Western Standard - Matthew Horwood speaks to Élie Cantin-Nantel from True North

00:00:00.000 This is Matthew Horwood reporting once again live from the Strong and Free Conference.

00:00:03.620 I'm here with Eli from True North News.

00:00:06.200 Eli, how are you doing today?

00:00:07.440 I'm doing great. How are you?

00:00:08.520 I'm doing pretty good.

00:00:09.600 Eli, could you talk a little bit about what your history is,

00:00:12.780 how you got into journalism, why you wanted to become a journalist?

00:00:15.260 What's your story?

00:00:16.280 Well, I actually never had becoming a journalist in mind until pretty recently.

00:00:21.120 I've been wanting to be a lawyer for most of my life,

00:00:23.400 and I'm still planning to get a law degree.

00:00:25.420 But I discovered journalism more than a year ago,

00:00:29.160 actually during the last leadership race.

00:00:31.060 We were all in quarantine.

00:00:32.960 So having nothing to do, I decided to reach out to the leadership candidates,

00:00:35.980 started my own podcast.

00:00:37.040 And after that, I began writing a few columns here and there

00:00:40.180 for some independent sites and got a job later with the Postmillennial,

00:00:43.660 which is another one of Canada's independent write-of-centred media channels.

00:00:48.540 And, you know, most of my work there was mostly just like punditry

00:00:51.200 or very short writing.

00:00:52.120 And when I started at True North back in January,

00:00:54.560 I really got to see what like full-on journalism,

00:00:57.760 and when you actually like put, you know, a lot of work into developing such a unique story

00:01:03.520 and give you, you know, such a nice objective take to it.

00:01:06.540 And I've really just discovered a love and passion for it.

00:01:09.760 And it's been great to be here as a journalist.

00:01:11.820 I find being at these conferences as a journalist is much more fun

00:01:14.620 than just being there as an attendee.

00:01:17.440 Absolutely.

00:01:17.920 You're right about that.

00:01:18.760 So you've been at True North since the beginning of 2022.

00:01:22.200 Is that about correct?

00:01:23.220 Yes, exactly.

00:01:23.800 Can you tell me about why you decided to move from over to True North News?

00:01:28.460 What made you make the switch?

00:01:29.560 So I've always had a great love for True North.

00:01:32.780 Actually, when I got started with my, you can say, my political career with my podcast,

00:01:38.160 the first interview I ever did was with Candice Malcolm on the Candice Malcolm show of True North.

00:01:42.780 Candice Malcolm is now my boss.

00:01:44.620 She's an amazing woman.

00:01:45.520 So I've always had this, like, kind of soft spot for True North.

00:01:49.340 I've always appreciated the work they do.

00:01:51.320 I've always seen them as probably, you know, one of the greatest news outlets in Canada.

00:01:55.980 And I'm not just saying that because I work there.

00:01:57.480 I genuinely believe that True North does amazing work.

00:01:59.720 So when I was looking for a new job because I used to work in politics

00:02:02.880 and I wanted a break from that is I just reached out to them and they hired me

00:02:10.260 and I couldn't be more happy about that.

00:02:12.880 That's awesome.

00:02:13.640 Now, I understand that you covered the Freedom Convoy back in the beginning of the year

00:02:16.640 and you also covered the Rolling Thunder rally that happened a weekend ago.

00:02:19.880 Could you tell me about your experience at these events?

00:02:22.840 And, you know, was it portrayed accurately by the more mainstream media?

00:02:27.600 Well, absolutely not.

00:02:28.920 The legacy media for the convoy, I think, exposed itself and its bias that it had.

00:02:32.620 I mean, before the truckers even got there, they were pushing stories.

00:02:36.120 Like, CBC, I believe, was pushing a story about it being Russian interfered or something.

00:02:40.500 And that was just plainly false.

00:02:42.700 I'll give you an example of how inaccurate the media was.

00:02:45.300 I've learned in one of my university courses that there's, like, a concept of reality versus media reality.

