145. Candice Malcolm: Crime, Politics and Indian Residential Schools Debate

Episode Transcript
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Aaron Pete (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
than Me podcast.
Here is your host, Aaron.
Journalism is all about seekingthe truth.
I believe it's important toconsume a variety of news
sources to make sure that you'rean informed citizen.
I'm speaking with a seasonedjournalist, author and the
founder and editor-in-chief ofTrue North Media.

(00:20):
My guest today is CandaceMelcombe.
Candace, it is such a pleasureto sit down with you today.
I've been looking forward tohaving this conversation because
I think it's important tounderstand different
perspectives.
Would you mind first justbriefly introducing yourself?

Candice Malcolm (00:38):
Yeah, sure, aaron.
First of all, thank you forhaving me.
Thank you for following up,because I know you had wanted to
have me on before and thenthings got busy for me, so I
appreciate the tenacity offollowing up.
And yeah, I'm Candace Melcombe.
I'm a journalist.
I am the founder of True North,which is a digital media
company.
We do podcasts, we do writtennews reports focused on Canadian

(00:58):
politics, canadian culture andeconomics what else?
I'm a mother.
I have three little kids andactually one on the way, so soon
we'll be a mother of four.
I've been married for ten yearsand, yeah, I mean we can get
into any aspect of my previouscareer, my life now and anything
you want to talk about.

(01:19):
Aaron, I'm totally game.

Aaron Pete (01:20):
Brilliant.
Would you mind taking me back?
What made you interested injournalism?

It's interesting.
That's a good question.
I kind of spent the early partof my career on the sort of
intersection between journalismand politics.
I was interested in politicsmore from an ideological or
philosophical perspective.
I liked reading and trying tounderstand the meaning of life

(01:46):
and how we order society and why.
And I can't say I was everreally overly partisan.
I maybe interacted a little bitwith partisan politics here and
there.
But what I liked more was theideas behind it and why.
And I think that that kind ofled itself to telling stories,
asking questions, wondering why,writing, and yeah, I kind of

(02:10):
like stumbled my way intojournalism and I kind of come
from things from an outsideperspective, I think, because I
was never really like an insiderwith I didn't go to journalism
school and I even partisanpolitics.
I never really fit in with anyone particular party and so it
kind of makes sense that I wentmy own way and started my own

(02:33):
media company, because I don'tthink that I really fit in
anywhere else.
I worked at several differentmedia companies but I think I
feel more at home just doing myown thing and I'm fortunate just
because the way that the medialandscape is shifting so much of
news and information and mediais now distributed independently
.
Like you don't need to be onthe CBC to have a huge audience

(02:55):
and talk to a lot of Canadians.
You can just start a podcast,like you've done, and you find
your audience that way.
So I think I've been fortunatein many ways and the thing that
I'm doing now is I absolutelylove doing it.
So I feel very blessed and verygrateful to be in this position
.

Aaron Pete (03:11):
What values do you think underlie your approach to
journalism that might besomewhat unique from people
who've gone the traditional path?

Yeah, I mean I obviously I think that the core,
I think I think I hope that thecore of what any journalist is
doing is getting at the truth,trying to ask questions and
solve mysteries and try touncover the truth.
That's that's sort of the NorthStar and that's that's what
we're always aiming for andtrying to get to.
I think for me, I, just justbeing an outsider, I question

(03:43):
sort of like basic assumptions,like the way that the way that
things work, just because that'sthe way it works, doesn't mean
that that's the right way to doit, or just because that's the
convention or the traditiondoesn't necessarily mean that
that's the way it ought to go.
So I, yeah, I think, maybe justbeing an outsider, look, I, I
didn't really grow up being verypolitical.

(04:04):
I wasn't one of those kids thatwas like hardcore political when
I was a teenager, like I wasalways kind of more like
politically apathetic and cameto politics a little later.
I went to university withouteven knowing what I was going to
study and then I didn't become.
I became a political sciencemajor like halfway through my
second year because I took somepolitical science classes and I
liked them.
But yeah, politics was, wassort of new to me and and and I

(04:30):
didn't, I didn't have like apolitical background, like a lot
of other people that grow up init, and so just you know,
seeing it from an outsideperspective, again like asking
the basic questions, I thinkthat that sort of led me on the
path to always be questioningwhy and not just taking things
at face value.

Aaron Pete (04:48):
What issues did you see the interested you from a
journalistic perspective?
Was there standout problems oursociety was facing, our culture
was facing, that stood out toyou?

Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean it's funny becausethings, things change a lot but
things are also always the same.
I remember when I was like ateenager and just even just like
seeing the amount of poverty,like I grew up in Vancouver and
so like I would go to my parents, would take me to, like a
hockey game I go to see aKinnock game and we drive

(05:19):
through like a bad neighborhoodon the way leaving the hockey
game and it was likeunbelievable to me that the
Lower East Side of Vancouverlike existed, like it was.
Like I looked at it and I justcouldn't believe that, that,
that that was what that was astate of things in my city, like
a place where I lived prettycomfortably and almost, you know

(05:39):
, very sheltered life.
And then you see that there waslike this absolutely horrific
thing happening in your city, inyour backyard, right, and it's
like people are using drugs,they're out on the street,
they're being left to die,basically, and no one cares.
I mean that's that's the sortof like naive teenage
perspective that I saw, and it'slike why isn't this an

(06:02):
emergency?
Like why aren't we fixing this?
Why aren't we taking all ofthose individual people and like
rescuing them, basically likegetting them out of that
situation and helping them.
And I mean you kind of likelearn more about it and you're
like, okay, it's not that simple, it's not that easy.
You can't just like take aperson and fix them.
I mean, they obviously have alot of trauma and a lot of

(06:25):
reasons in their life that ledthem to be in that position.
But but still, I think thatmaybe like the first time you
become aware of social problems,it is kind of like to me there
was like a sense of urgency,like we need to fix this, we
need to act.
And it's kind of sad when Ithink about it, because it's
like you know, 20 years laterand the problem has just gotten

(06:47):
way worse.
In fact it's sort ofproliferated and it's everywhere
now.
It used to be like a veryisolated little spot in
Vancouver where you would seetent cities and prostitutes and
open drug use and people justkind of turning a blind eye to
it and walking by it like it'snot happening, and now it's like
, oh, that's normal, you seethat in every city in Canada and

(07:07):
even in small cities and so onVancouver Island and you know,
you're like in Courtney and as,and you see it there, and that I
was never the case before.
So in some ways, I think thatour society is is losing, is
losing these battles, like it'scoming apart even more, and I
think that there's still so muchAaron wrong in Canada that we

(07:30):
need to address and in some ways, maybe we're like too
complacent to actually fix thesethings.
So I know your question wasabout, like journalism, the
issues that inspired me, but Ithink that that that kind of
explains it, like there's stillso many things wrong with our
country and there's problemsthat we need to address and fix.
And if people aren't willing tolike talk about it, focus on it,

(07:51):
expose it, tell the storiesabout it, like report on it.
And that's what we do at TrueNorth.
We try to report on the storiesthat it other other other
organizations are just notcovering for whatever reason.
Maybe it's because they have apolitical agenda or their focus
is elsewhere, or it's too, it'stoo hard or too uncomfortable,
or maybe they do cover it, butlike on a more superficial level
, whereas maybe we want to takea deeper dive and try to figure

(08:12):
out, like what is happening here, why, what, what, what has
changed, what's leading to thisproblem and let's like, let's
like, try to figure out a way toto solve it or at least, at
least mitigate it, and try tomake the situation better for
those people who are who aresuffering through that.

Aaron Pete (08:30):
That's actually a follow up question.
I'll just ask do you thinkpublic policy is the way that we
solve some of those verychallenging problems that you're
describing?
Because for some it can seemlike obvious.
We need to have public policies, police like.
There's lots of differentpublic policies approaches we
can take, and some say this ison the individual.
They need to take the steps andwe can't control the individual

(08:51):
or force them to do things.
Do you think public policy is atool that we need to use to
address some of these issues?

Yeah, it's funny because I think when I was
younger my answer would havebeen like much more libertarian.
I always say, like you knowwhat?
Like that's a person's, that's,that's freedom, right?
In some ways I think it's likeextreme freedom, freedom taken
to such an extreme extent.
It's like if you want to wasteyour life and be on drugs and
destroy your body that way, youknow, be a prostitute or
whatever, like that's yourchoice and the way that we can

(09:19):
fix that would probably like theway.
A better path towards solvingsome of these issues is not
through the government, becausethe government is big and clunky
and inefficient and impersonaland all the problems with the
government.
Like we should have a much morelimited government, which is my
general worldview and that'sall true.
Like I think that that on apersonal level, like if you

(09:40):
imagine someone who was a formerdrug addict, who's turned their
life around and you know theyprobably have a personal story.
They probably have a storyabout a friend that intervened,
or family member or they metsomeone who inspired them, and
it's always a personal story.
It's never like, oh, I gotclean because of the government.
I mean, that's what I thinkright.
But I think on a morefundamental level, erin.

