Corey and Dave discuss the controversy surrounding Dr. Seuss and the cancellation of six of his classic children's books, as well as the Inuit people who are upset about it. Also, Corey and Dave talk about the recent controversy surrounding Inuit women in kayaks.
00:02:30.000Welcome to the March 3rd episode of The Pipeline. I'm columnist and podcast editor Corey Morgan and I'm with our news editor Dave Naylor today. Derek Fildebrand is usually with us for these but he couldn't make it today so you're stuck with just the two of us. How you doing Dave?
00:02:51.720I'm good. I'm actually looking forward to getting in a word edgewise with
00:02:56.280you need not live in terror of what may happen if there's a ping on your
00:03:02.120computer. Hopefully he doesn't tune in later and watch it. We'll hear about it
00:03:07.720later. He'll get over it. This is the show though where we cover weekly issues,
00:03:14.900what's been outstanding in the news and uh we have a sponsor that's uh care i don't know is
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00:04:13.780so moving on one of the big stories today i really never thought we'd come to this but i guess we
00:04:21.140shouldn't be that terribly surprised dr seuss is uh under attack by cancel culture uh if he's
00:04:30.420what you would have thought the most beloved and innocuous of children's authors
00:04:34.260and now apparently he is a hate monger. Can you expand on that a bit, Dave?
00:04:41.620Well, apparently woke readers would not, could not force themselves to read these Dr.
00:04:47.700Seuss classics. I think this is the most beloved children's author out there. We all grew up with
00:04:54.820with the Grinch and the cat in the hat, but the foundation that looks after his publishing
00:05:04.140enterprise has decided they are not going to publish six titles because they portray
00:05:11.120people in a way that are, quote, hurtful and wrong.
00:05:16.060So he wrote 60 books, six of them will no longer be available.
00:05:23.020six are and to think i saw it on mulberry street if i ran the zoo mcellington's pool long to be
00:05:31.580on a zebra scrambled egg super and the cat's quizzer so if you had those books from your
00:05:38.780childhood i suggest you pack them away because they could become valuable they said the oriental
00:05:49.020characters in his books were caricatures with yellow faces and and slanted eyes and0.95
00:06:00.140the few black characters uh were again portrayed uh with uh characteristics unbecoming and they
00:06:09.260basically said it was basically a format of a form of white supremacy believe it or not for
00:06:15.180his story. Even Dr. Seuss is getting in trouble beyond the grave.
00:06:21.340And it's just so frustrating. I mean, those were books. The reason they were so popular was kids
00:06:26.460enjoyed them. They were fun reads and they always had a good moral and a lesson within them. I mean,
00:06:32.600they were all about getting along, loving your neighbor, being nice. I mean, thankfully they
00:06:37.560haven't canceled the Grinch yet. There doesn't seem to be a green race that's standing up and1.00
00:06:41.840and being offended. I mean, things change with time. I know there's a number of old cartoons
00:06:47.700from back in the 30s and 40s where you would see some black people dancing around a kettle,
00:06:53.640you know, caricatured in a way that's certainly not acceptable today. I mean, the measure of what
00:06:59.520can be done now versus back then is something altogether different. But I looked at those
00:07:04.720Dr. Seuss pictures and said, I can see if you're really squinting. Okay, yeah, it's a bit of an
00:07:10.160old school. There were some, I guess, apparently with Inuit people that were demonstrated that
00:07:15.300had furred hoods around themselves and in kayaks, but this wasn't insulting. The intent wasn't to
00:07:19.820be. And what I wonder, were there any people of Asian origin who were really upset about this or
00:07:25.400Inuit people upset about this? Or is this, I suspect, the white liberal woke crowd who got
00:07:32.200upset about this? Well, I mean, at some point, every book that was ever written, every cartoon
00:07:39.940that was ever done uh you know in the 60s and earlier is going to be declared you know bad
00:07:48.260uh didn't doctor didn't the grin kick his poor dog max at one point i mean isn't that teaching
00:07:55.300animal abuse uh you know never mind teaching you to be a bad guy but as you said they taught
00:08:02.020lessons they talk you know they taught uh kids the uh the wrong behavior to do and and the fact
00:08:09.860that there could be penalties to uh uh to doing it so uh yeah it's you know i i called it the
00:08:16.580baying mob of twitter and uh yeah they've taken down dr seuss and uh who are they gonna aim for
00:08:22.980next maybe us cory yeah who knows i mean i just uh christ so somebody did lend a comment here
00:08:29.140If you're on Facebook, you can see it.
