Spencer Fernando on authoritarianism & liberal elites
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
220.81798
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with journalist and author Spencer Fernando to discuss his article "The authoritarian arrogance of the liberal elites" and why we should all be worried about it. We discuss the role of the media, the establishment, and the idea that we are supposed to be a place where we are allowed to question authority.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
authoritarian arrogance of the liberal elites. I mean, how could I not be drawn to a title like
00:00:05.980
that? And you only expanded further from there. Can you kind of start off in a nutshell what that
00:00:12.580
column was about, Spencer? Yeah, the idea was, you know, we're seeing how angry, you know,
00:00:17.760
the, as you could call it, the establishment media and many people in the government get
00:00:22.140
when, you know, Pierre Polyev says, oh, he's going to, you know, fire the Bank of Canada
00:00:27.360
governor, you know, anyone who even criticizes the Bank of Canada, even before he said that,
00:00:31.920
people were losing their minds over that. And, you know, it's kind of the attitude of, you know,
00:00:36.360
here's a group of people who have a lot of power, you know, the Bank of Canada has tremendous power
00:00:40.480
to influence, you know, our economy or way of life. They can devalue our currency, which means they
00:00:46.200
can make the money you earn worth less. So that's a massive impact. That's tremendous power, far more
00:00:51.140
than really anyone else in this country has. And so the idea that somehow they should be, you know,
00:00:55.840
protected from criticism or protected from accountability is really antithetical to
00:01:00.360
democracy. And I think it's, that's what I mean by the authoritarian attitude where it's, you know,
00:01:06.100
in authoritarian countries like China, no one would dare question the government because, oh, the
00:01:09.760
government is above you. The government's better than you. Now, the people in the Communist Party,
00:01:13.260
they're, they're the elites and they control, you know, how your life is going to be and you should
00:01:17.760
know your place and you shouldn't question them. Now, we're not supposed to be an authoritarian
00:01:21.440
country. We're supposed to be a place where people are allowed to question authority, where
00:01:25.280
we encourage people to question authority because we're supposed to believe that authority is
00:01:29.100
accountable to the people and can be influenced and controlled by the people. And so it's very
00:01:34.900
concerning to see a lot of people in the media and in the political establishment who seem to
00:01:39.880
somehow think that certain institutions should be just free from credit, from being accountable and
00:01:45.780
Well, yeah, and that was something that was really quite something to see them line up.
00:01:50.780
And again, I'll get a, because you had another column on your own side, Spencer Fernando, about
00:01:54.160
the media, because I mean, that's part of the establishment as well. And they were horrified that
00:01:59.100
somebody dared criticize the head of the Bank of Canada. I mean, you could disagree with whether or
00:02:04.080
not the critique was accurate or founded, but it was the ability to even criticize that they were so
00:02:10.360
mortified about. And that's distressing. I mean, no position in this country is above critique.
00:02:17.040
Yeah, I mean, you'd like to think it's that way, but it seems that a lot of people in the
00:02:21.220
establishment don't believe that. And that's quite concerning to see. And I think it's interesting
00:02:25.060
you're seeing it's not just the liberals and the media, but within the conservative leadership race
00:02:29.320
itself, you know, Jean Charest, Patrick Brown, they've echoed a lot of those criticisms of Pierre
00:02:34.360
Polly. So I think that's an attitude that some within the conservative party have as well, which should be
00:02:38.460
quite concerning to people. You know, we're not going to be a free and democratic country for long.
00:02:43.800
You know, for some people, obviously, we're not a free country. But, you know, we're not going to
00:02:46.980
maintain any freedom or democracy for long if we kind of accept that kind of attitude, that here's
00:02:51.320
the people who are in a higher class than you. They run the country, they get to control how things are,
00:02:55.880
and you don't get to criticize. And that's the opposite of what Canada's supposed to be.