(10:03):
Like the problem is it'sgovernment, it's the laws, right
, it's a solution might not beentirely public policy.
I think a lot of it will have tocome from civil society.
But the fact that our laws allowthis to happen, that we don't
treat this like a criminaloffense, that we are, as a

(10:23):
society, okay with drug use andwe endorse it, we subsidize it
in some ways we give it away,like those are all tacit nods
saying to individuals that thisis a path you know it's not
necessarily a good path, butit's a path Whereas you know, if
you go to countries and you goto places where this is just not

(10:44):
tolerated, it's not accepted,it's against the law Like you're
not going to see fentanyl usein Singapore, right.
You're not going to see peopleyou know wasting life while
using drugs in a country likeTurkey, like it's just they just
not allow, not allow, it'sbanned, right.
And so I think that in someways, our society we're too,
we're too lenient and toorelaxed and okay with with

(11:07):
people doing things that arecompletely detrimental to
themselves.
So, yes, it there needs to be alegal framework to stop it.
And then, as far as like, howcan we improve things?
I think that, yes, civilsociety has to do a lot of the
heavy list, heavy lifting.

Aaron Pete (11:22):
I'm taking you on a bit of a tangent, but I think
this is such an interestingconversation.
How do you feel about thecomments?
Because you could say condone.
But I think of people like drGabor Matei who would say that
we understand that we'rebecoming, we're creating space
for these individuals tounderstand the pain and the
trauma and the abuse thatthey've they've been through,
and we're starting to understandthat this is one of the ways in

(11:45):
which they try and cope withthis.
And we don't have the samesmall town communities that we
used to.
Now we have millions of peoplein these cities and there's just
not that human connection.
When you do the studies in NewYork and People will see
somebody on the groundStruggling.
They just keep walking.
Somebody else will help themout.
That bystander effect takesover that.
These are some of the problemswe're facing.

(12:06):
We're we're under, we'rebecoming a more understanding
society.
How do you think about thosekind of arguments that I'm
hearing more and more?

Well, I mean, you can always find
justifications and I have a lotof respect for Gabor Matei I
think that's how you say hisname.
He agreed with them.
Actually usually don't agreewith him, but but Of course it's
like if you live in a big city,like like, look at Canada.
It's like, okay, what, what'syour tax rate?
I don't know, I pay like 50% ofthe money that I make to the

(12:33):
government.
So when it comes time to likewhat I have afterwards, am I
gonna be like super generous andstart donating like tons of
money to like my church and likemental health Groups or even
things that I believe in?
It's like.
It's like when you get thatmuch away, you're kind of
outsourcing the responsibility,right.
Or like if you live in a bigcity, exactly like like
someone's dying on the streetand you're like, well, I gotta

(12:54):
go, I gotta go get my kids, likeI don't have time to deal with
this person and their issues,whereas you know, if you've
lived in a small community whereit was like kin and family
members and people whom you hadSocial bonds and kinship with
you, you would not just stepover them.
So part of it is definitelylike how we live and how we
structured our society.

(13:15):
I think a lot of it is when youhave such a big, overbearing
government, like.
One of my biggest philosophicaldisagreements with people whom
I respect on the political leftis that they give like too much
respect and Acceptance thatgovernment will solve these
problems, Whereas I think thatnot only is a government
incapable of solving theproblems because it's

(13:35):
inefficient and bloated and theincentives are all wrong, but
you actually don't want to livein a society where you outsource
that like.
You want to live in a societywhere you take personal
Responsibility.
You take for responsibility foryour community.
You're connected in community.
You know your neighbors.
You you're gonna make sure that, like, not only am I
responsible for making sure mykids are okay, but I'm
responsible for making sure thekids in my community are okay.

(13:55):
So if my neighbors away and Isee one of her kids and
something's happened, I'm gonnago help them because I know them
right and and part of theproblem living in like a big
modern society is that you, youdon't have those connections.
So I don't.
I don't know if I quite answeryour question, but I think that,
rather than saying like, oh,it's okay, I understand and I'm

(14:16):
compassionate towards someonewho turns to drugs to cope with
their pain.
I think it would be better foreveryone if we just said no,
that's not an option, you're notgoing to numb yourself through
drugs and alcohol.
That's.
That's just not what we do inour society.
You know, you can, you can dealwith it through through other
medical means, like go totherapy and, you know, start

(14:38):
exercising and start having ahealthy lifestyle and and we can
like work through these thingswith your community, with your
family, with your friends.
But but saying like Okay as asociety, like one of the things
that we're okay with, is justlike completely distrong your
mind and your body With drugsbecause you've had a bad
childhood.
I don't think that that's like acompassionate approach to to to

(15:00):
Helping people like, like, likethat's not a good way to live
and and I can say the same thing.
I mean maybe, maybe I'm likeTaking things too much in a
tangent here, but it's the samething with like how we eat in
our diets, like a lot of thethings that we eat.
We just shouldn't eat a lot ofthe things that kids have access
to.
They just this you shouldn'teat highly processed food.

(15:21):
It's really bad for you and itwill kill you and it's like why
don't we say these things?
Why don't we teach each otherthese things like how come these
like really kind of basictruths about Like our world that
we live and we don't, we don'treally like talk about?
So I'm not just like singlingout drugs that I think are bad.
You know, the truth of thematter is like if you want to go
drink and you numb yourselfthat way it's a free country go

(15:45):
ahead.
If you want to go do a bunch ofdrugs, I mean fine, but I don't
think it's a good thing.
I don't think that we should besaying, yeah, you know, this is
just another life choice andand if that's how you cope,
that's fine and it always legal,and oh, if you want some
fentanyl here, we'll pay for it,we'll hand it out to, to
addicts on the street like this.
This is not the direction thatI think a healthy society heads

(16:06):
in.

Aaron Pete (16:06):
I Really appreciate all of that breakdown and
comparing it to food and stuff,because government, I would say,
is always a process ofincentives and disincentives,
and how we structure that playsa significant role.
And a lot of the movement wesee is in regards to trying to
be more understanding andaccepting and at a at an
individual person to personlevel.

(16:27):
I agree with that sentiment,but as you move up the to the
provincial and federalgovernment, you can't apply
those same rules because it'snot going to have the same
impact, because it's a scalingrule.
Like you're, you're nowapplying something across a
country in a different way.
That it's not the same.
When I show empathy to anotherperson and I'm like, hey, you

(16:48):
know what, you've fallen down,you've been abused.
I understand that and I'm hereto help you.
That's a different thing thanthe federal government
instituting something that'sgoing to have an impact, where
they're not saying anything tothe person.
They're just creating anincentive or a disincentive, and
that's a complex Issue that wehave to grapple with and make
sure that we steer the countryand look at these incentives and
what are we encouraging peopleto do and what does this policy

(17:09):
say Beyond just beingunderstanding, and what are the
ramifications it's going to have, because I come from a
criminology degree.
We talk about these issues, andone of them is that when we did
ban alcohol and we had anabsolute prohibition, alcohol
was some of the mostconcentrated moonshine was one
of the most concentrated as aconsequence.
And so there are arguments thatwhen we ban things outright or

(17:31):
when we push society too far,that the extremes are Come about
as well and that's the argumentbeing made with fentanyl and
legalizing some of the lowerlevel drugs is because we don't
want people to escalate and getthe most extreme things.
Have you heard?
Those are arguments as well inregards to drug
decriminalization.

Yeah, it's interesting and I appreciate
bringing that up because I thinkthat one day, future
criminologists will study thisperiod 2024 and look at how, hey
, when you legalize drugs likehard drugs, like heroin and
crack and Fentanyl, it doesn'tjust like become a niche thing.
That, that, that, that that isnot that big of a problem.

(18:11):
It's the opposite is that itconcentrates.
It's like if Vancouver and SanFrancisco are two cities in
North America that completelyallow all this stuff and
Sometimes subsidize it, hand itout.
City of Toronto does it too.
Now You're gonna get more of it.
You're gonna get more of it andthere's a reason that there's
more of these drug overdoses andthere's more crime Concentrated

(18:34):
in the areas where they'rehanding out the drugs, because
people are coming.
We're living through a socialexperiment right now and I don't
think that the results arepositive.
I don't think that people wouldsay look at your community.
If you live in a, in a room isor in an urban area, do you
think your neighborhood's gottensafer in the last five years?
Do you feel safe walking yourkids around and going to the
park?
I mean, almost everyone I knowhas stories about their kids.

(18:57):
I literally finding needles inparks in our cities and it's
like that's not really the onein the type of community that I
want to live in.
That's not the world that Iwant to live in, and so I
Totally understand the idea oflike prohibition.
You know People are gonna finda way to bond drink.
It's, it's ingrained in ourculture and you know when.