00:08:59.140I mean, sure, you weren't legally obligated to tear it down, but they knew that they just don't want to deal with this battle, having the mob screaming at them, accusing them of everything.
00:09:10.360I mean, because, again, it is a publisher that just wants to put out family-friendly publications.
00:09:15.640There's so many other classics now, though, if we start going through them with the magnifying glass, what else is coming?
00:09:22.440Surely they're doing the magnifying glass treatment on Winnie the Pooh now, I bet you.
00:09:26.800Oh, boy. Yes, the abuse of Eeyore. I mean, they went and pinned a tail on that poor thing.
00:09:34.960But the world's gone mad. I just hope at some point people start pushing back a little. Come
00:09:39.280on, guys. We can talk to our kids about context. I mean, we could read these stories, or in our
00:09:45.040case, maybe it'll be grandkids. But still, it's a, we don't depict people from up north that way
00:09:50.060anymore. But this was how it is. I mean, it doesn't have to be just totally wiped out of
00:09:54.460oblivion i guess universal uh in orlando has some dr seuss things they're going to be pulling as
00:09:59.180well from their display because of this i mean what sort of vanilla milk toast world are we
00:10:04.380going to have if we let the the mobs control everything we're allowed to show or see anymore
00:10:09.420it's just uh as long as long as they stay away from the hardy boys oh yes you know that's when
00:10:16.460the line will be crossed oh i remember devouring those blue hardcover books back in the my younger
00:10:22.620years. So let's get a little closer to home. So we did have some lifting of the restrictions from
00:10:32.660COVID-19 this week. It was a lot of fanfare. Premier Kenny himself came out. It wasn't just
00:10:39.440the handoff to Dr. Dina Hinshaw for the announcement. So we expected a lot. And I think a lot of people
00:10:47.300were kind of underwhelmed with what step two turned out to be.
00:10:52.480What have you got to expand on that with, Dave?
00:11:17.300but that's all very confusing they have to offer exercises where you don't huff and puff you know
00:11:26.920you can walk on the treadmill but you can't jog you know because we might start breathing heavily
00:11:33.380and you might you know you can only do some training with a manager or a personal trainer
00:11:41.140right next to you. So very little, very, very little lowering of other regulations like
00:11:51.480restaurants and retail, which it came as a bit of a surprise to me, Corey, because
00:11:57.820all the benchmarks that were needed for a full reopening, we had reached. We were well below
00:12:03.360the hospitalization levels and the case numbers and ICU levels to actually go on to step three.
00:12:12.320But instead they didn't even act really on step two. They said there may be some worrying signs
00:12:18.640and I think certainly the number of variants that are being uncovered are worrying signs.
00:12:24.240They found 35 more cases yesterday, bringing a total of 500 cases of the variant in the province, which, if I'm not mistaken, I think is the highest total of any province in the country.
00:12:40.780I think, like you, everybody else was looking for more.
00:12:46.200It came on the heels of a story that we had on the Western Standard about ICU admissions.
00:12:54.240ICU admissions has always been a top government benchmark for restrictions.
00:13:00.480They say the restrictions had to come in to keep hospitalizations down and the healthcare system from collapsing.
00:13:08.760But we obtained internal Alberta healthcare documents that show ICU admissions have actually dropped in the last year than they were in 2019.
