October 15, 2021 • 47 mins
Oh sorry, did you happen to catch a little fascism there eh?
The second part of our dive into the Canadian Far-Right, this episode we cover 2019-present day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello. Nope, that's not it. That's it, Garrison. The episode
has begun. It cannot be unbegun. A let's let's roll
right into it. Let's talk about so well welcome says
it could happen here. Um today, the today. The here
(00:24):
is is Canada, that is the that is where it
could happen. Um. This is gonna be part two of
my little deep dive into Canadian fascism and the far
right rumblings in general in the Great White North. And
oh god, that is a bad, bad nickname for Canada,
the Great White NORTHCCATE did not really think that went through,
(00:45):
oopsie doodle. Maybe the yeah, there's a good chance anyway. Um.
The last episode we left off with the Canadian yellow vests, um,
and you know, frightening increase in Islamophobia and anti human
grace and rhetoric around late after Trump selection. And we
(01:05):
started the last episode by talking about one of Canada's
first fascist political parties. And we're gonna start part two
but talking about Canada's new neo fascist political party that
also got started inside the province of Quebec just like
the National Unity Party did. Uh. This one is called
the People's Party of Canada. Um, before we get into
(01:27):
the People's Party, and first to give some background on
the founder of the party, Maxine Bernier. Um. And that's
how that's that's how I'm gonna say his name. Um,
no one at me, it's good enough. Um. Brenair was
born in Quebec in nineteen sixty three. On is the
son of a conservative talk radio host turned politician. Isn't
that funny? Isn't that funny? How that keeps happening? Uh? Yeah,
(01:53):
So Brenair entered politics into US in six um he
ran as the Conservative Party candidate for the House of
Commons in the same writing district that his father had
represented in the eighties and nineties. Stephen Harper, leader of
the new United Conservative Party, initially wanted Maxine's father to
re enter politics, but Bernair Senior was less keen on
(02:13):
that idea, and instead told Harper that he that perhaps
his son should run in his place. Radio and nepotism,
radio and nepotism, yep, and politicians, and yeah it is
it is starting great. Um. So at this point Bernair
was more like a free market libertarian, libertarian type guy,
(02:34):
you know, still with some of the same like conservative
immigration stuff that's that's common in Quebec, but he was
more of just like a libertarian dude. Bernair easily won
the writing writings of what we call districts here in
the States, ranking at sixty seven percent of the popular vote,
which was the largest majority for a Conservative politician outside
of the province of Alberta. So he he did, he
(02:56):
did very well. Bernair, who had a background in business,
quickly rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party. Within
the same year he was appointed to be a cabinet
minister in the Harper government. Um and he worked as
a as an industry minister from to us in six
to us and seven before being promoted to a foreign
affairs minister. Then in two thousand eleven he was appointed
of He was appointed as Minister of the State. So
(03:19):
in in spring of sixteen, after the fifth after the
federal election, uh Bernaer put in his bid to be
the new elected Conservative Party leader. UM So, I'm gonna
briefly explain how Canadian elections work. You you don't vote
for a prime minister. You vote for a party within
your specific district if you if if your party wins,
(03:43):
they get a seat in Parliament. Whoever has the most
seats in parliament, that's whose prime minister gets elected. So
whoever is whoever is the leader of the party, they
will be prime minister if that party gets the most seats.
So two us. In sixteen, Burner put in his bid
to be the new Conservative Party leader. Uh. He got
remarkably close to securing the spot as leader of the Conservatives.
(04:05):
In the final round of voting, he received forty nine
point zero five percent of the vote, losing to Saskatchewan
Conservative politician Andrew Shear, who got fifty point nine percent,
so less less than two percent difference. He was so
close to the comic leader of the Conservative Party, like ridiculous.
So yeah, after his extremely slight loss, he continued to
(04:28):
work in Shear's Conservative Party for a few years. Um.
If you remember from the last episode, Around this time
was when these homophobia and anti immigration talking points were
starting to gain a new popularity, and Bernaer followed along
with this trend. He would tweet out about the dangers
of extreme multiculturalism and he had like an increasingly racist
(04:48):
and divisive rhetoric and that kind of caused some drama
within the Conservative establishment. So in August of eighteen, around
the same time the yellow vest movement in Canada was
starting up, Berner resigned from the Conservative Party with the
stated intention of forming a new federal populist far right
political party. Um here here, here's a segment from his
(05:11):
resignation speech and he he does talk in a very
thick French accent. I'm not going to do that. Um yeah,
you're you're channel the energy. Um that was that was
just direct audio instead of leading as a principal Conservative
(05:37):
and defending the interests of Canada and Canadians. Andrew Sheer
is following the Trudeau Liberals. I was told that internal
polling is showing that the Liberals response to Trump is popular,
and that in six months, if the polls change, the
party's stand may change to the same thing happened in
reaction to my tweets on diversity and multiculturalism. This is
another crucial debate for the future of our country. Do
(05:59):
you want to emphasize the ethnic and religious differences or
exploit them to buy votes as the Liberals are doing,
or emphasize what unites us and the values that can
guarantee social cohesion. Just like other Western societies grappling with
this issue. A large number of Canadians, and certainly the
vast majority of Conservatives, are worried that we are heading
in the wrong direction. But it's not correct to raise
(06:20):
such questions. So yeah, and I think that I honestly
one of the main reasons why Brenaire hasn't been super successful,
UM is because of his accent, like he is. It's
harder for Protestant white Canadians to support him because he
talks with a French Canadian accent. Um. If if if
(06:42):
he talked in like good English, I think he would
have he would have won Conservative leadership UM and his
populist party would be way more popular than than than
it is now. So critical support to other French racism
is preventing the racist from being racist enough. Yes, you
love to see you certainly see it. We do, we
(07:06):
do see it. So Brenner faced some pushback from his
conservative colleagues, including Stephen Harper, of trying to divide the
right and split the right of center vote. UM and
some of the less socially conservative members of the main
Conservative Party decried Berner's departure and subsequent New People's Party
as just a plain attempt to pander to xenophobia and
(07:28):
racist right wingers. But Brenner went right to work and
ran enough candidates under his new party to secure a
spot in the federal election debates that were like that,
you know that how we watch presidential debates, same thing,
but these have you know, multiple candidates because there are
multiple parties, the same thing. But basically he was able
to get in the televised debates. Um, the PPC, which
(07:49):
is the People's Party of canad I'm just gonna say
the PPC now because it sounds funny. Um. They started
going viral on the internet after pictures of massive billboards
with Berner's face and big text that said saying no
to mass immigration. This this this guy very is this
guy very Mimi around like these big, these big PPC billboards. Um,
(08:09):
I'm gonna I'm gonna read a bit from a write
up and it's going down by some local um Montreal
anti fascists. There have been suggestions that the PPC spokesperson
and architect of its public relations strategy, Martin Mass, has
been key to its embrace of the far right. Mass
was owner of the publisher of the Capucua Libre, which
is an online libertarian news outlet that shut down in
(08:31):
and that pp but that PPC's cozy relationship with racist
is primarily due to the influence of this one person
is highly doubtful, however, that the PPC is positioning itself
as the option of choice for those who find the
Conservative Party insufficiently right wing. Racism is clearly just one
of the most effective tools for such a strategy. Witnessing
PPC billboards and tweets against mass immigration, also tweets about
(08:55):
being against Antifa and Bernara's diet tribe about radical Islam
being the biggest threat to freedom and peace and security
in the world today, and how he complains about other
parties are are complacent and pandering to Islamists and promising
that the PPC will make no compromise with the tolitarian ideology.
A number of media articles have revealed the far right
connections to people active in the PPC as organizers and
(09:19):
members whose signatures were used for the PPC to gain
official party status. Um for instance, a Derek Horne, the
PPC volunteer and a security agent who accompanied Bernair at
a variety offense and media interviews. He has been revealed
to be a founding member of the neo fascist Canadian
Nationalist Party, which we we briefly mentioned in the last episode. UM.
(09:39):
Sean Walker is an American immigrant and organizer with the
PPC in St. Catharine's UM, as well as one of
the people who signed on for PPC to be an
official party. He was revealed to be the president of
the National Alliance US, based in the Nazi organization seven.
He was also he was also convicted of hate crimes
at the time for violence Stands People of Color UM.
(10:00):
Following these revelations, Walker was expelled from the PPC and
Bernard claimed that he'd slipped through the party's betting process. However,
was also revealed that Bernar follows him on Twitter UM.
Others who signed up for the for the PPC two
beneficial party include Janice Bulch, a founding member of the
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamification of Accent, and also Justin L. Smith,
(10:24):
leader of this of the Sudbury chapter of the Soldiers
of Odin. So a whole bunch of whole bunch of
fascist people are working work working for the party UM
and unsurprisingly a number of a number of candidates have
made headlines, but there as there. You know, social media
posts from the past and present have surfaced featuring like racism, islamophobia,
and a lot of spreading of far right conspiracy theories.
(10:45):
You know that was just kind of common. There's too many,
honestly to mention. Um. And it's it's not just that
the PPC has a few bad apples in it. It's
like the whole the whole party is rife with these
kind of one of these kind of sentiments. Um. One
gauge of this and the sign and a sign that
like this is intentional is that as looking at the
candidates who have left the party or have been kicked
out when it became clear that there would be no
(11:07):
condemnation of the far right from the upper ranks, there
was like and and justin like twenty nineteen alone, there
was like three candidates who were who left or were
either kicked out um because they you know, had objections
to the racism rampant within the party. They were like
complaining about, hey, these guys seem kind of racist, and
then they were kicked out of the party or or
(11:28):
or or they left. So yeah, that's that's a not
a good problem to have. UM. So in in uh
finishing up this this little quote here UM. Indeed, a cursory,
accursory look at the Facebook pages of PPC candidates reveals
what's been really noteworthy is how selective the news stories
about racist tweets or Facebook posts have been. Almost every
(11:51):
PPC candidate in Quebec has recently in repeated lye shared
articles from climate denialist sources, including many with a conspiratorial bent.
