The Candice Malcolm Show - April 28, 2020


Why don’t politicians trust Canadians?


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

174.9261

Word Count

5,563

Sentence Count

284

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

11


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

00:00:00.280 Politicians in Ottawa and Toronto rule out ending the lockdown.
00:00:04.320 Meanwhile, Quebec, Saskatchewan, many American states, and much of Europe move to reopen
00:00:09.940 their economies, which really begs the question, why don't politicians trust Canadians, especially
00:00:15.980 Canadians in Ontario?
00:00:17.840 Plus, Andrews share flip-flops, and the Toronto Star attacks a Conservative MP for spending
00:00:23.880 time with her family.
00:00:25.760 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:30.000 Hi, everyone.
00:00:34.380 Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:00:36.120 We are back to doing a regular show.
00:00:38.220 We had been doing the True North update, where I was joined with Andrew Lawton.
00:00:41.500 We're doing that every day to keep you up to date during the pandemic.
00:00:44.860 Well, things have slowed down a little bit news-wise in terms of the pandemic, so we're
00:00:48.680 back to a regular schedule of doing The Candice Malcolm Show plus The Andrew Lawton Show, so
00:00:53.300 you can catch that every day as we used to do it before.
00:00:56.280 There is a lot I want to get to today, so let's jump right into it.
00:01:00.660 I think the big story that is now upon us here in Canada is, look, we have been in lockdown
00:01:06.480 for weeks, coming on two months now, where we have been at home, we have been told that
00:01:11.440 we have to work from home.
00:01:12.580 And a lot of people, frankly, can't work from home, which is why we have millions upon millions
00:01:17.120 of Canadians collecting the new emergency benefit.
00:01:20.380 We have countless small businesses, particularly restaurants and businesses in the hospitality
00:01:25.940 industry going bankrupt, going out of business, a wage subsidy that's sort of too little,
00:01:30.960 too late for so many businesses.
00:01:32.980 True North has been covering it, and I really encourage you to check out the work of my colleague,
00:01:37.140 Lindsay Shepard.
00:01:37.820 She has been interviewing small business owners and doing a lot of work just trying
00:01:42.000 to understand how business owners are getting through this really tough economy, given all
00:01:47.960 the government-imposed lockdowns.
00:01:50.220 Well, I think things have started to turn.
00:01:52.260 We've started to learn a lot more about the coronavirus.
00:01:55.220 I fully admit, at the beginning of this all, it was an unknown virus.
00:01:59.340 It was an unknown, mysterious virus that originated out of China.
00:02:02.720 China is a repressive communist authoritarian society, so information is so tight, we just
00:02:09.120 didn't really know what we were dealing with.
00:02:11.180 And so politicians were acting out of an abundance of caution.
00:02:14.840 I was one of the people at the beginning saying, hey, look, I don't think that we should be going
00:02:19.820 about business as usual.
00:02:21.300 I think that the Canadian government took way too long to take action, particularly when
00:02:25.900 it came to closing our borders, when it came to, you know, really alerting the Canadian
00:02:31.500 public of the dangers of this coronavirus and encouraging people to stay indoors.
00:02:37.300 You know, that was two months ago now, and I think that things have really changed.
00:02:40.300 I think that we've learned that the coronavirus isn't nearly as deadly as we had originally
00:02:46.620 thought.
00:02:47.000 It certainly is communicable.
00:02:48.940 It's fast-spreading.
00:02:50.160 It reaches a lot of people, but it doesn't kill nearly as many people as we originally
00:02:54.560 suspected.
00:02:55.720 Recall that the World Health Organization had originally said that the death rate for this
00:02:59.400 thing was 3% to 4%.
00:03:01.540 It's now looking like it might be more like 0.3%, which is still deadlier than the flu.
00:03:07.020 And given the fact that it spreads a lot faster, it is a deadly thing.
00:03:11.140 However, not to the point where we have to shut down our entire economy and our entire
00:03:15.540 society waiting, everyone just cowering at home, not allowed to leave their house, sort
00:03:20.140 of fear of either catching the disease or getting arrested or getting fined by these ridiculous
00:03:25.680 bylaw officers that seem to be picking on Canadians just going about their daily routine, trying
00:03:32.760 to have our daily routine anyway, in terms of getting fresh air, getting exercise, getting
00:03:36.920 out of the house, and not trying to get too close to other Canadians.