00:03:00.660
Yeah, well, there shouldn't be any sacred cows. I mean, the people have pointed to some of these very
00:03:05.000
high positions within the country, and they're appointed. That's one of the areas where we have
00:03:09.480
difficulties with the democratic ability. We should at least then be able to openly critique them or
00:03:15.300
support them. But I mean, when you when you say it's beyond that, then we start to get worried,
00:03:19.160
you know, and how are we supposed to hold them to account if we can't even mention them?
00:03:24.000
Yeah, it's there's obviously a double standard. I mean, Justin Trudeau has been undermining confidence
00:03:28.240
in institutions for quite some time, obviously, with the SNC-Lavalin controversy. You know,
00:03:32.860
he's had no problem interfering with the justice system. We saw what he did to Jody Wilson-Raybould.
00:03:37.540
So, you know, much of the media was fine to give him mostly a free pass for that. But all of a
00:03:40.800
sudden, Pierre Polyev talks about the Bank of Canada, and people go crazy. I think part of it
00:03:44.900
might be that much of the media doesn't really understand how the monetary system works. They
00:03:48.720
don't understand how inflation and money printing are linked. So to them, it's just all incomprehensible.
00:03:53.820
And they hear Polyev talking about this. Well, I don't understand this. So I guess it must be
00:03:57.200
something dangerous and terrible. So they kind of go crazy in that way. So, you know, I think
00:04:02.820
I think we need to always maintain the spirit of questioning institutions, criticizing those in
00:04:07.580
power, and not not putting people on a pedestal just because they have a temporary position in
00:04:14.000
Yeah, so I'll kind of pivot to your own piece, you know, on your own site there that you've written,
00:04:19.800
and that's where the media holds the opposition accountable. And politicians are blaming the public
00:04:24.460
for anger and division. You know, one of the roles, even if you didn't have an effective,
00:04:28.400
necessarily of elected opposition, or if there's problems, the media used to always be there to at
00:04:33.660
least, you know, dig in on stories, look into things. But they do seem to spend more time going
00:04:38.640
after the frontrunners in the Conservative Party race than they're looking at the government or the
00:04:43.800
agreement between them and Jagmeet Singh right now.
00:04:47.600
Yeah, I think much of that was really inevitable when it got to the point where the government
00:04:52.320
subsidizes much of the media. I mean, you're going to have you're going to be influenced by whoever pays
00:04:56.100
your bills, there's no real way around that. So if the government's paying your bills as a media
00:05:00.600
institution, well, you're probably going to, you know, want to keep that government in power.
00:05:04.940
And it's not just government versus, you know, critics of the government. It's the fact that the
00:05:08.560
Conservative Party is much less likely in government to give that kind of money to the media, the media
00:05:13.200
knows that, so they have a financial interest in keeping the Conservatives out of power and keeping
00:05:17.340
the Liberal, you know, NDP coalition or PAC, whatever you want to call it, in power. And then, of course,
00:05:23.100
the way, you know, there was the response to, you know, people yelling at Jagmeet Singh. I don't think
00:05:27.020
that was appropriate behavior. I don't think, you know, acting towards someone like that is
00:05:30.720
acceptable. I'm not a fan of Jagmeet Singh, but it's still important to remember if you're talking
00:05:34.620
about a human being, you know, a husband and a father. So, you know, trying to say some of the
00:05:39.120
things people said about it. Screaming at somebody, you're not going to influence anybody by screaming
00:05:42.400
at them. But the way the media coverage is, is they act as if none of that has any underlying cause
00:05:48.420
a reason, right? The politicians are allowed to say anything they want about unvaccinated people,
00:05:53.380
about people in the freedom convoy. They can, they can demonize people, you know, call them Nazis and
00:05:57.380
racists and bigots. But then when people get angry at politicians, it's, oh, that's that we have to draw
00:06:01.760
the line there. That's unacceptable. So I think we need to have a more holistic view of things and
