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Celebrating Diversity, With Pierre Poilievre!

Pierre Poilievre continues to beef with mainstream media, but is cozying up with members of ethnic media outfits. What's he planning?


Plus, Danielle Smith’s chemtrails catastrophe and a CRTC raffle gone wrong


Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: James Nicholson (Producer), Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor/Mixer), max collins (Production Manager), Jesse Brown (Editor) 

Guest: Jen Gerson


 

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Broadcast on:
11 Oct 2024
Audio Format:
other
(whistling) - Canada Land, funded by you. (upbeat music) - I'm Jesse Brown, and today we are talking shit about the news. We'll talk a bit about a CRTC raffle gone wrong. Oh my. We'll talk about exactly which chemicals Danielle Smith may have been sprayed with, but mostly we will be answering the question, just how much does Pierre-Pauliève love diversity? So much that he's giving Jason Kenny a run for his money. - The truth is, for 10 years, I was the multiculturalist minister across Canada. I got the nickname Minister of Curry in a hurry. - Wait for that. (upbeat music) - Canada Land is brought to you by CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. We're trying out something that we have not done before. Later in this episode, you will hear me speak to Chris Cole, a two-time cross-country cyclist and a filmmaker who has experienced mental illness and addiction himself. He's gonna share his story and he's gonna talk about how resources like CAMH have helped him and many others like him to manage their mental health. Keep an air out for that. And listen, if what Chris has to say later on means something to you, if his story moves you at all, please consider donating. Visit CAMH.ca/CanadaLand. One more time, camh.ca/CanadaLand. This episode is brought to you by Douglas. Maybe you remember the Metallica song where they sing about the Sandman. Well, they forgot to mention that Mr. Sandman rolls with a buddy, a buddy named Douglas. Your mattress should not feel like heavy metal. Exit Light Enter Night with the soothing lullaby of medium firm support. Okay, Douglas is giving our listeners a free sleep bundle with each mattress purchase. Get the sheets, pillows, mattress, and pillow protectors free with your Douglas purchase today. Visit dugless.ca/CanadaLand to claim this offer. That's dugless.ca/CanadaLand. Jen Gerson, co-founder and editor of The Line. Welcome to the show. - Right, anytime. - Jen, you guys are independent media. - Yeah, definitely. - We're independent media. - Whatever the hell that means anymore, I don't know. - Do you know who loves independent media? - Who loves independent media? - Pierre Polyev. - I told my team that I wanted to bring together the independent voices in the media. Not those that are controlled by the government or the big corporations that controlled by Bell or Shaw or Rogers or some other big conglomerate connected to the government. But the independent and diverse voices that tell the real story. And we said we want just the people who've been, who are very precious to their communities, they want to bring them here and have wonderful authentic one-on-one conversations here at the official residence of his Majesty's leader of the official opposition. And it's an honor for Anna as well to be hosting us. She's the one that chose the music. (audience applauds) - Jen, that is from a garden party that Pierre Polyev threw for the independent media at his official residence. He had him over to his house and served them, I don't know what he served them, can it pay his little sandwiches? And he spent 20 minutes each with each member of the independent media. Were you invited? - I don't think I was invited, but I'll admit that as a proprietor of an independent media, I'm probably not as diligent with checking my emails as I ought to be. Maybe I wasn't invited to realize it, but I was not, I don't think I was invited. - Nor was I. I did not get that email, I checked. - Wait, let me check my email. - Okay. (laughs) Let me check. - I'm pretty sure you weren't. And the reason why is that the specific independent media who were invited to that party, that was the ethnic press. - Oh, okay, all right. - Okay. - All right. - Okay, in fact, it's been reported that he had over 50 different engagements interviews or meetings with what they're calling the independent media, but I don't see the names of any of the independent media that we typically talk about. I haven't seen the narwhal mentioned or the Thai-e. I don't see the national observer, the Halifax examiner, it's possible, but what the star is reporting is that who he met with were the so-called ethnic or third language media in Canada. Not to say that they're not independent, but if the word independent had your mind going to the same place where mine went, this is the specific type of independent media that we're talking about here. I had no idea about this. All I hear about is how he won't talk to the media. He won't