The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - December 20, 2023


Liberal MPs destroy themselves at their own press event


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

190.41806

Word count

2,496

Sentence count

132

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Mark Gerritsen and Stephen McKinnon hold a press conference to respond to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's year-end interviews. But the whole thing falls apart when journalists ask tough questions that undermine the entire purpose of the press conference.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I make no secret of the fact that I love embarrassing political communication strategies.
00:00:20.140 And in Canada, without a doubt, the party that's best at deploying self-defeating,
00:00:25.760 embarrassing political communication strategies is the Liberal Party of Canada.
00:00:30.000 But about 10 days ago, if I had to give out a big trophy to the worst communicator inside
00:00:34.860 the Liberal Party and I wasn't allowed to pick Justin Trudeau, I'd have to give it to
00:00:39.160 Karina Gould, the Liberal Party House Leader, because of her weird press conferences and 0.95
00:00:43.660 outbursts in the House of Commons during the month of December.
00:00:46.100 But in the last two days, two Liberal MPs have stolen that designation from Karina Gould
00:00:51.680 in just a singular press conference.
00:00:54.140 And those two MPs are Liberal MPs Mark Gerritsen and Stephen McKinnon.
00:00:58.880 It is quite impressive just how much they hurt their own reputations, as well as the
00:01:04.080 reputation of the Liberal Party in a single press conference.
00:01:07.380 And somehow, for some reason, Canadian legacy media journalists were actually doing a good
00:01:11.240 job pushing back on the two and asking tough questions that completely undermine the entire
00:01:16.460 purpose of their press conference.
00:01:18.620 Now, remember here, Parliament has already wrapped up.
00:01:21.380 It's been about three or so days where the Parliament hasn't been doing any business.
00:01:25.340 But for some reason, Gerritsen and McKinnon stuck around to rip on Polyev just for doing
00:01:30.880 end-of-the-year interviews talking about his vision for Canada.
00:01:34.180 They think that this is doing a really great job at undermining Polyev's momentum.
00:01:38.940 But with journalists just asking some probing questions, the entire strategy in this press
00:01:44.220 conference completely collapses, showing that they're just extremely desperate at the weak
00:01:49.400 position that the Liberal Party is in.
00:01:51.060 I talked about a couple of the clips of Mark Gerritsen yesterday, but there was so much
00:01:56.620 more to this press conference.
00:01:57.820 So I want to highlight some of the clips of Steve McKinnon, and then I want to talk a little
00:02:02.420 bit more about Mark Gerritsen, because this stuff's hilarious, especially this first clip
00:02:06.620 with McKinnon, where the journalists just ask if they seem desperate from even having held
00:02:11.620 this press conference in the first place.
00:02:13.240 Here it is.
00:02:13.720 What does it say about the fact that you're holding a press conference to respond to his
00:02:17.540 year-end interviews?
00:02:18.380 I mean, how far back on your heels are you that you feel the need to do that?
00:02:21.340 We haven't seen the Conservatives respond to any of the Prime Ministers.
00:02:23.600 Actually, what it says is that we have confidently, for four months in this House, put forward
00:02:30.060 plans, specific plans, detailed plans, on everything that I just talked about.
00:02:34.920 And Mr. Polyev arrives with these tropes and these slogans, and doesn't manage to get questioned
00:02:44.000 at all aggressively about his specific plans to improve the lives of Canadians.
00:02:49.060 What's your issue here, that he did some friendly interviews?
00:02:52.420 It's really embarrassing that their biggest point against Polyev in this entire interview
00:02:56.660 is that Polyev used slogans and tropes.
00:03:00.280 And I'm going to show you in another clip, Mark Gerritsen cannot, or maybe I won't
00:03:04.920 show this clip, but Mark Gerritsen couldn't actually justify why it's bad that Polyev has
00:03:09.800 not released a platform yet, when a reporter pointed out that Trudeau, when he became the