00:03:42.000 And really, we've just created a society where everyone's at home, and we're living in complete
00:03:47.960 fear.
00:03:48.400 We're living in fear, and our politicians are reinforcing that idea.
00:03:52.180 But that's particularly the case here in Ontario.
00:03:55.420 I think that there are some differences across the country.
00:03:58.460 I used to point this out on the True North update almost every day.
00:04:01.460 So many of the provinces across Canada have barely been affected by the coronavirus.
00:04:05.920 I mean, Prince Edward Island is the example that I like to point to, where there have been
00:04:09.740 23 cases of coronavirus, 23, and zero deaths.
00:04:14.460 And given that it's an island, given that Prince Edward Island could easily lock down security
00:04:18.560 and control who comes and goes from the island, it makes no sense to me as to why they ever
00:04:23.080 locked down in the first place, why they would ever shut down small businesses and restaurants
00:04:27.540 and hair salons and force business owners to make really, really tough economic decisions
00:04:32.700 about their livelihood.
00:04:34.640 So given all that, we're at a situation now where things have started to turn.
00:04:39.200 People are starting to say, hey, you know, why is it that we're so paranoid over something
00:04:45.080 that really, I mean, it's bad, but it isn't as bad as we thought it was originally.
00:04:50.200 A lot of places are starting to reopen.
00:04:53.220 And one of the other things I find really, really interesting, it's highly underreported
00:04:57.320 in my opinion, is the fact that here in Canada, of the deaths, of the cases, of the deadly
00:05:03.000 cases of coronavirus, 79% of them have taken place at long-term care facilities and at senior
00:05:10.360 centres, 79%, so nearly eight in 10 deaths in Canada have been related to long-term care
00:05:17.280 facilities, which again, begs the question of why do all Canadians need to stay indoors?
00:05:23.660 Why do all Canadians need to practice such heightened levels of quarantine and self-isolation
00:05:28.940 and economic lockdowns, when we know that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority
00:05:33.680 of cases target one very small, very vulnerable section of the population?
00:05:39.420 Instead of having everybody locked down, why don't we take all the extra precautions to protect
00:05:44.380 the most vulnerable people in our society, the ones that we know will be the most affected
00:05:49.520 and impacted?
00:05:50.180 And part of the problem is that this conversation that I'm trying to lead, this conversation I'm
00:05:54.540 having right now, is not being engaged.
00:05:57.780 The mainstream media is not having this conversation.
00:06:00.720 Politicians basically refuse to acknowledge it.
00:06:03.160 And when I say politicians, I mean the handful of people that are leading the efforts, Prime
00:06:07.560 Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and people in their government.
00:06:13.080 So those two governments specifically.
00:06:15.140 Because Quebec has had the worst number, the most number of cases with coronavirus, and yet
00:06:21.260 their attitude is totally different than Ontario's.
00:06:25.040 So in Ontario, you know, Doug Ford announced sort of a plan, supposedly, to be reopening the
00:06:32.200 economy.
00:06:32.520 But it's really not a plan.
00:06:34.020 It's really nothing.
00:06:35.200 The framework to reopen the economy.
00:06:38.060 On Monday, Premier Doug Ford revealed Ontario's plan to reopen the province and ease coronavirus
00:06:43.540 restrictions currently in place.
00:06:45.080 But they didn't really announce anything.
00:06:46.920 The framework is about how we're reopening, not when we're reopening.
00:06:50.620 So they didn't really give a timeline.
00:06:52.740 They didn't give any concrete dates.
00:06:54.220 They just sort of released this framework idea of how they might reopen the economy eventually
00:06:59.720 when it does get reopened.
00:07:01.920 Ford said, progress doesn't mean we can quit now.
00:07:05.020 And that's why I won't set hard dates until we're ready, because the virus travels on its
00:07:09.000 own speed.
00:07:10.160 The Premier emphasized the government will be basing their decisions on the advice of the chief
00:07:15.280 medical officer of health.
00:07:17.060 But we know that Doug Ford has no interest in reopening society, reopening the economy,
00:07:21.020 because over the weekend, there were a group of protesters who went to Queen's Park.
00:07:25.320 Now, these protesters were harshly maligned in the mainstream media, and not just in the
00:07:30.860 mainstream media, by politicians themselves.
00:07:33.980 Doug Ford slammed this group of people for protesting.
