his kids and his wife who were staying in a different province.
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And the mainstream media said, absolutely nothing to see here.
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The prime minister and his personal life and his time with his children should be off limits.
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And journalists and Canadians shouldn't be asking questions or covering it.
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And yet here we have a conservative MP who is more or less doing the same thing, except
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And supposedly this is some horrible scandal that requires a news piece.
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Well, why is it that the prime minister's life, personal life with his kids is off limits?
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But a conservative MP spending time with her kids and her husband, that's fair game for
0.80
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the media to speculate about, for journalists to mock on social media.
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I think this just shows the underlying bias that left-wing Canadians have against America.
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Frankly, there's a whole part of this article talking about how Oklahoma, I'll read right
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here, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced plans to reopen the state's economy last week,
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indicating the state had successfully flattened the curve beginning May 1.
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Restaurants, sporting events, sporting venues, gyms, movie theaters, and places of worship
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will be permitted to reopen as long as they follow certain precautions.
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According to the local NBC affiliate, Oklahoma has reported 3,280 cases of COVID-19, including
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Why is what the political decisions of Oklahoma to reopen their economy have to do with the
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Well, again, they're just sort of showing the fact that they disagree with probably Oklahoma's
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The fact that Michelle Rumpel is with her family isn't really our business, if you want
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to say that where Justin Trudeau is and where he's staying isn't really any of our business.
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And just because she happens to be on the other side of the border, she's still in the same
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time zone, she can still potentially get to Ottawa if she needs to.
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All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to an episode of the Candace Malcolm Show