00:03:14.040 Liberal Party leader in 2013, also never released a platform until the 2015 election.
00:03:18.540 So their entire point makes no sense.
00:03:20.660 And again, it is absolutely true that when Parliament's wrapped up and you can go back
00:03:25.260 to your families for the holidays, and these two are still sticking around Parliament and
00:03:28.440 won't shut up about Polyev, it demonstrates that they're like desperate and sweaty to land 1.00
00:03:33.400 a blow on Polyev, and they just don't have any ammunition to fire at him.
00:03:38.140 It's the old adage that when your opponent's making a mistake, you don't interrupt them.
00:03:43.060 And the reason why they're trying to interrupt Polyev is not because Polyev's making a mistake,
00:03:46.420 it's because they know that Polyev is succeeding, and they're trying to derail his momentum.
00:03:50.860 It's not working whatsoever.
00:03:52.480 But in a second, I'll get to Mark Gerritsen's clips here, and I want to talk about him because
00:03:56.980 I love Mark Gerritsen.
00:03:58.480 He is easily the most desperate man in Ottawa, and it's so transparent that what he wants
00:04:03.460 is a cabinet seat before the Liberal government collapses.
00:04:07.240 But before that, I need to make a shameless plug because I am running for the Calgary Signal
00:04:11.760 Hill Conservative Party nomination.
00:04:14.300 There's other current MPs retiring.
00:04:16.300 I'm running to replace him as the Conservative nominee in the riding.
00:04:19.400 Super safe seat.
00:04:20.500 So the nomination is like the real election for the area.
00:04:23.120 I'm an actual consistent Conservative.
00:04:24.620 So if you live in the riding or you know someone who lives in the riding, make sure you and
00:04:29.040 your household sign up for memberships and vote for me number one on your ballot.
00:04:32.600 I don't know when the nomination date is yet, but make sure you have your membership way
00:04:36.520 in advance.
00:04:37.420 Based on the viewership I get on these videos, easily a few dozen of you live in the riding,
00:04:42.380 you know, because every 338 views, easily one person lives in the riding.
00:04:46.760 And I guarantee I have a disproportionate viewership out west.
00:04:49.440 But anyways, I want to get back to Mark Gerritsen, the sweatiest and most desperate man in all
00:04:55.000 of Parliament.
00:04:56.280 I don't get what he's actually trying to do here.
00:04:59.120 Mark Gerritsen's personality is of a water buffalo going wild.
00:05:03.760 He is just trying to take sway, like make haymaker swings at poly of all day long, just
00:05:09.320 trying to get in to the Liberal Party cabinet.
00:05:12.600 And what's so ironic about what he's about to say here is he's acting like the Conservative
00:05:16.420 Party has changed and become radical.
00:05:18.360 When Aaron O'Toole was the leader, he was making the same stupid attacks.
00:05:22.980 Mark Gerritsen is the one who keeps changing.
00:05:27.260 It doesn't matter who his opponent is, he will always shift and claim that whatever their
00:05:31.660 new position is, is somehow too far right.
00:05:34.180 The man is a broken record and is constantly shifting his standards on what far right means.
00:05:40.420 Far right basically means you're opposing Mark Gerritsen's plan.
00:05:44.000 It is the meme of everyone slightly to the right of the Liberals is a Nazi that kind of
00:05:49.120 came out of the Freedom Convoy.
00:05:50.900 But here's a compilation of some of Mark Gerritsen's embarrassing moments from this press conference.
00:05:55.440 We will continue to work hard for Canadians.
00:05:57.420 But at the same time, we're going to continue to point out where Mr. Polyev continues to
00:06:02.320 misinform Canadians on what his plans are.
00:06:06.740 Because we know at the end of the day, Mr. Polyev's approach is exactly like Donald Trump's
00:06:12.240 approach from the United States.
00:06:13.760 It's all about feeding in and feeding off of the emotions of people to try to get the
00:06:18.780 better of them.
00:06:19.320 This is why Mr. McKinnon and I think it's so important to keep, you know, to make sure
00:06:26.120 that Canadians are informed, to make sure that they have all of this information, because
00:06:29.900 it's absolutely critical.
00:06:31.680 It's about a new Conservative Party of Canada.
00:06:34.080 It's about a Conservative Party of Canada that is more based like the mega alt-right Republicans