(19:19):
When there was prohibition,there's just a huge black market
and it created a lot of othercriminality.
And you know the reality isthat whatever, whatever there is
that we have laws surrounding,there's going to be a black
market for like like.
That's just kind of like humannature.
I guess there's always going tobe that, those type of people
who are willing to break the lawto try to make more money or

(19:40):
Whatever it is.
But but when it comes to justsaying okay, we're just gonna
allow it because we'd ratherhave it available, at least we
can regulate it and maybe we canmake some money off of it by
taxing it, at least in mindsetin Ontario that, like you know,
we have the LCBO, which is thegovernment control liquor store.
So you're buying liquor inOntario, you're buying it

(20:02):
through the government.
Well, might as well makemarijuana that way too, so we
get some extra money in the, inthe coffers, to spend on
whatever we want to spend on.
But but you know, on the flipside of that there's also the
moral reason.
Right, it's like.
It's like Do you think it's agood idea that the 16 year olds
can smoke pot and go by pot,like when I was growing up in

(20:23):
high school?
I went to high school, like Isaid, in BC.
I was actually on VancouverIsland.
For most of high school there'sa lot of pot.
There was a lot of kids smokingponderdyes and that was back
when it was illegal.
I think it'd be interesting tocompare.
I think it's one of those thingsprobably hard to study, because
what kind of like 16 year oldsgoing to admit that they're
Smoking pot and doing drugs?
But, but if, but, if there'smore of that now that it's legal

(20:45):
or if there's less?
But generally speaking, I meanknowing what we know about
marijuana and about drugs like,is it really, is it really a
Positive thing that that ourgovernment is saying it's okay,
because in some ways it's notlike I mean, you can look up
studies about the links betweenyoung males using marijuana and

(21:05):
links to Schizophrenia andmental illness later life.
We know that there's moremental illness now in our
society than there's ever beenbefore.
Maybe that's just that we'redoing a better job documenting
it.
Maybe it's a social media isdriving us all crazy.
He has something to do withdrugs, I don't know.
But I think that you know, justbecause we banned it before and
it was bad, uh, doesn't meanthat we should just like

(21:27):
legalize it now and then it'sgoing to be good.
Because I don't necessarily.
I don't see the evidence thatour world is better, that our
societies are better, theircities are safer, that young
people are healthier, that thatwere that were a more, that that
our society is functioningbetter than it was prior to
legalization.
I just, I just don't see that.
Now, aaron, I'd be totally openand interested to hear your

(21:48):
perspective, like if you, if youthink that things have gone
better since drugs have becomedecriminalized or legalized,
maybe more readily available.
I'm totally happy to hear theother side of the argument.
I just, I just personally don'tsee it.

Aaron Pete (22:00):
I think that's a very interesting question when I
think about what's going on onthe street level.
There are serious concerns.
I would say that I would rathersee a society at scale
Struggling with the use ofmarijuana than alcohol, because
we know that alcohol is involvedin 50 percent of crimes, and so
I've always been a proponent ofconcerns with legalizing and

(22:22):
allowing alcohol use, becauseit's part of violent crimes.
It's 50 percent of all crimes,and so there are significant
risks involved with,specifically, alcohol.
And we do know that even aglass of wine, as much as it's
touted on Regular tv, shows thata glass of wine can be good for
your health.
It actually isn't over the longterm either, and so I think it
that piece I would lean onfreedom, people's right to

(22:44):
choose the government legalizingit to me Doesn't mean that it's
good or bad.
It just means that you have theright to choose, just like a
cup of coffee, whether or notyou want to put that into your
body, and circumstancesdependent.
I think my big concern is thatI'm seeing a Reduction in
creativity.
I feel like people used to bemuch more creative, and some of
these substances have long beenunderstood to contribute to

(23:07):
people's creativity and creatingmasterful works of art that we
just don't know how they getthere.
And you can say, well, maybethey could have gotten there
without it.
But Historically, when you lookat some of the greatest
musicians, the greatest artists,they were often using some sort
of substance to really honethat skill, to really get into a
form of flow state.
So I think I do worry about thegovernment ever deciding for

(23:29):
the, the people they're supposedto serve, what they should be
doing with their bodies.
So that would be my broaderconcern.

Yeah, I know, I think, I think I think I agree
with you as well, like when itcomes to, you know, you're
talking before about the variouslevels of government and it's
like what, what do you want fromeach level?
Because once you get to thefederal government, that's like
making laws from a far off place.
They don't really interact withyou.
So, like I'm opposed to likebig national programs, like I
don't think that there should beany kind of big national

(23:59):
program.
I think part of the problemwith our healthcare is that it's
too One size fits all and it'slike these laws are very
restrictive rather than allowingfor companies to create a
response to the needs in theircommunities, or individuals, or
charities or whatever thegovernment is.
Like this is what you're goingto have and and it doesn't.
It just doesn't work.

(24:20):
So, like, generally speaking, Ithink I think you're right.
Maybe what I'm talking moreabout is like as a culture and
as a society.
You know the idea.
I agree with you about alcoholand it's interesting because,
like when I was growing up Againthe same thing like everyone
kind of drank alcohol and you goto university and you're really
surrounded in this kind of likebinge culture where, like heavy

(24:42):
drinking is just totally normaland that's just what you do.
And and Now I'm a bit older andI'm like thinking back to how
unhealthy I was in universityjust in terms of like lack of
sleep, lack of a healthy diet,but having alcohol is like it's
not good for your brain, it'snot good for your ability to
function, and I think that's somuch of of you know.

(25:06):
We definitely are dealing witha massive issue when it comes to
mental health problems, like, Ithink, self-reported.
It's like half of the women outthere believe that they have
like depression or anxiety andit's like, well, you know, are
you doing the basics right?
Are you?
Are you getting a good night'ssleep?
Are you?
Are you sleeping at the sametime every night?
Are you eating a high, highprotein, nutritious diet?

(25:27):
Are you getting exercise orgetting fresh air?
Are you like Like kind of justlike again, like very basic
things, which, of course, Ithink you're.
Probably your parents, yourgrandparents, saw you when you
were a little kid, but it'salmost like we've taken these
things for granted and webelieve all kinds of crazy
things and now, all of a sudden,we live in this world where we
Stare at our screens and wedon't have a lot of inner, like
human interaction.

(25:48):
You know there's otherquestions that I don't think our
political Class would bewilling to touch, but it's like
Look at the birth rate in our,in our society, look at how few
people are having children andit's like it's so alarming.
It's like it's like this is acatastrophe.
This is like an end ofcivilization concern.

(26:10):
When you have each generation,like half of what it was like at
the natural replacement levelfor a society is like 2.1, and
you know the birth rate in koreaIs like 1.1.
Like like that literally meansthat each society, each
generation, will be half thesize of the previous one.
Forget about what that will dofor all of our government

(26:31):
Entitlement schemes.
I think in Canada it's it'sit's not quite so bad, it's
still pretty bad.
I think it's like 1.5, you know.
Forget about how bad it'll befor All of our you know pensions
and our ability to pay forgovernment and our ability to
pay for holiday.
But like what do they do to likepeople, to like individuals?
Like not having you know thething that has fulfilled you

(26:55):
know your life for so manygenerations?
It's like, what do you do?
You have kids right and youraise those kids and then those
kids have kids and they raisethose kids.
It's like that's like used tobe like a central feature of
life.
And now it's like I meet somepeople that just don't have kids
, don't want kids, no interest,and that's that.
And they've decided and it'slike you know this is.
This is a big shift and a bigconcern and I mean, yeah, sure

(27:16):
you can just have a huge,massive immigration program
where you let in a millionpeople a year and then you know,
your community starts to changeand people who you know, people
come with different values andthey might not be Canadian, they
might not care that much aboutCanada, but they're here in
Canada and like it.
Just, it just changes things,like everything's different, and
I think that that's somethingthat we don't, we don't talk

(27:38):
about at all.
I think.
I think it's a problem, I thinkit's a concern that people
don't want to have kids anymore.

Aaron Pete (27:44):
You, we will get to your two books, because I think
that that will be a great placeto kind of discuss those issues
further.
But would you mind telling meabout starting true north, what
was the impetus behind that?

Yeah, sure.
So let's see, I I've done a lotof things like in my career, so
I kind of started more on likethe academic think type, think
tank side.
I worked at the FraserInstitute, I went down and did a
fellowship in Washington DCwhere I worked at a think tank
and I like that idea ofPromoting public policy through
an organization, and so then Ihad a little bit of experience

(28:17):
working in government.
I went and worked for theHarper government in 2011 and
Didn't work out for me like Iwasn't suited to be a partisan
or a political, but it was greatto work in parliament and have
experience.
Anyway, I left and I startedwriting a column for the Toronto
Sun and I worked at Sun NewsNetwork and I got like my kind
of media TV experience andstarted writing and I really I

(28:40):
really liked writing in theToronto Sun.
One of the things I would do isI break stories about
immigration and about terrorism,about national security, and I
decided to start kind of like athink tank focused on these
issues, because there wasn'treally anyone in Canada doing it
and I, you know, I wanted tohave my own organization, very
entrepreneurial, and I want todo my own thing, and what I

(29:00):
thought that thing was was goingto be like an immigration think
tank where we provided likePapers advocating or explaining
good immigration policies, likesound immigration policy.
And I did that at the same timeas I was continued right in the
Toronto Sun and what I foundlike as an entrepreneur, you
kind of have to go where youraudience is right and we know

(29:22):
where your customer is if you'reselling something.
But For me it was like thepeople who liked to north and
we're supporting it.
We're like you know, the thingthat we like the most about what
you do is your journalism.
Like the academic think tankstuff is like we'll take it or
leave it.
But when you break a story inthe Toronto Sun or you have a
big news story, that's likegoing all over Twitter, that's
what we like.
And so I kind of pivoted and Iwas like, okay, I like doing

(29:44):
that too.
That's fun for me and that'slike.
You know, you live in this worldwhere, once you start doing
research and you start doingaccess to information, you start
breaking stories.
It's like a floodgate, right,it's like, it's like a couple
trickles and it's hard work,hard work and then all of a
sudden it's like, yeah,everything you touch is like
people are sending you stuff,people are calling you, mps are
giving you stuff like and and,and it just became like I had

(30:06):
like so much stuff that I wantedto write about and I couldn't
fit it all in the Toronto Sun,so I just basically started a
website, hire some people tohelp me, and we had like
instantly had an audience, hadpeople willing to fund it, and
it was just like exciting.
It was like we're doingjournalism that no one else in
Canada is doing.
A lot of the legacy media Feeluncomfortable talking about
immigration, so they're notreally willing to touch it.