00:06:06.820
realize people don't just get angry at politicians for no reason. Someone doesn't just wake up and say,
00:06:11.680
I'm going to, I'm angry at politicians today, just randomly, right? If people are struggling
00:06:15.940
financially, that's a big reason. If people have been demonized by politicians in the government,
00:06:20.180
that's a big reason. So I think it's disingenuous to just act as if it's just the only issue is the
00:06:25.160
anger of politicians without asking where a lot of that anger comes from, and the responsibility
00:06:29.160
politicians have in generating the conditions that led to that anger. Yeah, they've been doing a lot of,
00:06:35.320
I mean, you know, if you want to look for the source of division, you should be looking at the top
00:06:38.520
rather than the bottom. But we've got it backwards. Another piece I see you called out our public
00:06:44.140
safety minister, which was great, because as you pointed out, I mean, these are things that media
00:06:48.820
needs to be looking at. I mean, you've got to record this. Your average citizen doesn't necessarily
00:06:52.620
watch all these committee meetings or these things that they're saying. But this fellow, as you said,
00:06:56.740
he keeps spreading misinformation and purposely and blatantly and repeatedly. But he's not getting
00:07:02.820
held accountable for this. I mean, where do you stop these guys from spreading BS like this?
00:07:08.660
Yeah, I think it's a good reason, you know, why people are so concerned about the government trying to
00:07:13.380
control social media and the internet, because they're not going to use that to objectively,
00:07:17.100
you know, censor disinformation. They're just going to use it to censor their critics. Because
00:07:20.860
Marco Menegino, he goes to the committee and says, oh, well, we had Freedom Convoy supporters and
00:07:25.680
members who were, you know, setting fire to buildings. Well, no, the police have said twice now that those
00:07:30.920
incidents had nothing to do with Freedom Convoy supporters. Even some of the media, the government
00:07:35.720
likes it. CBC even had to report and kind of edit one of their reports and say, oh, you know,
00:07:40.440
we were wrong and had nothing to do with the Freedom Convoy whatsoever. And then Marco
00:07:44.700
Menegino, obviously knowing that, he knows that it's been, it's been, you know, debunked,
00:07:49.780
you could say. He goes there and says it anyway, I guess, because he thought it would get him a good
00:07:53.540
soundbiter because he thought it would be politically beneficial. And that's spreading
00:07:57.260
disinformation. That's misinformation, you know. So where's his ban? Where's his censorship? Of
00:08:02.320
course, it's not going to be used against him because he's in the government, not a critic of the
00:08:06.160
government. So I think it also shows why independent media is so important, why what we're doing is so
00:08:10.980
important, because much of the media, they don't want to call the government to liars. They don't
00:08:15.200
want to point out that Mendocino is spreading disinformation. And so they'll just, you know,
00:08:19.060
they'll just give it a pass. They'll either not cover it or kind of, you know, give it a nice spin.
00:08:22.620
So we need people doing what we're doing, which is actually exposing the truth.
00:08:26.840
Yeah, well, and that's it. I mean, if any conservative politician had misrepresented the tragedy of the
00:08:32.960
Mark Lapine slaughter of women, you know, for political points, that conservative politician
00:08:39.200
rightly would be just, you know, pilloried by the media and other politicians. Yet the public safety
00:08:45.000
minister used that completely off base and wrong. And again, aside from, you know, Andrew Lawton and
00:08:51.520
yourself and some other alternative media, he got away with it.
00:08:56.060
Yeah. And again, that's the double standard that I think a lot of people are upset about. And, you know,
00:09:00.400
to go back to the conservative leadership race, you know, you're seeing in response to, you know,
00:09:05.400
the horrific event that happened in the United States and Buffalo, you're seeing people trying
00:09:09.080
to score political points against Pierre Polyev now, you know, people tweeting things out about,
00:09:14.020
you know, oh, well, Pat King expressed a similar view as to the gunman in the United States.