A Canada eight for pap and You even produced his
own YouTube expose revealing how George Sorrows it's behind an
international global conspiracy theory to crash economies and make money
spending a panic about climate change. Secondary to climate denial,
(12:12):
there's a lot of fears around free speech and mass immigration,
which are both recurring themes in the PPC candidates, and
roughly one in five have recently shared news articles from
what we would deem a national populist or full right sources,
including less manchetz dot com, which is the website of
the French language of the French language translator of the
Christ Church Um Manifesto UM, and that that the guy
(12:36):
who reads the website is also involved with organizing in
the Montreal In the Montreal chapter of the vests. Um. Yeah,
so he he both translated the manifesto and he's also
running the Montreal Yellow Best movement. So that's fun. Um,
it's not fun, it's bad, um, Andre Pytree pipe poo wow.
And it's so you remember, so I didn't learned French
(13:00):
in Canada because I was in a weird Christian private school.
Otherwise I could be a lot better at this job.
But anyway, there's there's a there's a there's a there's
just like a far right YouTube channel. But this guy
called Studio who a lot of his stuff was shared. Um.
And there's a more like eccentric and sporadic mix of
(13:21):
of of other news sources including Unite the Right attendee
Faith Goldie who also ran from Mayor of Toronto and
got third place, UM, Quebec based q and on figure
Alexus trudell Um, and the al right YouTuber Black Pigeon Speaks.
Of course, the main Yellow Vest page was shared a lot,
and also sources from the highly racist The Voice of Europe.
(13:42):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of a lot
of not not great news sources being being shared by
the PBC. UM. So that is the gist of the
People's Party as of twenty nineteen UM. Overall, their performance
in the twenty nineteen election was it is kind of
a flop. Bernair lost his own seat in Quebec. No
(14:04):
PTC candidates got into office, and the party only managed
to get one uh in the party only managed to
get one point six percent of the total national popular vote,
so that's good. It only got one point six percent
of all of the votes in Canada. So we're gonna
take a break from the People's Party for now and
(14:25):
we will circle back towards it um at the end.
But after after an ad break, we will we will
talk about the with the main Conservative party was up
to during this time and uh a little bit after
the nineteen election. So yep, and now the cats just
blocking the whole thing. All right, we're back. The cat
(14:55):
is in the bathroom. I moved from my cat blocked
from the camera. Hello, um, People's Party not doing great
in the first election. That's fun. Let's see what the
regular Conservatives are up to. I'm sure it was things
that are just good and cool. If I know anything
about Conservatives, it's that they're not not hashtag problematic. Yeah,
(15:17):
just let's just got okay, so I'll just be sad
over here, and the audience can know that I'm sad
the whole time you're talking. I would rather as episode
not such a not such a downer, but it's it's
hard to make it these kind of an upper I'll
make a bargain with the audience that if they listen,
I will I will do my French accent at least
one more time. We'll see doing the French accent. This
(15:39):
is the happiest I have seen Robert all day. Like
he does look very tired. You did say earlier, Garrison,
and this was very funny that you'd be better at
your job if you could speak French. But given what
we are here, it cools owed media. You would actually
be much worse at your job. Um And in act,
(16:00):
if you if you were to speak French, I would
I would fire you immediate. It's actually requirement that you
can't pronounce things to certainly not French. There's other languages
you're allowed to know how to pronounce, but not French.
No ob lo francaie. So let's pick up right after
(16:23):
Maxine Bernair lost the Conservative leadership to Andrew Sheer in
um Sheer won the leadership on a on on like
a platform of classical financial conservatism and a slightly more
socially moderate platform um. When Sheer got into office, though,
one of the things he faced criticism for, even among
the Conservative caucus was his association with a little media
(16:47):
with was his association with a little media outlet called
Rebel Media. Yeah so, most most listeners may not know
what rebel media is, but you've certainly seen their stuff
or felt their effect. Yeah, it's like the rough draft
of bright Bart. And also Canadian and Canadian, yes so Canadian.
(17:09):
Uh so. Rebel Media is a Canadian far right neo
fascist propaganda outlet's start that has a lot of a
lot of bright Bardi vibes. Umbel Media, Yeah, bright bartesque.
Rebel Media hosts and contributors have included a white nationalist
and white genocide proponent, Laurence Southern UM and Proud Boy
(17:29):
founder Gavin McGinnis UM. McGinnis produced a quote satirical video
for Rebel called ten Things I Hate about the Jews. Yeah,
yeah so, and and it's and it is worth noting
that both Southern and McGinnis are Canadian. Um. They're actually
a lot of alt right figures that are Canadian. Of
(17:52):
course we have we have Lauren Southern, Gavin McGinnis, Um,
we have Stephen Crowder, uh Stefan malin you and of
course Jordan Peterson. All of those people are are Canadian
and most of them, most of them still live in Canada. Yes,
he's still alive. Made it. He made insane tweet the
other day. God, he made the most tweet. That tweet
(18:16):
made it all worthwhile. Baby, he got everyone to go
check his Twitter feed. It is amazing. You can you
can hear his brain shorting out when you read that tweet,
like you need to find the tweet it is. It
is just it is the most beautiful piece of poetry
I ever. It's like somebody taught a stroke out of type.
(18:39):
It makes no sense. God, it's so good. Um. I'm
going to quote an article by a Global News dot
c a on Andrew Sheer and Rebel media. Quote. Despite
a string of controversies faced by Canadian right wing media
outlet to the Rebel, including allegations of downplaying the Holocaust
movie minted, Conservative Party leader Andrew Shear has so far
(19:00):
continued to make himself available to the company that other
prominent conservative politicians have criticized for its controversial reporting and activism.
She Hear's campaign organization also has a direct connection to
The Rebel. His campaign manager, Hamish Marshall, is listed as
a director of the company's federal incorporation records, which show
its most recent annual gathering meeting was in February this year.
(19:21):
Following the leadership election in Toronto on Saturday, Sheer granted
one on one interviews with a handful of major media organizations,
including a face to face interview with The Rebels Ottawa
correspondent Brian Lily. Prior to his convention interview, Sheer appeared
on The Rebel in February in a studio interview with
host Faith Goldie on her show on the Hunt. At
the end of the discussion, Goldie asked Sheer if if
(19:43):
he would agree to go on a duck hunting trip
with her after after he wins the leadership on Canada Day,
which he agreed to. UM We briefly mentioned Faith Goldie
earlier in her connection to the People's Party UM and
her brief campaign for the Toronto mayor, but here's some
more background on her UM and her coverage and her
coverage of the Unite the Right rally for Rebel Media.
(20:05):
Quoting from Winnipeg Free Press. In the course of her dispatches,
Goldie argued the events in the Charlottesville were evidence of
a rising white racial consciousness that was going to change
the political landscape in America. She also wanted to she's
actually not wrong there. That was, Yeah, she's not wrong,
but I think she's she's on the other side of
(20:26):
the island. And whether this is a good or bad thing. Yeah.
She went to great lengths to laud the twenty point
Meta political Manifesto composed by White National's leader Richard Spencer,
a document that includes calls to organize U states along
ethnic and racial divides and celebrates the superiority of white
America faith. Goldie described Spencer's manifesto as robust and well
(20:49):
thought out. Goldie was fired by Rebel in mid August
and seventeen, but not due to her participation in Unite
the Right. She was fired for appearing on a Daily
Stormer podcast to discuss Unite the Right. So yeah, yeah,
that's that's fine, So yeah, fine, nice to have her.
Interviewing Conservative leader Andrew Sheer asked for his reaction to
(21:14):
Unite the Right and Rebel Media UM. After what happened
in Charlotte'sville in seventeen, Sheer, who had previously been interviewed
by Rebel multiple times, h finally disavowed the outlets, saying, look,
I believe there's a fine line between covering events and
giving a platform to groups who are promoting a violent,
disgusting point of view. I won't be granting interviews going forward.
(21:35):
So that's nice that it took someone dying in Charlotte's
Bill to realize that you probably shouldn't talk to the
fascist media source. UM. So in the aftermath of Unite
the Right, the mainstream conservatives kind of had to tread
carefully around social issues because it's like, oh, yeah, they're
they're still not sias. We probably shouldn't be pandering to them. Um.
But as more time and distance let the air cool,
(21:56):
some conservatives went back to the same old rhetoric around
the twenty nine election. UM. For instance, in his twenty
nineteen election campaign, uh Tom Chemick, of the parliamentary representative
of one of the parliamentary representatives for Calgary, Alberta, wrote
out and spread flyers with the all claps with the
all caps header of crisis at the Border UH with
(22:18):
text treating deer constituent. The Independent Autor General of Canada
has published a scathing report confirming that the Ottawa Liberals
have failed to safely and responsibly manage Canada's borders. Since
Justin Trudeau you responsibly tweeted out that Canada would open
sports to anyone seeking entry, the number of people illegally
crossing the board into Canada from the United States has
surged past one thousand a month, with almost twenty thou
(22:39):
people illegally enteringen alone, and while speaking to voters of
COMAC repeatedly insisted that all the problems of people illegally
crossing the Canadian border isn't a symptom of a failure
of systems to respond to a growing crisis, but merely
a failure for border patrol to with to assert control
over people. Um quotes and flyer courtesy of about This
(23:00):
Tom chemic Guy a courtesy of a. Dan Olson of
Folding Ideas. He's a great Canadian documentarian who released a
magnificent piece on Q and on and conspiracy theories last
year on his YouTube channel of Folding Ideas. Overall, I really,
really like Dan, he makes very good stuff. Um, so
thank thank you to him for sending me those those
(23:21):
those flyers. Um. Anyway, during the election, Sheer led the
Conservatives to gain a total of twenty six seats in
the inside Parliament, going from ninety five up to one
hundred and twenty one. But they did finish thirty six
seats behind the Liberals despite beating the Liberals in the
popular vote by one point three percent. So that was
(23:43):
a thirty four point four percent for Conservatives and thirty
three point one percent of the popular vote for Liberals.
