Western Standard - CMS： Free media is essential to democracy.

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. As you might have gathered, I am Corey Morgan. This is my weekly opportunity to bend your ear, rant, rave, talk to some guests, cover some subjects, and have a good time. Or at least I enjoy it anyway. Sometimes the viewers enjoy it. Sometimes they get upset with me. Ah, you know, it doesn't bother me when you get upset. But, you know, it gets our blood pressure going. It makes things interesting. You can't just always read the columns. That's where you can kind of hear them.

00:00:56.700 So, just again, so much news, lots of dark news, sometimes lighter things as well to cover today. We're going to get into a bunch of that. I got a very interesting guest coming on. It is, for those who are watching live right now, it is the 60th anniversary today of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas that day.

00:01:14.680 And, of course, there's lots of theories and ideas on how or who or what happened there that day. Still, to this day, a lot of debate and things going on about it.

00:01:23.060 So, my guest is Professor Michel Gagnier. I'm terrible with French names, but he's a professor and he's written on conspiracy theories in general.

00:01:31.260 And we're going to talk a bit about that, you know. I mean, why are there so many conspiracy theories on things in general?

00:01:37.100 Why do people feel inclined to believe some of them when there's very shaky evidence?

00:01:40.960 Or why are people so quick to dismiss them if sometimes they're real? It's a hard thing.

00:01:46.440 But, you know, with the internet, it's a whole new challenge on trying to keep up with truth from fiction.

00:01:51.640 All right. So, I'm going to get it going on one of my truths and tell you how I spent my weekend.

00:01:57.220 So, one of the best ways to get me to do something is to tell me I can't do it.

00:02:02.360 That's just my stubborn, pugnacious nature.

00:02:04.880 So, thus, I found myself riding the LRT in Edmonton last Sunday when I didn't really need to use it to get anywhere.

00:02:10.660 You see, the Edmonton Transit Service, which goes by ETS, put out a statement a little while ago to media outlets

00:02:16.100 that said media would be banned from public transit facilities unless they sought and got permission to go there first.

00:02:22.120 Now, being a unionized gang, of course, you could only get permission from 9 to 5 on weekdays from these guys.

00:02:28.860 So, if there were any events that needed coverage and they happened to be happening in the evenings or the weekends,

00:02:33.540 I guess the press wouldn't be allowed to report on it.

00:02:35.980 The requirement's ridiculous. It's a clear violation of freedom of the press.

00:02:40.200 The Canadian Constitution Foundation immediately released a statement saying they're going to take ETS to court if they don't back off on this.

00:02:46.860 Higher-ups within Edmonton City Hall, they scrambled to respond and they claimed there was no such restriction placed on media.

00:02:52.280 People just misunderstood the statement.

00:02:54.720 Oh, I see.

00:02:55.700 Well, let's have a look at the statement, then I'll read it to you and see if you misunderstand it or not.

00:02:59.720 Here's the statement. It came under the heading, Media on ETS Property.

00:03:03.920 It says media are required, required, not suggested, to notify the City of Edmonton prior to reporting, filming, or conducting business on ETS property.

00:03:12.800 This includes transit centres, LRT stations, stops along the Valley Line southeast, and inside all buses or trains.

00:03:19.520 If you wish to gain access to ETS property, please contact blah blah blah.

00:03:24.240 How could this be misunderstood? It was pretty clear.

00:03:26.920 They're saying media needs their permission to go on public property and do its job.

00:03:32.360 Now, the reason ETS wants to keep us from reporting on transit property is pretty obvious.

00:03:37.260 As with most major cities, Edmonton's transit systems turned into a dystopian, addict-ridden nightmare.

00:03:43.240 Riding had become unpleasant at best and outright dangerous at worst.

00:03:46.920 Edmonton police at one point even recommended people avoid using transit.

00:03:50.900 Now, like all good bureaucracies, rather than fixing the problem, the first instinct on the part of the pointy head to little bureaucrats was to cover it up, and that meant banning the press.

00:04:00.240 Former Western Standard reporter Arthur Green used to drive them nuts.

00:04:03.160 He made it a personal mission to expose the attic-fueled mayhem happening in Edmonton's downtown and on the transit systems.

00:04:09.440 He constantly embarrassed ETS as he posted photos and video of some of the horrific scenes happening on transit facilities.

00:04:16.080 Green's photos, they were often actually pretty tough to view as he highlighted the human misery and waste happening on city streets and transit lines, but they needed to be seen. 0.86

00:04:24.100 Rest assured, Arthur's work was part of what inspired the idiotic attempt by ETS to control the press on public transit. 0.98

00:04:31.780 So when I read that ETS statement, my first thought was, who the hell do you guys think you are? 0.97

00:04:36.820 And I knew I'd have to put their rules to the test.

00:04:38.800 I mean, the sheer arrogance of these bureaucrats and thinking they could stop media was galling.

00:04:42.540 They likely felt inspired, though, as they've watched the federal government beat on Canada's free press with bills C-11 and C-18, so why can't civic governments do it too, right?

00:04:51.200 It appeared to some paper pushers it's open season on press rights, and they wanted to pile on.

00:04:55.600 And I tweeted out I'd be riding on city transit and live-tweeted my actions as I rode on and reported on the conditions on the train and in the facilities.

00:05:02.740 I didn't really expect ETS to do anything about it, and they didn't.

00:05:05.920 Their requirement for permission was just a bluff. Bluster.

00:05:08.640 Now let's get on to the ironic part of this story.

00:05:10.820 I'm happy to report, actually, when I rode it, things have actually improved quite a bit on Edmonton Transit lines.

00:05:15.180 Yes, I saw addicts. I smelled urine. I saw property damage.

00:05:18.760 I witnessed a seemingly endless line of tents and makeshift shelters built along the line near Stadium Station.

00:05:24.100 They do have some serious issues to deal with.

00:05:26.340 But I also saw a very visible presence of security guards, peace officers, cleaning crews, and police at the stations.

00:05:32.040 I mean, one young lady was being arrested when I went by, but at least they're doing their job.

00:05:35.560 The platforms and the trains were actually relatively clean, despite the smell, and efforts were being made to keep it so.

00:05:40.720 Now, it was a Sunday afternoon. I might have been seeing things at their best.

00:05:43.860 But all the same, ETS and Edmonton authorities were clearly trying to keep transit safe and clean.

00:05:48.800 Now, if I'd been blocked from going on transit, or if I'd listened to them, I wouldn't have been able to report this good news.

00:05:53.300 That's the great irony of it all.

00:05:54.920 They don't allow us to report on the good things either, or at least they'd like to stop it.

00:05:58.420 The reason they were making such efforts was due to the work of Arthur Green and other journalists

00:06:02.620 who were willing to cover the disorder and issues on the Edmonton Transit system.

00:06:06.060 Rest assured, the powers that be would have preferred to just ignore the issue if they could.

00:06:09.380 Free and unfettered media holds governments accountable.

00:06:13.020 They bring issues into the living rooms of citizens who wouldn't have been able to see what's going on otherwise.

