It’s Fake News Friday on The Candice Malcolm Show!
In a desperate attempt for even more positive coverage from the CBC, Justin Trudeau unveiled the Liberal platform and pledged an additional $400 million to the failing state broadcaster. This is on top of the $1.2 billion that the CBC already receives from taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Press paints all protesters who oppose mandatory vaccines in the same negative light and fails to mention that thousands of health care workers and nurses participated in the same protests.
And True North’s Andrew Lawton joins the show to discuss how the legacy media misled Canadians about Erin O’Toole’s position on guns.
After weeks and months of saying no to vaccine passports and a society segregated based on vaccination status, the Ontario government is now making vaccines mandatory to go to restaurants, gyms, and other locales.
Canadian Constitution Foundation litigation director Christine Van Geyn joins The Andrew Lawton Show to explain why this mandate is unconstitutional and simply unnecessary.
Also, we look at some gaffes from the campaign trail, as well as the latest in Liberal desperation, as seen on last night’s TVA debate.
Leaked audio recorded by an Alberta patient awaiting a lung transplant shows a healthcare worker telling her she will be dropped from the transplant list if she doesn’t agree to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which is representing patient Annette Lewis, released the audio, in which an unnamed member of the transplant team at the University of Alberta Hospital, gives Lewis the ultimatum.
“Pre-transplant patients are going to be required to have the COVID vaccine,” the healthcare provider says.
Lewis suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a terminal condition affecting both of her lungs. Her lungs were functioning at 40% capacity two months ago. If she doesn’t receive the transplant, she will die.
The JCCF sent a letter to the hospital calling for an exemption from the vaccine requirement. The JCCF is demanding confirmation of such within seven days.
In the letter, the JCCF notes Lewis “has chosen not to take the new COVID-19 vaccine because it is experimental, and she fears the growing list of life-threatening complications that have been reported.”
The letter also points out that Lewis has already complied with the bulk of the hospital’s required vaccines, including childhood vaccinations.
“The hospital’s conduct in making an ultimatum of this nature to a terminally ill patient is coercive and unethical. Threatening a patient’s access to life-saving medical treatment for not participating in an experimental treatment for a condition she does not have and may never get is a profound violation of Ms. Lewis’ human dignity, personal autonomy, and her constitutionally protected right to life, liberty and security of the person,” said JCCF staff lawyer Allison Pejovic.
There have been close to 7,000 reported deaths between December 2020 and June 2021, according to the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Health Canada has not fully authorized the vaccines and has introduced them under an interim order, placing warning labels for adverse events such as blood clotting, myocarditis, Bell’s Palsy and pericarditis. Those receiving the vaccine at this time are a part of the human clinical trial, which will go on until 2023.
A new poll that segments voters by demographic groups reveals that the Liberals are struggling to retain support among their traditional base while waging a negative campaign meant to attract hard-left voters away from the NDP.
The survey, which was conducted by Campaign Research, broke down voters based on seven demographic segments ranging from millennials, older, suburban middle class Canadians, hard right-wingers and hard-left wingers, among others.
The poll was conducted between August 30, 2021 and September 1, 2021. It surveyed 3,011 Canadians to achieve its results.
According to the results, the Liberals were polling 43% among the hard-left, nearly neck-in-neck with the NDP who were leading at 46% with this group.
“They’ve gone negative and they are attacking anyone affiliated as a ‘conservative,’ including provincial premiers. But the ‘more urban, better educated & affluent’ and the ‘older, suburban and middle class’ segments are much less partisan or even ‘non-partisan’ and they do not like negative campaigns nor hard political attacks,” researchers wrote.
“But the harder (more negative and partisan) the [Liberals] become to move these voters back to them, the more they lose from the other, larger groups of less partisan or even ‘non-partisan’ voters.”
In comparison, the Conservatives are gaining with traditionally Liberal groups like left-leaning, more female voters. 13% of voters in this group indicated that they are willing to vote for a Conservative candidate. Additionally, the Liberals are only polling 29% with this voter segment, while the NDP are considerably ahead at 40%.
“(Conservatives have) remained positive in their campaign and aspirational about the future of Canada. This plays well with the less partisan or even ‘non-partisan’ voters and the CPC has made ground with these specific segments,” researchers wrote.
With regard to overall national voter intention, Campaign Research found that the Conservatives were leading nationally with 33% of the vote, while the Liberals received 30% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the NDP placed third at 22% of the vote, followed by the Bloç Quebecois who currently sit at 6%. Both the People’s Party of Canada and the Green Party came in tied at 4%.
The Ontario Government’s Advocate for Community Opportunities Jamil Jivani voiced his opposition to the government’s plan to implement vaccine passports.
“Today’s announcement does not change my views,” said Jivani in a tweet on Wednesday. “I continue to oppose vaccine passports & other measures that create a two-tiered society.”
Jivani said he will be working with community members to document how vaccine passports impact minority groups and people from all backgrounds.
Today's announcement does not change my views. I continue to oppose vaccine passports & other measures that create a two-tiered society.
I'll work with community members to document the impact of these policies on minority groups & Canadians of all backgrounds. More to come.