00:13:23.320Throughout all of 2020, only two hospital jurisdictions in the province had slight
00:13:30.440increases in ICU admissions. All of the Calgary hospitals were less. All of the Edmonton hospitals
00:13:37.640were less, except for the University of Alberta Hospital. Right now, we've only got 50-some people
00:13:45.160in ICU. So it seems to me like Albertans were almost misled on these figures because they're
00:13:56.280well below any sort of being overwhelmed whatsoever, Corey. Yeah, well, and so much of it just seems so
00:14:03.880arbitrary. I mean, they laid out this plan that showed a number of things potentially opening,
00:14:08.440and they used the word potentially. Okay, fair enough. You want to couch your words and perhaps
00:14:15.080like if we'd have been five or six hospitalizations below the benchmark you know really close to the
00:14:20.860borderline that's where you could see okay we're gonna utilize potential we said potentially but
00:14:24.280we're really close to you know a possible overwhelming here we got to back off a little
00:14:29.380bit but I mean we didn't just meet the the 450 hospitalization benchmark we blew it out of the
00:14:34.860water I mean there were only 250 people in which is you know 250 people it shouldn't be dismissed
00:14:40.260but if we're going to set benchmarks we were well within it and then not only did they just toss
00:14:46.180aside all of those things that were potentially going to be reopened or eased a bit they jumped
00:14:51.220ahead with libraries which were actually part of step three and said we're going to allow some
00:14:56.900openings there so they actually went past uh one of their benchmarks like it just makes no sense
00:15:02.980they don't seem to have any consistency uh but you know they aren't expanding on what why one
00:15:08.660is more dangerous than another uh gymnasiums you know it's it's turned uh controversial i mean
00:15:14.900very few people could argue i i know i could use some more gym time but you know gymnasium use is
00:15:20.740healthy for people it's good for your mental well-being it's good for your physical well-being
00:15:25.220uh if i don't work out nearly as much as i should but i always feel better after a good bit of
00:15:29.220exercise uh mayor ninchy came out and dismissed it as saying it's unimportant and that really
00:15:34.260stirred up a lot of people but brought a lot of discussion like when are we gonna start allowing
00:15:38.260some more healthy activities for Albertans to get out yeah I'm not aware of a single case of
00:15:44.020transmission within the gym uh you know it's you know granted they don't know where a lot of the
00:15:51.060transmissions are coming from but I don't think there's been a single confirmed case uh you know
00:15:56.820so I think what he what Kenny has done with just such slight regulate regulation loosening is he
00:16:04.020made more people angry again uh there's already mla or mla drew barnes has come out today to say
00:16:10.900he's not happy um he's you know he's calling for a regional uh approach because his area
00:16:18.340down in medicine hat doesn't have very many cases at all you know so why is he being punished uh
00:16:23.700just like the same area that may be overwhelmed with cases uh he says it doesn't make sense to
00:16:28.740him and uh his uh his constituents are very angry yeah well and as was mentioned you know with the
00:16:35.300icu usage i mean that's the big fearful benchmark i mean that's the nightmare scenario that's we're
00:16:40.820thinking of thousands people coming to hospital in terrible respiratory distress that need
00:16:46.740ventilators that need constant care so i mean we've paid for and set up field hospitals we've
00:16:52.260been prepared we've been ready and it looks like aside from there there was some pressure when
00:16:56.980things did spike in december there our icus were never even close to being under threat
00:17:03.940again you know how many times do they have to predict doom and gloom and be wrong
00:17:09.620before they'll start backing off exactly and you'll remember uh uh jason kenny in a quote that
00:17:16.740he probably regrets now talking about uh body bags filling mcmahon stadium uh of all things
00:17:24.420We had a story this week on the Western Standard about our old friends at SNC-Lavalin getting a $150 million contract to build field hospitals that nobody had asked for.
00:17:37.420I think certainly the province had to plan for these things.
00:17:43.420They had to make sure because we would be the first ones jumping on them if they hadn't, but it quickly became obvious that they weren't going to be needed.
00:17:52.420And nobody seems to have been able to figure that out and what to do with these declining numbers.
00:18:01.800Yeah, well, and they keep moving the goalposts and changing what we're supposed to be watching for.
00:19:14.040And now the big issue is inoculations and the fiasco the Trudeau government has turned that into.
00:19:22.060And, you know, when Prime Minister Trudeau sees President Joe Biden promising everyone in America is going to have their inoculations by the end of May.
00:19:33.220And we're sitting here with, what, 4% of our population done.
00:20:06.360No, I mean, and that's one of the areas where, you know, we like to get on Premier Kenney's case about a number of things, but his hands have been kind of tied because that was kind of a federal program.
00:20:16.840But Canada's languished way behind third world countries in the acquisition and distribution of vaccinations.
00:20:23.540We're seeing other countries talking about, you know, achieving herd immunity and opening up and moving along.