talk to CBC. He's gonna defund the CBC, and then he wouldn't talk to CTV. Apparently he's lifted that boycott, but at the same time, he has been giving interview after interview, after interview to the so-called ethnic press of Canada. Curious. - Yeah, they're reaching out to ethnic media. Conservatives have been doing this for decades. Liberals do this. The NDP should be doing this. Doing ethnic outreach is a very vital and necessary part of any kind of democratic process in a highly pluralistic society. I mean, I think that the Conservatives really started to champion this. I mean, you will remember that Jason Kinney was credited with being one of the first Conservatives in the federal conservative movement to really champion ethnic outreach to the extent that he was given the nickname. The Minister of Kerry in a hurry. - John Amassala is your signature dish. Can I? - You didn't see that coming, right? - No, we thought we would do a steak, a burger being from Calgary. - Too boring, too obvious. The truth is for 10 years, I was the multiculturalist in minister across Canada. I got the nickname, Minister of Kerry in a hurry. - And I think that this is one of the major things that distinguishes Canadian Conservatives from American Conservatives, for example. Canadian Conservatives, I think, generally understand that the future absolutely does lie in establishing new relationships with different kinds of communities, religious communities, ethnic communities, immigrant communities, and actually have spent many years trying to build those bridges. Like I said, Conservatives are unique in this. Any party that doesn't do this is stupid because the numbers are what the numbers are. We're an increasingly diverse country, and if you wanna maintain power in an increasingly diverse country, you need to have those alliances and you need to have those relationships. I don't think there's anything nefarious about that. I don't think there's anything wrong about that. It's just part of what it is to operate as a big tent political party in a democracy that is functioned and structured the way that ours is. - I think we can just sort of clear away the obvious sophistry here. When he says independent media, he just means some independent media. - Yeah, that's right. He's not inviting the narwhal and the taiya here. - And we have put in many requests over the years for an interview with Pierre Pauliev, and we can't get one, even though we are certainly independent and consistent with his ideas of how media should not be taking money from government, but it wouldn't necessarily be an easy experience for him, and so he's not gonna do it. - We're gonna put in a request. - You might get one. - We might get one. I mean, we're hoping to start a kind of an interview style podcast at the line. So I'm kind of hoping that we are gonna put in some requests and get people on. I mean, we've had Jeff Meeks sing on our show and we had Aaron O'Toole do an interview with us in the past. - We had those same too. It's interesting who. - Yeah, those were, they were super willing to do stuff. That was cool, but, and so I think there's a pretty good chance that Pierre Polioff would come on the line and chat with Matt or I. - Yeah, and I mean, that would be interesting because I think there's a good chance that that would be a lot tougher for him than some of these interviews he's been granted. This specific thing that he's doing, I agree, I'm not saying it's anything nefarious. There's some bullshit to work past. This false dichotomy, the media is a useful rhetorical device for Polioff. It doesn't really exist anymore. And independent media is not what he's saying. Independent media is, he's talking about very specific outlets that, you know, he both sees votes there and he thinks he's not going to get challenged too hard. I have something to point out though. This new story from the Toronto Star about Pierre Polioff cozying up to the so-called ethnic press, Polioff says that he's talking to these independent voices in the media because they're not, quote, controlled by the government. Well, they're not controlled by our government, but the Hogue inquiry into foreign interference, that has been going on and over at the Globe and Mail, Fife and Chase reported, journalists describe to the Hogue inquiry how China and India interfere in the Asper media in Canada. There's some stunning quotes in this piece. The majority, the majority of local Chinese media has been influenced, if not outright controlled, by the Communist Party of China for years, using a variety of methods, said Victor Ho, the former editor-in-chief of Singtown newspaper. Gerpreet Singh, a journalist from BC, said that Indo-Canadian media are diverse and hold a greater variety of opinions, but journalists face pressure from the Indian consulate and advertisers when they're too critical of the Modi government. I am not saying that all ethnic or diaspora media is controlled by foreign interests, but it certainly seems like some of it is, and according to the guy who used to edit Singtown, most of it is in the