Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek was booed at a public event because she's a woman and of South Asian heritage. What does that have to do with anything? Is she a racist or sexist because she s a woman of colour?
00:00:00.500Increasingly, one of my favorite things about a left-wing politician becoming unpopular is all of the leftist commentators out there who will start to attack normal people for not liking the politician that they like.
00:00:13.800It is a failure on your part for not appreciating them, and actually, it's fairly sexist and racist for you not to like this person.
00:00:21.820And I think a great case study of this is Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek.
00:00:26.920You probably saw her getting booed at a Flames game, but I want to mostly react to all of the commentary that's followed after that.
00:00:33.920But first, I will still play the clip of her being booed because I greatly appreciate it.
00:00:38.720There was some weird South Asian appreciation kind of ceremony happening at the Flames game.
00:00:43.100I don't know why we have this. Are the South Asian people honoring great people?
00:00:47.360Well, I don't know, so we're just honoring them because they're South Asian, which in my mind is actually a fairly racist thing to do.
00:00:53.880You happen to look this way. We're going to honor you for it.
00:01:09.880So supposedly this was very racist and sexist for the audience to have done,
00:01:17.360despite there being other South Asian people being honored who walked up to no boos, both, you know, men and women of South Asian heritage,
00:03:50.060If we honor people who do really good work for the community, there will be South Asian people in that group because naturally there are great people in every group.
00:03:58.980And then he goes on to say, even more so, when Gondek's being recognized as Calgary's first ever female mayor,
00:04:04.240while things going down in YYC, she has damned if she did, damned if she didn't participate.
00:04:11.880I don't think any politician should participate in these stupid ego stroking events where you come up and you get honored for what you are and not who you are.
00:04:20.420I don't want to be honored for being like, you know, of British, Scottish, Ukrainian origins.
00:04:28.340It's such a midway of doing like a political, like, you know, social engagement of just like meeting with people because of who they are or what they are, not who they are.
00:04:38.960Anyways, but then we got this crazy headline from the Calgary Herald.
00:04:43.220And this is mostly still very upset about the recall petition going around.
00:04:47.080The Calgary Herald famously about a month ago put out a headline where they were saying it was anti-democratic for there to even be a recall petition going around.
00:04:54.780But this headline reads, Ford, you know, the writer, sexism, racism still lurk in the shadows as Gondek faces recall petition.
00:06:01.060Not when so many women, albeit not enough, have shattered the glass ceiling.
00:06:05.980But consider Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek and the racism, sexism, and misogyny that has dogged her for years.
00:06:11.940Now, under the guise of criticizing her style and leadership, some guy is endeavoring to gauge enough signatures on a petition to have her recalled, barring that, to at least force her to resign.
00:06:24.300This nose owner, Landon Johnson, has until Thursday to submit 514,000 signatures to the verified by city clerk's offices.
00:06:32.580That number represents 40% of Calgary's population, according to the 2019 census.
00:06:37.180If Gondek, if Johnson is successful, it will take months and money, hours, by the way, to verify all the signatures.
00:06:45.880Meanwhile, Gondek will continue to be harassed.
00:07:05.380And the idea, she says, it shouldn't even be that interesting that Gondek is a female politician in power because there's been so many that have shattered the glass ceiling.
00:07:15.900It's not interesting at all that she's a woman.
00:07:18.240It's interesting to people that she's bad at her job and they want to have a say about it.
00:07:22.700That's why she's being booed, because she insulates herself from criticism.
00:07:26.420So whenever there is a moment for the public to criticize her, they'll take it, even if typically people would usually hold off on a moment like that because, you know, let them engage in the unity building kind of event.
00:07:38.020I don't even think the South Asian appreciation thing is unity building.
00:07:41.100If anything, it's very divisive and it's very, in effect, racist because we are now honoring people for being South Asian, not for being doing good work.
00:07:48.860Yes, they'll say it's because they're doing good work, but they honor Gondek at the same time because she happens to be a South Asian mayor.
00:07:54.640And that's what cheapens the whole event is that we are just honoring people for being South Asian, despite the fact that they are deeply unpopular and have been very nasty to the constituents that they serve.
00:08:04.560But the fact that Kathleen Ford immediately, it's not that she's found comments online that are actually sexist, it's that she thinks the act of the petition drive itself is sexist.
00:08:14.040That is absurd, and it demonstrates the very anti-democratic attitude that so many people have on the list.
00:08:20.760And this was not just a couple of cherry-picked things that I found where people are going after people for criticizing Gondek.
00:08:27.960There was ones from Global News, I believe other sort of leftist political rags.
00:08:32.800Brian Jespersen did like two or three shows going after Calgarians for criticizing her.
00:08:37.380These people will not leave this topic alone because they are so rabidly, like, you know, they're so rabidly, like, you know, elevated on the idea that anybody could dislike a politician that they appreciate.
00:10:02.920In over two years, he has not actually submitted any evidence proving that we have defamed him.
00:10:07.440He is just drawing this thing out trying to punish anybody who voices any negative opinion about him.
00:10:11.920And the funny thing is the Globe and Mail wrote a very long investigative piece about him, which all of our reporting that barely mentioned him was based on.
00:10:19.800But he knew he couldn't beat them in court.
00:10:21.480So he's trying to punish us, even though our report mentioning the fact that he was donating to Aaron O'Toole came out more than a year and a half after that Globe and Mail report.
00:10:31.600Anyway, so if you want to donate and help us with our more than $26,000 of costs for this case alone, if you can donate anything, it really helps us out and removes the burden of costs on us.
00:10:42.880Anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.