(30:26):
But it's like I got a lot ofproblems here.
There's people that are comingin that shouldn't be.
There's bad people in thecountry.
We're going to be like unafraidand we're just going to write
about it and talk about it, andthen it kind of snowballed.
So it was like well,immigration is too narrow, right
, it's like there's so manyother stories too and there's so
many other concerns that wehave for cultural and our
society.
Let's just broaden it and it'sjust continue to grow like like

(30:47):
I think we've been doing it tosince 2016, 2016, 2016, 2017, no
, 2016, yeah, 2016 and I wouldsay we pivoted towards
journalism.
Like 2018 and like every year,it's like growing, doubling, and
now we're getting more intopodcasting and Obviously we have
to evolve because so much ofour distribution social media

(31:09):
are huge, huge audience and,like our brand butter was
Facebook.
And then, all of a sudden, theTrudeau government created a law
that Facebook didn't like andthey just completely cut off all
news.
So it was like almost like wehad to start again.
It's like, you know, we haveall these like hundreds of
thousands of people on Facebookthat are watching our content
every day and all of a suddennow it's like Band, like no
content, you can't see anything.

(31:30):
And same with Instagram.
So we had to kind of pivot nowmore towards like YouTube Rumble
and podcasts like Spotify.
So, yeah, that's a fun thingabout being an entrepreneur and
having a business is, you know,there's never a dull moment and
you always have to be on yourtoes.
It's like have a strategy forlike what are we going to do
when this fails or what are wegoing to do when this dies?

(31:51):
And I think one of the one ofthe things that we've been able
to do is just build up a Prettyloyal audience of people who
like, like our stories and theykind of go wherever we go.
Like you know, during COVID,one of the things that happened
was we started writing aboutpeople who Were being fired from
their jobs for not gettingvaccinated or People who were

(32:11):
getting really sick from thevaccine, and and just stories
that for some reason, the media,the legacy media, the
mainstream media I don't callthem a mainstream media because
I don't think they're verymainstream anymore I think
they're kind of almost fringeand niche, like such a small
percentage of Canadians gettheir news from the cbc these
days, but it's like you know,they just didn't want to talk

(32:31):
about it.
They didn't want to talk, theydidn't want to talk about
stories that were impacting somany people across the country.
And we were hearing the storiesand we wanted to tell them, and
so we started reporting on that,we started reporting on the
freedom convoy and we justreally kind of like double their
audience during that period andpicked up a whole bunch of
people who who had neverfollowed us before, and and it's

(32:52):
kind of cool how you stumbleupon an audience and then and
then you learn from them, right,because if you're, if you're
paying attention.
You're reading your emails andyou're reading your dms on
twitter and you're reading yourreplies and kind of engaging
with these people.
We do a lot of events too, soit's great to meet people and
get get out there in person.
Uh, you know, they'll tell youwhat the issues that they feel

(33:15):
are important in the countrythat are again being ignored by
Legacy media.
I I have a lot of critiques ofthe legacy media, but at the end
of the day, I'm kind ofgrateful that they are the way
they are, because it's crazyopportunities, uh, for someone
like me probably someone likeyou too to just carve out your
own niche, uh product and tellyour own stories and not have to

(33:35):
be like part of that butactually supplement it and
provide a service to the so manyCanadians who don't feel
represented by whatever ishappening over there.

Aaron Pete (33:46):
Out of curiosity.
You've described something andI think there's a few different
angles to it.
One of the concerns I regularlyhave for people who start their
own thing is what's calledaudience capture, because as you
try and figure out what youraudience wants, you can get into
the realm, like I can see whenI post a podcast what people
click for, and I'm alwayscognizant.

(34:07):
I need to continue to do what Ilove, what I enjoy, the topics.
They might not get the mostviews, but I need to continue to
enjoy the process and have theconversations that might not get
all the views but that nourishme and my intellect and my
curiosity.
How do you make sure that youkeep that balance?
Because, on the one hand, youdo need to have that grassroots

(34:28):
approach where people are comingto you with the story you might
not know about and they're like, hey, this thing's going on in
my community.
It's really getting me mad, andyou're like, okay, maybe this
is a story, but on the otherhand, as you start to see, this
is what clicks and views, thisis what's getting more and more
engagement and making sure thatyou don't just chase wherever
the new topic is.
That's getting that engagement.
How do you find that balance?

Yeah, that's a good problem to think about,
because I know there's a lot ofYouTubers that I know that they
get a big account and then theyhave to kind of continue to do
really click-baity things to getthe views and they feel like
they're kind of compromising.
It's always a struggle, right.
It's like sometimes there'll bean issue that will come up
where I will just disagree withwhere my whole audience is.

(35:10):
I don't know.
Maybe like I'm trying to thinkof an example, or at least
perceive it that way.
Right, when the whole October7th Israel thing happened, to me
that's like a 9-11 level attackon an ally.
And it's very clear to me Ispent time in Israel, I've spent

(35:32):
time in Palestine, I've spent alot of time on the issue and I
realize that not all my viewerswill have that same perspective
as I do, right, so maybe a lotof them will just not take it
from the same perspective as Ido.
And then you read the comments,you know like, oh, people don't
like that, they're calling melike a shill for Israel or
whatever.
And it's like, oh, you'realready funded by Jews or

(35:53):
whatever.
And like sometimes you justhave to ignore that right.
And then sometimes you have tosay, okay, you know, true North
is a Canadian company and ourfocus needs to be on Canada.
There always has to be a Canadaangle.
So, as much as like I wouldlove to do like 10 podcasts in a
row on Israel.
It's like that's not what ouraudience comes to us for, so

(36:15):
let's talk more about, like howit impacts Canada.
Let's talk about these protests.
Let's like bring it home right.
So I don't think that'snecessarily like changing your
opinion, but there's been timesin the past too, like I'll give
you another example like whenDonald Trump first came on the
scene, I didn't like him at all,I was not interested in him and

(36:36):
I thought that he was a snakeof the salesman, basically.
And I noticed that my audiencedid like him.
Right, they did.
And it almost made me likepause, because I think part of
the reason that Trump became sosuccessful in the United States
is because he was tapping intosomething deeper and that the
people in the sort of eliteinstitutions and the mainstream

(36:59):
positions couldn't see it.
They didn't understand it andthey initially just judged it as
like very negative and wrotehim off and called him all kinds
of names, and that was part ofwhat fueled him, because people
were very like no, we take thisperson seriously, because he's
talking about things that reallymatter to us and rather than
just like your knee-jerkreaction, like he's a bigot and

(37:20):
he's a, he's an evil, fascist,sort of it's like, well, why
don't we take a minute to try tounderstand, like, why he's
popular and why he won anelection and who are these
people that are supporting himand that process?
Just trying to understand thatis good, because then you, you
understand a different elementof your society, rather than
just saying these people arefull of hate and they're evil

(37:41):
and they're wrong and I don'tlike them.
Like now, let's try tounderstand, like, what it is
that's motivating them and whythey have come to this point
where they're electing a personlike this.
That's so outside the realm ofnormal sort of political world.
So I think it's good to takecues from your audience and
listen.
At the same time, you know youdo it for yourself, right, and
it's your job and it's your life, so you don't want to take

(38:03):
positions that you don't believein, you don't agree with.
Like, like I said off the top,like our guiding principle is
truth, right, so you want tofind the truth.
But I do think it's importantto kind of keep an open mind and
listen to your audience, likeif everyone's everyone, if every
single comment, your commentsection, is saying one thing.
You know they're all reallyconcerned about the WF.
Well, I think the WF is a jokeand it's not.

(38:25):
I don't take it that seriously,but they really care about it.
So let's spend some timedigging into it and
understanding why they're soworked up about it, and then you
realize that there is somethingthere that is worth looking at
and criticizing.
So I am still sort of a bigadvocate of just sort of
listening to the audience andfinding out what it is that they
want and seeing if there'sanything there.

(38:46):
Basically, Interesting.

Aaron Pete (38:49):
One of the other challenges I'd say we've had
since 2015 is so many of ourmetrics of where we say we are
on the political spectrum hasshifted.
I do feel like people, if theylisten or if I talk to them,
they talk to me like I'm aconservative, but I would say
that I am, and have always been,a liberal.

(39:09):
But what it means to be aliberal in 2024 is a completely
different thing than when Istarted becoming interested in
the political process and whatissues are and how to think
about them.
I do believe in social programs.
I do believe that they play arole.
I think they can absolutely gotoo far.
When I think about, specifically, serb and its impact, I look at
the people who are mostnegatively impacted when

(39:32):
government rolls out a lot ofmoney are the people in poverty
over the long term, because wheninflation hits, they're the
first to be impacted byinflation and start to see those
negative impacts.
So at the front end, we feellike we've benefited and over
the next two to three years weexperienced the consequences.
So I have perspectives on theseissues where I would say I lean
more liberal.