Chinese language. So that's an interesting little twist, wouldn't you say? - Totally, and also I think that as we become a more pluralistic and multicultural society, yes, it's absolutely inevitable that all of our parties are going to need to over time increase and improve their relationships with different ethnic communities within that society. That's good, that's part of the political process, that's excellent. However, the fundamental risk and flip side of that is that some of those diaspora communities are demonstrably influenced or are attempted to be influenced by foreign actors. And so this is something that all of our political parties need to be on guard about and need to be aware of. And we need to have a high degree of transparency and information about the ways in which those influence operations operate within this country. Trying to relegate all of this is all this critique is just racist, for example, the liberals did in the midst of the foreign interference scandal last year. I think did everyone a disservice in being able to have an open, straightforward conversation about this. - One of the things we've seen unfortunately over the past years is a rise in anti-Asian racism, linked to the pandemic, and concerns being raised or arisen around people's loyalties. I want to make everyone understand fully, that Han Dong is an outstanding member of our team and suggestions that he is somehow not loyal to Canada should not be entertained. - The other thing I would just point out is one thing that I find very annoying about conservatives and especially conservatives who are leading in the polls by 20 odd points is the degree to which they are maintaining a persecution complex that increasingly isn't connected to consensus reality. When the CTB fiasco played out, it's still continuing to play out my God three weeks later. I think a lot of people in the conservative space really feel alienated from what I would call the Laurentian consensus. They feel alienated from the mainstream, and so they have this vision in their heads of the "the media" and their vision of the media is like legacy media as it existed 15 years ago. - I think they picture Andrew Coyne at a cafe with latte sneering at them. - Not totally wrongly. I know the cafe that Andrew Coyne goes to, everyone does, and he does sit there with a latte sneering a little bit. - I come in, I say, "How are there Laurentian consensus?" And he says, "Hi, there. - Hi, there. But I mean, like the idea that that's quote unquote, "the media" in this God forsaken year of 2024. I mean, I think that's fantasy now. - All right, after the break, we will get a sense of just how the Toronto Star looks upon its colleagues in the independent press. It kind of revealed it all. Hold on a second for that. (upbeat music) This episode is brought to you by CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. I've been talking with Chris, a mental health advocate about his personal experiences with mental illness and addiction. And he had a pretty astute way of describing how anybody can be affected by poor mental health. Listen to this. - Everybody has a cup, and everyone's cup is a different size of how much they can just take on emotionally. But it doesn't matter how big the cup is, if you don't have some spout like letting that fluid out, it's gonna overflow sooner or later. - Listen, we are still in the middle of a global mental health crisis. Mental health needs have never been greater than they are right now. CAMH recognizes this, and they treat everyone who comes through their doors with dignity and compassionate care. - There are whole cultures and foundation of what they stand on. It is based around the humanizing of everybody going through it. And I mean, that's what we want at the end of the day. You have to have that empathy. I think we should be throwing everything we got at places like CAMH to continue leading the way and developing the capacity to help all the people who are in a dark place at the moment. - CAMH is building better mental health care for everyone to ensure that no one is left behind. This mental illness awareness week, your donation to CAMH will be matched. Visit CAMH.ca/CanadaLand to double your impact. One more time, camh.ca/CanadaLand. - Jen, this episode is brought to our wonderful listeners by Oxio. What is something in your opinion, Jen, that never changes about the internet? - The evil of humanity. - The evil of humanity. - Very good. Survey says that is something that never changes about the internet. But there's something great that never changes about the internet when you get your internet through Oxio. And that is the price that you pay for it. Let's not breeze past what is like an uncommon offer that I have not heard of from like any other service. You sign up at the price they're offering today and they never change it. Fixed internet prices. No promo period that ends, no term contracts, no negotiating. It is very good internet service. I have it in my home. It is lightning fast. Kids are on like 4K gaming platform. I don't know, it's like, it's