00:02:50.640 And I was busy during the week, so I wasn't down at the convoy reporting,

00:02:53.400 but I was watching mostly the legacy media because that's, you know, when it comes to local news,

00:02:57.100 that's usually all we have.

00:02:58.940 And I had the feeling that, okay, from last weekend where I was there,

00:03:03.520 everything was nice and peaceful.

00:03:04.680 It must have just gone downhill.

00:03:06.020 And I was going on a Friday night expecting it to be completely sketchy.

00:03:08.900 And I get there, and there's barbecues, and there's dancing,

00:03:12.280 and there's just such a friendly vibe.

00:03:14.280 There's bouncy castles, too.

00:03:15.240 Exactly.

00:03:15.680 There's bouncy castles.

00:03:16.560 The people, so many friendly people, and, you know, I interviewed a lot of people.

00:03:20.880 Some people didn't want to go on camera, but they were still so friendly.

00:03:22.860 And this was so misrepresented.

00:03:26.620 This was a peaceful protest.

00:03:29.000 It was overall, I believe it was mostly a lawful protest.

00:03:33.100 There's always going to be a few bad apples, and there were a few bad apples.

00:03:36.280 But overall, the majority of people that came to this event,

00:03:39.520 they didn't come to terrorize the people of Ottawa.

00:03:43.200 They came because they had their rights taken away for the last two years

00:03:46.880 and with all these mandates.

00:03:48.180 And people simply had enough.

00:03:49.680 I mean, to give you a perspective, when the Freedom Convoy started in Ottawa,

00:03:53.000 we were in a lockdown.

00:03:54.640 And look at us now.

00:03:56.700 No masks, no social distancing.

00:04:00.380 I do believe that the convoy influenced, had great influence in the policy of Canada,

00:04:06.980 which went from one of the most regressive to joining the rest of the world

00:04:10.220 and letting people get back to their lives.

00:04:12.380 It did likely make a difference.

00:04:13.480 And that was my experience, too, covering the Freedom Convoy, being on the ground,

00:04:16.720 was that it was portrayed a bit differently from how it actually was.

00:04:20.040 Now, the Rolling Thunder, we were both there for that.

00:04:22.740 You saw on the Friday night it got a little chaotic, a little out of control.

00:04:26.060 But what were your thoughts on what happened Friday night

00:04:28.400 when all the convoys showed up and there was a police action?

00:04:31.720 Well, I was actually surprised because during the Freedom Convoy,

00:04:36.280 a so-called worst-case scenario had never happened.

00:04:39.220 This was completely, from what I've heard, unpredicted.

00:04:40.920 Nobody was expecting that.

00:04:42.160 I was actually, that stepped off.

00:04:44.800 I was on the hill before I moved to Rideau Street,

00:04:47.780 and I had to go and upload some stuff to my social media.

00:04:51.520 I come back, they're gone.

00:04:52.840 And so I run down, and I see them, like, marching down to the hill,

00:04:55.820 and there was a convoy.

00:04:56.860 It gave me this type of, like, nostalgia.

00:04:59.080 It just felt like the Freedom Convoy.

00:05:00.640 It did feel exactly like that.

00:05:01.800 We weren't freaking our hands off.

00:05:03.120 But, like, there was beep, beep, beep, beep.

00:05:04.940 And I'll tell you what was so funny was that there were people

00:05:08.120 who had gone into the mall when everything was normal,

00:05:10.540 and they came out to that.

00:05:12.420 And their looks on their face was priceless.

00:05:15.820 They were absolutely bewildered.

00:05:16.880 It was so funny.

00:05:17.620 They were not expecting that.

00:05:18.960 So I think, in that sense, I think, for the people of Ottawa

00:05:22.040 that maybe weren't too happy about the convoy coming back,

00:05:24.380 that, you know, it wasn't a strong point.

00:05:26.580 And what I think was a little disappointing is some of the people resisted

00:05:29.460 when the police came, and that's why the police had to tow away vehicles.