(39:52):
But I feel like that definitionhas changed and I'm just
wondering from your perspective,where would you say you lie on
that political spectrum andwhere does True North lie from
your perspective?

Yeah, it's interesting.
I used to sort of play the gameof like I'm the original
liberal and the liberals aren'tliberal, because I fundamentally
believe in freedom fromgovernment.
I don't think that governmentshould be a core force in your
life.
I think that the most importantinstitution, society, is a

(40:28):
family, and that things shouldbe taught by your parents, not
by school systems.
And I think I've kind of letthat go because I don't think
liberty in and of itself isenough.
I think that you need to havemorals and values and traditions
to guide you, to build a strongsociety and to stabilize you.

(40:50):
So I mean one of my rules ofthumb if I have a problem or I
don't know how to solve an issue, I think of I wonder what my
grandparents would have done, orI wonder what my great
grandparents would have done,and kind of like go back to the
wisdom of the people who builtthe life that I am so lucky to

(41:11):
enjoy.
So, as far as the politicalspectrum, I mean, yeah, I'm more
concerned.
I don't agree withconservatives all the time, but
definitely skeptical of thegovernment, skeptical of big
government programs, very, very,very skeptical of our current

(41:32):
premise, for who I don't have alot of respect for and don't
take him very seriously at all.
I think he's a very seriousperson and he's doing great harm
to the country.
And as far as true north goes,like I think that again back
when I started it, we were kindof more like a conservative news
outlet, like conservativeopinion, conservative ideas.
I don't think that you canreally have like conservative

(41:53):
news or liberal news, but wewere doing the news that the
liberal media wasn't doing andmost journalists in Canada are
liberals, like Big L liberals,almost all of them.
The only ones that aren't arethe ones that are NDP.
And so the fact that there's asort of void in the legacy media
, that there aren't conservativevoices, even in the national
posts is run by liberal orpeople that are like mildly

(42:15):
conservative but they apologizefor their conservatism and
they're embarrassed by it andthey concede every issue to the
liberals.
But I think that, like I saidduring COVID, a lot of the
people who came to us were notnecessarily the ones that were
identifying as conservatives.
There were people that justfelt excluded and left out and
left behind.
I think the Trucker Convoy wasa great example of that.

(42:36):
A lot of people that were goingto Ottawa and protesting were
not political people and theyprobably wouldn't have thought
of themselves as conservatives.
They just thought of themselvesas outsiders, and I think one
of the things we're trying to doat True North is use labels
less and try to just appeal topeople based on the content and

(42:56):
the stories and let our workkind of speak for itself.
So, but I think, generallyspeaking, the things that our
society needs are more tradition, more order, more things that
fall on the conservative sideand away from the sort of like
totally free libertine, likeeverything on a moral

(43:18):
perspective and then on a kindof government perspective.
I think that that basically,the liberals think that all we
need is more government.
That government can solve everysingle problem in our life and
we just need the will toconvince the people to basically
concede, give away theirindividual power so that the
government can step in and domore like free, like we're going

(43:39):
to be in charge of grocerystore distribution and you're
going to have cheaper price ofthe grocery stores, and we're
going to be in charge ofhealthcare, we're going to be in
charge of dental programs, liketaking away all of the things
on the market side of theeconomy and turning them into
government.
I think that's like the lastthing we need is more government
.
We need less government.
We need government to get outof the way and so many aspects

(44:01):
or so many things that preventpeople from running a business
or having a good life.
It's like when we talk aboutcost of living all the time,
it's like well, maybe if thegovernment didn't take half your
money, you'd have a little moremoney, right?
Maybe if they didn't completelycontrol the housing supply and
how many houses are built andhow a house can be built Like.
My brother has a business wherehe kind of like a storage

(44:25):
business and he has a bunch offacilities in East Vancouver and
it's like the craziest thing.
He'll buy a building or lease abuilding and try to get it, try
to get the zoning change sothat he can do what he wants,
and it'll take like three years,four years, and he'll have beer
crafts coming in and engineerscoming in to try to like tell
him he has to make changes.
His ability is like why don'twe just let businesses be

(44:47):
businesses?
Why don't people startbusinesses?
Why do we have to have allthese beer crafts like meddling
in in every aspect?
There's a reason why oureconomy is not growing.
There's a reason why it'sreally expensive it's because we
just have way too muchgovernment.
So that's a very long answer,but basically I think that

(45:09):
people who want less governmenttend to be more conservative.

Aaron Pete (45:13):
Right.
Would you mind telling us abouttwo of your books Losing True
North Justin Trudeau's Assaulton Canadian Citizenship, and no
Border Justin Trudeau's Assaulton Canadian Border Security.

Sure, yeah.
Well, first I'll tell you about.
My first book was GenerationScrewed, and I wrote that just
about millennials and how themath doesn't work for us.
And then I wrote this book like15 years ago now, maybe 10
years, no, 12 years ago now.
And you know I should talkabout more because so much of
what I wrote about has come trueand is coming true for us and

(45:47):
it's like everything's stuckagainst us and we just give way
too much control and power andmoney to the government is a
disaster.
So that kind of helped me getmy calm in the Toronto Sun.
That kind of launched my careerwriting.
So I'm thankful for thatopportunity.
And then, losing True North, Iwrote that book.
It's actually an interestingstory.
My husband and I got married.

(46:08):
We bought a townhouse togetherin downtown Toronto and this was
in 2013.
And then almost right away hestarted a business and his
business took him to Californiaand so he kind of like up and
moved and took this opportunityand there was a while where I

(46:29):
just didn't know what I wasgoing to do.
I was working at a TV station,I was writing for the Toronto
Sun, I had a very like kind ofToronto based life and then he
was over in the Silicon Valleyand he was doing really cool
things and he was having allthese amazing opportunities and
he was like living his kind ofdream of what he wanted to do.
But you know, we were anewlywed couple that was living
in two different countries, ontwo different coasts, and so

(46:51):
there was about like a six-monthperiod where we were just apart
and I didn't know exactly whatfor my career, like where I was
going to live, and so I just,you know, I didn't have a.
I had, I think, but free time.
So I wrote, I wrote a book andit was just when Justin Trudeau
was first selected and I didn'tlike the things that he was
saying about immigration and Ididn't feel like he was being

(47:13):
held accountable in anymeaningful way and I was had a
lot of concerns.
I was doing a lot of reportingon a lot of the problems that
came to a Syrian refugee policy,and so I just wrote a book
about what I thought Canadaneeded in an immigration policy
and that kind of helped launchTrue North, the first iteration,
when it was a think tank, andit was incredibly well sold,
like the book sold tens ofthousands of copies, like it

(47:37):
made us a lot of money and weself-published it.
So it was.
It was like a huge, a huge okay, there's a big audience for
this.
This is a great way to likekind of entrepreneurial, like
writing my own book on the sideand using that as a way to make
some money.
And the concepts were reallywhat people wanted to hear and

(47:58):
it was fresh because no one waswriting about it.
So that was that kind of helpedme launch True North.
And then the reason I wroteNologa was just kind of a
follow-up or sorry, no logo, noborder was a follow-up because
it was like two or three yearsinto Justin Trudeau's prime
ministership and all of a suddenCanada was dealing with this
crazy problem of illegalimmigration, which has never

(48:20):
been a problem in Canada before,and I kind of analyzed the laws
that he had changed, the waythat he was enforcing the border
, what was happening in RoxhamRoad.
I went down to Roxham Road inupstate New York, on the border
near Montreal in Quebec, and sawit from my own eyes,
interviewed people, documentedwhat I saw and kind of wrote the

(48:45):
follow-up of.
Like you know, canada is not acountry that should have to deal
with this problem of notknowing who's coming and going
from our country, and a lot ofthese people aren't the kind of
people that we would allow.
They would be inadmissible.
So what's the point of havingimmigration laws and having
rules about who can come and goif you're not enforcing them?
And that was a time it isinteresting.

(49:05):
I really should write anotherbook, because the problem has
just absolutely proliferatedpost -COVID, like kind of went
away during COVID and so it'slike, if you look at the number
of illegal immigration,apprehensions or people coming
in, just kind of completelydisappeared in 2020, 2021.
And now it's like back andhigher than ever over the last
two years.
So, yes, it's interesting.

(49:26):
It's one of those topics thatnot a lot of people write about.
You don't really hear about itin the news, but people are
really interested.
Like when you write about it,your stuff will go viral and
like people will buy your bookand people will read your essays
and people watch your videosbecause they're interested,
they're like what is happening.
And yeah, you find kind of likeinteresting to see the kind of

(49:48):
people who are interested inthat kind of story, because it
might not be the same as yournormal audience again.

Aaron Pete (49:55):
So I have to ask do you attribute intent to Mr
Trudeau?
Do you think that some of thesepolicies are just mistaken,
that he just makes a bad call?
Do you think that there's aplan?
By like?
What do you attribute when youlook at the policies that you
disagree with?
Like he comes into office earlyon.

(50:16):
Do you think he knows theconsequences of his actions?
Do you think he knows themistakes or the fallout that's
going to occur?
Do you think that he's athoughtful person?
You mentioned earlier that youdon't really respect him.
Do you think you could you sitdown with him and you really try
and understand his philosophy?
What's going on behind thescenes?
Where do you think you get inthat conversation?

