Lib Dem MP Mark Gerritsen has been sued by Kian Bextie's outlet, The Counter Signal, for spreading false information about her and her supporters. He has since apologized, but not before he had to defend himself against the charges that he was working for the Russian government.
00:00:00.000As much as I hope for good things to happen in Canadian politics, I also cheer on funny stuff happening.
00:00:08.040And today we have something truly funny to talk about.
00:00:11.400So, our favorite Liberal MP, Mark Gerritsen from Kingston and the Islands, spread obvious defamatory misinformation about Cat Canada on Twitter.
00:00:22.880She works for the Counter Signal, that is Kian Bextie's outlet.
00:00:26.540And rather than just going after Mark online and saying that you're a liar, you know, this is why nobody likes you, all this stuff, you know, pointing out other times he's lied, the Counter Signal actually lawyered up and sued Mark Gerritsen.
00:00:40.080And you might think, well, what are you going to do?
00:00:41.660You're suing a politician, he's just going to ignore you, the Liberal Party's going to protect him.
00:00:46.000You know, maybe even the government ends up paying his legal bills.
00:00:48.860That didn't happen here, probably because Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party have been taking so many losses recently.
00:00:57.440They just told Mark to give in rather than having this ongoing court battle end up embarrassing them more.
00:01:04.920And the funny thing is that at the same time he apologized, he then still levies his same stupid conservatives or Russian shills criticisms to, like, in Parliament, basically saying that we need to investigate conservative media because apparently we're full of people who are not actually working for the Russians and he'll have to apologize if he accuses us.
00:01:27.900So, here's Mark Gerritsen this morning.
00:01:30.920He said, I would like to sincerely apologize to Cat Canada for my previous post in which I allege that she is funded by the Russian government.
00:01:39.620And, by the way, reminder everyone, go and follow Cat Canada because this was hilarious and she does a pretty good job at keeping people up to date with little political happenings going on in Canada.
00:01:50.140You know, one of the more, I don't know, I don't even know how to describe her account.
00:01:55.800And then, anyways, Mark keeps going and says,
00:01:58.900Canada is a democracy and in the context of the debate over political issues or current affairs, things can get sometimes, things can sometimes get more heated than they should.
00:02:08.180I should not have made these statements regarding Cat.
00:02:10.540I will be personally donating $1,000 to the Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank in Nanaimo, BC, a charity chosen by Cat.
00:02:18.060If others who shared my original tweet would like to donate the same, they can do it here.
00:02:22.420Now, obviously, this is not what Mark would have said on his own.
00:02:25.800This is effectively what the settlement was.
00:02:29.140Kian Bexty has come out and said that this was the settlement.
00:02:32.320He has to donate $1,000 to that food bank in Nanaimo.
00:02:36.400And he has to put up this exact text on his Twitter.
00:02:41.740Usually, I've heard in defamation cases that you can't delete it until like a whole year has gone by or whatever.
00:02:48.360So you can't just try to immediately memory hole what happened or what you did by like, you know, posting it and then deleting it the next second saying, well, I technically did post it.
00:03:10.040But now I want to get to the new video that he had just posted where he tries to go after the conservatives for not taking Russian disinformation seriously enough a second after he had to apologize for spreading disinformation about Russian agents.
00:03:24.860Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that Russia is funneling money to conservative media figures to push a far-right propaganda.
00:03:34.880This is a clear threat to our democracy and Canada's national security.
00:03:38.860And yet, the leader of the Conservative Party is directing his MPs to block the Public Safety Committee's study on this real issue.
00:03:47.200Can the Prime Minister tell this House what our government is doing to protect Canadians from this very real threat of foreign interference?
00:03:54.860Before we get over to Trudeau here, I just want to say there is absolutely no serious connection to Canada in the story he is talking about.
00:04:11.600If you don't know, there was a media organization set up in the United States called Tenant Media in which Lauren Chen, who I guess is Canadian, but she lives in the U.S. now.
00:04:22.980I believe she's a U.S. citizen who set up the company in the U.S.
00:04:25.960She was taking money from people from Russia Today, Russia's state-owned broadcaster.
00:04:34.360It's basically like Russian CBC, except instead of cheering on progressivism, they cheer on invading Ukraine or whatever.
00:04:42.260And so she took a bunch of money from them.
00:04:44.960But then what she did is just started giving other hosts money and pretending that it didn't come from the Russians.
00:04:51.320And so people like Lauren Southern, who is Canadian, lives in Canada, and makes videos on Canada for Tenant, she was just doing generic conservative-style Canadian content.
00:05:03.020Like Lauren Southern's approach to issues or not, she was just doing what she would have normally done, being paid from whatever source.
00:05:13.900And the reason why Mark Gerritsen tried to smear Cat Canada, Katrina, is because she went on Lauren Southern's show like once or twice to provide some comments on some specific issues that she was like knowledgeable on or that they wanted her perspective on.
00:05:30.740So Cat didn't know that Lauren Chen had gotten money from the Russians and was paying Lauren Southern.
00:05:36.420Lauren Southern didn't even know where the money was coming from, but this was enough to pretend that the entire conservative independent media apparatus is full of Russian agents.
00:05:46.320And that's exactly what he's saying here.
00:05:48.020And when he's complaining, well, the conservatives are blocking our motion in the committee to study this issue.
00:05:54.680And it's like, okay, no, it's not a serious issue to study.
00:05:59.140It is a fishing expedition because one lady working for an American organization being funded by some shady Russian sources did something wrong that now, for some reason, every single Canadian independent creator who you don't like can be hauled in front of committee and ask questions and have their, you know, finances audited and all that stuff.
00:06:22.920But let's hear what Justin Trudeau has to say about this.
00:06:29.140By the way, I will mention that I heard a lot of the heckling had to do with the lawsuit that Mark Gerritsen had gotten him in, which is funny that he then posts this right before he apologizes.
00:06:55.920Since he did have to apologize for the thing that they're heckling him about.
00:07:09.640Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Member for Kingston and the Islands for his advocacy on this unbelievably important issue.
00:07:17.040It's extremely alarming that Russia is pushing its propaganda in our democracy, but even more appalling that they are using far-right Canadian conservative influencers to divide Canadians.
00:08:30.780The DOJ, the Department of Justice in the U.S., are already investigating the issue in their own country because that's where it actually took place.
00:08:39.780And now Justin Trudeau is like, well, I want to be involved, too, because I need to blame other things other than my own crushing ignorance for my unpopularity.
00:08:49.220So it must be the Russians are coming after me.
00:08:51.720Everyone would actually like Justin Trudeau unless Katrina went on Lauren Southern's show.
00:09:20.960I think also I believe that the great thing about what Kat Kanda and Kian Bexty, the owner of Counter Signal, did is I think they required him to keep replies and comments open on his apology, which is quite hilarious because he is pretty infamous for being one of those people who just completely locks down his reply.
00:09:39.240So I bet nobody can directly disagree with him.
00:09:41.960So if you guys also want to support the show, I have my give, send, go in linked in the comments below pinned to the top of the comments as well as in the description of this video.
00:09:51.840It's cost us more than $32,000 fighting back against an actual frivolous defamation case from a Chinese billionaire developer who in two and a half years hasn't even filed evidence but keeps trying to push forward on the case despite the fact his evidence was literally his LinkedIn profile, his company website, putting his libel notice in there, and then the original article that we had written about him.
00:10:16.760So nothing, basically him just saying we defamed him was added in his evidence and then his website saying he's such a great person and like, you know, a gentleman and a scholar.
00:10:26.720So anyways, if you want to contribute to that, really helps us out.
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