The margin was just over like two hundred and forty
thousand votes. Um. The Liberals lost twenty seats in the
election and the NDP lost fifteen seats. And this was
the first time since to UH since nineteen seventy nine
at a party won the most seats without also winning
the popular vote. Um. What what pushed the Conservatives over
(24:06):
on the popular vote was due to you know, extremely
high conservative turnout in UH in in in various in
various writings. So basically more conservatives voted in certain running
than they usually do. So even if the Liberals still
win the district, there was still more conservative votes to
be counted UM. And also they basically swept the Prairie
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they won seventy percent
(24:28):
of the vote in sixties five percent of the vote, respectively.
But their victories in those states and their higher turnout
did not convert into many seats because the less population
dense areas have fewer federal writings and fewer available seats UM,
and the Liberals had to rely heavily for seats in
Ontario though, you know, the most populous province that include
(24:48):
cities like Toronto, UM and you know other a few
other big cities. So you know, Canada doesn't have the
most democratic system like so the same way you know
in the States were familiar with, you know, p losing
popular votes um but still getting elected president and stuff.
You know, in Canadas it's it's it's a little bit
different because of how you vote for parties in your
own little district. UM. But you know, it's still not perfect,
(25:11):
right because like it is. It it does feel weird
for the leader of the leader of the country to
not have his party to not have also won the
popular vote because of how you know, districts work out
and how higher turn out in some areas doesn't mean
that it's going to have more seats, um you know.
But the other side of things here is that like
Canada also doesn't have ranked choice, so like, still the
(25:32):
majority of people voted for left of center candidates if
you include you know, the Green Party, the n DP,
and the Liberals. So even the Liberals lost the popular vote,
there's still like a majority left of center voting. So
if they if they had ranked choice, maybe the results
would have been different. So Canada's system it definitely isn't
perfect for how they do elections. UM. I would I
would prefer ranks choice, as you know, basically basically I
(25:55):
would prefer that for like every country if they're gonna
have elections. Um So yeah, just kind of explaining why
they can lose the popular boat but still you know,
still win a majority controlling government. Um So. After the election,
Sheer announced he was resigning as head of the Conservatives
in December of twenty nineteen. Uh. This was after it
was revealed that he had used party funds for his
children's own private schooling. So good for him. Um A
(26:19):
new bid for Conservative leadership went into effect. We're gonna
mainly focus on two candidates here Uh there was an
erin O'Toole and Derek solan Um. O'Toole fancies himself as
another kind of like classic financial conservative and the social moderate.
He feels more like the old progressive conservative candidates from
back before the two of US and three Unite the
Right merger. Um we got some like John McCain vibes
(26:41):
here um, but Derek solan is more similar to the
farther right parts of the U s IS current Republican Party,
like anti abortion, anti LGBT, racist tweets, etcetera. UM, but
as a whole, Solon's extremism was rejected by the Canadian Conservatives.
Um he got only he got like on the fourth
He got fourth placed with fifteen of the vote during
(27:03):
the first round of voting, UM and ultimately o'tool one
leadership after three rounds of votes. UM and o'tool now
has the has the new challenge of trying to appeal
to the Canadian conservatives more moderate wing, as well as
the more Trumpian wing that's developed the past few years.
He's been relatively successful in crafting like a boring, polite
(27:24):
Canadian version of Trump's nationalism. With slogans like Canada First
and take Canada Back, um, you know, despite supporting trade
deals outsourcing Canadian jobs to cheaper overseas markets because they
never actually mean what they say, um and the and.
As the Liberals have grown more aware of Canada's bloody
history and have like toned down the red and white
(27:45):
maple leaf patriotism, the Conservative Party under o'tool has seized
on this opportunity to make Canadian patriotism more of a
right leaning staple, just like patriotism is, you know, it's
more of like a right wing thing in the States.
So basically, after we were like, oh yeah, central schools
were bad, Canada's kind of sucked up, Liberals are like, Okay,
we maybe shouldn't be so we shouldn't be waving our
(28:06):
maple leaf legs everywhere. Maybe we're not a perfect country.
The Conservatives like, no, you have to be proud to
be Canadian. So they've kind of taken patriotism to be
their new thing. Well, previously it was much more of
like a liberal thing. The Islamophobia and overt religious bigotry
under a tool has been slightly trimmed down. Um and
climate change has at least been mentioned as existing UM,
but there has also been increased discussion on trying to
(28:28):
hack down Canada's healthcare and privatize more aspects of it, which, yeah,
good job, guys, take away the only good part of Canada. UM.
Like the province of Alberta under Jason Kenny has done
this to a disastrous effect UM, raising the cost of
medical care for lower class people, many of whom voted
(28:48):
Conservative UM. I have family in Alberta and just the
past five years the changes to the healthcare system there
has been horrible. UM, it's not it's not great. So
basically what what what o'tool wants is he wants he
wants to base just privatize more elements of it. He
has a specific term he uses like he wants like a.
He wants to like split the FED like the like,
the taxpayer healthcare and privatized health care into two sections
(29:10):
and you can choose which one to join in anyway,
it's silly. UM. O'tewal did take a wee little stance
to distance himself from the more extreme wings of his
party when he decided to remove MP Derek Solan from
the caucus. Oh Too announced that Solan will not be
allowed to run as a candidate for the for the
Conservative Party in the next election either, saying racism is
(29:31):
a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values.
It has no place in our country and has no
place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won't tolerate it. Um.
Also last year, O'Toole refused to say whether he thinks
systemic racism exists um. But the decision to remove Soland
was made after it was revealed that he accepted a
donation from the Canadian Nazi Paul from during uh during
(29:55):
Soland's bid for a Conservative leadership back in the nineties
of From was a figurehead of the Canadian far right movement,
appearing at Heritage Front rallies and also caught on video
at a party celebrating Hitler's birthday, which he lost his
high school teaching job over. Well, look, it's just polite
to celebrate a guy's birthday, you know, whether or not
(30:16):
he's Hitler, under no circumstances to you got us this,
This is a hot tike. Um. So there has been
a bit of the There has been a bit of
a rift in the Conservative Party over how much Trumpian
rhetoric should be allowed in the Canadian Conservative Party UM
(30:37):
and this kind of rift has definitely increased after January six. UM.
The problem for Conservative politicians is that to win elections
they need to appeal to the largest swath of voters
UM and that includes more socially conservative and increasingly far
right rule folks. But if they go too far, they'll
lose the moderates to the Liberal Party. So you have
it's like this delicate balance. But to kind of give
(30:58):
you like an over you of what the current state
of the Conservative of Like votership is UM for intent
of the Conservative Party of Canada members. So you know,
people signed up to vote in the party. You know,
regular people UM, four in ten would say that they
would have voted for Trump for intents say that they
think Democrats told the presential election. And for intents say
(31:19):
that the Conservative and four intent believe that the January
six riot was staged or was done by the Democrats,
were done by Antiva. So that's kind of the state
of the Conservative Party in Canada for like the for
the voters. So you know, politicians have to kind of
in order to win, they need they need still they
still still need to appeal to those people, but they
(31:40):
don't want to do that thing usually like they usually
don't like usually there the like a big talking point
is like rejecting the divisive politics of the of of
the of the United States. Like that's a big thing
people say in Canada. Is that Like they don't want
it to become like, you know, like a fighting match,
because like the other main difference between Canada's elections in
(32:00):
America's elections is like America is like always an election season,
right like every you know, even after each election, it's
like you feel like campaigns start right up again. Um,
Canada's campaigns only run like a few months before the election,
like like it is not like those things you guys
do objectively better than us, and a lot of the
world does. It's not just Canada the idea that like, oh,
(32:20):
elections are terrible, we should spend a little time. It's
like to like two or three months of campaigning. That's it, Like,
it's not it's not like a two year, four year thing. No,
that is a thing that we should Absolutely the election
should be about eleven minutes from from the start of
the campaign to the vote. Everybody gets a minute to
explain their their politics and then we vote and then
(32:43):
we throw them into the sea. Yeah, so trying to
trying to craft marketing to the divided right wing. It's
been interesting to watch. You know. There's like videos about
Tool walking through you know, downtowns with Pride flags in
the background and you know, featuring visible like minority Canadians intermingling.
But then you also have a tool like Ralely against
cancel culture feeling suggestions that that the liberal government's pandemic
(33:05):
response is part of a socialist great reset and pulling
out the dog whistle on like China and the coronavirus,
you know, as often as you can. UM Tools in
the past also downplayed Canadians residential schools program UM and
described the efforts of activists pushing to removal of statues
of the of the residential of school architects as stupid. UM. So,
(33:26):
I I do think O'tool prefers a conservative party resistant
too far right branding, but he knows he needs to
appeal to thiss voters in order to win elections. So
it's it's it's it's just it's the thing that's not great,
But it's interesting to watch. UM in August one, Justin
Trudeau noted black face appreciator uh called a snap election
(33:46):
in an effort to gain more parliamentary seats in hopes
of getting a majority Liberal government, something a prime minister
should not be allowed to do, by the way, like
a priva minister should not be able to decide when
to do elections. That is, like should totally not be
a thing. Like what, no, you shouldn't do that, but anyway. Um.
As snap election ramped up, the Conservative Party under a tool,
(34:09):
made some extremely questionable choices for their marketings and their slogans. Um,
what does the phrase secure the future bring to mind? Yeah?
So that became the new tagline for the entire Conservative
Party under a tool. Right, sure, we got, we got,
we got, we got Secure the Future, billboards, we got,
(34:31):
we got, we got websites Conservative dot c a slash
secure the future. We got mailer's magazine covers all emblazoned
with secure the future or secure our future. Um, and
you know what will secure our future? Garrison the chevron
ads that keep popping up. We keep out. Yeah, great,
(34:53):
you're welcome. It's a great time Chevron appreciators for everyone. Ah,
we're back. It's just appreciating Chevron just like Justin Trudeau
(35:14):
appreciate just like Yeah, so secure the future great slogan,
not a good slogan. Bad. Um. I'm going to read
a bit from a mailer that went out to Conservative
Party members after a Tool one leadership quote. I firmly
believe Canada has everything. It has everything it takes to
recover from COVID nineteen and enjoy a prosperous future if
(35:35):
we have a government that knows how to secure the future.