No, I don't think there's any point in
talking to him.
I don't think there's any pointin listening to him.
I don't think that anything hesays is true or thoughtful or
sincere.
I think that he's like he's anactor playing a role and he
fundamentally he's not athoughtful person.
I think he kind of has like theknee-jerk liberal reaction to

(50:57):
everything and he's manga aboutit.
So he thinks that he's smarterthan you and he thinks that he's
better than you because he hashis enlightened left-wing views
and he has this like Frenchpedigree and and really he
doesn't have a lot of respectfor the Canadian people.
When I hear him talk, I justthink he's full of it, that he's
just he's delivering talkingpoints.

(51:18):
I mean, if you've ever seen theguy in the House of Commons
when conservatives are trying tohold him accountable and you
see how he will say the exactsame words over and over and
over again?
I don't know if you've everseen this, but he's done this in
the House of Commons from thetime he got elected, where there
will be pressing him on ascandal and he will literally
just say the exact same thingover and over and over again.

(51:39):
He'll do it to the media aswell.
It's so disrespectful.

Aaron Pete (51:41):
I mean it's fair to say that Pierre does the exact
same thing, bring it home Likehe's got his slogans and his
lines just as much as Mr Trudeaudoes, and Mr Trudeau's in power
, so he should be heldaccountable and he should try
and answer questions.
But politicians in general arebad for coming out with lines
and not having a conversationlike we're having, where we kind
of get into the issues and tryand have a meaningful

(52:03):
conversation.

Fair, yes, conservative, sorry.
Politicians are like I wouldnever be a politician because I
can't do that.
I can't just lie and say thesame thing over and over again
and I don't like that.
Sometimes I'll have a debatewith a friend or with my husband
over, you know, whether PierrePolly of is a force for good for
the things that we believe in,and sometimes it's disheartening

(52:24):
because you'll have to saysomething and you're like I
don't know if he agrees withthat or if he's just saying that
because he's a politician andhe has to say that.
And then I completely agreethat they do that and that they
all have their talking pointsand that they're.
They have their slogans andthat's part of the game.
But what I'm talking about andmaybe you've not seen this
phenomenon is that they will askJustin Trudeau the same
question 14 times in House ofCommons and he will literally

(52:47):
say the exact same thing.
He will say the exact same 20words in response.
It doesn't matter what, the waythey ask the question.
Let's reframe it, let's ask ita different way and he'll be
like like many Canadians, Ispent the Christmas holiday with
friends and it's like well, doyou think it's right that you
went to Jamaica and that you didthis.
Was it out of touch, justinTrudeau?

(53:08):
Like many Canadians, I spentChristmas holiday with friends
and it's like and he'll do itover and, over and over again.
It's like are you kidding me?
Are you serious?
Like this is how you're goingto engage in a conversation.
I've never seen a politician,any stripe, any party, any
country.
I've never seen them show thatlevel of disrespect, where they
won't engage, they won'tactually listen to the question,

(53:31):
they won't even come up with aslightly different variation of
a way to say it.
They will literally just saythe exact same thing until you
shut up and move on to the nexttopic.
And I think that that showssuch a level of disrespect to
the person asking the question,whether it's a reporter or an
opposition parliamentarian, and,deeper, it shows such a level

(53:51):
of disrespect to the Canadianpublic.
And maybe you don't see itbecause they'll just clip him.
And if you just see the clip,they're like oh well, whatever
he answered the question, it'slike no, he really didn't.
Right and and and.
Like you know, tryingpoliticians play a role and he
doesn't want to say anythingthat will get him into trouble
and he holds a party line and hehas all the people around him

(54:12):
terrified and no one speaks out,no one criticizes him, and if
they ever do, it becomes a bigscandal.
Like, oh my gosh, this liberalMP said this thing.
And like let's all hold thatliberal MP to account.
How dare you criticize theprime minister?
And then let's move on.
It's like you know the amount ofdisrespect that you showed to
so many different groups ofCanadians over the years and

(54:34):
like, no, I never, I, never, Inever expect a level of
accountability from Trudeau.
I don't think he's capable ofit.
When I hear him on TV or I hearhim on the radio, I, I, I, I
baffled.
The Canadians take himseriously, seriously.
I, I just I think that he isone of the most arrogant,
superficial people that I'veever had the experience of
interacting with and I thinkhe's been like a long time.

(54:56):
Look, I've known, I've knownthe guy for a long time.
He was a, he was actually ateacher at my brother's high
school when we were teenagersand I had the exact same opinion
of him back then when I was ateenager.
Like I thought he was asuperficial snake and like he
hasn't changed.
So it's like, yeah, that's whohe is.
He kind of looks like a moviestar and he came to power with

(55:17):
these like grandiose ideologicalideas about how Canada could be
better.
And people bought into thatdream and that idea and he was
always kind of like shoving thecelebrity part down our face.
Like why do you have 50% womenin your cabinet?
Because it's 2015.
Like that's not an answer,right, it's like we're trying to
wonder, we're wondering likewhy did you elevate a lot of

(55:40):
these women that don't only haveexperience, but just because
they checked a box or they?
You know it looks good to have50% women, 50% men and a lot of
people just soon over that, likeoh, it's progress, oh, it's
amazing.
You know, there's a lot of usthat are just sort of more
skeptical about that.
Like no, we live in ameritocracy and if 20, 22% of
your MPs are women but thenyou're making 50% of the cabinet

(56:04):
, that means you're promoting alot of people superficially, not
based on their experience, butjust based on their gender.
Is that really the best way toorganize a government?
And he never really had toanswer for that.
The result was that he had alot of very incompetent female
cabinet ministers who failed,who went up in smoke.
He threw them under the bus andthey're long gone now and it's

(56:26):
like he only ever get the creditfor that.
He never had to be heldaccountable because the people
around him not just like his ownstaff and his own people, but,
you know, the liberalestablishment around him, the
media that were just so moved byhim and so touched by him and
loved the idea of a feministprime minister.
They just accepted it and wentalong with it and it's like you

(56:47):
know, now it's been eight yearsand a lot of people can see
through it and they're like,well, they're not really that
feminist.
Like, look at the way they keepthrowing female cabinet
ministers under the bus andcompletely disrespecting them
and look at all the hypocrisyaround their policy when it
comes to you know, they say thatthey again, they're feminists
and that everything they doleads to feminism, but then they

(57:08):
also refuse to say women, likeone of their MPs was giving a
speech in the House of Commonsabout people who are men,
straight and people who havebabies, people who are pregnant.
It's like they won't even saythe worst woman.
It's such a far.
So again, I mean we could spenda lot of time analyzing Justin

(57:29):
Trudeau and his personality, butI just think he's one of the
worst people to ever lead acountry.

Aaron Pete (57:35):
The only part that I want to push back on a little
bit is the whole.
The reason I asked the questionwas because I actually think it
would be incredibly interestingto see a person like yourself
sit down with him.
I saw, I watched all of theinterviews he did with CBC CTV,
like the various pundits thatdid it around the Christmas
season, and I thought they did agood job.

(57:55):
I think they did do somepushback on like hey, look at
the economy.
Hey, look at the likelihood ofgetting housing.
Hey, look at these issues.
How do you feel?
And I agree with you no,sincerity in the answer.
No, hey, you know what?
Maybe we could have gottenstarted on housing sooner.
Hey, maybe we should have doneA, b or C better.
Maybe we made some mistakes wecould do better.
None of that.
Maybe it would be sointeresting to see a person like

(58:17):
yourself, who's really able todive into the issues, sit down
with him and watch him perhapsblunder that interview or just
see him put under a fire, whereall of those people are maybe
worried about growing withintheir organization, they're
worried about coming across asprofessional, they're worried
about not pushing too hard.
A person like yourself sittingdown, I just feel like as a as a

(58:37):
viewer, I'd be very interestedin someone who has all of this
deep analysis, who's written twobooks on his immigration work.
Sit down with him and reallyjust try and get an answer
beyond the superficial.
And he might not give that, butthat would even be more
fascinating to me, to see thatkind of back and forth.

Yeah, and look back in back when Justin Trudeau
first came on to the politicalscene as liberal leader, I tried
, I tried to interview him.
I reached out, I asked forinterviews when I worked at Sun
News sometimes not me personally, but some of my colleagues
would have to like follow him inan event and try to ask him
questions, but he's never beenone to take questions from

(59:15):
opposition minded people.
He would never sit down withsomeone.
I mean and I you know I don'twant to sound like too jaded and
cynical, like I would nevereven bother talking to him.
Yeah, if they called me up andthey were like, hey, candice, do
you want to interview the PrimeMinister?
I'd be like, yes, I'd get on aplane like in a few hours and I
would go in and I wouldinterview him and it would be
great, I would appreciate theopportunity, but I don't think
he would ever do it.
And I'll give you an example Inthe 2019 election, we tried to

(59:39):
put a journalist, a true Northjournalist, onto the liberal
campaign to be embedded.
So during an election, mediacompanies can pay money.
Have a journalist that goesalong on the campaign trail with
a party, so you pay like$20,000 and they get to go on
the plane or they get to go onthe bus and they get all the
access to go to every event andthey cover the campaign that way

(01:00:00):
.
And it was like the first timeI ever.
I mean, true North was prettynew at that point, but the
people that I had working for mewere established legacy media
means for media, journalists,people who had experience
working at global and post mediaand all these like and true to
this people just said like,absolutely not, you're not
allowed, you're not allowed atour events and we'll kick you
out and we'll have the policeand like you can't come.