00:20:28.120I think Texas has 20% of the population vaccinated and they said, you know what, we're opening the doors, we're done with this, we're moving ahead.0.59
00:20:34.020I know there's people, henny pennies running around or chicken littles, you know, oh, Texas, they're all going to die.
00:20:41.900We certainly want to protect our vulnerable.
00:20:44.300We want to get them vaccinated, those of us.
00:20:45.920I understand some people don't believe in vaccinations, but as long as the majority do, we'll deal with that.
00:20:51.080I certainly would never want to see it mandatory.
00:20:54.940In fairness, nobody has said it's got to be mandatory.
00:20:59.340Certainly, Premier Kenney has said he's against mandatory vaccinations.
00:21:03.180I guess the next thing for discussion, Corey, is going to be pandemic passports where you might not be allowed to buy concert tickets or travel on airplanes unless you can prove you've had the inoculation.
00:21:18.720You know, I guess that's when they become almost mandatory.
00:21:22.760Yeah, and I could see, well, I could see a lot of lawyers rubbing their hands together and I could see our courts spending a lot of time on that.
00:21:29.580you know, when it comes to a private business, perhaps if that's what they want is the standard
00:21:33.040to allow people to utilize their services, maybe that's okay. But now we do have some charter
00:21:39.000protected rights of travel. We can't use section one forever. And if an airline is preventing
00:21:45.440somebody from getting on it and traveling because they won't have the passport, we start getting
00:21:50.740into some very dicey territory. So I could see this going on for quite a long time yet,
00:21:55.760even if the pandemic passes exactly so moving on to things that also have been illegalized is
00:22:07.280having religious services so pastor uh coats is uh still in jail and uh he was due to have
00:22:16.160a hearing today it looks like it's been deferred what's up with that dave yeah the uh the justice
00:22:22.080Center for Constitutional Freedom was going to be representing Coates in court today. It's been
00:22:28.560bumped for one day, it'll take place tomorrow. We all know the story of Coates arrested last month
00:22:37.360for refusing to stop preaching and breaking COVID requirements of having only 15% capacity in his
00:22:46.560church he was had hundreds and hundreds of people uh two bail hearings so far he has recruit refused
00:22:53.680uh to commit to stop preaching uh so he uh he stays in uh stays in jail his wife says he's
00:23:00.800he's lost weight uh he's suffering from neck problems now uh he's only allowed out of his
00:23:07.280cell twice a day for 15 minutes at a time uh for a shower or or to exercise uh you know it's
00:23:15.760It's unbelievable the conditions that he's being kept in, but his Grace Life Church is continuing.
00:23:23.860The last two Sundays since he's been in jail, they proceeded with services.
00:23:29.540The RCMP and health services attended both of them, publicly said that they've breached the law again.
00:23:39.280But I don't think the RCMP knows what to do now.
00:24:08.860all they're doing is holding discussions
00:24:10.960holding discussions it'll be interesting to see uh tomorrow uh i don't see coats capitulating and
00:24:18.720and agreeing to stop preaching uh so it'll be interesting to see if uh if a judge does
00:24:25.360give him bail if not this trial is not scheduled till may so we'll be in there for a while
00:24:32.320well that's certainly a lot of people are getting put into a lot of hard positions over all of this
00:24:37.520you know um i'm of a mind of pushing for more relaxation of restrictions and allowing these
00:24:43.200gatherings i mean i haven't seen evidence that has passed uh uh you know uh religious services
00:24:48.960have caused any widespread infections or deaths or issues but it's difficult if you've got laws
00:24:54.400that are set the government has to try and follow through with them and again the the optics though
00:25:00.480of taking preachers off to jail i mean we've got a lot of world history of religious leaders being
00:25:06.080imprisoned by the state and it brings a lot of triggers to a number of people that's the reason
00:25:11.280that every democratic state on earth protects free religion uh this is just a disaster uh i mean more
00:25:18.080churches are going to be standing up and again it's this government's poor policy you know bouncing
00:25:24.720around with with where they're enforcing where they're not when they're opening when they're not
00:25:29.360i i see more rebelliousness coming whether from churches whether from businesses because i mean
00:25:33.040again they get told don't worry in three weeks you'll be able to open because of this oh i don't
00:25:36.080know that you move the bar again you might change it again in the 11th hour i i don't believe you
00:25:41.360anymore yeah in fairness corey it's not just alberta that uh barbecue joint owner in ontario
00:25:49.680uh etobicoke if i remember correctly was slapped with 180 000 worth of fines uh this week um you
00:25:58.640You know, I'm sure a lot of it will get raised in the GoFundMe by my supporters, but imagine a small business being fined that amount of money and being able to continue.