00:09:20.420
And Pat King had a link to the Freedom Convoy. And didn't Pierre Polyev say he supported the Freedom
00:09:24.780
Convoy? Ergo, you know, Pierre Polyev is the same as the Buffalo shooter or some insanity like that,
00:09:29.540
right? Maybe not going that far, but that's the link they're trying to make in people's minds,
00:09:32.900
right? They're trying to take a very tragic and terrible event to the United States and attack
00:09:38.060
the front runner of the conservative leadership race. So I think we all really need to be aware
00:09:43.040
of the damage that does. And of course, they're going to keep calling Polyev the divisive candidate,
00:09:47.580
even though he's not the one accusing his opponents of being linked to mass murders.
00:09:53.540
So, you know, I think that double standard, it never gets applied to, say, you know,
00:09:57.420
someone who does something and may have more of a liberal ideology, right? It never gets linked to,
00:10:02.240
you know, the rhetoric of Justin Trudeau or anybody. It's only one side. It's only
00:10:06.020
conservatives who get linked to these things when something happens. So I think that's another
00:10:10.480
reason a lot of people have lost trust in the establishment media, because the narrative is so
00:10:14.240
obvious. Some terrible event happens, there's a shooting somewhere. How can we use this terrible
00:10:18.720
event to attack conservatives? And it just gets done over and over and over again.
00:10:22.220
And it just, it divides us even more. And it's, it's the opposite of what people who claim to be
00:10:27.080
in support of unity should be doing. Yeah. So I'm going to pivot a little bit,
00:10:31.200
just a little farther back to one of the things you wrote on as well. And speaking of divistic,
00:10:34.640
at least in a regional sense, was that the Alberta challenge against Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines
00:10:40.580
bill, it was successful. It got quashed. But then the challenge in Alberta against the carbon tax
00:10:45.780
was successful too. Now it's going to go to the federal Supreme Court. And I mean, it's a very
00:10:51.180
hot item out here in Alberta. Do you think that there's going to be any success on the federal
00:10:56.100
front though, when that challenge goes forward to there against the No More Pipelines bill?
00:11:00.700
Yeah. I mean, you know, past history would show there's not too much of a chance. What was
00:11:04.880
interesting about the ruling was it did talk about the division of powers between different levels of
00:11:09.800
government, provincial and federal. So that's something where it may not be much of an ideological issue.
00:11:15.700
You know, because people say the Supreme Court's not motivated by ideology. Everybody is. Everybody
00:11:20.740
has an ideology and it influences them. So the only institution is fully free from that. But if it
00:11:25.880
becomes more of a, you know, a procedural or division of powers argument, then there is possibly a chance.
00:11:31.900
But, you know, even if that happened, I expect the liberals would just reintroduce slightly tweaked
00:11:35.940
version of the legislation and impose it again, because they're interacting in a very ideological way.