In a previous tweet, Jivani says like many Canadians who oppose vaccine passports, he isn’t “anti-vaxx.” He believes vaccine passports will marginalize people who are already struggling to make ends meet.
“I agree with Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s comments on July 15, when he said vaccine passports will create a two-tiered, ‘split society.’ Provincial mandatory vaccine passports will further marginalize a significant number of Canadians who are already struggling in our economy,” Jivani tweeted on August 31st.
As the Government of Ontario's Advocate for Community Opportunities, I am 100% against provincial mandatory vaccine passports, which will exclude and harm members of minority communities and others who are vaccine hesitant because of historical abuses and matters of conscience.
As first reported by True North, Statistics provided by Health Canada confirm that black and Indigenous Canadians experience the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy in Canada.
A Statistics Canada COVID-19 vaccine willingness survey from March 26, 2021, reveals that black Canadians have the lowest willingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine (56.6%), while Indigenous Canadians have the second-lowest (71.8%).
The Ontario government said in a press release on Wednesday that it will require people to be fully vaccinated and provide proof of their vaccine status to access certain businesses and settings starting Sept. 22.
Premier Doug Ford said in the press release that requiring proof of vaccination in certain settings will reduce risk and serve as an important step to encourage every eligible person to be vaccinated.
“Based on the latest evidence and best advice, COVID-19 vaccine certificates give us the best chance to slow the spread of this virus while helping us to avoid further lockdowns,” Ford said.
Ford appointed Jivani to serve as the advocate for community opportunities in 2019. Jivani works as the managing director of Road Home Research & Analysis, has written columns for the National Post and wrote the book “Why Young Men: The Dangerous Allure of Violent Movements and What We Can Do About It.”
Jivani and the Premier’s Office could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole promised on Wednesday to scrap the Liberal government’s inefficient infrastructure bank.
According to O’Toole, the infrastructure bank, which was established by Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau in 2015, was a failed Liberal project.
“Unlike the Liberals, we won’t condition funding so narrowly, to whether the project can be described as ‘green infrastructure,’” said O’Toole during a campaign stop in Ottawa.
O’Toole also stated that under a Conservative government, the existing money in the bank would be distributed to infrastructure projects that are ready to build.
Additionally, money would be used so cities and First Nations could have better access to government infrastructure funds by cutting regulatory obstacles.
With regard to digital infrastructure, O’Toole reiterated his promise to reach high-speed internet for all Canadians no matter where they live in the country.
To date, the crown corporation has yet to complete a single project despite having existed for over half a decade.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna revealed in February 2021 that the $35 billion bank was inactive despite the fact that in 2019 the bank claimed that it had 25 projects ready to be announced by early 2020.
Despite not completing any projects, in 2020 the infrastructure bank spent over $1.5 million worth of expenses for travel and publicity. The bank also spent two-thirds of its budget on paying staff.
A Conservative government headed by Erin O’Toole intends to stop illegal border crossings that were rampant prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada’s Conservatives will close illegal entry points – the most infamous being Roxham Road in Quebec – along with the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement that allows asylum seekers to come to Canada illegally from the United States, says a section of their platform described as “Securing our Border.”
“We will close the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement to end illegal border crossings… we will end the practice of the RCMP and the CBSA acting as unofficial welcoming committees, assisting with illegal crossings,” says the Conservative policy platform.
This influx of illegal refugees was prompted by a January 2017 tweet from Liberal leader Justin Trudeau inviting the world’s self-selected refugees to come to Canada.
#WelcometoCanada, he announced in the hashtag.
To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada
It was an attempt gone terribly wrong by our woke open-borders Prime Minister to embarrass former President Donald Trump, who’d signed an executive order banning immigrants from a select few terrorist-harbouring countries to enter the U.S. In doing so, Trump was trying to put a lid, at least temporarily, on homegrown terrorism.
The Safe Third Country Agreement stipulates that any asylum seeker is supposed to make their claim in the first safe country in which they land.
But enabled by Trudeau’s magnanimous Twitter offer – which was viewed millions of times and made headlines all over the world – the illegal border crossers took advantage of a loophole that permitted them to make a claim if they crossed an illegal port of entry like at Roxham Road.
Who can forget the pictures of migrants taking pre-arranged taxis for the 30-minute ride from Plattsburgh, N.Y. to mere metres from the illegal border point, where they’d walk the rest of the way rolling their suitcases.
It became such good business for the taxis in Plattsburgh they started calling themselves border shuttles.
At the border crossing, they were greeted by RCMP and Canadian border security agents – the latter the same Canadian government staff who have aggressively targeted travellers at airports with obscene fines of $5,000 or more if they refused to go to a COVID quarantine hotel.
It became so controversial that the federal government started referring to them as “irregular migrants” instead of what they truly were – illegal border crossers.
Border security minister Bill Blair did nothing to stem the tide of illegal crossers which according to the federal government’s own statistics totalled almost 60,000 between the spring of 2017 and June of this year.
The same statistics show the numbers only began to dwindle down to a few hundred every quarter once the borders were essentially shut due to the pandemic.