00:07:37.480 He said that they were a bunch of yahoos.
00:07:40.560 And he said that they were reckless and what they're doing is selfish.
00:07:43.040 OK, first of all, I just want to note, just because we have coronavirus doesn't somehow
00:07:48.280 mean that we have given up all of our democratic freedoms.
00:07:50.920 We still live in a free democratic society where people have the right to protest.
00:07:57.340 They have the right to protest against their government, particularly when the government
00:08:00.280 is taking tyrannical steps to shut down the economy in defense of something that's basically,
00:08:07.440 by all accounts, by most accounts, an overreaction, a massive overreaction.
00:08:13.080 I think we'll look back at the early spring of 2020, you know, for years, for decades, and
00:08:20.440 sort of scratch our heads as to what we were thinking when we shut down the global economy
00:08:25.260 because we were afraid, because we're afraid of a mysterious virus and we massively overreacted.
00:08:31.340 And so I'll play this clip of Doug Ford.
00:08:34.180 Just listen to the way that he condemns people who are exercising their democratic rights.
00:08:40.300 These people that are absolutely irresponsible, it's reckless to do what they're doing.
00:08:47.340 And personally, I think it's selfish.
00:08:49.520 We have, you know, a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen's Park sitting there protesting
00:08:55.580 that the place isn't open as they're breaking the law and putting everyone in jeopardy.
00:09:01.140 Putting themselves in jeopardy, putting the workers in jeopardy, and God forbid, one of
00:09:06.600 them end up in the hospital down the street.
00:09:08.840 So Doug Ford thinks it's absolutely irresponsible and reckless, even though these protesters,
00:09:14.760 from best I can tell, were practicing their own social distancing.
00:09:18.380 They were staying six feet apart.
00:09:19.820 They were following, generally, the medical health guidelines as to what you should do when
00:09:24.920 you're outside.
00:09:25.400 Now, I won't defend all of them because I know anytime you have a group of protesters, it
00:09:29.820 does attract fringe people who, you know, promote ideas that I don't necessarily believe in.
00:09:35.260 For instance, you know, there might be people who are opposed to vaccinations.
00:09:38.780 I am definitely not one of those people.
00:09:40.820 But that said, in a democratic and free society, not only should we allow space for people who
00:09:46.940 want to protest, but we shouldn't outright condemn them as being reckless and yahoos and
00:09:52.460 really trying to undermine them.
00:09:53.920 We still, again, promote the idea of a diversity of opinions and thoughts.
00:09:58.500 That's what makes for a wholesome civil society where we can come to, you know, where we can
00:10:05.320 reach a consensus on ideas that we disagree with.
00:10:07.500 So outright condemning people just because they are protesting is not something that you
00:10:12.140 should want to see.
00:10:13.120 And look, I like Doug Ford.
00:10:14.440 I have a lot of time for Doug Ford, but I don't understand his really, his massive overreaction
00:10:19.700 on this and condemning peaceful protesters and also his sort of resistance to any idea
00:10:26.160 of wanting to reopen the economy.
00:10:29.140 And he's far from alone.
00:10:30.780 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said this week, he said on Monday, that life won't return
00:10:36.220 to normal until we have a vaccine, not until we have, you know, flattened the curve, not
00:10:42.720 until we've gotten past sort of the worst of typical flu season, which is when the weather
00:10:47.540 is cold.
00:10:48.700 No, he says that we won't return to normal until a vaccine is developed, which he says
00:10:52.960 will happen two to three years from now.
00:10:55.300 Now, let me just make a point.
00:10:56.820 First of all, there's no guarantee that we will ever develop a vaccine.
00:11:02.500 There are many illnesses.
00:11:03.660 There are many, many viruses that go around that simply don't have vaccinations against
00:11:08.900 them, that are too complex, that are too, you know, they change too much and we cannot
00:11:13.600 create a vaccination.
00:11:14.800 So there's no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine for coronavirus.
00:11:19.180 And even if we do, he says that it could take two or three years from now.
00:11:22.120 What if it doesn't?
00:11:22.720 What if it takes five years?
00:11:23.960 Even if it does take two or three years, what does that mean that life won't return to
00:11:28.040 normal for two or three years?
00:11:30.240 I mean, having the leader of a country come out and say that, this is what he said, what
00:11:35.380 is normal life will take a long time to return.