00:06:17.480 I mean, most people never realized the mayhem happening in transit until they saw the images and saw the stories about it in the media.

00:06:23.020 Then they demanded politicians do something about it.

00:06:25.840 Media is financially embattled right now by changing times and politically threatened by authoritarian politicians and bureaucrats.

00:06:32.060 We don't and won't give up easily.

00:06:34.140 If the pressures continue as they have, though, we're going to lose more access to unfiltered information and news,

00:06:38.920 and our entire democracy could then be threatened. 0.78

00:06:41.460 So be sure to speak up loudly when arrogant and dimwitted bureaucrats, such as those at the ETS, try to block free media. 0.94

00:06:48.320 Because if they get away with it, we all suffer from it. 0.94

00:06:51.660 All right, that's what got me up and going.

00:06:54.000 As I said, I survived the ride on the train without being stabbed or shot or anything of the sort.

00:06:57.760 I really was actually impressed that there's definitely a visible security presence and efforts to keep things clean.

00:07:03.560 So good on them.

00:07:04.520 They got more to do, but it's a good start, and I'm happy to report good stuff now and then.

00:07:08.400 Let's see what else is going on out there in the news world with our news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:07:11.700 Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:07:13.620 Very busy, Corey.

00:07:14.920 You know what you should do?

00:07:15.640 You should try going for a ride on the Calgary LRT.

00:07:17.840 Compare the two.

00:07:19.360 Yeah, it's time for one.

00:07:20.480 I haven't ridden on it in quite a while.

00:07:21.800 It was pretty gnarly the last time.

00:07:23.140 Maybe Calgary's has improved as well.

00:07:24.680 I'll have to find some time and pop on there and have a look.

00:07:27.060 There you go.

00:07:28.760 Breaking news at the moment, Corey, coming out of the border crossing from Niagara Falls into the United States, city of Buffalo.

00:07:38.400 There appears to have been a terrorist attack, a car full of explosives driving from Canada, hit the U.S. border guards, causing what appears to be a big explosion.

00:07:49.740 Fox is reporting that two people were killed in the blast.

00:07:54.120 I'm not sure what the if they were both in the car or there was a border people killed as prompted an immediate border clampdown.

00:08:03.540 All the four bridges from Ontario into New York state have been shut down on the U.S. side.

00:08:13.160 They're now being guarded by the U.S. anti-terrorism force.

00:08:18.200 The U.S. FBI is already at the scene in Buffalo and probably leading the investigation.

00:08:27.080 This comes just a week or so, Corey.

00:08:29.240 Our car is right there.

00:08:30.400 My car is right inside.

00:08:31.600 It was reported, warned the Canadian government that a terrorist attack could happen in Calgary.

00:08:38.200 What happened?

00:08:38.560 I have no idea.

00:08:39.500 I have no idea.

00:08:39.560 I have no idea.

00:08:40.120 I have no idea.

00:08:40.620 And it was left off by Canadian officials.

00:08:45.940 It appears the U.K. government may have been true.

00:08:48.620 So we're going to keep an eye on that, obviously, all day as developments occur.

00:08:53.660 I've never seen anything like this.

00:08:54.560 Other stories, the Alberta government has responded to the fiscal update yesterday.

00:09:01.100 This car just exploded.

00:09:02.120 I imagine they're not overly impressed.

00:09:05.500 Big announcement on health care in Alberta this morning, where the province is going to allow licensed practical nurses to operate their own clinics.

00:09:15.160 The licensed practical nurses are sort of more trained than regular nurses and, in fact, do about 80% of what a doctor can do.

00:09:24.180 So they're going to allow those people with the right training to open up their own offices.

00:09:30.380 A story still reverberating from yesterday, where Calgary police have now apologized to the family of two brothers, one only 14 years old, the other 18, who were arrested last week for the brazen daylight shooting up near Marlborough Park.

00:09:49.980 I guess they got the wrong guys and have apologized.

00:09:54.480 You know, Corey, in my 30 years or so of covering crime in Calgary, I've never seen anything quite like that apology yesterday.

00:10:06.360 So, yeah, very busy morning, Corey.

00:10:08.640 And like I said, we'll keep track of the New York Niagara Falls terror incident and update it minute by minute.

00:10:17.100 Right on. Well, I'll let you get back to following those things and getting that news up there as it breaks.

00:10:23.120 Dave, I appreciate the update. And I'll talk to you after the show.

00:10:26.480 Thanks, Corey.

00:10:27.560 That is our news editor, Dave Naylor. As you see, stuff is breaking.

00:10:31.080 Watch the Western Standard News site. You know, keep it on the side of your screen, of course, while this show is going.

00:10:36.420 But we do cover things as they are unfolding.

00:10:39.280 And I mean, there's a lot to unpack with what's going on in New York.

00:10:41.560 It sounds like, yeah, that's the first I've heard now that perhaps two people are dead.

00:10:46.040 We don't know what happened, though.

00:10:47.720 Was it a propane tank that went off?

00:10:50.040 Was it a crazed terrorist?

00:10:51.180 Was it an individual?

00:10:51.940 We don't know.

00:10:52.900 We're going to find out.

00:10:53.600 But things like this could certainly snowball into something much, much worse.

00:10:56.520 It's of great concern.

00:10:58.140 So WesternStandard.news, guys, that's where you will find it.

00:11:01.040 We put those stories up as soon as they hit.

00:11:03.560 And hey, the reason we can do it is because you guys subscribe.

00:11:07.080 We're an independent outlet.

00:11:08.460 Those of you who have subscribed already, thank you very much.

00:11:10.580 If you haven't yet, get on there, guys.

00:11:12.640 WesternStandard.news slash membership.

00:11:14.580 $9.99 a month, $100 a year.

00:11:17.460 That's the way we can cover these stories.

00:11:19.080 That's the way I can ride trains up and down and complain about transit service.

00:11:22.260 And that's the way we can keep media independent and covering those stories.

00:11:26.160 All right.

00:11:26.440 Let's see.

00:11:26.940 Just to cover a bit of that, you know, I see some of the discussion that came up with Dave mentioned.

00:11:31.200 Premier Smith has said she's going to have nurse practitioners allowing it so they can open clinics and do things. 0.99

00:11:37.140 And, of course, the immediate response from Wildrose, and Wildrose is a commenter on here who's made this comment before quite often.

00:11:43.100 Great.

00:11:43.480 Private for profit health care.

00:11:45.520 You know, you don't even know what the story is yet.

00:11:47.640 But the initial instinct is, oh, my God, private for profit health care.

00:11:51.260 Well, a couple of things.

00:11:51.940 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:11:54.460 It's already here.

00:11:55.820 What we're talking about is exactly what a private doctor does.

00:12:00.100 When you go to the clinic, you go to the doctor, that doctor's paying the lease, that doctor's paying the nurses, that doctor's running a business, and that doctor takes a profit.

00:12:10.300 It's just all publicly funded.

00:12:12.340 So this nurse practitioner thing would be the exact same thing, except it would be a nurse practitioner rather than a full-out physician.