wild at how much internet goes in and out of our house. Everybody's doing it at the same time. It does not falter. Try Oxio risk free for 60 days. Oxio looks at inflation and says, pfft, keep the change. All right. Head over to CanadaLand.oxio.ca and use the code CanadaLand for your first month free. That's CanadaLand.oxio.ca and use the code CanadaLand for your first month free. This episode is brought to you by Douglas. You've heard of a twin mattress, but have you heard of the mattress twins? My God, there they are. Sam and Andy, the co-founders of Douglas. I am looking at a picture of them right now. They truly are identical. And they really do look like a couple of guys who have figured something out. They look like well rested guys. In this case, I think what they figured out is the mattress game because the made in Canada, Douglas mattress, is trusted by over 250,000 Canadians. Sam and Andy are not messing around. They offer a 20 year warranty and 365 night trials. They know you're going to love your Douglas. These twins are confident. I can tell you that and they have every right to be because I've tried these mattresses and they are super comfortable. Don't ask, oh brother, where are thou? Don't ask, oh brother, where are thou? Sleep. Sleep in the art of thou brothers. No. Just hard, no. Ah, what am I talking about? Sam and Andy, they actually, there are two brothers, Sam and Andy, who are behind the Douglas brand. They're giving our listeners a free sleep bundle with each mattress purchase. Get the sheets, pillows, mattress, and pillow protectors free with your Douglas purchase today. Visit Douglas.ca/Canadaland to claim this offer. That's Douglas.ca/Canadaland. Here's how the star, I think, patronizes these journalists. I'll read here from the piece. Some ethnic media journalists, many of whom run their own media channels where they are the reporter, the businessmen, and the garbage men at the same time. - Well, God forbid, what a sin. - I mean, guilty is charged over here. We all can't work at the Toronto star there, guys. By the way, your newsroom has mice in it. Fuck you. - It gets worse, it gets worse. So some of these ethnic media journalists writes the star can occasionally be explicit in their approval of Polyev's message. In one such press conference this summer, one journalist referred to a smiling polyev as the future of Canada and the future prime minister. I mean, he just is the future prime minister, but okay. - I mean, come on. - Independent media, the star continues, which is crucial to the country's diversity and serves its smaller communities. Oh, thank you. Often doesn't have the business scale, the resources or the audience size to hold powerful federal and provincial political leaders to account. - I hate to break it to you, Toronto star, but increasingly neither do you. (laughing) I don't know what to tell you. - The star is on permanent death watch. - What kind of resources do you have, Toronto star, like? - What an absurd thing to suggest. I mean, like in a sense, this is an insult to these reporters, the same insult that Polyev might be thinking, which is they're no threat. They will easily be won over. They're happy to meet me and then I can buy their support. And the star is saying, yeah, he can there. You know, but what do you expect? They're taking out the garbage. - The degree to which you're telling on yourself there, because if you're assuming that your peers in the ethnic press can be so easily bought off, aren't you sort of admitting in some round about way that you've been bought off? Like, do you have respect for your peers in the ethnic press or don't you? - Forget coin, this is the Laurentian consensus here. Like this is the snooty Torontonian. - Yes, that's right. And this is the sort of thing that conservatives read and it drives them fucking batshit and not totally wrongly. Look, it's not wrong to point out that the independent media as a whole is not where the legacy media was in terms of its fiscal capabilities 20 years ago, 15 years ago, even 10, you know? - It is wrong to suggest that independence and being poorly resourced makes you less combative. - In fact, yes, it probably makes you more combative, but it does make you more dependent on subscription-based revenue. And it's more just dependent, I think, on a fairly self-selected audience as opposed to the glory days of the legacy media where you were a mass market product, right? That's true, but all of these things can increasingly be said of the legacy media. I have issues with where we are at independent media. I think there's risks and concerns. C18 is killing us right now. With that gets repealed, I think we're gonna be in a much stronger place. So like, independent media is gonna continue to entrench itself and expand, but, you know, if you're a conservative party hack and you're operating under a persecution complex, I've got bad news for you. And that is the second that you come to power all of a sudden, you're going to become the target and you're going to feel that all of these independent media are turning on