If the truth, if the Trudeau Liberals stay in power,
they'll continue spending taxpayer money at pandemic era levels long before,
long after the virus is behind us. The result, all
the things we love about Canada will be in serious jeopardy.
Our debt will become out of control, and they'll never
be able to get back the Canada you and I
grew up in the kind of Canada our children and
(35:57):
grandchildren deserve. So either on in the page, oh, Tool
says we need to stand up to the Chinese Communist
Party and hold Beijing accountable for sabotaging our economy and
taking jobs from Canadian workers. Um. And On August sixteen,
the Canadian Conservative Party Twitter account tweeted out and I
quote Canada's recovery program will secure the future for you,
(36:18):
your children, and your grand and your grandchildren. So that's fun. Also, also,
guess how many guess guess how many words is in
that last sentence. It's fourteen of them. Yeah. Yeah, we're
going back to calling Canada Clanada again. It's like a
dog whistle, but except for you know, a dog whistle
only dogs can hear. It's except everyone. It's just a whistle.
(36:41):
It's just it's just a regular whistle. It's it's it's
that he just tweeted it tweet. Yeah. So as anyway,
um as O'Toole was getting all secure the future piled um.
Canada's actual far right populist party, the People's Party, was
gaining much more popularity um amid the pandemic and the
anti mask, anti lockdown, anti vax protests. The COVID nineteen
(37:04):
pandemic was a gift to the far right in general,
as it allowed the injection and proliferation of conspiracy theories
to accelerate at levels almost never before seen and provided
fair recruiting ground to gain new followers. The PPC latched
onto this and was extremely successful. They were. You know,
they sponsored protests, They did a whole bunch of campaigns
that are around like anti mask stuff, anti vaccine, you know,
all all of it. Um. So the PPC was able
(37:27):
to be not just a safe harbor for anti immigration,
white nationalists and neo Nazis and other far right groups,
but also now more mainstream anti lockdown, anti vacs and
anti government protesters as well as you know, gun rights
activists and some general rule workers feeling left behind from
even the Conservative Party. So the PPC has changed from
a niche white nationalist party to a full blown far
(37:47):
right populist force. What bern Air in the and the
PPC have done so effectively since the pandemic is to
use the broad concerns around COVID and freedom and the
more you know, mainstream concerns about economic anxieties, job loss,
lots of businesses, immigration and changing culture and manage and
managed to rule all of these things up into one
tight package, which is really appealing to a lot of
Canadians who are very anxious about the state of their country,
(38:10):
especially amid the COVID nineteen pandemic. So the results of
the September snap election, which was you know last month, Uh,
we're basically the same as the election, UM, except the
PPC went from one point six percent of the vote
to five percent of the vote, a big, big change, uh.
They that means they were ranking above the Green Party
and nearly tying the block kebu Qua. So they made like,
(38:34):
I know, like one percent of five percent doesn't seem
like tons, but like this is a really big jump
for a brand new party, UM, especially especially if they're
ahead of the Green Party and tying the Block Party.
That is like a notable shift. UM. The University of
Ghulaf Professor of of Political Science Tamra Small said that
said this after the results of the last snap election. Quote,
(38:57):
I think the only leader who's the static about last
night's results is or Air. I don't think they're going anywhere.
I think it seems that he's taken the populism and
attached to far right politics. The idea that Canada was
immune to this sort of far right populism, the idea
that Canada was going to be free from the populism
that we saw in Europe, like what Nigel Farage is
in the UK. But I think lots of people are
wondering if Bernard is just gonna say I'm not here
(39:18):
to form an actual government. I'm just here to challenge
the system and use that as a way of gaining
massive support. Um. After us CTV News emailed the PPC
for comment for their post election story, uh, the party
spokesperson sent back a one line email response, I don't
respond to requests from leftists. Activists masquerading as journalists get lost,
(39:40):
so that's fun. Also, in late September, Bernard's Twitter account
was temporarily suspended for encouraging his supporters to attack journalists. Yeah.
Just not like I'm okay with criticizing journalist and stuff,
because most journalists are like not great. But when you're
using your political Twitter account to just like tell people
to just go attack the US, usually it's a bad
(40:01):
sign of of like a political party. Usually it's just like, yeah,
political parties when they do that usually leads to bad things. Um,
we are gonna talk about one kind of wrapping up here.
We wanna talk about one Ontario People's Party candidate named
Mario Greco, who was a another another high school teacher
UM and self proclaimed game developer UM of a few
(40:24):
years ago. I I see Chriss Vincent, because like you know,
this can't lead to good things the gamers, it can't
be good. So a few years ago, Greco made a
video game called Happy Culture Shootout UM. Quoting an article
from Press Progress dot c A Happy Culture Shootout is
a Space Invaders style game that allows players to control
(40:45):
spaceship that shoots laser beams at caricatures of various identity groups.
Quote this game, it's about an alien order to invade
Earth and transport all humans to happy Land, Greco says
on his personal website, which includes other games that he authored,
like Die Mare, which is about a young, misunderstood heuro
who sees to liberate post war Germany. Um in as
(41:06):
in a since telated video of obtained by Press Progress,
the People's Party candidate delivered a presentation to university students
several years ago, offering his post mortem on the game UM.
Reco expressed surprise that his students and faculty reacted negatively
to the game, with one calling it the most racist
game I've ever played. Greco says his game is not
racist in the slightest, noting that he made fun of
(41:28):
his own Italian heritage. He also claimed that some students
thought his Gay Pride parade level was hilarious. My friends
and I love people of all cultures, and we also
love humor of all types that includes harmless racist jokes.
Greco said in the video. The game was intended to
make a joke about how ridiculous cultural stereotypes are, so
we can laugh about it together and move on with
(41:48):
our lives. Um. During the presentation, the People's Party candidate
offered a interesting side note about the games Israel level.
According according to Greco, a faculty member at the University Stroug,
they recommended that he removed Jewish stereotypes from the game.
He was like, no, get rid of it immediately. Don't
have any religious content whatsoever. I know that subject is
very very touchy. So yeah, this is just a game
(42:12):
where you race shoe to minority people. Um. Anyway. In
twenty six Greco posted a photo on Facebook of an
illustration of Peppe the Frog, which he said was drawn
by one of his students in in the white board
of his York Region high school. Um Pepe had a
little speech bubble that said free Kakistan. Great yea. So
(42:35):
now the gamers or Nazis. So currently Greco is spending
his time tweeting about critical race theory and trying to
get into office under the People's Party banner UM. In
his Twitter bio, he calls himself an egalitarian, libertarian nationalist
and he still also teaches computer science at Ontario. Call
themselves fascists. I know it's it's not fun. These people
(42:59):
are all all for the worst most scum. UM. And
one one more thing before we sign off. UM. Last month,
right before the September election, I was forwarded some pictures
of some People's Party of Canada posters and flyers put
up linking to their campaign website that someone came across
(43:20):
UM around town, not not Portland's, like somewhere in Canada.
UM under the PPC logo there was you know, pictures
of people's faces and big black text that said it's
okay to be white. Right, So that's the liberal utopia
of Canada. Everybody UM. And basically like the reason why
(43:43):
I wanted to put these episodes together because like, we
we have lots of like, you know, we make a
lot of jokes about you know, escaping to Canada as
the States gets too fascist, and I just want to
like say, like I'm not saying Canada's getting at the
same rate, but Canada is not immune to the same thing.
Like it's it's it's, it's it's you can't escape, can't
run away from the authoritarianism by moving, yeah to a
(44:05):
country with no history of authoritarianism, like I don't know Germany,
uh huh yeah. And I think everything's important with with
Canada particularly is that like Canada is like affected by
American political trends. And you see this absolutely like like
one of one of the things that I remember looking
at when I was when I was looking into sort
of uh if you look at the history of like
anti Asian riots for example, So there's a huge wave
(44:26):
and nine no seven that goes like it goes all
the way up the West coast because a lot of them,
and it ends in Toronto, Yeah, a lot of you know, yeah,
and you see you see that like and you see
that like today to where it's like, yeah, the Toronto
I think has the highest rate of anti Asian attacks
like in North America. That's not pretty impressive considering like
the absolute ship show going on in like New York,
(44:49):
in la and Seattle, and it's like, no, Toronto's worse, No,
it's real bad. I talk a lot about how the
far right's getting a lot, a lot, a lot stronger
of an luce in Alberta, and it is spreading into
other eastern eastern provinces, not just inside Quebec. You know,
there was the inside attack in Toronto a few years
ago that killed like I think like a dozen people.
(45:09):
Of course, there was the Quebec mosque shooting. There's been
a lot of these kind of things popping off, and
you know there's there's even more starting in like, uh,
British Columbia as well, which is which has a decent
far right kind of influence at least on the eastern
side of BC, um away from like Victoria and from Vancouver. UM.
So yeah, I just wanted to place together and be like, hey,
(45:30):
you know, it's it's worth looking at these countries that
we usually view as you know, generally doing better and
be like no, like, it's the same thing is happening there,
and it's all it's all part of the same overarching
slide right word that we've seen in both in the
UK we were even seeing it now in Germany we're
seeing it, you know in this obviously the States under
Trump and in Canada, even though the Liberals have won
(45:52):
the past few elections, it's still scooting right word. So yeah,
I just wanted to put this thing together. If you
want to keep up to date on Canadian stuff, you
can check out the Canadian Antihit network, which does work
tracking extremism in Canada. And yeah, that is ah, that
is what I put together exparison. Yeah, you're welcoming, You're welcome. Well,
(46:14):
that's the episode that's gonna do it for us here
and it could happen here today, come back tomorrow or
you know whatever, and we'll talk about another part of
the world. Maybe I don't know Portugal. Fuck it, I
don't have stuff pulled for a portug You have to
by tomorrow. No, that's what we're doing now. Follow us
(46:34):
on Twitter, on Instagram and it could happen here, pod
and cools on media. Leave five star reviews, whatever, goodbye, goodbye.