(01:00:23):
And I got in my car and I droveto Hamilton to meet with his
press secretary because I waslike what do you mean?
We can't come cover the event.
We're journalists and this isCanada, it's free country.
Like let us in.
He just kind of gave us like asneaky, smarmy answer like well,
you know, you guys areconservative or whatever.
And it's like you know what youlet.
You let a journalist from, likethe national observer, which is

(01:00:45):
a very known left wing.
Oh, you let them on.
Like what's the difference?
Why can't you let someone who'smore like on the political
right and they didn't have agood answer and it just became
pretty evident to me that theydidn't have respect for
journalists unless they werewilling to throw the party line,
like I said, like are youworried about that at all with
Pierre Polyev?

Aaron Pete (01:01:03):
because he has been pretty against doing things
uniquely in the very oppositedirection with more smaller
organizations that are willingto interview him, but he has not
been as interested in doing the, I would say, maybe a legacy
media approach and he's beenkind of accused of the same
thing, but just almost in theexact reverse.

Candice Malcolm (01:01:23):
Yeah, I think it's a taste of the remodest and
I'm not going to sit here andjust demand like principle all
around.
I think that the way that thecontempt that the legacy media
has for conservatives not justconservative politicians, but
conservative people,conservative outlets like the
way that they treat the rebelnews, like they'll go to press
conference and the Trudeau thugswill kick out the rebel

(01:01:43):
reporter and the rest ofjournalists will just be like oh
good, okay, good, it's like youknow you don't have some
fundamental principle where youbelieve in journalism for a
democracy.
You don't care, you're likewell, they're a rebel, I don't
care about that.
I feel like I'm not going toturn around all of a sudden.

But you're doing the same thing in the reverse.

Yeah Well they.

You're playing the same thing in reverse, which is
just going to perpetuate thesame problem.

No, I'm saying that for like 40 years, the
mainstream media has shownderision and has absolutely
ruined the lives of so manyconservative politicians by just
being absolutely cruel and liketormenting them.
And for a conservativepolitician to finally stand up

(01:02:24):
to those people in the media whohave a tremendous amount of
power, right, like that wholething.
When Pierre Polyev smacked downthat Canadian press reporter
and just said you know whatyou're saying isn't true, I said
this what you're saying iswrong, stop trying to drum up a
scandal.
And everyone made it like ahuge deal, like, oh, this is a
person of power going aftersomeone smaller than them.

(01:02:45):
It's like, no, thesepoliticians wielded sorry, these
reporters wield the great dealof power and they use that power
to smear conservatives, and wesee it during every single
election.
And so if you finally have apolitician on the conservative
side willing to stand up andjust say no, actually you're
wrong, what you're saying islying, you're not true, like

(01:03:06):
this is fake, I'm going to, I'mgoing to stand up to you and I'm
going to say that, like I thinkall the power to that
politician, like Canadians canjudge them and view them how
they will.
And obviously I thinkjournalism is an important
foundation of a democracy and ofa free society.
But from my perspective, erin,I've watched like liberals
manipulate this process,manipulate the media for so long

(01:03:28):
and use it as a tool.
A part of the liberal party.
Like next time there's anelection, watch it, follow it,
see how, whatever the liberaltalking point of the day, the
mainstream media turns into thenarrative of that day.
Like, oh, we're all going toattack Andrew Scheer now because
he said he was an accountant,but he actually had this
different qualification thatmeans that he wasn't a full

(01:03:49):
accountant.
We're going to spend four daysof the campaign drilling in on
whether Andrew Scheer wasactually an accountant.
It's like, is that really theissue that Canadians care about?
That's going to impact like thecountry.
Instead of like talking aboutthe millions of scandals
surrounding the liberalgovernment, the media obsesses
over whether Andrew Scheer, whathis Catholic beliefs are around

(01:04:12):
, sin.
Like we're going to focus onthat.
It's like whatever the liberalswant, the mainstream media will
just like pounce on that.
And we're getting to a point nowwhere people just don't trust
the media.
They don't want that.
They don't like it.
The media has less power nowthan they've ever had.
There's a lot.
There's so many podcasts outthere that get just as many, if
not more, views than the CBC,and so it's like, at the end of

(01:04:33):
the day, it's up to Pierre Pollyof which podcasts he wants to
do.
If he wants to be disrespectfulto the CBC and say, look, if I
win, I'm not going to fund youguys anymore.
I mean, that's just prerogativeright.
That's the politician he can dothat Canadians can judge him
and say, well, I don't like thefact that he's mean to the CBC
so I'm not going to vote for him.
But for every Canadian thatmakes that judgment call, there
might be another Canadian thatsays you know what I like the

(01:04:55):
fact that Pierre Polly of wenton a two hour podcast with
Jordan Peterson and had a realconversation in a down to earth
way and talked about things thatwere broader than just talking
points in politics.
They had a conversation aboutlife and meaning and philosophy
and a lot of people will reallyappreciate it.
They'll get a lot more from anin-depth sit down conversation

(01:05:17):
with Polly of than they willwith these end of year
interviews that you're talkingabout.
That are like 10 minutes, highlyscripted.
You could tell exactly what'sgoing to happen before they're
written.
They all ask the same questions.
They all focus on the sametopics that are probably not the
same topics that you're talkingabout with your family around
the dinner table, about whatreally matters in your community

(01:05:37):
, but the media have decidedthat those are the important
questions, and they're all basedon Trudeau's agenda.
They're all based on the thingsthat he wants to talk about,
and that's the way it goes.
I think landscape is changingand so, just to go back to I
know you're trying to push me inand get me to admit that
somehow there's a contradictionbetween the fact that Trudeau is

(01:05:59):
being disrespectful to themainstream or, sorry, that Polly
of is being disrespectful tothe mainstream media in the same
way that Trudeau wasdisrespectful to the alternative
or the independent media.
It's like, well, one of thesegroups has all the power, right?
The legacy media is incrediblypowerful and so the fact that
Polly of is threatening thatpower that's part of Polly, of
his political brand, right?

(01:06:20):
It's like I'm going to go afterthese gatekeepers.
There's like a handful ofpeople in society that have a
lot of power and I don't thinkthat's right, so I'm going to go
after them, I'm going tochallenge them.
He obviously still doesinterviews with them, like he's
still there, he's talking tothem, he's not completely
ignoring them, he's not havingthem arrested the same way that
Trudeau is having Andrew Lawtonarrested, my journalist he said

(01:06:41):
David Menzee's arrested like 10times over at the rebel.
Like I think there's adifference in kind between
what's happening and I mean Idon't know if you want to keep
talking about this, we can, butI just I think it's good that
Pierre is pushing back againstlegacy media.

Sorry, I apologize.
I'm not trying to encourage anysort of contradiction.
What I guess my perspective ismore that when I think of I
watched that Jordan Peterson,pierre Polly of video with great
excitement because I wasinterested in what was going to
come out of that and I think, ifyou agree with everything, that
they think that was a goodinterview my frustration is the

(01:07:19):
thing I actually admire aboutPierre is he's willing to take
it to people.
He's been described as abulldog.
He's been described as somebodywho's willing to take it to
people, yet he doesn't do thatand I would want to see him go
into the fire, do a long formCBC interview with the exact
organization he wants to takeaway and discuss defunding the

(01:07:40):
CBC with a CBC journalist abouthow that process would look and
why he's warranted and doingthat, and bringing their best
reporter, bringing in the personwith all the statistics and let
him go toe to toe with the bestof them.
And I don't say that because Iget.
If you look at it through aconservative, liberal lens, you
would have this.
Well, 40 years theconservatives had this happen to
them because of the liberals.
I personally don't care aboutthat.

(01:08:02):
What I want to see in an idealCanada is that my leader is the
person who's willing to speakwith anyone about anything and
stand by their principles nomatter what, and seeing Pierre
repeat some of the same thingsin the reverse is just
frustrating, because it feelslike that's going to be a
liberal talking point.
That's the CBC's talking pointnow.
Oh, he's not willing to do that, and so Justin Trudeau is

(01:08:23):
encouraged to do exactly whathe's doing, because Pierre is
doing the exact thing in theopposite direction.
And I, just when I put my ballotin, I have the same concerns as
you when I think about did hesay that?
Did he mean it?
Is he changing his look becausehe wants to?
Is he doing it for the votes?
Is that?
Is that what we want to seeLike?
I get very idealistic when Istart thinking about politics
that I just want the best person, the most admirable individual,

(01:08:45):
to lead our country and to goand sit down in conversations,
and when I see him choosing todo this, I get, from a political
perspective, how it might gainsupport.
But personally, I just want tosee that person be admirable and
go into the exact situationshe's put Justin Trudeau in,
grilling him about how heapproached the S&C, lavalin
scandal and all of those things.
I want him to be able to takethat back and go hey, I can dish

(01:09:08):
it out, but I can take it too.
And that's the only fear that Ihave around this whole concept
around how he's not doing thoseinterviews.
I would just see that aspersonally admirable.