00:12:19.940 So why would we oppose that?

00:12:21.560 What's the problem with that?

00:12:22.620 Now, there could be things to be debatable.

00:12:24.540 We'd worry that perhaps the practitioner might have a diagnosis slip by, that a full doctor.

00:12:29.800 You know, there's reasons that we could discuss that.

00:12:32.980 But to dismiss it immediately as if it's a problem because somebody might make a profit, I'm sorry, but that's how health care reform gets stunted.

00:12:40.700 That's how we don't have discussions to make better care.

00:12:44.100 Look, our waiting lists are among the worst in the world.

00:12:46.580 When you look at the waiting lists, the cost for health care versus the outcomes, we measure really poorly worldwide on all fronts.

00:12:56.920 We've got fantastic health care providers once you can get in, but you could be very ill and waiting a long time to get there.

00:13:04.460 Now, we also know, most of us know, there's a whole lot of things that people go to a doctor's office for, and they don't necessarily need to see a doctor.

00:13:12.300 How many times do you need to see a full-out physician and tie it up at the emergency room or a doctor's office when your kid has the sniffles?

00:13:18.260 When you have a mole you think might need further looking at, or a few other things.

00:13:22.580 I mean, I have to get my driver's license renewed every two years because it's a class four.

00:13:26.400 I've got to get a driver's physical for it.

00:13:28.320 It's really pretty basic.

00:13:29.300 It's just checking me out to see if I've got any very evident heart conditions or health issues or breathing problems, things like that, and checking my eyesight.

00:13:37.480 Now, do we necessarily need a full-out physician to do that?

00:13:43.440 No, I say we don't.

00:13:45.260 And because this way I'm not taking away the time from a physician with my driver's test, that physician can be looking at somebody with a potentially more serious need or condition.

00:13:55.580 Donna Jean, a commenter, saying doctors make mistakes too, and nurse practitioners are great at it.

00:13:59.240 That's right.

00:13:59.720 I mean, there's no assurance.

00:14:00.800 And, I mean, with good training, you know, if somebody comes into something that's beyond the ability of a nurse practitioner, presumably that practitioner is going to say, whoa, okay, you need to see somebody with more ability, you know, and training to deal with that specialized need.

00:14:14.080 But that's often the case with a doctor as well.

00:14:16.120 I mean, you see a general practitioner, and they find something that appears to be, you know, far beyond what you would see in the regular clinic.

00:14:22.200 They don't treat it there.

00:14:23.340 They will determine your best person to refer you to, whether it's a cardiologist or an oncologist, you know, if they've seen something that's of strong concern, and they will send you in that direction.

00:14:34.540 So, this is a new level.

00:14:35.700 I think it's quite creative.

00:14:36.940 It's a way that we can shorten those waiting lists and still make sure everybody's getting good coverage for their health, because that's what we all want in the end.

00:14:44.380 So, let's not be fearful of changes just because somebody has a private shingle hanging in front of a place.

00:14:48.780 It's still not coming out of your pocket.

00:14:50.120 You're still covered by your Alberta Health Services card.

00:14:52.200 Don't sweat it.

00:14:53.580 Don't dismiss every innovation as if it's a move towards a privatization.

00:14:57.480 But you know what?

00:14:58.120 We do need to privatize some stuff, and I hope Smith goes there later.

00:15:00.900 But we'll leave that for another discussion.

00:15:02.420 It's time to get on to our guest, and it's very timely, with Professor Michel Gagné, and he's written some stuff on conspiracy theories on a couple of sites.

00:15:12.400 It's fantastic, and the timing is good.

00:15:14.880 So, thank you very much for joining the show today, Michel.

00:15:18.600 Hi, Corey.

00:15:19.480 It's nice to be here.

00:15:20.220 So, I said off the top of the show, I mean, it happens to be the 60th anniversary, I believe, today of the JFK assassination, and that's sort of the granddaddy of conspiracy theories.

00:15:31.320 It's been going on 60 years, and there still doesn't feel, a lot of people don't feel it's resolved.

00:15:35.380 I wasn't born when it started, but I have to tell you, I got drawn into it when I was in university.

00:15:41.080 I spent about 15, 20 years believing the CIA killed Kennedy.

00:15:44.700 That led me to believe in a number of other theories that eventually turned out to be false.

00:15:49.420 So, I'm happy to say I'm out of the rabbit hole, but it takes a while.

00:15:53.480 It takes a lot of effort to think critically to be able to get away from these very kind of corroding myths that our society embraces far too easily.

00:16:02.680 Yeah, well, we seem to have, I believe, I mean, and you break it down into that in your article, which was fantastic too, but just some of the things to watch for in a conspiracy that perhaps isn't a legitimate one or isn't well-founded.

00:16:16.140 But we seem to have an instinct.

00:16:17.400 If we see something unusual, we just want to fill the void.

00:16:20.380 We want to fill the question marks kind of with our own interpretation of things, even if it's not sourced.

00:16:25.680 Or we'll take somebody else's interpretation without looking more deeply, and that can turn a small conspiracy into a large one.

00:16:32.320 Yeah, that's true.

00:16:33.500 A lot of smarter people than me, a lot of people in social scientific research have highlighted some of the major elements that make us want to believe in conspiracy theories.

00:16:42.620 One of the ones that tends to be universal is a feeling of powerlessness.

00:16:46.360 You can be either unemployed or you can be Donald Trump.

00:16:49.980 If you believe that somehow you're losing power or you're being shut out of power, you're more likely to believe that there's some nefarious group that is doing this behind your back.

00:17:00.280 Our cultural ideologies tend to influence what kind of conspiracy theory we're likely to believe in.

00:17:06.120 The groups we associate with, sometimes because our friends believe it, we're part of an echo chamber that we believe that it must be true if everyone else is repeating it.

00:17:14.300 And then I think just the regular zeitgeist, you know, every generation or so there are issues that trouble us more than our ancestors or our children will.

00:17:23.140 I know for me it was nuclear war when I was young.

00:17:25.980 Today it seems to be climate change or vaccines.

00:17:28.840 So depending on what events struck you as odd, suspicious in your youth, particularly in your youth, we often call these flashbulb memories.

00:17:39.440 For me it was the Reagan assassination attempt in 1981, but for many people it's the Kennedy assassination or 9-11 or some of these other events.

00:17:48.620 Yeah, well, so we've got to, I'll kind of circle back to the Kennedy one.

00:17:53.980 I want to talk a little bit about more others soon, but I mean I just recently actually was listening to a different podcast.

00:17:58.340 It sounds like Rob Reiner has done a long series of podcasts.

00:18:02.120 Now a person of pretty high profile, pretty high reach, and he goes right on to the second and third shooter theories.

00:18:08.400 He's confident that really happened and he lays it out over a matter of a number of hours.

00:18:12.660 So we're not talking about an obscure person from years ago with a bunch of, you know, old folders they're holding in the air now.

00:18:19.380 We've got contemporary celebrities that are still propagating, I guess, their interpretations of what happened in those events back then.