During their peak, the illegal crossings took a tremendous toll on the resources of cities like Toronto – whose officials had to scramble to shelter the illegal border crossers and offer them social assistance and other support.
In fact, the Liberal government never had a plan for these people other than to dump their care and welfare on the city and the province.
City of Toronto officials jumped into panic mode to find hotels to house them after they were temporarily housed in residences like those at Humber College.
By the end of 2018, some 33% of Toronto shelter spaces were occupied by these asylum seekers and the city was forced to set up pre-fab tent structures to house their homeless.
During 2019, the city of Toronto spent an outrageous $75-million to house and feed the illegal border crossers – and only $45-million came from the feds to cover the costs.
In addition to the exorbitant costs, it simply was unfair to those who came to Canada through legal means.
At Christmas in 2019, I spoke to Varun Muriyanat and his wife Neeunu Mary who jumped through hoops for over three years – spending $27,000 they didn’t have – to immigrate from India. Unlike the illegal border crossers, they did everything by the book and had no help from an army of resettlement experts and no government assistance once they landed here.
The Conservative platform also indicates an intention to work with officials south of the border to set up joint patrols at and near high traffic points on the land border to deter illegal crossings.
In their platform released this week, the Liberals make no specific mention of the fate of illegal entry points like Roxham Road.
But in a statement on World Refugee Day this past June, the responsible minister Marco Mendicino stressed Canada’s “unwavering commitment” to resettle refugees, boasting that while other countries closed their doors, Canada welcomed “nearly half of all refugees resettled around the world” during the pandemic.
He spoke of redoubling their efforts to help “even more refugees and asylum claimants” to find safety in Canada.
While the polls indicate that the election is still too close to call, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Liberals aren’t connecting with voters and Justin Trudeau is no longer an appealing option to Canadians.
True North’s in-house pollster Hamish Marshall joins The Candice Malcolm Show to discuss the Liberals’ $78 billion platform and key ridings that Canadians should pay close attention to this election.
“I want to see less ‘made in China’ to be honest with you and more ‘made in Canada’ and I have no hesitation saying that because I’ve been saying it for several years. We can’t sit by and watch a country like China gain from global trade while they don’t follow the rules,” O’Toole said.
“So we need to start working alongside our allies like the Americans, the Australians and others who have actually been much more serious with respect to China for many years. Mr. Trudeau has been out of step on this issue. I think we have an incredible ability to improve those trade relations with our close allies and take a stronger, more principled approach with respect to China.”
According to the Conservative Party’s platform, O’Toole has several policies that deal with manufacturing and decreasing reliance on China and other nations abroad.
O’Toole has pledged to bring personal protective equipment (PPE) and pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the country while also increasing domestic vaccine production.
Additionally the Conservative platform pledges that they would only “pursue free trade agreements with free countries that respect workers’ rights and maintain high environmental standards.”
The Trudeau government has faced criticism in the past for its reliance on China, particularly when it comes to PPE imports during the early stages of the pandemic.
According to estimates, the Liberal government’s mishandling of Canada’s emergency stockpile cost taxpayers $500 million. Due to their inaction, Canada was importing PPE at prices approximately 380% higher than before the pandemic began.
Conservatives have also called on the federal government to cut ties and imports with any Chinese company that is suspected of using Uyghurs and other minorities for forced labour to manufacture goods.
Thousands of Canadian nurses and healthcare workers took to the streets Wednesday to protest against vaccine mandates and take a stand against “medical tyranny.” The protests, organized by Canadian Frontline Nurses (CFN), were held in 18 cities across Canada on the same day the Ontario government announced its plans to impose a vaccine passport in the coming weeks.
CFN aims to “restore our freedoms and rights as Canadian citizens and reinstate the four ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice within nursing.”
In Toronto, approximately 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the University Health Network Hospital and marched towards Queen’s Park.
“Nobody has a right to suppress our choice over our body,” said one protester, Sandra Kyrzakos, who argued vaccine passports are intended to coerce people into getting vaccinated.
“This is about standing up for our rights and freedoms because this is just the tip of the iceberg. If we allow this, I can only imagine what it will be like for our children. This is the hill we all need to be willing to die on.”
Kyrzakos was protesting with a sign saying mandatory vaccines are unconstitutional.
Nurses and healthcare workers expressed dismay over their treatment by the government.
“We were heroes at the height of the pandemic, and now we are told we will lose our jobs if we do not comply and get the vaccine,” said one protester who asked not to be named.
Many protesters did not wish to speak on record out of fear of reprisals in the workplace, especially as more Ontario hospitals push vaccine mandates for their staff.
Numerous protesters claimed the vaccine mandates violate section seven of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” They believe that the mandates will infringe on their liberty and security.
Protesters expressed anger towards Justin Trudeau’s decision to backtrack on his earlier promise not to enforce vaccine mandates. Many worry that they will be treated as “second-class citizens” if they do not comply due to Ontario’s forthcoming vaccine passport regime.
“We do not want to be chained under Trudeau’s laws, and we will fight to the end,” some protesters chanted.