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could
(46:57):
happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com
slash Sources, Thanks for listening.
Hello. Nope, that's not it. That's it, Garrison. The episode
has begun. It cannot be unbegun. A let's let's roll
right into it. Let's talk about so well welcome says
it could happen here. Um today, the today. The here
(00:24):
is is Canada, that is the that is where it
could happen. Um. This is gonna be part two of
my little deep dive into Canadian fascism and the far
right rumblings in general in the Great White North. And
oh god, that is a bad, bad nickname for Canada,
the Great White NORTHCCATE did not really think that went through,
(00:45):
oopsie doodle. Maybe the yeah, there's a good chance anyway. Um.
The last episode we left off with the Canadian yellow vests, um,
and you know, frightening increase in Islamophobia and anti human
grace and rhetoric around late after Trump selection. And we
(01:05):
started the last episode by talking about one of Canada's
first fascist political parties. And we're gonna start part two
but talking about Canada's new neo fascist political party that
also got started inside the province of Quebec just like
the National Unity Party did. Uh. This one is called
the People's Party of Canada. Um, before we get into
(01:27):
the People's Party, and first to give some background on
the founder of the party, Maxine Bernier. Um. And that's
how that's that's how I'm gonna say his name. Um,
no one at me, it's good enough. Um. Brenair was
born in Quebec in nineteen sixty three. On is the
son of a conservative talk radio host turned politician. Isn't
that funny? Isn't that funny? How that keeps happening? Uh? Yeah,
(01:53):
So Brenair entered politics into US in six um he
ran as the Conservative Party candidate for the House of
Commons in the same writing district that his father had
represented in the eighties and nineties. Stephen Harper, leader of
the new United Conservative Party, initially wanted Maxine's father to
re enter politics, but Bernair Senior was less keen on
(02:13):
that idea, and instead told Harper that he that perhaps
his son should run in his place. Radio and nepotism,
radio and nepotism, yep, and politicians, and yeah it is
it is starting great. Um. So at this point Bernair
was more like a free market libertarian, libertarian type guy,
(02:34):
you know, still with some of the same like conservative
immigration stuff that's that's common in Quebec, but he was
more of just like a libertarian dude. Bernair easily won
the writing writings of what we call districts here in
the States, ranking at sixty seven percent of the popular vote,
which was the largest majority for a Conservative politician outside
of the province of Alberta. So he he did, he
(02:56):
did very well. Bernair, who had a background in business,
quickly rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party. Within
the same year he was appointed to be a cabinet
minister in the Harper government. Um and he worked as
a as an industry minister from to us in six
to us and seven before being promoted to a foreign
affairs minister. Then in two thousand eleven he was appointed
of He was appointed as Minister of the State. So
(03:19):
in in spring of sixteen, after the fifth after the
federal election, uh Bernaer put in his bid to be
the new elected Conservative Party leader. UM So, I'm gonna
briefly explain how Canadian elections work. You you don't vote
for a prime minister. You vote for a party within
your specific district if you if if your party wins,
(03:43):
they get a seat in Parliament. Whoever has the most
seats in parliament, that's whose prime minister gets elected. So
whoever is whoever is the leader of the party, they
will be prime minister if that party gets the most seats.
So two us. In sixteen, Burner put in his bid
to be the new Conservative Party leader. Uh. He got
remarkably close to securing the spot as leader of the Conservatives.
(04:05):
In the final round of voting, he received forty nine
point zero five percent of the vote, losing to Saskatchewan
Conservative politician Andrew Shear, who got fifty point nine percent,
so less less than two percent difference. He was so
close to the comic leader of the Conservative Party, like ridiculous.
So yeah, after his extremely slight loss, he continued to
(04:28):
work in Shear's Conservative Party for a few years. Um.
If you remember from the last episode, Around this time
was when these homophobia and anti immigration talking points were
starting to gain a new popularity, and Bernaer followed along
with this trend. He would tweet out about the dangers
of extreme multiculturalism and he had like an increasingly racist
(04:48):
and divisive rhetoric and that kind of caused some drama
within the Conservative establishment. So in August of eighteen, around
the same time the yellow vest movement in Canada was
starting up, Berner resigned from the Conservative Party with the
stated intention of forming a new federal populist far right
political party. Um here here, here's a segment from his
(05:11):
resignation speech and he he does talk in a very
thick French accent. I'm not going to do that. Um yeah,
you're you're channel the energy. Um that was that was
just direct audio instead of leading as a principal Conservative
(05:37):
and defending the interests of Canada and Canadians. Andrew Sheer
is following the Trudeau Liberals. I was told that internal
polling is showing that the Liberals response to Trump is popular,
and that in six months, if the polls change, the
party's stand may change to the same thing happened in
reaction to my tweets on diversity and multiculturalism. This is
another crucial debate for the future of our country. Do
(05:59):
you want to emphasize the ethnic and religious differences or
exploit them to buy votes as the Liberals are doing,
or emphasize what unites us and the values that can
guarantee social cohesion. Just like other Western societies grappling with
this issue. A large number of Canadians, and certainly the
vast majority of Conservatives, are worried that we are heading
in the wrong direction. But it's not correct to raise
(06:20):
such questions. So yeah, and I think that I honestly
one of the main reasons why Brenaire hasn't been super successful,
UM is because of his accent, like he is. It's
harder for Protestant white Canadians to support him because he
talks with a French Canadian accent. Um. If if if
(06:42):
he talked in like good English, I think he would
have he would have won Conservative leadership UM and his
populist party would be way more popular than than than
it is now. So critical support to other French racism
is preventing the racist from being racist enough. Yes, you
love to see you certainly see it. We do, we
(07:06):
do see it. So Brenner faced some pushback from his
conservative colleagues, including Stephen Harper, of trying to divide the
right and split the right of center vote. UM and
some of the less socially conservative members of the main
Conservative Party decried Berner's departure and subsequent New People's Party
as just a plain attempt to pander to xenophobia and
(07:28):
racist right wingers. But Brenner went right to work and
ran enough candidates under his new party to secure a
spot in the federal election debates that were like that,
you know that how we watch presidential debates, same thing,
but these have you know, multiple candidates because there are
multiple parties, the same thing. But basically he was able
to get in the televised debates. Um, the PPC, which
(07:49):
is the People's Party of canad I'm just gonna say
the PPC now because it sounds funny. Um. They started
going viral on the internet after pictures of massive billboards
with Berner's face and big text that said saying no
to mass immigration. This this this guy very is this
guy very Mimi around like these big, these big PPC billboards. Um,
(08:09):
I'm gonna I'm gonna read a bit from a write
up and it's going down by some local um Montreal
anti fascists. There have been suggestions that the PPC spokesperson
and architect of its public relations strategy, Martin Mass, has
been key to its embrace of the far right. Mass
was owner of the publisher of the Capucua Libre, which
is an online libertarian news outlet that shut down in
(08:31):
and that pp but that PPC's cozy relationship with racist
is primarily due to the influence of this one person
is highly doubtful, however, that the PPC is positioning itself
as the option of choice for those who find the
Conservative Party insufficiently right wing. Racism is clearly just one
of the most effective tools for such a strategy. Witnessing
PPC billboards and tweets against mass immigration, also tweets about
(08:55):
being against Antifa and Bernara's diet tribe about radical Islam
being the biggest threat to freedom and peace and security
in the world today, and how he complains about other
parties are are complacent and pandering to Islamists and promising
that the PPC will make no compromise with the tolitarian ideology.
A number of media articles have revealed the far right
connections to people active in the PPC as organizers and
(09:19):
members whose signatures were used for the PPC to gain
official party status. Um for instance, a Derek Horne, the
PPC volunteer and a security agent who accompanied Bernair at
a variety offense and media interviews. He has been revealed
to be a founding member of the neo fascist Canadian
Nationalist Party, which we we briefly mentioned in the last episode. UM.
(09:39):
Sean Walker is an American immigrant and organizer with the
PPC in St. Catharine's UM, as well as one of
the people who signed on for PPC to be an
official party. He was revealed to be the president of
the National Alliance US, based in the Nazi organization seven.
He was also he was also convicted of hate crimes
at the time for violence Stands People of Color UM.
(10:00):
Following these revelations, Walker was expelled from the PPC and
Bernard claimed that he'd slipped through the party's betting process. However,
was also revealed that Bernar follows him on Twitter UM.
Others who signed up for the for the PPC two
beneficial party include Janice Bulch, a founding member of the
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamification of Accent, and also Justin L. Smith,
(10:24):
leader of this of the Sudbury chapter of the Soldiers
of Odin. So a whole bunch of whole bunch of
fascist people are working work working for the party UM
and unsurprisingly a number of a number of candidates have
made headlines, but there as there. You know, social media
posts from the past and present have surfaced featuring like racism, islamophobia,
and a lot of spreading of far right conspiracy theories.
(10:45):
You know that was just kind of common. There's too many,
honestly to mention. Um. And it's it's not just that
the PPC has a few bad apples in it. It's
like the whole the whole party is rife with these
kind of one of these kind of sentiments. Um. One
gauge of this and the sign and a sign that
like this is intentional is that as looking at the
candidates who have left the party or have been kicked
out when it became clear that there would be no
(11:07):
condemnation of the far right from the upper ranks, there
was like and and justin like twenty nineteen alone, there
was like three candidates who were who left or were
either kicked out um because they you know, had objections
to the racism rampant within the party. They were like
complaining about, hey, these guys seem kind of racist, and
then they were kicked out of the party or or
(11:28):
or or they left. So yeah, that's that's a not
a good problem to have. UM. So in in uh
finishing up this this little quote here UM. Indeed, a cursory,
accursory look at the Facebook pages of PPC candidates reveals
what's been really noteworthy is how selective the news stories
about racist tweets or Facebook posts have been. Almost every
(11:51):
PPC candidate in Quebec has recently in repeated lye shared
articles from climate denialist sources, including many with a conspiratorial bent.