00:18:25.820 And I personally, I think, makes some pretty large leaps of logic.

00:18:30.960 Oh, definitely.

00:18:31.980 This is one of the most popular ones.

00:18:34.280 Every 10 years or so, Gallup takes a poll on this.

00:18:37.280 And it turns out that among Americans, between 60 and 70 percent of people generally believe in some kind of conspiracy.

00:18:44.300 Mind you, they don't necessarily agree on what kind that is.

00:18:46.800 Someone like John Kerry still has claimed that he believes the Cubans were involved in it.

00:18:51.980 We know that President Johnson believed the Cubans were involved.

00:18:54.540 Mrs. Kennedy believed that the Ku Klux Klan or some right-wing group was involved.

00:18:59.660 Even Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, believed that some anti-Semites were trying to blame this on the Jews.

00:19:06.340 So everybody has their pet theory.

00:19:08.420 And at the end of the day, because it is such a shocking event that's hard to explain,

00:19:12.780 many people are not satisfied with this idea that a lone nut or at least an emotionally unstable person

00:19:20.920 would be able to kill the most powerful man in the world.

00:19:23.300 But Lee Harvey Oswald was not that different than a lot of the people who are school shooters today or other perpetrators.

00:19:29.560 I think of the Tsarnaev brothers who caused the Boston bombing, marathon bombing a few years ago. 0.71

00:19:34.960 A lot of these things are caused by conspiracy belief.

00:19:37.580 I don't want to say that conspiracy believers are violent.

00:19:40.260 Most of them are not.

00:19:41.440 But they can lead to a great deal of either violence or self-harm, ostracization, depression, certainly.

00:19:49.920 It's not a healthy way to live.

00:19:53.740 No, no, certainly not.

00:19:55.560 As you point out, I mean, some real conspiracies exist.

00:19:58.180 You have that in your article.

00:19:59.240 It's on the Aristotle Foundation, by the way, in full.

00:20:02.560 And you did one for the Western Standard as well.

00:20:04.820 But, for example, Watergate, that was a real conspiracy.

00:20:08.140 It was really underhanded.

00:20:09.400 It was really government involvement.

00:20:10.760 But it was all quite exposed in the end.

00:20:13.700 Or think of the sponsorship scandal.

00:20:15.880 You know, I live in Montreal.

00:20:17.300 I live through the 1995 referendum.

00:20:20.140 The federal government gave a lot of money to advertisement agencies against the current laws of Quebec at that time, the referendum laws.

00:20:28.780 And what do those people do with it?

00:20:30.160 They bought yachts.

00:20:31.160 They spent it on their debts or on restaurant dining.

00:20:34.280 They didn't actually do what they were asked to do.

00:20:36.120 And in the end, we can see how conspiring is not something that's very successful when a large group of people do it and they're not part of some network.

00:20:44.960 I mean, the CIA can kill people and keep a lid on it, at least for some time.

00:20:49.280 But when you ask a number of people in different organizations to conspire together, the odds are it's not going to work out very well.

00:20:55.540 And it didn't work out for President Nixon either.

00:20:58.120 Yeah, well, I mean, just speaking anecdotally, I mean, if you have a circle of 10 friends and you try to keep a secret, all 10 of you know, chances are within a week or two, it's going to spread well outside of that circle.

00:21:08.120 I mean, people aren't really that good at keeping secrets.

00:21:10.600 And when some of these conspiracies talk about it, as many as hundreds or even thousands of people keeping a secret, it just starts to defy belief a little bit.

00:21:17.780 Yeah, I was interviewing for my podcast, Paranoid Planet.

00:21:20.820 I was interviewing a filmmaker called James Lambert, and he pointed out that, you know, when you start involving multiple generations in one single conspiracy, that's when really you're killing it with bad logic.

00:21:35.240 Because how could you predict how the next generation will do in terms of either covering up or revealing some dark secret?

00:21:43.220 So there's a number of ways, and I point these out in my article, you don't have to be an expert in science or history to debunk a conspiracy theory, you need to be equipped with the right kind of logic.

00:21:53.380 And sometimes circular reasoning or straw man fallacies, you know, creating a very simplistic version of the theory you're trying to debunk so that it's easier to set it aflame, so to speak, then those are, you know, indicators that a conspiracy theory is likely not believable.

00:22:11.500 The more it is like a Hollywood film script, the less likely it is to be true.

00:22:16.340 Well, and there's one stubborn one I just came off a speaking tour I was doing on weekends, and twice at two different stops, we had people come up and ask the question about the old chemtrails, which is contrails from jets you see in the sky.

00:22:27.880 And, you know, I've talked to people, they're not necessarily foolish people, they're lucid, they're typically rational, but somehow they believe that, again, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pilots and baggage workers and chemists and who knows else are all tied in with the government, and they're trying to poison us through spray coming from jets and planes above us.

00:22:47.860 It just seems to defy when I talk to this person, I really this is not a foolish person, yet they're clinging to something that just seems so irrational, I don't understand how it spreads like that.

00:22:56.680 Well, I think we live in an age where we're very suspicious of people in authority, and that's unfortunate, I mean, we should be skeptical, people in authority are still humans, and if they're given the chance, they might be corrupt, they might do something illegal.

00:23:08.520 But ultimately, if we start with a default assumption that scientists, professors, journalists like yourself are deliberately part of some larger scheme, then we're not even giving ourselves a chance to look for truth, we start with the assumption that everything happens behind closed doors by some furtive force, that we can only identify with words like oligarchy, or patriarchy, or military industrial complex.

00:23:36.440 At the end of the day, these words don't mean anything.

00:23:39.320 Yeah, well, one of the things to watch for as well, you pointed out was an assumption of hyper-confidence. 0.92

00:23:43.660 I mean, when we look at government, this is the same sort of person who would sit and say, look, I feel Trudeau's a fool, and his cabinet's weak, and the bureaucrats are incompetent, but somehow they're pulling off a massive conspiracy to do such and such.

00:23:56.100 Well, you've got a conflict of your logic going on right there. 0.94

00:23:58.860 It's one of the things perhaps people should watch for.

00:24:00.500 Don't assume that the government's really that good at being able to keep a conspiracy like this.

00:24:04.620 What's interesting is often that same line, those two contradictory points are made by the same people, that somehow the conspirators are hyper-competent, so they can use laser beams, or they can somehow brainwash us through the media.

00:24:17.360 But at the same time, they are so incompetent that they leave this breadcrumb of evidence, supposedly, all over the place.

00:24:25.080 You know, I have a story on my podcast this week about a woman called Julianne Mercer, who thought she saw Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald sneaking a rifle onto the grassy knoll. 0.97

00:24:34.900 Well, if they did that, they were profoundly stupid because they're doing this in broad daylight, where they could get arrested before they even get their caper pulled off. 0.84

00:24:43.340 So, yeah, it's not just the fact about hyper-competence. 0.99

00:24:46.700 It's the contradictory ways that hyper-competence is often used.