00:11:38.500 And even at that point, two, three years from now, even once a vaccine against COVID-19 is
00:11:43.420 available, we will have changed our behavior.
00:11:46.760 We will have taken measures as a society that will be different from what we used to do,
00:11:50.860 Trudeau said in French on Monday.
00:11:52.140 Again, while leaders all over the world are coming up with proactive plans to get workers
00:11:57.260 back to work for allowing small businesses to reopen their doors and really getting the
00:12:02.360 economy going as well, while also, of course, being cautious about the spread of coronavirus
00:12:07.880 and protecting, like I said, the most vulnerable people in Canada, our leaders are still stuck
00:12:12.140 in this framework of we can't reopen because we can't risk a single case or a single death
00:12:18.320 unnecessarily.
00:12:19.180 Well, I think that the rest of the world has sort of moved past that.
00:12:22.040 It's now a time to consider balancing the rights and freedoms of the entire society that's
00:12:29.340 stuck at home that harms their ability to provide for their families, to make money, to engage
00:12:36.480 in the world and society, and the health of the most vulnerable.
00:12:41.060 I think we can probably do both.
00:12:42.620 I think that we can open up the economy to young and healthy people, allow them to go back
00:12:46.760 to work, allow people that are very, very low risk of contracting coronavirus or at least
00:12:51.380 having a severe reaction to coronavirus, while also protecting and allowing measures to be
00:13:00.480 maintained for people who are in that vulnerable situation.
00:13:03.460 Like I said, 79 percent of deaths in Canada have occurred at long-term care facilities and
00:13:08.240 retirement homes.
00:13:09.100 To me, that is the big, big story.
00:13:10.880 And that is what should be emphasized.
00:13:13.380 We should not be imposing these rules over everyone.
00:13:16.880 We should be protecting the most vulnerable people.
00:13:22.020 And interestingly, other provinces in Canada seem to get this.
00:13:25.680 So Quebec has announced that they will be reopening their economy.
00:13:30.720 Premier Francois Legault said that the coronavirus pandemic is under control outside of long-term
00:13:36.080 care homes and senior residences.
00:13:37.860 As long as that continues, the economy should be able to reopen gradually.
00:13:41.960 Government already relaxed restrictions on some businesses that had been forced to shut
00:13:45.920 down in March.
00:13:47.100 Those included companies in mining, landscaping, gardening, as well as residential pool centres
00:13:52.220 and body shops.
00:13:53.940 Residential construction was allowed to resume on April 20th, but only on projects that needed
00:13:58.820 to be delivered by the summer.
00:14:00.440 And then the big news was that Quebec will begin reopening its elementary schools and daycares
00:14:05.020 on May 11th, Legault announced, on Monday.
00:14:08.800 So at the time, again, when the provincial government in Ontario and the federal government
00:14:12.820 in Ottawa are saying, no, it's not time yet.
00:14:15.880 There you have Quebec really going ahead with their own plan.
00:14:19.280 And they're not alone.
00:14:20.180 Saskatchewan has also been leading the curve in terms of reopening their economy.
00:14:24.680 And again, there's no reason why Saskatchewan has to take the same precautions, since there
00:14:28.600 were very, very few cases and very, very few deaths so far.
00:14:32.400 So Saskatchewan reopened its economy and services in five phases, starting on May 4th.
00:14:38.020 So Premier Moe said last week that the coronavirus curve had already flattened in its province
00:14:42.200 and that reopening will be gradual and methodical.
00:14:45.880 The first phase is reopening medical services that had previously been banned under the current
00:14:50.460 public health order.
00:14:52.180 And that includes dentistry, optometry, physical therapy, optricians, podiatry, occupational therapy,
00:14:58.380 and chiropractic treatment.
00:15:01.080 Also being rolled out in stages during the first phase is the resumption of low-risk outdoor
00:15:06.320 activities with precautionary measures in place.
00:15:08.840 So that includes fishing and boating, golfing, and other outdoor activities with maintaining
00:15:15.400 physical distancing rules.
00:15:17.660 The online reservation system for provincial parks will launch on May 4th with overnight camping.
00:15:23.060 Starting on June 1st, park access is restricted to Saskatchewan residents.
00:15:28.780 So a little bit of common sense that we're seeing in Saskatchewan, common sense that we're
00:15:32.300 not really seeing in the rest of the country, unfortunately.