A Canada eight for pap and You even produced his
own YouTube expose revealing how George Sorrows it's behind an
international global conspiracy theory to crash economies and make money
spending a panic about climate change. Secondary to climate denial,
(12:12):
there's a lot of fears around free speech and mass immigration,
which are both recurring themes in the PPC candidates, and
roughly one in five have recently shared news articles from
what we would deem a national populist or full right sources,
including less manchetz dot com, which is the website of
the French language of the French language translator of the
Christ Church Um Manifesto UM, and that that the guy
(12:36):
who reads the website is also involved with organizing in
the Montreal In the Montreal chapter of the vests. Um. Yeah,
so he he both translated the manifesto and he's also
running the Montreal Yellow Best movement. So that's fun. Um,
it's not fun, it's bad, um, Andre Pytree pipe poo wow.
And it's so you remember, so I didn't learned French
(13:00):
in Canada because I was in a weird Christian private school.
Otherwise I could be a lot better at this job.
But anyway, there's there's a there's a there's a there's
just like a far right YouTube channel. But this guy
called Studio who a lot of his stuff was shared. Um.
And there's a more like eccentric and sporadic mix of
(13:21):
of of other news sources including Unite the Right attendee
Faith Goldie who also ran from Mayor of Toronto and
got third place, UM, Quebec based q and on figure
Alexus trudell Um, and the al right YouTuber Black Pigeon Speaks.
Of course, the main Yellow Vest page was shared a lot,
and also sources from the highly racist The Voice of Europe.
(13:42):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of a lot
of not not great news sources being being shared by
the PBC. UM. So that is the gist of the
People's Party as of twenty nineteen UM. Overall, their performance
in the twenty nineteen election was it is kind of
a flop. Bernair lost his own seat in Quebec. No
(14:04):
PTC candidates got into office, and the party only managed
to get one uh in the party only managed to
get one point six percent of the total national popular vote,
so that's good. It only got one point six percent
of all of the votes in Canada. So we're gonna
take a break from the People's Party for now and
(14:25):
we will circle back towards it um at the end.
But after after an ad break, we will we will
talk about the with the main Conservative party was up
to during this time and uh a little bit after
the nineteen election. So yep, and now the cats just
blocking the whole thing. All right, we're back. The cat
(14:55):
is in the bathroom. I moved from my cat blocked
from the camera. Hello, um, People's Party not doing great
in the first election. That's fun. Let's see what the
regular Conservatives are up to. I'm sure it was things
that are just good and cool. If I know anything
about Conservatives, it's that they're not not hashtag problematic. Yeah,
(15:17):
just let's just got okay, so I'll just be sad
over here, and the audience can know that I'm sad
the whole time you're talking. I would rather as episode
not such a not such a downer, but it's it's
hard to make it these kind of an upper I'll
make a bargain with the audience that if they listen,
I will I will do my French accent at least
one more time. We'll see doing the French accent. This
(15:39):
is the happiest I have seen Robert all day. Like
he does look very tired. You did say earlier, Garrison,
and this was very funny that you'd be better at
your job if you could speak French. But given what
we are here, it cools owed media. You would actually
be much worse at your job. Um And in act,
(16:00):
if you if you were to speak French, I would
I would fire you immediate. It's actually requirement that you
can't pronounce things to certainly not French. There's other languages
you're allowed to know how to pronounce, but not French.
No ob lo francaie. So let's pick up right after
(16:23):
Maxine Bernair lost the Conservative leadership to Andrew Sheer in
um Sheer won the leadership on a on on like
a platform of classical financial conservatism and a slightly more
socially moderate platform um. When Sheer got into office, though,
one of the things he faced criticism for, even among
the Conservative caucus was his association with a little media
(16:47):
with was his association with a little media outlet called
Rebel Media. Yeah so, most most listeners may not know
what rebel media is, but you've certainly seen their stuff
or felt their effect. Yeah, it's like the rough draft
of bright Bart. And also Canadian and Canadian, yes so Canadian.
(17:09):
Uh so. Rebel Media is a Canadian far right neo
fascist propaganda outlet's start that has a lot of a
lot of bright Bardi vibes. Umbel Media, Yeah, bright bartesque.
Rebel Media hosts and contributors have included a white nationalist
and white genocide proponent, Laurence Southern UM and Proud Boy
(17:29):
founder Gavin McGinnis UM. McGinnis produced a quote satirical video
for Rebel called ten Things I Hate about the Jews. Yeah,
yeah so, and and it's and it is worth noting
that both Southern and McGinnis are Canadian. Um. They're actually
a lot of alt right figures that are Canadian. Of
(17:52):
course we have we have Lauren Southern, Gavin McGinnis, Um,
we have Stephen Crowder, uh Stefan malin you and of
course Jordan Peterson. All of those people are are Canadian
and most of them, most of them still live in Canada. Yes,
he's still alive. Made it. He made insane tweet the
other day. God, he made the most tweet. That tweet
(18:16):
made it all worthwhile. Baby, he got everyone to go
check his Twitter feed. It is amazing. You can you
can hear his brain shorting out when you read that tweet,
like you need to find the tweet it is. It
is just it is the most beautiful piece of poetry
I ever. It's like somebody taught a stroke out of type.
(18:39):
It makes no sense. God, it's so good. Um. I'm
going to quote an article by a Global News dot
c a on Andrew Sheer and Rebel media. Quote. Despite
a string of controversies faced by Canadian right wing media
outlet to the Rebel, including allegations of downplaying the Holocaust
movie minted, Conservative Party leader Andrew Shear has so far
(19:00):
continued to make himself available to the company that other
prominent conservative politicians have criticized for its controversial reporting and activism.
She Hear's campaign organization also has a direct connection to
The Rebel. His campaign manager, Hamish Marshall, is listed as
a director of the company's federal incorporation records, which show
its most recent annual gathering meeting was in February this year.
(19:21):
Following the leadership election in Toronto on Saturday, Sheer granted
one on one interviews with a handful of major media organizations,
including a face to face interview with The Rebels Ottawa
correspondent Brian Lily. Prior to his convention interview, Sheer appeared
on The Rebel in February in a studio interview with
host Faith Goldie on her show on the Hunt. At
the end of the discussion, Goldie asked Sheer if if
(19:43):
he would agree to go on a duck hunting trip
with her after after he wins the leadership on Canada Day,
which he agreed to. UM We briefly mentioned Faith Goldie
earlier in her connection to the People's Party UM and
her brief campaign for the Toronto mayor, but here's some
more background on her UM and her coverage and her
coverage of the Unite the Right rally for Rebel Media.
(20:05):
Quoting from Winnipeg Free Press. In the course of her dispatches,
Goldie argued the events in the Charlottesville were evidence of
a rising white racial consciousness that was going to change
the political landscape in America. She also wanted to she's
actually not wrong there. That was, Yeah, she's not wrong,
but I think she's she's on the other side of
(20:26):
the island. And whether this is a good or bad thing. Yeah.
She went to great lengths to laud the twenty point
Meta political Manifesto composed by White National's leader Richard Spencer,
a document that includes calls to organize U states along
ethnic and racial divides and celebrates the superiority of white
America faith. Goldie described Spencer's manifesto as robust and well
(20:49):
thought out. Goldie was fired by Rebel in mid August
and seventeen, but not due to her participation in Unite
the Right. She was fired for appearing on a Daily
Stormer podcast to discuss Unite the Right. So yeah, yeah,
that's that's fine, So yeah, fine, nice to have her.
Interviewing Conservative leader Andrew Sheer asked for his reaction to
(21:14):
Unite the Right and Rebel Media UM. After what happened
in Charlotte'sville in seventeen, Sheer, who had previously been interviewed
by Rebel multiple times, h finally disavowed the outlets, saying, look,
I believe there's a fine line between covering events and
giving a platform to groups who are promoting a violent,
disgusting point of view. I won't be granting interviews going forward.
(21:35):
So that's nice that it took someone dying in Charlotte's
Bill to realize that you probably shouldn't talk to the
fascist media source. UM. So in the aftermath of Unite
the Right, the mainstream conservatives kind of had to tread
carefully around social issues because it's like, oh, yeah, they're
they're still not sias. We probably shouldn't be pandering to them. Um.
But as more time and distance let the air cool,
(21:56):
some conservatives went back to the same old rhetoric around
the twenty nine election. UM. For instance, in his twenty
nineteen election campaign, uh Tom Chemick, of the parliamentary representative
of one of the parliamentary representatives for Calgary, Alberta, wrote
out and spread flyers with the all claps with the
all caps header of crisis at the Border UH with
(22:18):
text treating deer constituent. The Independent Autor General of Canada
has published a scathing report confirming that the Ottawa Liberals
have failed to safely and responsibly manage Canada's borders. Since
Justin Trudeau you responsibly tweeted out that Canada would open
sports to anyone seeking entry, the number of people illegally
crossing the board into Canada from the United States has
surged past one thousand a month, with almost twenty thou
(22:39):
people illegally enteringen alone, and while speaking to voters of
COMAC repeatedly insisted that all the problems of people illegally
crossing the Canadian border isn't a symptom of a failure
of systems to respond to a growing crisis, but merely
a failure for border patrol to with to assert control
over people. Um quotes and flyer courtesy of about This
(23:00):
Tom chemic Guy a courtesy of a. Dan Olson of
Folding Ideas. He's a great Canadian documentarian who released a
magnificent piece on Q and on and conspiracy theories last
year on his YouTube channel of Folding Ideas. Overall, I really,
really like Dan, he makes very good stuff. Um, so
thank thank you to him for sending me those those
(23:21):
those flyers. Um. Anyway, during the election, Sheer led the
Conservatives to gain a total of twenty six seats in
the inside Parliament, going from ninety five up to one
hundred and twenty one. But they did finish thirty six
seats behind the Liberals despite beating the Liberals in the
popular vote by one point three percent. So that was
(23:43):
a thirty four point four percent for Conservatives and thirty
three point one percent of the popular vote for Liberals.