00:24:50.160 Yeah, well, I harbor a good deal of mistrust of government, and that's part of why I traffic in it, and they give me lots to work with.

00:24:57.800 But at the same time, I mean, I don't always assume every move is malignant, but some of the things we could dismiss, you know, the moon landing theory.

00:25:04.380 Fine, people are very dedicated and feeling it was fake, but there's not too much harm done in a sense of holding onto that one.

00:25:11.000 But ones that worry me sometimes are medical conspiracies.

00:25:14.280 The ones where they say, oh, pharmaceutical companies and doctors are hiding the cure for cancer because they make more money treating people with cancer.

00:25:21.620 And, you know, that takes the assumption that these doctors will die and let their family members die, and these pharmaceutical heads will die, rather than let up the secret of this cure for cancer they're hiding.

00:25:31.660 I mean, it just, again, defies sense.

00:25:33.040 But the thing that gets me is it might encourage people to avoid treatment for something that may be very treatable, and that's when it moves into the realm of the dangerous.

00:25:40.600 Yeah, I'm not a medical expert, but, you know, I've looked into this enough to see that there's no evidence, for example, that vaccines cause autism.

00:25:49.460 And yet we have a candidate right now, or the Americans have a candidate running for president, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who says that they do, who believe that the COVID vaccines were some kind of a racket, and even that the CIA murdered his uncle.

00:26:04.120 So even people in very high places can believe this.

00:26:07.900 But I have to say that as far as vaccines go, we have to understand the psychology of vaccines is not like other medicine.

00:26:15.680 You go to the hospital, you get treated once you're sick.

00:26:18.880 Vaccines are a form of therapy, a medical therapy that we use before we're sick.

00:26:23.840 So it's very counterintuitive, and I think that's why a lot of people refuse to take a vaccine because they would rather live with the evil that they know, say COVID, rather than the evil that they don't know or that they presume, which is presumably mercury or other toxins in the vaccines.

00:26:43.280 So the fact that knowledge has become so complex on issues like health care feeds into the suspicions that people have, because there's just not enough time for most of us to get educated on these subjects.

00:26:57.240 And that's why I say we do need to defer to experts, maybe not, you know, without some skepticism, but perhaps we've gone too far in thinking that every person is their own expert.

00:27:08.360 You know, just like, you know, the roots of Protestantism said that every man is his own priest, but you have to have also some knowledge to be able to make affirmations.

00:27:18.880 Yeah, well, and we get, as you said, that the vaccines cause autism when, for example, or I see a commenter saying the polio vaccine was a real vaccine.

00:27:25.520 So a lot of people have faith in the older vaccines, but that conspiracy theory of the autism, which was very heavily disproven over years and years, multiple studies, lots of times, that wasn't over the COVID vaccine.

00:27:35.140 That was over the MMR vaccines that have been used for a long, long time.

00:27:39.760 That's quite different than what was applied now when we get into COVID, which is a newer vaccine.

00:27:45.980 And people, when you're getting coerced into taking it, I can understand people's misgivings and fears and when it hasn't been as long established as some of the other vaccinations.

00:27:56.040 So, I mean, there's some difference, but that mistrust can lead to issues, of course.

00:27:59.320 That's true. Look, I have a personal anecdote about this, and that is when the vaccines were available for people 50 years and older, at the time I was about 48, and I couldn't wait to actually get my shot because I want to be able to have the freedom to go to places where there were vaccine mandates.

00:28:14.000 I went three or four times to get the AstraZeneca shot, but every time I went, they were out of doses.

00:28:20.180 So I ended up getting the Pfizer, but between the time that I tried to get the AstraZeneca to the time that I got the Pfizer, which was believed to be safer, I had some serious health issues, chest pains that turned out to be not cardiac, but at the time I believe they were, it had to do with my gallbladder.

00:28:36.600 So had I actually had these chest pains after taking the AstraZeneca, I might be one of those people right now thinking that the vaccines made me sick.

00:28:45.400 So sometimes there's confirmation bias, other things might make us ill, or there might be that we have a particular reaction to the vaccines that millions of people will not have.

00:28:55.620 And at the time of COVID, I think there was a, there was a certain balancing act to do.

00:29:02.160 Of course, you know, many people, including myself, didn't feel comfortable with, with the government coercing.

00:29:09.180 But at the same time, we had a health scare in which most people want to get back to normal.

00:29:14.580 And vaccines, I believe, were a way to get back to normal, but many decisions were taken very quickly because time was short.

00:29:22.320 You know, it's like a pregnancy, you only have nine months to decide if you're keeping the child or not.

00:29:27.540 So as far as vaccines go, we only had a few months to determine what products to put on the market.

00:29:33.940 Yeah, and people had, again, you know, concerns about rushes to vaccines.

00:29:38.120 I just recently read a story about a potential vaccine that may help with Alzheimer's disease.

00:29:47.760 Actually, it's interesting.

00:29:48.780 It's a protein based thing.

00:29:49.860 But the first experiments with it, they found they were causing brain swelling and trouble with people when they were starting human trials.

00:29:54.900 So they backed off and had to change it.

00:29:56.900 But I'm just saying that you can't fully dismiss people's concerns with a rushed vaccine because vaccines can have some serious consequences.

00:30:03.540 Definitely, definitely.

00:30:04.660 And I think the biggest problem is that there was kind of a shutdown of debate.

00:30:07.960 The media and the government, the Trudeau government, you know, were not really allowing a full conversation on this because they didn't want to feed conspiracy theories.

00:30:20.000 But at the same time, I think more suspicion was fed because people didn't feel they had any platform for sharing their views.

00:30:26.440 So perhaps what could have happened or should have happened is that people who had a better grasp of the issue, scientists, sociologists, economists, should have been given more room to debate this publicly so that the person on the street didn't feel that they had to go to some obscure website to get some information that may or may not have been useful to them.

00:30:46.760 Yeah, well, we're going to see more and more as we see, well, the sharing of information through social media and authoritarian governance, unfortunately, doing things that cause more mistrust between people and them.

00:30:58.520 So the theories will continue.

00:31:01.000 But I mean, we just have to always be on guard and see which theories perhaps have some merit to them and which are, well, and many are a lot of bunk, unfortunately.

00:31:08.660 So where can we find more information about your work and your articles and such?

00:31:12.020 Well, there's the Aristotle Foundation, where you're going to find the article I published this week.

00:31:15.620 I also wrote a book recently, last year, called Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination.

00:31:21.120 It's essentially a critical thinking handbook, but it's pretty thick as most Kennedy books go.

00:31:26.260 But I think it's accessible for anybody with at least a high school education.

00:31:30.360 And then I have my podcast, which is a little bit more popular level.

00:31:34.520 It's called Paranoid Planet, and the website is www.paranoidplanet.ca.

00:31:39.900 Well, great.

00:31:40.620 Well, thank you very much for joining us today.

00:31:42.360 And, well, we'll keep a watch for more articles from you then, Professor.

00:31:46.320 Thank you, Corey.

00:31:47.140 It was great to have to be on your show.

00:31:49.280 Great.