00:15:35.700 I mean, the whole idea of the coronavirus and it being very contagious is that you shouldn't
00:15:41.100 get within six feet of someone.
00:15:42.680 If you have to, you should wear a mask, which shows it really defies logic why we ever shut
00:15:47.480 down outdoor parks, Canada's national parks, hiking trails, those kind of things, given
00:15:52.240 that you're outside.
00:15:54.040 You're outside.
00:15:55.020 You're not in a confined space with someone.
00:15:56.660 You're not sharing the same air and having recycled air.
00:15:59.820 You're out in nature.
00:16:01.280 And that should be the place where we're encouraged to go at a time where we can't go other places.
00:16:06.660 So again, kind of defies logic.
00:16:09.040 But that's where we are with coronavirus policies these days.
00:16:13.160 One of the other things that was pretty interesting, Ezra Levant over at The Rebel,
00:16:16.980 found this clip.
00:16:18.440 I guess it had been floating around online, but I saw it through his Twitter account.
00:16:23.220 So he posted a picture of Theresa Tam talking about pretty authoritarian measures to enforce
00:16:29.280 a quarantine.
00:16:30.080 Theresa Tam, of course, is Canada's chief medical officer.
00:16:33.040 She is sort of appointed from Justin Trudeau, and she's really taken the lead on providing
00:16:37.440 health advice to all Canadians.
00:16:39.760 She's leading the charge as to why Canada shouldn't reopen their economy.
00:16:45.980 She's sort of one of the leading voices encouraging us to maintain these really, really draconian
00:16:51.480 measures to keep Canadians inside to stop the spread of coronavirus.
00:16:55.800 Well, there was a 2000 video from the National Film Board in Canada, a documentary called Outbreak,
00:17:02.500 which was based on Professor Michael Bliss's history of Montreal's smallpox epidemic in the 1880s.
00:17:10.000 So basically what this documentary did was look at the historical outbreak that happened in
00:17:17.040 1880 in Montreal.
00:17:18.000 It was a truly deadly story.
00:17:20.500 The book is called Plague, the story of smallpox in Montreal.
00:17:23.460 And then they juxtaposed that with a hypothetical 21st century pandemic, where they talk about
00:17:30.620 what might happen if there was something like this that happened today.
00:17:33.760 Really interestingly, it does feature Theresa Tam, Dr. Theresa Tam.
00:17:38.320 And just listen to the language that she uses.
00:17:41.100 Listen to how she talks about how a government could stop the pandemic and really impose all
00:17:47.560 of these, again, authoritarian measures to enforce a quarantine.
00:17:51.720 Let's play that clip.
00:17:53.020 I think the public has to know this is one of the worst case scenarios in terms of an
00:17:57.960 infectious disease outbreak in that their cooperation is sought.
00:18:02.780 If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers
00:18:09.960 that can quarantine people in mandatory settings.
00:18:13.700 So you can hear Theresa Tam talking about how you could track people, put bracelets on them,
00:18:31.080 have police enforcing the quarantine to ensure that people stay at home.
00:18:35.920 That was sort of a hypothetical idea of how you would make sure that sick people remain quarantined
00:18:41.720 during a plague or a pandemic.
00:18:43.940 Whereas we've sort of applied some of those rules anyway to all of society, not just to
00:18:48.700 the sick, but to everyone.
00:18:50.380 I'm not talking about tracking people or putting bracelets on them, but certainly the policing
00:18:54.320 aspect where you have police officers patrolling large public parks, giving fines, basically trying
00:19:01.580 to scare people into going back into their home, even as we're getting sort of nice spring weather.
00:19:07.180 Again, it just sort of gives you a window into the mindset of these public health bureaucrats
00:19:12.620 and how they think and really just the lengths that they're willing to go to prevent what could be
00:19:20.540 the worst case scenario, even though we know that the worst case scenario isn't going to happen.
00:19:24.460 To me, it fundamentally comes down to a question of trust.
00:19:27.740 Do our politicians, do authorities in Canada, do those public health bureaucrats trust Canadians
00:19:34.080 to be responsible, to socially distance, to wear masks if they have to, if they have
00:19:38.960 to go into a confined space?
00:19:40.980 They trust Canadians to keep their distance, to wash their hands, to stop the spread on their
00:19:46.480 own.
00:19:47.020 If the lockdowns were going to be let up, if they're going to be ending tomorrow, it's a
00:19:53.100 fundamental question.