00:05:31.580 I mean, that's a little – but apart from that Friday night drama,

00:05:35.120 I thought overall, from my personal observation,

00:05:38.060 that the event had pretty much – it went out pretty well,

00:05:41.680 and they did what they had to do.

00:05:42.580 They had their memorial service.

00:05:43.760 The police, I thought, did a great job at facilitating the bike rally.

00:05:48.220 For all the criticism the Ottawa police gets,

00:05:50.480 I do think that overall, you know, they did a pretty fair job.

00:05:55.620 I think there were definitely a lot of police there.

00:05:58.460 I took a video.

00:05:59.480 It was insane.

00:06:00.080 But overall, I think I was glad to see them facilitate this bike rally.

00:06:04.360 I'd have to agree with you.

00:06:05.180 It could have gone a lot worse.

00:06:06.460 Now, you're reporting for True North News.

00:06:08.940 Could you talk about what your beats are,

00:06:10.400 what you tend to focus on when you're writing your stories?

00:06:13.360 Absolutely.

00:06:14.040 So one of my advantages for our company is that I am fully bilingual.

00:06:20.100 I'm French-Canadian.

00:06:20.880 So when I started, this was right in the middle of Quebec putting in place some of the harshest restrictions in the Western world.

00:06:29.160 They had a vaccine passport that was banning unvaccinated Quebecers from buying groceries at Walmart and Costco,

00:06:37.120 which tend to be places where groceries are cheaper and they're relied on by less low-income people.

00:06:41.960 So I did a lot of coverage about Quebec and there was all these scandals around the curfew and it not having a lot of scientific evidence behind it.

00:06:48.720 So I've been focusing on that.

00:06:50.080 I've covered a bit of federal politics.

00:06:51.800 I was on Parliament Hill for the budget to cover budget 2022.

00:06:56.120 And recently, I've also been doing a lot, of course, I did the convoy and I've been doing a lot more video stuff lately

00:07:03.500 because I find that's another way to get our audience to engage with our content.

00:07:09.060 Absolutely.

00:07:10.100 Now, here in alternative media, we tend to give the CBC and mainstream news a bad rap

00:07:15.300 and say that they're being biased and they're not covering all aspects of the story.

00:07:18.140 But you know as well as I do that it can be very difficult to present a non-biased, accurate story and have all sides being told.

00:07:24.000 Could you talk a little bit about what your strategy is for ensuring that the information is getting out there

00:07:28.480 but it's not biased towards one side and it's fair and accurate reporting?

00:07:31.880 Well, that's a very good question and thanks for asking that.

00:07:34.800 Look, I used to be a conservative staffer back in the day.

00:07:38.500 Now I'm no longer, of course, True North.

00:07:41.600 What's good about True North is that we are a legal charity.

00:07:45.140 So True North is a non-partisan organization.

00:07:47.800 Nobody that works at True North is partisan or we do not support as an organization any political candidate.

00:07:52.780 On our programming, we actually have different conservatives on.

00:07:56.660 We've had Maxime Bernier and then the leader of the conservative party.

00:07:59.600 We talk to everyone.

00:08:00.920 We were – what I do personally is that I have basically cut most of my partisan ties.

00:08:08.740 Probably all of them because as much as I can trust myself to be a neutralist, it's out of a matter of principle.

00:08:15.600 I don't feel comfortable walking into parliament or into my role as a journalist with partisan ties.

00:08:21.760 So I've mostly cut – I've cut my partisan ties and I really try to write a story and I – if I have biases – because we all have biases.

00:08:30.220 I always try to get – to make sure that I am aware of what my biases are going into a story so that by the time the story is done, the biases are removed.

00:08:39.260 Because we, as independent media at True North, we tell – we don't just tell the other side of the story.

00:08:45.200 We tell the whole story.

00:08:46.540 So we want – you know, our readers might not always like what we have to report, but it's the truth and we're here to report the truth.

00:08:52.620 That's a good strategy.

00:08:53.820 Now, you were here yesterday or last night for the conservative debates.