00:31:49.580 Thanks.

00:31:50.480 So, yes, guys, I know I see through the commenters it's got some folks stirred up.

00:31:54.360 Here comes one of the usual responses from commenter Jim Duskus.

00:31:57.080 Morgan, are you a shill for Big Pharma?

00:31:59.580 Yes.

00:32:00.200 Yes.

00:32:00.680 Can't you tell from the, you know, the luxury car I drive?

00:32:04.300 Oh, no, I drive a Hyundai.

00:32:05.480 Actually, it's not vaccines I push, Jim.

00:32:08.020 It's the little blue pill.

00:32:09.280 But due to CRTC regulations, I can't stand up and show you how effective it's been for me.

00:32:14.300 Thus, you know, the millions that Big Pharma gave me haven't worked out.

00:32:17.520 I'll just have to have it go to online reviews as to how well it's done.

00:32:20.660 Come on, guys.

00:32:21.200 Just because I'm talking about these things doesn't mean I'm a shill for this, a shill for that.

00:32:26.260 We can have critical discussions on things.

00:32:28.100 And that's what Michelle was kind of saying.

00:32:30.740 That was part of the problem that happened over the pandemic.

00:32:32.860 Everything was rushed, and people were shutting down discussion.

00:32:36.000 And that causes more mistrust.

00:32:37.680 That causes people to dig their heels in and get more concerned about things.

00:32:41.560 I'm not dismissing every concern with the COVID vaccines by any means.

00:32:45.440 I got vaccinated and crossed the border a few years ago.

00:32:47.820 And I remember some people going wild on my show about that.

00:32:49.540 You see, you see, you're one of them.

00:32:50.640 No, I wanted to cross the border.

00:32:52.100 And no, I wasn't as worried about it as others.

00:32:54.560 Hey, paradoxical, you drive a Hyundai as well.

00:32:56.080 Okay.

00:32:57.680 But just because I chose to get it doesn't mean I support the coercion of others getting it.

00:33:02.700 I've always supported the free choice of people.

00:33:06.520 Watch for the difference, guys.

00:33:07.520 It's not all or nothing.

00:33:08.500 As long as there's choice and discourse, then we shouldn't have a problem.

00:33:14.260 And that's why, you know, we have these discussions on this show.

00:33:17.380 You don't have to agree with everything.

00:33:18.300 We're talking about what we're having the conversation on it.

00:33:20.900 And people will make their own conclusions and determinations from that.

00:33:24.880 So, yeah, I know not everybody's going to agree.

00:33:26.620 But, I mean, there's, as we said, there's all kinds of conspiracies.

00:33:30.260 Or there's urban legends.

00:33:31.120 Those are big ones.

00:33:32.100 I remember when I was going to school, I think it was Hubba Bubba that supposedly had spider eggs in it.

00:33:37.620 And Jim Deska is saying there was no choice.

00:33:39.360 Yeah, Jim, I agree.

00:33:40.460 I think coercion isn't choice.

00:33:42.240 You see, I have always vehemently and regularly said that.

00:33:47.540 I've said it's wrong to make a person have to choose between keeping their job and getting a vaccination.

00:33:51.620 It's wrong to make a person choose between going to a school and getting a vaccination.

00:33:56.040 It's wrong to make a person choose between getting a vaccination and traveling to see friends, loved ones, or go to places or take part in sports.

00:34:02.880 I've always said all those things, Jim.

00:34:04.460 Yet when I talk about one thing you don't like, you say, are you a shill for big pharma?

00:34:08.100 Well, no, I'm not, Jim.

00:34:09.280 I don't have enough money for that.

00:34:11.000 But either way, it was a good discussion.

00:34:12.880 If you want to find more, you know, again, let's have the discussion.

00:34:15.320 That's what we're about.

00:34:17.060 It really is.

00:34:17.840 Don't have to agree with me.

00:34:18.620 As we see, lots of people often don't. 1.00

00:34:20.660 All right, let's discuss some of the other stupid crap going on out there. 1.00

00:34:23.540 There's always lots. 0.99

00:34:24.960 And we've had an interesting bill that's kind of making the news right now because it's not even so much what's in the bill, but the way the politics are being played around it that shows how sick and broken our government is.

00:34:36.140 So it's Bill C-234.

00:34:37.580 It was a private members bill.

00:34:38.700 And those things don't often actually make it all the way through.

00:34:43.420 And this one is a bill that would basically exempt farmers from the carbon tax for grain dryers, propane, things like that.

00:34:50.120 It's costing us.

00:34:50.800 It's costing all the way down to our food and everything else we get from our agricultural producers and the rest.

00:34:58.480 And this is a good bill.

00:35:00.440 And it passed, you know, and it says when it voted through Parliament, 176 in favor.

00:35:05.180 There were even a few Liberal MPs voted in favor of it.

00:35:07.660 You know, this is another carbon tax carve-out is what it would be.

00:35:10.440 Of course, every Conservative member did.

00:35:12.200 NDP and Block did as well.

00:35:13.400 And even the Green.

00:35:14.920 So it looked like this bill was going to make it through.

00:35:17.580 It was going to become another exemption for the carbon tax for our food producers.

00:35:22.340 It would save us some money getting food to the table.

00:35:24.480 Save our farmers some money.

00:35:26.740 Well, not quite.

00:35:28.420 What's happening now?

00:35:30.360 Trudeau's trying to stop it through the Senate.

00:35:33.220 So while he allowed it through Parliament, he couldn't stop it.

00:35:36.480 He's trying to stop it in the Senate.

00:35:38.460 And how is he doing it?

00:35:39.440 He's stacking the Senate.

00:35:40.780 He's appointed three more senators.

00:35:42.640 He just stuffs them in there.

00:35:43.860 And then, like little barking seals, they will vote however they're told.

00:35:47.840 And they see there's one of the BS's.

00:35:49.020 This isn't a conspiracy.

00:35:49.980 This is just a government lie.

00:35:51.640 Let's talk about that.

00:35:52.720 Oh, Liberal Senators are now independent.

00:35:54.520 Yeah, right.

00:35:55.220 Look at their behavior.

00:35:56.080 They will vote as they're told. 0.98

00:35:58.560 We saw that repeatedly with Paula Simons, who drives me nuts with her hypocrisy in there. 1.00

00:36:03.180 She's supposedly supposed to represent Albertans in the Senate. 1.00

00:36:06.160 And I tell you what, I really respect Simons because she did some fantastic columns on some of the terrible stuff in child welfare cases in Edmonton in the past when she was a journalist.

00:36:16.340 But once she got appointed to the Senate, she became Trudeau's little gal in there. 0.85

00:36:20.400 And she does what she's told, even though they say independent.

00:36:23.800 Well, these three new independent senators, how do you think they're going to vote on this carbon tax bill that's going through the Senate?

00:36:31.320 They're going to shut it out.

00:36:32.360 Now, this is my prediction.

00:36:33.520 It hasn't happened yet at this point.

00:36:35.000 But, guys, they're going to shut it down.