00:11:40.620
I mean, we saw when many countries in Europe were saying, hey, you know, we would prefer not to be
00:11:45.100
getting our oil and gas from Russia. You know, maybe Canada could be a country that could help us
00:11:50.140
out. And Trudeau basically straight up said, yeah, you know, we'll do a little bit, but we're not
00:11:54.140
going to, you know, alter our climate goals to, you know, produce more oil and gas. So it's a very deep
00:12:00.140
ideology that he and his government have. And the only way I think to change that is to get them out of
00:12:05.020
office because, you know, whatever ruling, even if it goes against them, they'll just introduce similar
00:12:10.900
Yeah. I mean, the courts are, you know, slow enough that if even if you took that to court
00:12:15.020
again, they could have years of imposed legislation. But boy, we're a long ways, it seems, from
00:12:20.440
replacing them. I mean, the Conservatives seem to be gaining a little bit of ground, I guess,
00:12:23.640
in the sense right now. But I think some people seem to prefer the Conservatives without a leader
00:12:27.860
than as opposed to the past leader they had. But a lot will depend on who wins, I guess, and
00:12:32.480
how things go in the next year. So with the minority government, we just never know when we're going to go into
00:12:37.180
the election now. Yeah, you know, it has been interesting, though, because the media keeps
00:12:42.860
saying, oh, the Conservatives committed political suicide by, you know, having prominent members
00:12:47.200
support the Freedom Convoy. Oh, they're really in trouble now, you know, talking about inflation
00:12:51.160
and the Bank of Canada. Well, they're in big trouble. And they continue to lead in the polls,
00:12:55.560
you know, amid that situation. And so it shows, again, a lot of immediate disconnect from the general
00:13:00.620
public. And I think the underlying anger and discontent in the country, I mean, inflation everywhere
00:13:05.680
in the world produces, you know, a lot of angry. Look at countries where it's really gotten out of
00:13:10.560
control. Sri Lanka, for example, having food shortages, it's descending into chaos in large
00:13:15.100
parts of that country. So I don't think we'll get to the same point here in Canada, obviously. But
00:13:19.060
inflation makes people angry, and it discredits the people in power. You know, Justin Trudeau,
00:13:22.900
it's easy to forget, but he came to power largely on the idea that he was going to make life more
00:13:27.980
affordable. He did the escalator ad, you know, in the 2015 campaign, where he's walking up an
00:13:33.700
escalator going down saying, oh, a lot of Canadians feel like it's tough to get ahead.
00:13:38.060
And that was an effective campaign for him. You know, you don't hear him talking too much about
00:13:42.080
affordability now, because that wouldn't really bode well for him. And so I think that's one reason
00:13:46.680
Paul Yev is talking about the Bank of Canada and talking about inflation and money, the monetary
00:13:50.940
system, money printing. He's linking that together in people's minds. And so if the election does come
00:13:56.760
down to affordability, then that's not good for the Liberals. And strangely enough, the NDP,
00:14:00.920
the NDP used to be very much the party of working class people, you know, making life more
00:14:05.360
affordable. Jake made things where they jumped on to the Trudeau bandwagon. He's linked himself to
00:14:10.020
Trudeau, and Trudeau was the one in power during massive inflation. So that's not going to help
00:14:14.180
the NDP either. So I think that's going to be the issue, you know, whether things are a lot different
00:14:19.480
in three years' time. That remains to be seen. But of course, future inflation, even if it goes down,
00:14:26.300
is still based on already inflated prices. So it's not like it's going back to where it wasn't.
00:14:30.460
People are going to find life super affordable all of a sudden. And so I think, you know, if it's
00:14:35.760
Paul Yev who leads the Conservative Party, he's been out there, you know, for quite some time
00:14:39.620
sharing a message that's very opposite from what the Liberals and NDP are pushing. So if people are
00:14:45.200
looking to really move in a different direction, then I think that benefits Paul Yev and the
00:14:48.840
Conservative Party. That's it. I mean, ideals only sell so well when people can't pay their bills.
00:14:53.400
You know, the reality when your mortgage starts coming first or putting food on the shelves and
00:14:58.620
things like that. So the Liberals are going to have to respond to that pretty soon. So I mean,
00:15:02.840
or not. I mean, at least we see some light at the end of the governing tunnel anyways.
00:15:08.980
Thank you very much for checking in with us today. Where can we find more information on where
00:15:14.640
Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Spencer Fernando. My website, SpencerFernando.com. And I do a lot of
00:15:21.820
writing at NationalCitizens.ca as well. So those are the three places to look.
00:15:26.520
Great. Yeah. And if you search Spencer Fernando, I know you put columns out in a lot of number of
00:15:30.960
other areas around as well, and even occasionally here. So lots of good stuff that you're always
00:15:36.260
writing. I always appreciate it when we get a chance to talk to you and see what you're putting
00:15:40.160
out there, Spencer. So I'll let you get back to it. Thanks for joining us today.