00:06:39.160 that we see in the United States, like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
00:06:42.780 That seems to be who they're heavily influenced by now.
00:06:46.600 That's who Canadians are supporting.
00:06:47.800 Pardon me?
00:06:48.560 Then you're saying that's who Canadians are supporting.
00:06:50.260 No, what I'm saying is that Mr. Polyev is trying to give you the impression that he's
00:06:54.500 something that, quite frankly, he's not.
00:06:56.240 Why do you think their message is resonating?
00:06:57.820 Last question.
00:06:59.020 Why do I think their message is resonating?
00:07:01.280 Well, I think that their message is resonating because of what I said earlier.
00:07:05.500 Mr. Polyev is playing off people's emotions.
00:07:08.080 He's playing off people's fears.
00:07:09.760 And he's trying to translate that into telling people that he will actually be there for them.
00:07:16.600 But if you listen to what he's saying, which is the entire point of us coming to talk to
00:07:20.720 you today, if you actually listen to what he said in these interviews leading up to today,
00:07:25.340 he's said nothing about what he will actually do for people.
00:07:28.700 He's only continued to reinforce and play into people's emotions, to play into people's fears
00:07:34.180 in order to try to scare them away from something else.
00:07:37.500 Thank you.
00:07:37.840 I love that little injection that the reporter made because it's 100% true what Mark Gerritsen
00:07:45.080 was doing there.
00:07:45.720 And for one thing, Mark's like with like this information that me and McKinnon are delivering
00:07:49.320 is very important for Canadians to know.
00:07:50.720 They literally delivered zero information.
00:07:52.340 They basically just said, Polyev's not saying nothing.
00:07:54.740 And Canadians need to know he's being empty.
00:07:57.060 That wasn't information at all.
00:07:59.000 And the reporter's right.
00:08:00.700 Effectively, what he's doing is either implying that Canadians are also racist alt-right people
00:08:06.160 for supporting the Conservatives, or they're a bunch of idiots because supposedly they're
00:08:10.260 being tricked by Polyev who's playing on their emotions.
00:08:13.480 And let me just say, every politician is obviously going to play on the emotions of voters.
00:08:18.620 What?
00:08:18.880 Is a politician going to talk about issues that voters do not care about?
00:08:22.680 An issue that voters are emotional about or something that is emotionally resonant with
00:08:29.240 voters is something that they're usually passionate about.
00:08:31.960 Is Mark's problem that Polyev isn't boring?
00:08:35.160 Because every politician tries to play on the emotions of voters because the things that,
00:08:39.940 again, voters are emotional about is the things that voters want talked about.
00:08:43.640 Does Justin Trudeau not talk about things that make voters emotional?
00:08:47.840 diversity, inclusion, you know, trying to give money to the poor and stuff like that.
00:08:53.320 Isn't Justin Trudeau's general vague platform, although most of its platforms are lying, isn't
00:08:57.740 his platform trying to elicit emotional responses from people and make them passionate liberal
00:09:02.840 supporters?
00:09:03.880 Obviously.
00:09:04.640 I don't think Justin Trudeau is doing anything wrong.
00:09:06.860 No politician who tries to appeal to voters is doing anything wrong, unless they're lying.
00:09:12.360 And he can't actually point out anything like Polyev's lying about.
00:09:15.620 And Polyev, it's not his duty to release a platform a whole year and a half in advance
00:09:20.600 of an election cycle so that Mark Gerritsen can complain about it.
00:09:24.340 It doesn't matter what is in the platform.
00:09:26.660 Mark Gerritsen will say that somehow Polyev's still being dishonest or he's not being detailed
00:09:31.080 enough or somehow certain elements of the platform are bigoted or whatever, because he did the
00:09:35.180 same thing to Aaron O'Toole, the most liberal conservative leader that the Conservative Party has
00:09:39.520 had probably in 30 years since Brian Mulroney.
00:09:41.880 Mark Gerritsen is just trying to get his way into the Liberal cabinet.
00:09:46.460 And I wish, and it maybe would have been too biased of a question or too, you know, direct
00:09:51.380 and political of a question.