00:36:38.760 So, again, it shows the abuse and waste in our system.

00:36:42.500 I mean, the unelected, the totally appointed by Trudeau ones, those barking seals in Senate, will get to shut down a bill that's gone through every other level of Parliament because Justin doesn't want yet another embarrassment.

00:36:56.260 Like he can avoid them, right?

00:36:59.880 Let's see.

00:37:00.600 From Momzilla, a commenter saying the car explosion on the Peace Bridge.

00:37:03.440 Yeah, we talked about that earlier.

00:37:05.280 All bridges are closed while the FBI investigates.

00:37:07.880 Yeah.

00:37:08.060 So, for people watching live, I guess if you're Ontario, you're thinking of crossing the border, you aren't going to make it on any land crossings.

00:37:13.660 Probably, I'd bet, in the next couple of days when it's something this serious.

00:37:16.140 It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of that.

00:37:19.120 Paradox, he said triple E.

00:37:20.240 You know, there's a term that we don't hear often enough anymore, and that stood for, that was way back in the reform days.

00:37:26.080 That was the big call out.

00:37:27.140 There were farmers who carved that into fields out here in Western Canada.

00:37:31.080 It stands for Senate reform, which is equal, effective, and elected, which would mean, say, for example, I don't know, every province and territory got three senators each making it equal.

00:37:41.140 And if it was elected, they would be elected.

00:37:44.300 That E stands for itself.

00:37:45.680 They would become effective if those other two E's came about.

00:37:48.980 That would be automatic.

00:37:49.820 But as it is, it's just a pasture for old men and women for political patronage, where you get a huge salary, a lot of giant pension for it. 0.97

00:37:59.040 And it's an appointment.

00:37:59.700 You don't have to face the electorate for it.

00:38:01.800 And you just do what you're told by the government once you're in there.

00:38:06.100 Paradox, he's saying, I'd be surprised if there's any border crossings open.

00:38:08.040 Yeah, I don't know.

00:38:08.780 I don't know.

00:38:09.380 Any land crossings right now, they might be really, I imagine if they're open out here in the West or whatever, they're going really, really slowly.

00:38:15.980 So all I can recommend to people watching this live is, you know, check.

00:38:19.140 There's online things for border crossings.

00:38:21.160 Check with your news and things like that and make sure it is open for you.

00:38:27.140 Okay, let's see.

00:38:27.900 The latest polling, speaking of Trudeau, you can see the desperation.

00:38:31.060 And this is where we get dangerous in Canada.

00:38:32.560 It really does.

00:38:33.320 Trudeau's got his back against the wall.

00:38:35.080 I keep thinking, and he keeps proving me wrong.

00:38:37.240 I'm wrong sometimes.

00:38:38.140 I got to admit it.

00:38:38.780 And I know lots of people love to point it out when it happens.

00:38:41.020 But that dingbat will not back down.

00:38:43.940 He's in the toilet.

00:38:44.660 He's not going to come back. 0.99

00:38:46.280 The liberals are not going to win the next election under his inept leadership. 0.83

00:38:49.940 But he will not go. 0.77

00:38:51.600 And they are such a top-down, subservient party.

00:38:54.840 They won't rip him out of there.

00:38:56.180 And I'm just looking at these polling numbers.

00:38:58.280 If an election were held today, conservatives would take 208 seats.

00:39:04.540 The liberals would take 71.

00:39:06.280 That's a drop of almost 90 seats.

00:39:08.840 The bloc would probably be about the same.

00:39:11.000 The NDP about the same.

00:39:11.920 And the Green about the same.

00:39:13.000 Like, this is a collapse of support.

00:39:14.980 This is going in the toilet.

00:39:15.920 Now, someone, to be fair, though, we could be, unfortunately, still, because Jagmeet, you know, he knows he's as close to power as he's ever going to get.

00:39:23.060 He'll shore up this government no matter what.

00:39:25.480 But if he goes two more years, two more years in politics is a long time.

00:39:32.180 Warren Kinsella, a person a lot of us love to hate, but he can make some valid points.

00:39:35.700 He's worried that conservatives are peaking too fast.

00:39:37.640 It's one thing to be this strong in support right now.

00:39:39.740 But can you maintain that for two more years?

00:39:41.940 It's politics. 0.99

00:39:43.160 You're just all one, ah, crap, away from suddenly dropping again 20 points in the polls. 0.87

00:39:47.700 So the best time to be sitting in polls like this, of course, is a week or two before voting day, not potentially two years before it gets here. 0.90

00:39:54.660 All the same, they're really nice numbers to see because this is a government that clearly Canadians have had enough of.

00:40:01.300 And it's showing in those numbers.

00:40:03.760 It's just whether or not they'll last.

00:40:05.180 Now, and yeah, and again, as they get desperate, Trudeau's going to do more desperate things to try and turn that around.

00:40:13.540 I saw something on social media earlier today.

00:40:15.480 Well, I participated in it.

00:40:16.740 For those who follow me on Twitter or X as it is now, I had some clown coming after me saying I was a settler, right? 1.00

00:40:22.720 You know, I'm getting so sick and tired of that settler crap, that settler colonial crap. 1.00

00:40:28.120 And I retweeted with some words that I can't say on this show because we do run on some cable channels. 1.00

00:40:32.940 But I also said I'm not a settler.

00:40:34.600 I was born in Canada.

00:40:36.420 Cut it out. 1.00

00:40:37.300 It's ridiculous because it is ridiculous and it's divisive and it's stupid. 1.00

00:40:41.280 But either way, what got interesting for those who follow that type of social media, it went kind of viral. 0.99

00:40:47.100 His tweet at me, his ex at me, if you look at mine, Corey B. Morgan on X, Corey B. Morgan on Twitter, you'll find it through there.

00:40:54.760 It had, the last time I checked, over 350,000 impressions, his tweet.

00:40:59.580 And it had 100 likes.

00:41:01.220 That means of 350,000 people who saw what this tweet put out there about us being settlers, only one in 3,500 thought, yeah, you know, I agree with you. 0.99

00:41:10.520 And at that point, there were 1,200 people who took the time to say you're an idiot and responded to them. 0.99

00:41:16.360 It's called being ratioed on there. 1.00

00:41:18.520 But you see, the reason it makes me happy, that's a large sampling.

00:41:21.080 350,000 people is a lot of people. 1.00

00:41:24.520 We hear that stupid settler colonial language from academics. 1.00

00:41:28.900 We hear it from politicians. 1.00

00:41:30.140 We hear it from union leaders.

00:41:31.360 We hear it from activists.

00:41:32.560 And it sometimes gives the people the impression that this is a widespread point of view or that it's a reasonable one or it's large.

00:41:39.920 It's not.

00:41:40.760 It's only the view of the extreme.

00:41:42.480 And we've got to quit giving it credence.

00:41:44.600 It's way out there.

00:41:46.260 And it's wrong.

00:41:47.220 It's right up there with basically what this person was saying, because what he was saying, what he said in his tweet was that only everybody who isn't Métis, First Nations or Inuit, that's what he said.