00:19:54.060 Do they trust Canadians?
00:19:55.140 I think that you're seeing in some parts of the country, some politicians like Francois
00:19:59.760 Legault in Quebec, like Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, are exercising some level of trust saying,
00:20:06.400 you know, we want you to get out, we want you to go outside, but we also want you to be
00:20:10.380 safe and we trust you.
00:20:11.600 So here's a framework for you to go back into society.
00:20:15.320 Whereas the other politicians like the Doug Fords and the Justin Trudeau's, Theresa
00:20:19.600 Thames, who just don't trust Canadians.
00:20:21.380 They think that government, heavy-handed government measures are absolutely necessary, as Doug
00:20:25.520 Floyd calls them.
00:20:26.460 Otherwise, these yahoos are going to be reckless and irresponsible and undo sort of all of the
00:20:31.780 public health measures that his government has imposed over the past several weeks and
00:20:36.700 months.
00:20:37.220 So I ask this question to my audience on Twitter, to my followers and readers over there.
00:20:42.780 Do you trust Canadians to be responsible and socially distanced if the lockdowns were to
00:20:48.920 end?
00:20:49.560 Of the people who voted, which so far there's been 4,300 votes, 80% said yes, people can
00:20:55.620 be trusted.
00:20:56.540 Whereas 19.5%, so basically 20%, say no, we need government lockdowns.
00:21:03.020 I think that's a really interesting mix.
00:21:04.380 Obviously, it's not a scientific poll by any means.
00:21:06.600 But it does show you that the people following me on Twitter anyway think that Canadians should
00:21:12.080 be trusted.
00:21:12.760 And therefore, it might be time to let up on some of these lockdowns and let people get
00:21:17.700 back to work, regardless of what Dr. Theresa Tam may say.
00:21:22.680 And well, speaking of Dr. Theresa Tam, last week I thought this was just a really frivolous,
00:21:27.800 ridiculous news story.
00:21:29.200 The story of a conservative leadership candidate and MP, Derek Sloan.
00:21:34.240 He released a tweet criticizing Theresa Tam and released a video sort of talking about
00:21:40.160 how the World Health Organization has really dropped the ball.
00:21:43.880 Chinese communist government has been unduly influencing the World Health Organization, and
00:21:48.340 they have both had an undue influence on Canada.
00:21:51.180 And therefore, he believed that Dr. Theresa Tam should be fired.
00:21:54.500 Now, this was kind of misconstrued in the media or misinterpreted or maybe properly interpreted
00:22:00.580 if you think that Derek Sloan is a bad person and a racist person.
00:22:04.440 I don't think that there is evidence for that.
00:22:07.220 But again, you know, it depends on how you view him as an individual, I guess.
00:22:13.000 But anyway, the media and all of liberals, all the liberals and many conservatives deemed
00:22:19.160 that his criticism of Dr. Theresa Tam was malicious and racist.
00:22:23.200 And it was really driven by her ethnicity as a person who is of Chinese ethnicity and not
00:22:30.620 based on her competency as a public health official.
00:22:35.240 So at the time, the conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, basically said that he wasn't going
00:22:40.520 to engage in this line of reasoning.
00:22:43.320 I really thought it was just a slow news day and that people were looking for basically
00:22:49.140 it was almost like they hadn't had cancel culture.
00:22:53.160 Cancel culture hadn't taken into effect.
00:22:55.680 You know, the mob hadn't rightfully chased anyone from their position in a couple of months
00:23:00.160 because we've all been so distracted by the coronavirus.
00:23:03.320 And this was like an opportunity for the mob to jump back on their high horse and engage
00:23:08.500 in cancel culture and basically call out a conservative for supposed racism, which is
00:23:14.860 one of their favorite activities of the left and particularly the woke mob on social media.
00:23:20.920 So at the time, Mr. Scheer, Andrew Scheer, said that he wasn't going to engage.
00:23:25.240 He says, as a rule, I don't comment on leadership candidates or on policy announcements or positions
00:23:30.880 that leadership candidates have taken.
00:23:33.160 Scheer said, ultimately, it will be up to conservative members to select the next leader of the party.
00:23:38.500 So basically, Scheer just didn't engage.
00:23:41.060 And he said, I'm not going to dignify this.
00:23:43.620 It's up to conservative members to decide who their leader is going to be.