00:09:52.540 I would have asked him if, Mark Gerritsen, what cabinet role do you want?
00:09:56.520 Because that's really what this poll press conference is about.
00:09:59.040 He might as well have tattooed on his forehead, please notice me, Justin.
00:10:02.740 I really want Veterans Affairs even.
00:10:05.300 Just give me urban development.
00:10:07.360 Give me diversity and inclusion cabinet position.
00:10:09.540 I'll do it, please.
00:10:11.080 That's all this press conference was about, was Mark Gerritsen begging Trudeau to pay attention
00:10:15.680 to him.
00:10:16.540 He actually is at risk of losing his seat.
00:10:18.780 Not a massive risk, but Mark Gerritsen is in a very safe Liberal riding.
00:10:23.040 And now the Conservatives have like a 10, 15% chance of winning that riding because Mark
00:10:27.500 Gerritsen won't shut his mouth and his own constituents are getting tired of him.
00:10:31.360 The provincial Liberals in Ontario are a far weaker party than the federal Liberals are in
00:10:36.020 Ontario, and yet the provincial Liberal in that seat has a better chance of getting reelected
00:10:40.980 than Mark Gerritsen.
00:10:42.300 Because at some point, being a loudmouth smear merchant makes your own riding constituents
00:10:48.700 hate you.
00:10:49.360 Because I guarantee Mark Gerritsen is not the type of person who's incredibly responsive
00:10:52.660 to his own constituents.
00:10:54.460 He is proving it here by wasting his time on useless nonsense like this, trying to attack
00:11:00.140 Polya for things Justin Trudeau literally does, and that is not wrong for anybody to
00:11:05.100 do.
00:11:05.880 Regardless, this was a record-breaking press conference at the end of the year, the most
00:11:10.860 useless, embarrassing press conference I have ever seen delivered.
00:11:14.620 So I guess we can give Mark Gerritsen and Stephen McKinnon a big pat on the back because
00:11:19.820 they have definitely made my Christmas with this little clip show that I got to watch today.
00:11:25.100 But other than that, I have my Give, Send, Go link in the description of this video below.
00:11:31.160 I'm being sued by a billionaire.
00:11:32.640 I'm winning that lawsuit, but it's cost me over $25,000 to fight this completely frivolous
00:11:37.500 defamation suit.
00:11:38.580 They have no evidence that myself and TNT did anything wrong or reported anything unfactual.
00:11:43.440 The article they're taking issue with, the only reference to the big man suing us was based
00:11:48.240 off of Globe and Mail reporting that was already previously out, but he's only suing us because
00:11:52.740 he thought we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves, unlike what the Globe and Mail would obviously
00:11:56.760 be able to do.
00:11:57.820 So I'm probably going to win this, but any money you can contribute does help me out,
00:12:01.920 defend myself and pay for my legal fees.
00:12:04.800 And other than that, I also have my website for my campaign linked in the description of
00:12:09.420 this video below.
00:12:10.440 Again, if you live in the riding of Calgary Signal Hill, buy a conservative membership.
00:12:14.620 Make sure your family and friends in the riding have conservative memberships and vote for
00:12:18.080 me number one on your ballot if you're a conservative member in the riding, whenever the
00:12:21.220 nomination comes around.
00:12:22.540 And I would encourage everyone, regardless if you live in Calgary or not, check which
00:12:26.600 riding you live in because it helps you engage in your political community when you know
00:12:31.240 which provincial riding you live in, federal riding and ward of your city or town.
00:12:36.000 You'd be shocked out there.
00:12:37.600 Most people could not even name their own riding.
00:12:40.020 So the better and acknowledgeable you are with the own political territory you live in, the
00:12:44.340 better able you are to actually get things done in this country.
00:12:47.280 But other than that, I hope everyone has a fantastic day.
00:12:50.660 Feel bad for me.
00:12:51.600 It took me like 50 tries to record this video.
00:12:55.160 And I think I got like 10 minutes in multiple times and had to go back.
00:12:58.820 But I got through it.
00:13:00.380 And we're all going to get through the rest of this year together, just like I got through
00:13:03.540 this video.
00:13:04.140 So have a great day, everyone.
00:13:05.320 We'll be right back.