The margin was just over like two hundred and forty
thousand votes. Um. The Liberals lost twenty seats in the
election and the NDP lost fifteen seats. And this was
the first time since to UH since nineteen seventy nine
at a party won the most seats without also winning
the popular vote. Um. What what pushed the Conservatives over
(24:06):
on the popular vote was due to you know, extremely
high conservative turnout in UH in in in various in
various writings. So basically more conservatives voted in certain running
than they usually do. So even if the Liberals still
win the district, there was still more conservative votes to
be counted UM. And also they basically swept the Prairie
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they won seventy percent
(24:28):
of the vote in sixties five percent of the vote, respectively.
But their victories in those states and their higher turnout
did not convert into many seats because the less population
dense areas have fewer federal writings and fewer available seats UM,
and the Liberals had to rely heavily for seats in
Ontario though, you know, the most populous province that include
(24:48):
cities like Toronto, UM and you know other a few
other big cities. So you know, Canada doesn't have the
most democratic system like so the same way you know
in the States were familiar with, you know, p losing
popular votes um but still getting elected president and stuff.
You know, in Canadas it's it's it's a little bit
different because of how you vote for parties in your
own little district. UM. But you know, it's still not perfect,
(25:11):
right because like it is. It it does feel weird
for the leader of the leader of the country to
not have his party to not have also won the
popular vote because of how you know, districts work out
and how higher turn out in some areas doesn't mean
that it's going to have more seats, um you know.
But the other side of things here is that like
Canada also doesn't have ranked choice, so like, still the
(25:32):
majority of people voted for left of center candidates if
you include you know, the Green Party, the n DP,
and the Liberals. So even the Liberals lost the popular vote,
there's still like a majority left of center voting. So
if they if they had ranked choice, maybe the results
would have been different. So Canada's system it definitely isn't
perfect for how they do elections. UM. I would I
would prefer ranks choice, as you know, basically basically I
(25:55):
would prefer that for like every country if they're gonna
have elections. Um So yeah, just kind of explaining why
they can lose the popular boat but still you know,
still win a majority controlling government. Um So. After the election,
Sheer announced he was resigning as head of the Conservatives
in December of twenty nineteen. Uh. This was after it
was revealed that he had used party funds for his
children's own private schooling. So good for him. Um A
(26:19):
new bid for Conservative leadership went into effect. We're gonna
mainly focus on two candidates here Uh there was an
erin O'Toole and Derek solan Um. O'Toole fancies himself as
another kind of like classic financial conservative and the social moderate.
He feels more like the old progressive conservative candidates from
back before the two of US and three Unite the
Right merger. Um we got some like John McCain vibes
(26:41):
here um, but Derek solan is more similar to the
farther right parts of the U s IS current Republican Party,
like anti abortion, anti LGBT, racist tweets, etcetera. UM, but
as a whole, Solon's extremism was rejected by the Canadian Conservatives.
Um he got only he got like on the fourth
He got fourth placed with fifteen of the vote during
(27:03):
the first round of voting, UM and ultimately o'tool one
leadership after three rounds of votes. UM and o'tool now
has the has the new challenge of trying to appeal
to the Canadian conservatives more moderate wing, as well as
the more Trumpian wing that's developed the past few years.
He's been relatively successful in crafting like a boring, polite
(27:24):
Canadian version of Trump's nationalism. With slogans like Canada First
and take Canada Back, um, you know, despite supporting trade
deals outsourcing Canadian jobs to cheaper overseas markets because they
never actually mean what they say, um and the and.
As the Liberals have grown more aware of Canada's bloody
history and have like toned down the red and white
(27:45):
maple leaf patriotism, the Conservative Party under o'tool has seized
on this opportunity to make Canadian patriotism more of a
right leaning staple, just like patriotism is, you know, it's
more of like a right wing thing in the States.
So basically, after we were like, oh yeah, central schools
were bad, Canada's kind of sucked up, Liberals are like, Okay,
we maybe shouldn't be so we shouldn't be waving our
(28:06):
maple leaf legs everywhere. Maybe we're not a perfect country.
The Conservatives like, no, you have to be proud to
be Canadian. So they've kind of taken patriotism to be
their new thing. Well, previously it was much more of
like a liberal thing. The Islamophobia and overt religious bigotry
under a tool has been slightly trimmed down. Um and
climate change has at least been mentioned as existing UM,
but there has also been increased discussion on trying to
(28:28):
hack down Canada's healthcare and privatize more aspects of it, which, yeah,
good job, guys, take away the only good part of Canada. UM.
Like the province of Alberta under Jason Kenny has done
this to a disastrous effect UM, raising the cost of
medical care for lower class people, many of whom voted
(28:48):
Conservative UM. I have family in Alberta and just the
past five years the changes to the healthcare system there
has been horrible. UM, it's not it's not great. So
basically what what what o'tool wants is he wants he
wants to base just privatize more elements of it. He
has a specific term he uses like he wants like a.
He wants to like split the FED like the like,
the taxpayer healthcare and privatized health care into two sections
(29:10):
and you can choose which one to join in anyway,
it's silly. UM. O'tewal did take a wee little stance
to distance himself from the more extreme wings of his
party when he decided to remove MP Derek Solan from
the caucus. Oh Too announced that Solan will not be
allowed to run as a candidate for the for the
Conservative Party in the next election either, saying racism is
(29:31):
a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values.
It has no place in our country and has no
place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won't tolerate it. Um.
Also last year, O'Toole refused to say whether he thinks
systemic racism exists um. But the decision to remove Soland
was made after it was revealed that he accepted a
donation from the Canadian Nazi Paul from during uh during
(29:55):
Soland's bid for a Conservative leadership back in the nineties
of From was a figurehead of the Canadian far right movement,
appearing at Heritage Front rallies and also caught on video
at a party celebrating Hitler's birthday, which he lost his
high school teaching job over. Well, look, it's just polite
to celebrate a guy's birthday, you know, whether or not
(30:16):
he's Hitler, under no circumstances to you got us this,
This is a hot tike. Um. So there has been
a bit of the There has been a bit of
a rift in the Conservative Party over how much Trumpian
rhetoric should be allowed in the Canadian Conservative Party UM
(30:37):
and this kind of rift has definitely increased after January six. UM.
The problem for Conservative politicians is that to win elections
they need to appeal to the largest swath of voters
UM and that includes more socially conservative and increasingly far
right rule folks. But if they go too far, they'll
lose the moderates to the Liberal Party. So you have
it's like this delicate balance. But to kind of give
(30:58):
you like an over you of what the current state
of the Conservative of Like votership is UM for intent
of the Conservative Party of Canada members. So you know,
people signed up to vote in the party. You know,
regular people UM, four in ten would say that they
would have voted for Trump for intents say that they
think Democrats told the presential election. And for intents say
(31:19):
that the Conservative and four intent believe that the January
six riot was staged or was done by the Democrats,
were done by Antiva. So that's kind of the state
of the Conservative Party in Canada for like the for
the voters. So you know, politicians have to kind of
in order to win, they need they need still they
still still need to appeal to those people, but they
(31:40):
don't want to do that thing usually like they usually
don't like usually there the like a big talking point
is like rejecting the divisive politics of the of of
the of the United States. Like that's a big thing
people say in Canada. Is that Like they don't want
it to become like, you know, like a fighting match,
because like the other main difference between Canada's elections in
(32:00):
America's elections is like America is like always an election season,
right like every you know, even after each election, it's
like you feel like campaigns start right up again. Um,
Canada's campaigns only run like a few months before the election,
like like it is not like those things you guys
do objectively better than us, and a lot of the
world does. It's not just Canada the idea that like, oh,
(32:20):
elections are terrible, we should spend a little time. It's
like to like two or three months of campaigning. That's it, Like,
it's not it's not like a two year, four year thing. No,
that is a thing that we should Absolutely the election
should be about eleven minutes from from the start of
the campaign to the vote. Everybody gets a minute to
explain their their politics and then we vote and then
(32:43):
we throw them into the sea. Yeah, so trying to
trying to craft marketing to the divided right wing. It's
been interesting to watch. You know. There's like videos about
Tool walking through you know, downtowns with Pride flags in
the background and you know, featuring visible like minority Canadians intermingling.
But then you also have a tool like Ralely against
cancel culture feeling suggestions that that the liberal government's pandemic
(33:05):
response is part of a socialist great reset and pulling
out the dog whistle on like China and the coronavirus,
you know, as often as you can. UM Tools in
the past also downplayed Canadians residential schools program UM and
described the efforts of activists pushing to removal of statues
of the of the residential of school architects as stupid. UM. So,
(33:26):
I I do think O'tool prefers a conservative party resistant
too far right branding, but he knows he needs to
appeal to thiss voters in order to win elections. So
it's it's it's it's just it's the thing that's not great,
But it's interesting to watch. UM in August one, Justin
Trudeau noted black face appreciator uh called a snap election
(33:46):
in an effort to gain more parliamentary seats in hopes
of getting a majority Liberal government, something a prime minister
should not be allowed to do, by the way, like
a priva minister should not be able to decide when
to do elections. That is, like should totally not be
a thing. Like what, no, you shouldn't do that, but anyway. Um.
As snap election ramped up, the Conservative Party under a tool,
(34:09):
made some extremely questionable choices for their marketings and their slogans. Um,
what does the phrase secure the future bring to mind? Yeah?
So that became the new tagline for the entire Conservative
Party under a tool. Right, sure, we got, we got,
we got, we got Secure the Future, billboards, we got,
(34:31):
we got, we got websites Conservative dot c a slash
secure the future. We got mailer's magazine covers all emblazoned
with secure the future or secure our future. Um, and
you know what will secure our future? Garrison the chevron
ads that keep popping up. We keep out. Yeah, great,
(34:53):
you're welcome. It's a great time Chevron appreciators for everyone. Ah,
we're back. It's just appreciating Chevron just like Justin Trudeau
(35:14):
appreciate just like Yeah, so secure the future great slogan,
not a good slogan. Bad. Um. I'm going to read
a bit from a mailer that went out to Conservative
Party members after a Tool one leadership quote. I firmly
believe Canada has everything. It has everything it takes to
recover from COVID nineteen and enjoy a prosperous future if
(35:35):
we have a government that knows how to secure the future.