00:08:57.040 Could I get your thoughts on what you thought of it?

00:08:59.540 Do you think anybody really came out on top?

00:09:02.080 Was there anybody you were surprised with their performance or thought they could have done a little bit better?

00:09:06.080 And also, I'm going to hand this off to you and have you hold it because my – sure.

00:09:09.280 Fair enough, fair enough.

00:09:10.740 I mean, the debate was – it was good to have a debate.

00:09:13.600 I'm a big fan of debates.

00:09:14.740 I think we should have as many debates as possible because I'm a big fan – a big person of ideas.

00:09:19.460 I think it's good to talk about different ideas.

00:09:22.380 The – it was entertaining last night.

00:09:24.200 Pierre Polyèvre and Jean Charest went after each other and I think that could replace most comedians, honestly, nowadays.

00:09:30.640 The person who really, I think – and this is not just me, I've heard this from a lot of people – is Roman Barber.

00:09:35.540 Really did a good job.

00:09:36.740 And I know Roman personally and I think he's a very – he's a very strong and very principled politician.

00:09:43.500 But I think that most people who maybe didn't know that were kind of surprised by his performance.

00:09:49.920 Leslyne Lewis came off as very powerful.

00:09:52.640 Like, she talked with a lot of conviction.

00:09:54.380 And, of course, Pierre Polyèvre just knows how to deal with a crowd.

00:09:58.380 I would say that the loser probably would be Patrick Brown.

00:10:02.380 And he sent an email this morning calling it a debate, quote-unquote.

00:10:05.980 And, like, if you're – what we were saying, like, if you are scared of being in a room full of Conservatives, what does that say about becoming leader of the Conservative Party?

00:10:15.360 I failed to see the strategy.

00:10:17.400 Peter McKay tried this strategy.

00:10:18.780 He ran away from independent media.

00:10:20.160 He was the only candidate that refused to do an interview with True North.

00:10:23.100 He was the only candidate who didn't speak on my podcast.

00:10:25.200 It failed.

00:10:27.120 And the fact of the matter is if you want to get the support of a partisan base, like the Conservative base, you've got to talk to the medias that that base listens to.

00:10:37.060 And that tends to be right-of-centre, independent media.

00:10:39.880 Actually, it was a strange strategy from Patrick Brown.

00:10:43.260 And you saw that the debate moderators even called him out and gave the candidates an opportunity to have a free shot at him, which is quite unfortunate.

00:10:49.760 Unfortunately, I will add, I was disappointed that the candidates didn't address – so, you know, Candace asked about Aaron O'Toole and we were asked about Patrick Brown.

00:10:58.360 Most of the candidates kind of skated around the issue.

00:11:01.280 Like, I would have liked to see every candidate admit why Aaron O'Toole lost.

00:11:04.420 And the reason why Aaron O'Toole lost was because he became more progressive and that alienated the base.

00:11:10.380 And I was out in Alberta and I saw it from my own eyes.

00:11:13.100 People were turned off.

00:11:15.100 And when you alienate the base, your base splits.

00:11:17.580 And that's why the PPC gained.

00:11:19.280 So, I would have liked personally to see candidates address that.

00:11:24.000 I know in politics you have to be polite and stuff.

00:11:25.760 But at the end of the day, if you are going to run, I think, and be the leader of the party, you have to talk about the flaws.

00:11:32.620 Absolutely.

00:11:32.980 We did see the last election how you need to stick to your convictions and be, once you become elected as leader, what you said you're going to be.

00:11:39.540 And that was, unfortunately, why Aaron O'Toole did not do very well.

00:11:44.160 Any other thoughts on the debate last night or what you'd like – perhaps, like, what you'd like to see asked at future debates, what you'd like to see discussed?

00:11:52.640 I would – actually, the one issue that I think we need to talk about is life issues.

00:11:58.500 I think there's a lot of opportunity to present good pro-life policy that's not without restricting any woman's rights. 0.99

00:12:06.900 I think – I mean, I hold a position personally that I think, looking on policies, you could probably reduce a large – the rate of abortion without banning it.