00:26:11.180And as you said, the frustration at the moving goalposts is mounting, not just amongst clergy, but amongst businessmen.
00:26:21.280And, you know, clearly the tipping point is closed.
00:26:24.120yeah well and getting to a bit of that so uh tomorrow daniel smith's been holding regular
00:26:31.460specials uh with the western channel or western standard on these these live streaming channels
00:26:36.280and she will be speaking to uh the wife of pastor coats so i i imagine we'll we'll get some
00:26:41.800very direct updates on this the status on where things are sitting with james coats and where
00:26:48.080they're looking to go ahead with uh should be an interesting watch if nothing else i mean make sure
00:26:52.980to subscribe to the YouTube channel or Facebook and as well, you know, subscribe. So I'll get to
00:26:56.800some of that stuff too that Derek hits at the start. I'm going to put it towards the middle
00:27:00.240end of the show here. Sorry, Corey, it would be nice if the pastor does get bail and maybe he can
00:27:07.100join his wife with Daniel. Absolutely. That would make for a fantastic. You can speak much more
00:27:13.680directly to it. I mean, it's well worth tuning in to see what's going on there with this issue
00:27:18.520and to see that these people aren't monsters. They're not crazed criminals. You know,
00:27:22.040there's some of the irony of the whole thing too. I mean, we've released a great number
00:27:25.620of offenders from jails for fear of COVID spread within jails. And we're filling those empty jail
00:27:31.680spots with people who did the terrible crime such as holding a religious service.
00:27:37.560Boy, the world is in a crazy place. It really is. So yeah, just getting back as well to the
00:27:44.320Western Standard and coverage of these things, the stories. Some people may have already realized
00:27:48.860You're limited in the amount of stories you can get to now.
00:27:51.600There is a paywall, but it's well worth subscribing to be able to see those detailed things that Dave writes,
00:27:58.700those great stories, and keeping up on local Alberta news that the mainstream media just doesn't touch.
00:28:16.200I mean, we can see that the pastor being released on bail, but I can't see the government backing off on charges, do you?
00:28:27.340Well, they did with the owner of the whistle stop.
00:28:31.540You know, they paid for his legal bills and dropped it.
00:28:34.300He still got public health charges, I guess.
00:28:37.320But, you know, if they let him go, then the presiding judge is going to have to admit that his predecessors made the wrong decisions, I guess, especially if he vows to continue to preach, you know, the Sunday after he gets out.
00:28:55.240But, you know, in a way, it puts the judges in between a rock and a hard place.
00:29:01.200Also, they've got to interpret these laws.
00:29:32.740If we saw evidence that people are really being harmed, if this was really transmitting and spreading and hitting a lot of people,
00:29:38.640I think your average person can say, look, guys, you're just going to have to continue the virtual services for a while.
00:29:42.900But as we keep, you know, they keep crying wolf and as they keep moving the goalposts,
00:29:48.420we're going to see more rebelliousness on a number of levels, I think.
00:29:52.100As those ICU documents that we obtained point out, the average age of death of a COVID victim in Alberta is 82, and 82 is also the average life expectancy in the province.
00:30:07.640So, you know, certainly every death is tragic, and there have been deaths in, you know, people even as low as their 20s.
00:30:16.320The majority of them are elderly victims, and again, not to diminish their loss or the family's loss, you know, but it increases the sense that the general population really doesn't have a lot to feel.
00:30:35.060No, and I mean, the nature of this virus is, you know, I did more reading on the Spanish
00:30:40.760flu because originally, it's funny, you don't hear people comparing it to that any longer
00:30:44.000because if you look at it, that one was a pandemic that really was age specific in a
00:30:50.140lot of ways too, but it hit children and it hit the young very hard and surprisingly,