you. And it's simply because independent media is doing what it's supposed to be doing that's holding power to account. And once you're in power, it will hold you to account. And I have a concern that their persecution complex once they're actually in power, it is only gonna find increasingly intellectually torturous ways to justify itself. - Jen, as you know, we like to do the note stories on this show to make sure that people do not miss them. What do you have to do the note? - Yeah, I would bring up a story about chemtrails. - Oh God, everyone knew that this would happen to Canada land eventually. Here's our coverage of chemtrails. - So the government, I'm kidding. So in Alberta, it's been an interesting story. Daniel Smith, the premier of Alberta was doing a town hall with UCP members last week. And one of the UCP members got up and started to ask her about chemtrails. In case you're not aware of this conspiracy theory, this one's an old one. This one goes back sometime. But you know when planes cross the sky and they leave like a white cloud behind them. - Yeah, I know, I know. - So while in just case people don't know, not everybody knows. - All right. - There's a longstanding conspiracy theory that the government or some kind of nefarious agency or the lizard people or the WEF or pick your villain has been secretly installing some kind of gas condenser on the back of every single commercial airline and that those big white trails you're seeing across the sky are evidence that they're trying to put chemicals into the atmosphere to do mind control or to make the frogs gay. I mean, like depending on who you ask, it's a whole bunch of different things. So somebody went to Daniel Smith and said, "Have you looked into the chemtrails?" And Daniel Smith, who has a bit of a reputation for taking certain conspiracy theories a little too seriously, being a bit too open-minded on certain things, initially responds quite reasonably. Yes, well, we've looked into it at the request of quote unquote many Albertans and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of evidence for it. At which point, the crowd started to boo and jeer her. The problem is that Smith is a people pleaser and when people started to jeer and boo her, the impulse to just give the brush off seemed to have shifted and then she started talking about saying things to the effect of. - Yeah, the person told me that if anyone is doing it, it's the US Department of Defense. And you know, like I have some limitations of what I can do in my job. I don't know that I would have much power if that is the case that the US Department of Defense is as frame as. - I don't necessarily think she believes in chemtrails, although who the fuck knows. I think that she's a people pleaser and I think she has a hard time being the villain of her own story, so to speak. And I think that what happened is that when she started to see the room turn on her, her politician instinct kicked in and she's tried to throw chum in the water to get people back on her side. In the end result of this, she wound up appearing to validate this chemtrails conspiracy theory to such an extent that both the US Department of Defense and NORAD issued statements denying it, which was like, I don't think saying. - Hey, why did you save it for the last? - Well, you know, I like the punchline. Anyway, so like Alberta really made the news this week when, you know, NORAD in the US Department of Defense was like, yeah, we're not putting mind control chemicals and you're Boeing 737's Boeing 737 has its own problems right now. So it was kind of an amazing week. - Dooley noted. Jen, I wanna dooley note that there's some problems at the CRTC. (laughs) - Sorry, that was too, that was too. - No, no, no, no, no. Let's not be like that. Let's not be like that. And this is not about. - Can we be like that? Can we be a little like that? - Maybe a little. But this is not about the CRTC's mishandling of Canadian media broadcasting communications. No, this is a very common problem. The CRTC needs to get people back to work. Canada has a back-to-work mandate for public servants that's just taken effect, CBC reports. You know, three days a week, please, please. - Wow, really, it's torture. It's like back to the salt mines. Get mother Jones on the line. - Here's the real problem though. CRTC needs its workers back three days a week, but they don't have enough office space for them. - Oh dear. - So yeah, 'cause it's really hard to find office space right now. - Yeah, absolutely. Here is their solution to the problem. For a charity fundraiser, the CRTC offered to its workers a raffle, you get a desk. If you win, you don't have to share a desk. You get an assigned, like that's a prize in this raffle, a month in a closed office to do your own job. They will provide a closed office for you to do the job that you're hired to do. - And take it back, get mother Jones on it. Let's get the firehouses solidarity forever. - Welcome to the salt mines. Winner of the raffle gets a shuttle. No more using your hands. What the hell? - What is going