00:23:47.420 Well, on April 28th, Andrew Scheer had a decisive flip-flop reminding us of why he didn't win the election in October,
00:23:58.080 why he's not the prime minister of Canada.
00:24:00.300 Basically, every time he's pushed on an issue, every time there's a tough situation in front of him,
00:24:05.440 he basically folds to left-wing pressure.
00:24:07.820 And so that is what happened.
00:24:09.520 Let's play that clip of Andrew Scheer.
00:24:11.100 I do not agree with his position, with what he said.
00:24:14.760 That is not the position of our caucus.
00:24:16.100 And I believe it is not appropriate to question someone's loyalty to their country.
00:24:20.540 I believe that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make.
00:24:27.240 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,
00:24:33.360 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
00:24:42.320 and not the political partisans who appointed them.
00:24:44.960 And I also don't know Derek Sloan well enough to know whether he's operating in good faith or bad faith.
00:24:51.620 But just on the surface, the idea that you shouldn't criticize someone just because they happen to be ethnically Chinese in this case.
00:24:59.660 Like, you can't say something that is true.
00:25:02.400 What is true is that Theresa Tam has been incompetent, that she has been taking her marching orders from the World Health Organization,
00:25:10.420 which is lockstep, you know, shoulder and shoulder, shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese communist government.
00:25:15.540 I think that there's so much corruption and so much wrong with that relationship between the Chinese communist government
00:25:20.400 and the World Health Organization that all Canadians should be questioning why we are part of the World Health Organization.
00:25:26.920 And that organization massively, massively needs to be held accountable for the terrible decisions that they have made
00:25:32.920 throughout the course of this pandemic.
00:25:34.820 And we should also be able to question why Canada is taking such orders and doing so much to defend the World Health Organization
00:25:43.280 and ensuring that our policies are aligned when really our interests are not aligned.
00:25:48.860 I think that that's all well and fair.
00:25:50.580 So the idea that we can't criticize a public health bureaucrat who has been incompetent
00:25:55.820 and done a lot of things that put Canadians in danger and the fact that she has a relationship
00:26:01.720 with this really, really corrupt institution, the World Health Organization and its relationship with China,
00:26:07.960 I think that's all well and good.
00:26:09.780 And the fact that we now live in a society where you can't criticize someone
00:26:12.780 because we all have to walk on eggshells and be so sensitive
00:26:15.400 and be so nervous about the accusation of potentially someone misconstruing what we're saying,
00:26:21.200 even if it's intentional, even if they're acting in bad faith.
00:26:24.860 Basically, we live in a society where we can't have free discourse.
00:26:27.880 We can't actually discuss ideas.
00:26:29.500 We can't actually hold politicians accountable because we're so afraid of political correctness.
00:26:34.220 That is a dangerous place to be in.
00:26:35.960 I have no expectation of Andrew Scheer to be the person that sort of rises above that and condemns it and calls it out.
00:26:41.760 But it's pretty disappointing to see him, you know, on April 23rd saying,
00:26:45.960 I'm not going to get involved.
00:26:47.180 And then on April 28th, you know, jumping over to the liberal side
00:26:51.680 and basically groveling and apologizing for a conservative who expressed their opinion.
00:26:58.000 But that's, you know, that's the Canadian media landscape that we live in today.
00:27:02.660 One more story.
00:27:03.740 This is This Week in Fake News.
00:27:05.440 I want to talk about is a story in the Toronto Star that's making the rounds
00:27:10.260 about conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who is working from Oklahoma during the pandemic.
00:27:17.640 So prominent conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who's the MP for Calgary Nose Hill,
00:27:23.340 we learned that she has been working remotely from Oklahoma in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:27:29.940 Rempel-Garner said she traveled to Oklahoma where her husband and stepchildren live.
00:27:34.680 on an unexpected and urgent private personal matter before Canada and the U.S. imposed
00:27:40.700 travel restrictions at the border.
00:27:42.980 In a statement to the Toronto Star, Rempel-Garner said she has been in constant contact
00:27:48.180 with conservative party whip Mark Strahl, and the party has advised her to shelter in place
00:27:53.380 and work remotely like all other MPs.
00:27:56.940 So Toronto Star journalist Susan Delacour tweeted,
00:28:01.340 news to me, conservative MP Michelle Rempel has been living in Oklahoma throughout the
00:28:07.440 COVID-19 crisis.