If the truth, if the Trudeau Liberals stay in power,
they'll continue spending taxpayer money at pandemic era levels long before,
long after the virus is behind us. The result, all
the things we love about Canada will be in serious jeopardy.
Our debt will become out of control, and they'll never
be able to get back the Canada you and I
grew up in the kind of Canada our children and
(35:57):
grandchildren deserve. So either on in the page, oh, Tool
says we need to stand up to the Chinese Communist
Party and hold Beijing accountable for sabotaging our economy and
taking jobs from Canadian workers. Um. And On August sixteen,
the Canadian Conservative Party Twitter account tweeted out and I
quote Canada's recovery program will secure the future for you,
(36:18):
your children, and your grand and your grandchildren. So that's fun. Also, also,
guess how many guess guess how many words is in
that last sentence. It's fourteen of them. Yeah. Yeah, we're
going back to calling Canada Clanada again. It's like a
dog whistle, but except for you know, a dog whistle
only dogs can hear. It's except everyone. It's just a whistle.
(36:41):
It's just it's just a regular whistle. It's it's it's
that he just tweeted it tweet. Yeah. So as anyway,
um as O'Toole was getting all secure the future piled um.
Canada's actual far right populist party, the People's Party, was
gaining much more popularity um amid the pandemic and the
anti mask, anti lockdown, anti vax protests. The COVID nineteen
(37:04):
pandemic was a gift to the far right in general,
as it allowed the injection and proliferation of conspiracy theories
to accelerate at levels almost never before seen and provided
fair recruiting ground to gain new followers. The PPC latched
onto this and was extremely successful. They were. You know,
they sponsored protests, They did a whole bunch of campaigns
that are around like anti mask stuff, anti vaccine, you know,
all all of it. Um. So the PPC was able
(37:27):
to be not just a safe harbor for anti immigration,
white nationalists and neo Nazis and other far right groups,
but also now more mainstream anti lockdown, anti vacs and
anti government protesters as well as you know, gun rights
activists and some general rule workers feeling left behind from
even the Conservative Party. So the PPC has changed from
a niche white nationalist party to a full blown far
(37:47):
right populist force. What bern Air in the and the
PPC have done so effectively since the pandemic is to
use the broad concerns around COVID and freedom and the
more you know, mainstream concerns about economic anxieties, job loss,
lots of businesses, immigration and changing culture and manage and
managed to rule all of these things up into one
tight package, which is really appealing to a lot of
Canadians who are very anxious about the state of their country,
(38:10):
especially amid the COVID nineteen pandemic. So the results of
the September snap election, which was you know last month, Uh,
we're basically the same as the election, UM, except the
PPC went from one point six percent of the vote
to five percent of the vote, a big, big change, uh.
They that means they were ranking above the Green Party
and nearly tying the block kebu Qua. So they made like,
(38:34):
I know, like one percent of five percent doesn't seem
like tons, but like this is a really big jump
for a brand new party, UM, especially especially if they're
ahead of the Green Party and tying the Block Party.
That is like a notable shift. UM. The University of
Ghulaf Professor of of Political Science Tamra Small said that
said this after the results of the last snap election. Quote,
(38:57):
I think the only leader who's the static about last
night's results is or Air. I don't think they're going anywhere.
I think it seems that he's taken the populism and
attached to far right politics. The idea that Canada was
immune to this sort of far right populism, the idea
that Canada was going to be free from the populism
that we saw in Europe, like what Nigel Farage is
in the UK. But I think lots of people are
wondering if Bernard is just gonna say I'm not here
(39:18):
to form an actual government. I'm just here to challenge
the system and use that as a way of gaining
massive support. Um. After us CTV News emailed the PPC
for comment for their post election story, uh, the party
spokesperson sent back a one line email response, I don't
respond to requests from leftists. Activists masquerading as journalists get lost,
(39:40):
so that's fun. Also, in late September, Bernard's Twitter account
was temporarily suspended for encouraging his supporters to attack journalists. Yeah.
Just not like I'm okay with criticizing journalist and stuff,
because most journalists are like not great. But when you're
using your political Twitter account to just like tell people
to just go attack the US, usually it's a bad
(40:01):
sign of of like a political party. Usually it's just like, yeah,
political parties when they do that usually leads to bad things. Um,
we are gonna talk about one kind of wrapping up here.
We wanna talk about one Ontario People's Party candidate named
Mario Greco, who was a another another high school teacher
UM and self proclaimed game developer UM of a few
(40:24):
years ago. I I see Chriss Vincent, because like you know,
this can't lead to good things the gamers, it can't
be good. So a few years ago, Greco made a
video game called Happy Culture Shootout UM. Quoting an article
from Press Progress dot c A Happy Culture Shootout is
a Space Invaders style game that allows players to control
(40:45):
spaceship that shoots laser beams at caricatures of various identity groups.
Quote this game, it's about an alien order to invade
Earth and transport all humans to happy Land, Greco says
on his personal website, which includes other games that he authored,
like Die Mare, which is about a young, misunderstood heuro
who sees to liberate post war Germany. Um in as
(41:06):
in a since telated video of obtained by Press Progress,
the People's Party candidate delivered a presentation to university students
several years ago, offering his post mortem on the game UM.
Reco expressed surprise that his students and faculty reacted negatively
to the game, with one calling it the most racist
game I've ever played. Greco says his game is not
racist in the slightest, noting that he made fun of
(41:28):
his own Italian heritage. He also claimed that some students
thought his Gay Pride parade level was hilarious. My friends
and I love people of all cultures, and we also
love humor of all types that includes harmless racist jokes.
Greco said in the video. The game was intended to
make a joke about how ridiculous cultural stereotypes are, so
we can laugh about it together and move on with
(41:48):
our lives. Um. During the presentation, the People's Party candidate
offered a interesting side note about the games Israel level.
According according to Greco, a faculty member at the University Stroug,
they recommended that he removed Jewish stereotypes from the game.
He was like, no, get rid of it immediately. Don't
have any religious content whatsoever. I know that subject is
very very touchy. So yeah, this is just a game
(42:12):
where you race shoe to minority people. Um. Anyway. In
twenty six Greco posted a photo on Facebook of an
illustration of Peppe the Frog, which he said was drawn
by one of his students in in the white board
of his York Region high school. Um Pepe had a
little speech bubble that said free Kakistan. Great yea. So
(42:35):
now the gamers or Nazis. So currently Greco is spending
his time tweeting about critical race theory and trying to
get into office under the People's Party banner UM. In
his Twitter bio, he calls himself an egalitarian, libertarian nationalist
and he still also teaches computer science at Ontario. Call
themselves fascists. I know it's it's not fun. These people
(42:59):
are all all for the worst most scum. UM. And
one one more thing before we sign off. UM. Last month,
right before the September election, I was forwarded some pictures
of some People's Party of Canada posters and flyers put
up linking to their campaign website that someone came across
(43:20):
UM around town, not not Portland's, like somewhere in Canada.
UM under the PPC logo there was you know, pictures
of people's faces and big black text that said it's
okay to be white. Right, So that's the liberal utopia
of Canada. Everybody UM. And basically like the reason why
(43:43):
I wanted to put these episodes together because like, we
we have lots of like, you know, we make a
lot of jokes about you know, escaping to Canada as
the States gets too fascist, and I just want to
like say, like I'm not saying Canada's getting at the
same rate, but Canada is not immune to the same thing.
Like it's it's it's, it's it's you can't escape, can't
run away from the authoritarianism by moving, yeah to a
(44:05):
country with no history of authoritarianism, like I don't know Germany,
uh huh yeah. And I think everything's important with with
Canada particularly is that like Canada is like affected by
American political trends. And you see this absolutely like like
one of one of the things that I remember looking
at when I was when I was looking into sort
of uh if you look at the history of like
anti Asian riots for example, So there's a huge wave
(44:26):
and nine no seven that goes like it goes all
the way up the West coast because a lot of them,
and it ends in Toronto, Yeah, a lot of you know, yeah,
and you see you see that like and you see
that like today to where it's like, yeah, the Toronto
I think has the highest rate of anti Asian attacks
like in North America. That's not pretty impressive considering like
the absolute ship show going on in like New York,
(44:49):
in la and Seattle, and it's like, no, Toronto's worse, No,
it's real bad. I talk a lot about how the
far right's getting a lot, a lot, a lot stronger
of an luce in Alberta, and it is spreading into
other eastern eastern provinces, not just inside Quebec. You know,
there was the inside attack in Toronto a few years
ago that killed like I think like a dozen people.
(45:09):
Of course, there was the Quebec mosque shooting. There's been
a lot of these kind of things popping off, and
you know there's there's even more starting in like, uh,
British Columbia as well, which is which has a decent
far right kind of influence at least on the eastern
side of BC, um away from like Victoria and from Vancouver. UM.
So yeah, I just wanted to place together and be like, hey,
(45:30):
you know, it's it's worth looking at these countries that
we usually view as you know, generally doing better and
be like no, like, it's the same thing is happening there,
and it's all it's all part of the same overarching
slide right word that we've seen in both in the
UK we were even seeing it now in Germany we're
seeing it, you know in this obviously the States under
Trump and in Canada, even though the Liberals have won
(45:52):
the past few elections, it's still scooting right word. So yeah,
I just wanted to put this thing together. If you
want to keep up to date on Canadian stuff, you
can check out the Canadian Antihit network, which does work
tracking extremism in Canada. And yeah, that is ah, that
is what I put together exparison. Yeah, you're welcoming, You're welcome. Well,
(46:14):
that's the episode that's gonna do it for us here
and it could happen here today, come back tomorrow or
you know whatever, and we'll talk about another part of
the world. Maybe I don't know Portugal. Fuck it, I
don't have stuff pulled for a portug You have to
by tomorrow. No, that's what we're doing now. Follow us
(46:34):
on Twitter, on Instagram and it could happen here, pod
and cools on media. Leave five star reviews, whatever, goodbye, goodbye.
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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(46:57):
happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com
slash Sources, Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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