on? - No, like, okay, so it's very, very easy for asshole conservative types like me and I have conservative-ish people like me to be like three days back in the week. Fuck you. The public sector's unions are not winning much sympathy from me right now, and I get that. But then, you know, when you actually get into the claims and it's like, well, look, you hired people with the expectation of remote work being a possibility and now you're changing the terms of the employment. Okay, I'm pretty sympathetic to that. I'm sympathetic to that argument. And then when you're like, you have to share, you don't get your own desk. Strikes me as unreasonable. - First prize is a working toilet. Second prize is you're fired. - Do we noted? - Stick around for some more stories that we've been following this week. But first, let's say goodbye to our guests. Jen, thank you so much. - Anytime. - Jen, where can people find you? - Well, you can check me out at the line www.readtheline.ca. Through that, you can also send a note to mine editor at protonmail.com. - All right, before we go, here are some other stories that we're following. You may have heard that Gregory Hinton, Canadian Gregory Hinton has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize. Hinton, of course, is a father of AI. On Monday's episode of Canada Land, I'm gonna talk to Stephen March who wrote about Hinton and the birth of AI for the New Yorker. We get into this big conversation about, well, about how the chat GPT, it stands for transformer, but it might as well stand for Toronto. There are some Canadian origins here, but what we talk about is this birth moment of the transformer and how these scientists, Frankenstein, something that surprised the hell out of them when it came to life and started answering questions that they did not think it was gonna answer. This is like a really interesting look at the birth of AI from Stephen March, a great writer who went deep on this and wrote something really interesting about it. It's a great conversation, check that out on Monday. Then on Tuesday, the politics edition of Canada Land will have a look at DC conservative leader, John Rustat. There is an election going on and they are surging in the polls. Have you gotten familiar with this guy? Rustat is abnormal. I mean, I think that's just objective. A video clip surfaced where he discusses Nuremberg 2.0 trials over COVID policy. - Nuremberg 2.0. - Yes. - Oh, yes. That's probably something that goes side of my scope. - I know that put me on the hot spot right there for sure, but I had to ask that. - No, no, it's fine. That's what I can say. That's something that's sort of outside the scope in terms of a jurisdictional British Columbia, but if we would certainly be participating without the jurisdictions as we look at those sort of issues. - We're also having a look at the Hogue inquiry on foreign interference. That is a story that we're continuing to follow. Things are really heating up. It's getting very dramatic at that inquiry. What they're digging into now is this warrant request from CESIS asking the Minister of Defense Bill Blair to conduct surveillance on a liberal MP, Michael Chan. And for some reason, Blair did not act on that for this suspiciously long period of 54 days. And the inquiry, the Hogue inquiry is really bearing down on that. This could be big. We are following that closely. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - That is our show for today. Thanks for listening to it. You can email me about anything you heard at Jesse@CanadaLand.com. I read every email that people send in. This episode is produced by James Nicholson with additional production by Caleb Thompson. Our production manager is Max Collins, who also did the fact check for this episode. I'm Jesse Brown, editor and publisher of "Canada Land". This episode is brought to you by supporters Blair Antcliff, Durnian Joseph and William Azarov. You can become a supporter too. I think you should. If you think back on the time we just spent together, are you better for having listened to it? Do you know about some stuff that you didn't know about before? Are you thinking about some stuff you didn't think about before? That's a service we provide and we are only able to provide it because a lot of people do make the decision to become supporters. And when they do, they are keeping our work free and accessible to everybody. We also sweeten the deal with just about anything we can think of, add free feeds and early access, bonus content, an exclusive newsletter that is very much worth your time, discounts on our merchandise. We do live in virtual events and our supporters get invites and tickets to those. But the big thing is that we need to push back against the total collapse of media in Canada and supporting "Canada Land" is a way you can do that. Do it now. Click on the link in the show notes or go to CanadaLand.com/join. Our theme music is by so-called syndication is by CFUV 101.9 FM in Victoria. Visit them online at CFUV.ca. You can listen, add free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]