00:41:57.400 They're all settlers automatically. 0.96

00:41:58.800 You're all settlers.

00:42:00.640 It's racism.

00:42:01.700 It's exactly what that is.

00:42:03.720 It's like anybody else saying, I got here first.

00:42:06.480 Go back where you came from.

00:42:07.600 We don't accept that from people when they say that to new Canadians or even worse when they say it to Canadians who were born here.

00:42:13.620 But they appear that they may be new Canadians.

00:42:15.860 Yes, we're getting down to race again, guys.

00:42:18.120 We don't accept people saying, go back where you came from in that case, because it is.

00:42:21.140 It's bigoted.

00:42:21.800 It's wrong.

00:42:23.260 But we accept it when it comes from these hammerheads calling people settlers, even if they'd had three, four generations of family here.

00:42:31.160 And how is that helping our society?

00:42:32.720 How is that helping them?

00:42:33.680 But you see, it drives into, again, this was coming from a First Nations person, that sense of victimhood. 0.99

00:42:39.240 Everything and anything wrong in my life is the settler's fault. 1.00

00:42:42.300 It couldn't be me.

00:42:43.320 It couldn't be that I didn't get out of bed in time to go to work.

00:42:46.660 It couldn't be that I didn't invest my money wisely.

00:42:50.620 Look, the victim mentality holds people down.

00:42:55.000 People really have been victims of things a lot of times.

00:42:57.940 Absolutely.

00:42:58.300 But when you mire yourself in it, when you turn yourself into a chronic victim, there's a, Nico's been pulling out, yeah, the tweet, look at that, you know, 350,000 views.

00:43:09.360 But when you turn yourself into that victim, you can't crawl out of it.

00:43:12.300 You become a self-defeating person.

00:43:14.540 And this settler stuff is not helping anybody at all. 0.64

00:43:20.060 I mean, let's look at, for an example, again, the Chinese.

00:43:23.180 The Chinese were treated horrifically in Canada, terribly.

00:43:27.100 Brought in for cheap labor to build a railway, abused under terrible working conditions, separated from their families, paid next to nothing.

00:43:36.240 I mean, it was this close to being literal slave labor.

00:43:39.120 And then when the railway was done, they found themselves on the West Coast.

00:43:42.700 They were abused.

00:43:43.440 There were practical pogroms.

00:43:44.620 They were stuffed onto ships and deported. 1.00

00:43:46.540 They were treated like crap. 0.99

00:43:49.100 And there's been a lot of apologies for that treatment from the government and things since then. 0.99

00:43:52.320 But look at the Chinese community today.

00:43:54.660 Did they mire themselves in the victimhood because of that abuse?

00:43:57.760 No.

00:43:58.340 They, in fact, got the best revenge they could by succeeding.

00:44:02.260 The Asian community in Canada is doing fantastic.

00:44:04.860 If you look at statistically, if we're looking at ethnic breakdowns for high levels of education, high levels of compensation, business ownership, all of those measures, the Chinese are doing, you know, of generations in Canada, doing fantastic.

00:44:17.860 Because they didn't roll over themselves and say we're victims and we're just going to piss and moan about it for the rest of our lives.

00:44:24.080 They got up and kept working.

00:44:25.180 And I really, really respect them for that.

00:44:27.860 Likewise with Japanese Canadians. 0.86

00:44:29.500 If you go down to southern Alberta, there's a really cool thing you'll see out there.

00:44:32.640 Southeast Alberta, lots of people with Japanese last names with an Asian appearance, yet they're farmers.

00:44:38.100 And they talk with a southern Alberta prairie accent because they've been there for generations.

00:44:42.680 But the reason they're down there by Tabor and Tilly and all those areas is because there was a great big internment camp in World War II. 0.86

00:44:51.420 The Japanese were screwed. 1.00

00:44:52.500 We stole their property. 1.00

00:44:54.020 Or I won't say we.

00:44:54.800 I don't, that's a term I should stop using when it comes to the government at that time, stole their property, stuffed them in there and kept them in those camps till the end of the war.

00:45:03.300 When the war was over, they basically said, okay, you're all free now.

00:45:05.440 Goodbye.

00:45:05.680 They didn't even give them rides back to Vancouver where they took them from.

00:45:08.060 So they were basically walking around the prairies.

00:45:09.700 So they started working sugar beet farms as laborers and worked their butts off. 0.93

00:45:14.780 And since then, the people, the descendants of them are very strong.

00:45:19.000 Community members have large farms, businesses, a presence down there in southeast Alberta.

00:45:23.300 Same thing.

00:45:23.860 They didn't mire themselves in their victimhood.

00:45:26.020 They were very mistreated, very wronged.

00:45:28.180 And there have been apologies for it.

00:45:30.520 But they didn't leave themselves stuck there. 0.92

00:45:33.240 So when we take on this settler colonial crap, and we keep blaming anything and everything, well, we don't, but some people do, anything and everything wrong in their lives with the settlers and with the colonials. 0.98

00:45:42.680 And we're seeing it, of course, when it comes to Israel, too, but that's a separate discussion altogether. 0.99

00:45:46.260 It's self-defeating.

00:45:47.520 And it's just bringing everybody down and dividing us from each other.

00:45:51.060 It's not helping anybody.

00:45:53.280 So let's cut it out. 0.99

00:45:54.540 Either way, I was very happy to see such a strong majority of people rejecting this ding-dong when he claimed that settler crap. 0.98

00:46:00.780 People aren't taking it. 0.99

00:46:01.840 Canadians are smarter than these extremists give us credit for.

00:46:05.300 And you know what?

00:46:06.740 You know, Mr. Stanley saying everything's racist today.

00:46:09.640 Yeah, it feels like it.

00:46:10.180 And that's why some people don't speak up.

00:46:11.480 They fear being labeled with that because it's a terrible thing to be labeled with.

00:46:14.340 But when it comes to this settler colonial stuff, speak up, push back, tell them to get stuffed. 0.98

00:46:18.980 The majority is on your side.

00:46:20.840 All right.

00:46:21.300 That's all the time I've got today, guys.

00:46:24.080 Thank you for coming in today.

00:46:25.280 Even if I worked up all you guys and your conspiracy things, email me if you're mad about it.

00:46:29.380 We can chat about it further.

00:46:30.860 Be sure, again, to take out a subscription with the Western Standard if you haven't already.

00:46:36.060 Watch for the pipeline that's going to be coming on a little later.

00:46:38.900 And yeah, watch for those top stories.

00:46:40.180 There's a lot of stuff developing and unfolding as we speak right now.

00:46:42.980 So thank you again for tuning in.

00:46:44.500 We will see you all again next week at this time.

00:46:47.820 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

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00:46:54.360 These guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:47:01.580 And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

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00:47:10.120 We'll see you all again next week.

00:47:40.120 We'll see you all again next week.

00:47:40.880 We'll see you all again next week.

00:47:42.940 We'll see you all again next week.

Western Standard - November 22, 2023

CMS： Free media is essential to democracy.

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