00:28:08.940 Any other MPs working, living abroad, I wonder?
00:28:12.860 So to me, this is totally a manufactured crisis and a fake news story.
00:28:17.600 We know that just about every single member of parliament has been working remotely,
00:28:22.360 working from home.
00:28:23.440 Since the start of the crisis, a select few people from each party have gone to Ottawa to
00:28:28.580 create the sort of shell parliament so that they can still pass legislation, the emergency
00:28:33.220 legislation.
00:28:34.500 And basically the media were the ones that were saying a couple of weeks ago, when the
00:28:38.760 Conservatives were pushing for the government to come back, to have parliament have full
00:28:43.680 sittings, the media were the ones saying, wow, it's so reckless, it's so irresponsible.
00:28:48.940 MPs should not be traveling.
00:28:50.220 MPs should not be in Ottawa.
00:28:51.360 They should not be having to go into the House of Commons to vote.
00:28:54.200 But encouraging everyone to stay with their families, work remotely, work from home.
00:28:58.980 And now we learn that a conservative is in Oklahoma, which is where her husband and her
00:29:03.300 stepchildren happen to live.
00:29:05.100 It literally makes no difference whether she is in Alberta, where her constituents are.
00:29:11.500 She's not allowed to see them.
00:29:12.560 She's not allowed to go to her office.
00:29:14.000 She's not allowed to go and meet with people.
00:29:16.680 So again, why does it matter where she is?
00:29:18.880 She's pretty much in the same time zone, maybe an hour different than where she was.
00:29:23.020 And she's with her husband and her stepchildren.
00:29:26.280 I'm old enough to remember like three weeks ago when Justin Trudeau broke his own social
00:29:31.340 distancing rules to go see his kids and his wife who were staying in a different province.
00:29:36.500 And the mainstream media said, absolutely nothing to see here.
00:29:39.800 No big deal whatsoever.
00:29:41.440 The prime minister and his personal life and his time with his children should be off limits.
00:29:46.060 And journalists and Canadians shouldn't be asking questions or covering it.
00:29:50.840 And yet here we have a conservative MP who is more or less doing the same thing, except
00:29:54.640 for she hasn't traveled.
00:29:55.700 She's remaining sheltered in place.
00:29:58.200 She just happens to be in Oklahoma.
00:30:00.080 And supposedly this is some horrible scandal that requires a news piece.
00:30:05.520 Well, why is it that the prime minister's life, personal life with his kids is off limits?
00:30:09.940 But a conservative MP spending time with her kids and her husband, that's fair game for
00:30:16.020 the media to speculate about, for journalists to mock on social media.
00:30:20.940 I think this just shows the underlying bias that left-wing Canadians have against America.
00:30:25.720 Frankly, there's a whole part of this article talking about how Oklahoma, I'll read right
00:30:30.820 here, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced plans to reopen the state's economy last week,
00:30:35.860 indicating the state had successfully flattened the curve beginning May 1.
00:30:39.820 Restaurants, sporting events, sporting venues, gyms, movie theaters, and places of worship
00:30:44.480 will be permitted to reopen as long as they follow certain precautions.
00:30:48.000 According to the local NBC affiliate, Oklahoma has reported 3,280 cases of COVID-19, including
00:30:55.440 197 deaths.
00:30:57.000 So why is that relevant?
00:30:58.620 Why is what the political decisions of Oklahoma to reopen their economy have to do with the
00:31:04.020 fact that Michelle Rumpel is there?
00:31:05.860 Well, again, they're just sort of showing the fact that they disagree with probably Oklahoma's
00:31:11.420 policies to reopen their economy, perhaps.
00:31:15.100 It's just the whole story is just a non-story.
00:31:18.260 The fact that Michelle Rumpel is with her family isn't really our business, if you want
00:31:22.520 to say that where Justin Trudeau is and where he's staying isn't really any of our business.
00:31:28.200 And just because she happens to be on the other side of the border, she's still in the same
00:31:32.120 time zone, she can still potentially get to Ottawa if she needs to.
00:31:36.940 This is, to me, fake news.
00:31:39.700 All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to an episode of the Candace Malcolm Show
00:31:44.640 with Candace Malcolm.
00:31:45.680 Thank you so much.
00:31:46.380 And we'll be back again later this week.
00:31:48.020 Thank you.