00:12:15.520 And so I think it would be cool to see conservative candidates maybe talk about that.

00:12:19.280 I would like to see more about accountability.

00:12:21.520 The next leader of the Conservative Party, I think, if the party is going to avoid another O'Toole situation, I think they have to have a mechanism in place so that there's an automatic leadership review within six months of an election loss if that were to happen.

00:12:37.440 Because, like, Aaron O'Toole, the way he went down hurt the party.

00:12:42.400 It hurt the party.

00:12:43.260 It hurt unity.

00:12:44.240 To have caucus kick out someone like that, and you had some people in the caucus supporting him, some not, that's bad for unity.

00:12:50.380 So I think whoever becomes the next leader has to have some accountability mechanisms in place to ensure we don't end up in this – the party doesn't end up in that type of situation.

00:13:00.520 Absolutely.

00:13:01.040 I do think we will see some more discussion about abortion in the future, now that it's a timely subject.

00:13:04.920 We saw a little bit about that with Leslyn Lewis, and she called Pierre Polyev out for not being clear on his abortion position.

00:13:10.160 But, unfortunately, we moved on.

00:13:11.400 We didn't get to see him clarify that.

00:13:13.480 For sure.

00:13:13.880 No, I agree.

00:13:14.380 It would be nice for Pierre Polyev, who, from my memory, I think he used to have an almost perfect or perfect pro-life voting record, and he kind of abandoned that.

00:13:24.840 And I would like to see.

00:13:26.080 So has his views actually evolved?

00:13:27.640 I mean, people are allowed to have their views evolved.

00:13:29.440 But if the issue is, if he has abandoned these principles just to get elected, I think there's a credibility problem there.

00:13:37.700 It's like, if you're willing to abandon that, what else are you willing to abandon?

00:13:41.240 For sure.

00:13:41.760 I think he's likely testing in waters at this point, and he doesn't want to attach himself to a position that will end up being unpopular in a general election.

00:13:47.800 It's all in flux right now.

00:13:48.960 You have to be careful.

00:13:49.820 This issue is so, and it's unfortunate the way that the left is so capitalized on this issue that, like, you're not even allowed to have a, like, nuanced conversation about it anymore.

00:13:59.560 And, I mean, to be quite honest, I don't know what's the future, but I don't want to see people be forced to censor themselves against defending something that, you know, is strong, a strong conviction of theirs.

00:14:13.360 For sure.

00:14:14.940 Very touchy subject.

00:14:16.000 Not black and white.

00:14:16.960 I don't tend to personally like to talk too much about it, given that I don't have a womb.

00:14:20.340 But there definitely is a lot of nuance to it and a lot of different positions that need to be heard out, and the debates and discussions need to be had on that.

00:14:27.640 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:28.400 Yeah.

00:14:28.820 Anything else you'd like to add about the work you're doing at True North News before we wrap up here?

00:14:33.960 Well, I mean, if you support us at True North, you can make a donation and receive a tax credit.

00:14:39.160 We are a charity.

00:14:39.840 Every dollar that you give to True North goes towards supporting our independent journalism.

00:14:45.720 And, yeah, continue supporting us or supporting outlets like the Western Standard and Rebel News and others.

00:14:51.520 Like, independent media has done so much, I think, for Canada in the last few years, but especially in the last few months.

00:14:58.700 And I think if you support our work, please support us financially or share us with your friends and make sure that more people see the work we do.

00:15:07.620 For sure.

00:15:09.480 Well, there you have it, Eli of True North News, one of the Western Standard's allies in alternative right-leaning news networks.

00:15:15.520 Eli, thank you for coming on the show.

00:15:16.420 Thank you very much.

00:15:16.940 Thanks for having me.

00:15:17.460 Thank you.

Western Standard - May 06, 2022

Matthew Horwood speaks to Élie Cantin-Nantel from True North

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