Well, like, okay, there's a video that went
viral that he was out in Kelowna, I think, and he was on an
Apple or a chart and he wasgetting we're talking about Pure
Poly of here.
You know, there was a reporterthat was like you know, you're
taking a page from the Trumpplaybook and he's like what are
you talking about?
What playbook, what page?
Right, and it's like we do seethose interviews, we see those
advertisements, that's not areal hard like.

that's not you If you sat down with Justin Trudeau
pushing him.
This is a guy who clearly knewnothing, like the ones that go
viral, for Pierre arethoughtless, like morons asking
a question that they don'tactually understand.
Asking it it's not the best ofthe creme de la creme asking him
a tough question, being able toreally dissect it and break it
down.
I watch a lot of the UFC andDana White does the same thing.

(01:10:00):
He'll interview somebody andsomebody will ask some
thoughtless question about histhoughts on LGBTQ people and
he'll give like a smirky answerthat goes viral but it's not
actually like a thoughtful likeokay, break down, how would we
do this with the CBC?
Or how are we going to cut thatred tape?
Really break it down.
For me, like he doesn't do thatsame where it's like with

(01:10:20):
somebody who disagrees with himreally going through it.
Those are easy clickbait kindof videos that I like.
I think it's kind of cool tosee somebody eating an apple,
destroying somebody, but it'snot in depth.
I just saw Ben Shapiro do aninterview with Destiny and it
was like a thoughtful, thoroughinterview where they disagreed
on some things and that's.
I don't think those easy ones,where it's eating an apple, are

(01:10:42):
examples of him being trulygrilled by somebody.

Yeah, but, like the point that we were talking
about earlier is that he's notwilling to do the interviews,
but I think he is willing, likethe fact that we see him at
press conferences gettingscrummed by the media.
I mean, those are that's whothey're sending right, those who
the media organizations aresending those to.
So if they can come up with abetter journalist, that can come
.
I mean, if you have someone inmind that you say, like there's

(01:11:07):
a really smart liberaljournalist out there who has a
podcast, who's like reallythought things through, I want
to see that person interview.
Pierre Polly of like I don'tknow Pierre that well.
I've interviewed him a fewtimes on my show and let me tell
you, when I have him on my show, I don't ask him easy questions
.
I really push him on the thingsthat I disagree with him on and
then I give him a platform totalk about the things that I

(01:11:29):
think that he's doing a good jobwith.
So it's not necessarily anadversarial interview but it's
an in-depth interview.
You know he was on my show.
I think we talked for over anhour and I think that that's
something that I really likeabout Pierre.
Previous conservative leadershaven't done that with me.
I don't think a lot ofpoliticians feel comfortable.
Pierre is unique in that way,but I'll just give you an

(01:11:52):
example Erin, the previousleader of the conservative party
, erin O'Toole.
He did a podcast with the CBC,did like a 20 minute interview
and there was a section wherethey were talking about
defunding and Erin O'Tooletalked about why he believed
that the CBC was beyond itsmandate and that it shouldn't
get the funding.
And the CBC edited that out.

(01:12:12):
They cut it out.
So they put the interview ontheir website, but they cut out
that five minute part.
Like we're not dealing with anhonest actor here.
We're not dealing with like,like, like.
If I watched this interviewthat we're doing right now and I
think it's like deceptivelyedited, I would be like really
surprised because I'd be likethat's like a low thing to do,
right, you just assume you'redoing a podcast, you're
interviewing an interview,they're gonna put it all up and

(01:12:34):
I think they do.

It's all gonna be up , I promise.

Yeah, exactly, I know, because that's like how
normal people operate.
I mean like normal people justdo what they say they're gonna
do and they try to be good,honorable people.
And the fact that the CBC didthat I'm not saying it was the
journalist who conducted theinterviews for all.
It was probably some editor orsome executive or some person
that was like nope, that's notpart of our programming and

(01:12:56):
we're not gonna allow thatrationale to be out there.
We don't want to be a platformfor someone who's going to say
that we shouldn't get this moneyand so they just cut it out and
it's like, well, when you'redoing that, you're not really
doing things in the interest ofthe public anymore.
You're doing things in theinterest of the CBC.
And I think that you know yousay like, oh, I don't care about

(01:13:16):
the 40 year history of thembeing unfair to conservatives.
It's like, well, that's fine,but there are certain things
that have happened that lead toyou being skeptical or you being
cynical or you saying you know,I'm not gonna sit down with the
CBC because I know you guys andI know what you're gonna do,
and I'm not speaking for Pierre.
I think that he should do asmany interviews as possible and
that he should, you know, try toput himself out there in a way

(01:13:42):
that Canadians can see that he'sdifferent than Trudeau, in that
he's not just like asuperficial career politician,
that he has some substance andhe's thought things through and
that he will do a good job.
And that's part of what he'sout there doing right now.
It's like a two year jobinterview, right?
He's auditioning for the roleof prime minister and Canadians
have a lot of time to look athim and decide whether or not he

(01:14:02):
has the character and he hasthe traits that we want to lead.
I think that we're at a pointwhere a lot of people are just
completely exhausted withTrudeau.
I can't imagine Trudeau goingforward.
So you know, it's good that wehave an alternative.
I don't think he's perfect.
There's a lot of things Idisagree with him on, but I
think that when it comes to hisstyle and his combativeness and

(01:14:25):
his willingness to, you know,tell someone that they're wrong,
that's almost like unique inCanada, because we're in a
polite society and we're sotimid and usually it's all about
conventions and politeness andyou don't see a politician doing
that.
You never saw the previousleader, aaron O'Toole, or Aaron
Andrew Scheer before him, oreven really Stephen Harper.

(01:14:45):
You didn't see them reallycalling.
You know, calling us bait, usbait, whereas you know Pierre is
doing that, and it's sort ofrefreshing from my perspective.

I agree this interview is going longer
because your answers are sothoughtful and, like, I find it
so interesting to get yourperspectives on things, and
you're saying a lot of thethings that I agree with, so
it's very interesting to getthis.
The last topic that I do wantto cover, and it's a sensitive
one, so I want to be careful onhow I approach this, but I think
one of the responsibilities ofjournalists is to cover topics

(01:15:16):
that are uncomfortable, thataren't always popular, that
people don't always want to hear, but I think they need to be
done sensitively, understandingcontext.
One of the areas that TrueNorth has covered is Indian
residential schools and what'sgone on, and some op-eds have
been going in, and so I'm justwondering about the coverage of

(01:15:37):
those topics, what your thoughtsare on that and how we kind of
have this conversation.

Yeah, sure, I appreciate it and it's
definitely a sensitive topic,just because I think that
there's like an elephant in theroom and there's a problem in
our society when it comes to howCanada has, historically and
systematically I don't want tosay dealt with but the
relationship that they have withthe native people in Canada,

(01:16:06):
people who were here before theEuropeans came, the Brits came
and developed a country, and Ithink that there's like a much,
much, much deeper problem withthe way that our government has
created.
Like there's a broad problemand we can get into that for
sure.
But when it comes to the issueof residential schools and the

(01:16:31):
unmarked grave story that cameout, look again, I'm a
journalist and I treat thingswith like a great deal of
skepticism.
I pay close attention to thenews, so I read the news every
day, I read every outlet,basically like front to cover,
front to back.
I like to see what's out there.
And so when the story firstbroke of the 215 unmarked graves

(01:16:52):
that were discovered inKamloops, I read the story like
25 times and, as a journalist, Iwent to the original source.
It's like it was a CBC storyand I'm like where is this
coming from?
Because the story didn't makesense to me the way I read it.
It was basically like thistribe put out a press release
and this is what the pressrelease claims and there was no

(01:17:16):
deeper questioning about it.
It was just like this happened,this is what they said.
And here we go.
And so I went and I read theoriginal press release and I
tried to figure out, like whatevidence do they have?
Like they're coming out andthey're saying that they
discovered 215 bodies, basically, and they're saying that their
children as young as two.
But like what is the evidencehere?
Like what prompted this pressrelease?

(01:17:36):
Like why is it?
And it's like, okay, they usesomething called ground
penetrating radar and they founddisturbances, approximately 215
disturbances.
And so I'm just trying to likemake sense of the story.
And then all of a sudden I startlooking at like the
international reaction and thenational reaction in Canada and
it was like it was just somismatched.

(01:17:57):
It was like I was like am Ilosing my sense of sanity here?
Because I started looking intosort of talking to other
professors who understood thisground penetrating radar and
what it is and what it does.
The purpose of the technologyis to discover abandoned like
oil wells so that they canreclaim them.
So it's a really rudimentarytechnology.

(01:18:18):
Anyway, all of a sudden the NewYork Times and the Wall Street
Journal and CNN are saying thatcan't commit genocide and that
there's mass graves and there'shundreds of children discovered
and the bodies were exhumed, andthat they have evidence and
proof.
And it's like, well, that's notwhat the First Nations saying.
The First Nation is just sayingthat they have preliminary
evidence and there's no reportyet and the report is coming out

(01:18:40):
like in six months.
So it just seemed to me thatthere was like a total mismatch
between the information that wehad that was confirmed, and the
narrative and the story.
And then all of a sudden youhad all this contrition and all
these grieving people and Ithink that's what came from like
the broader issue, the deeperissue in Canada, of like how
Canada has had the relationshipthat it's had with the native

(01:19:00):
people of this land, thatbasically Canadians just feel
really bad about the situationand they're willing to accept
anything, anything that saidlike okay, your government was
evil, this program was awful, itwas basically concentration
camps and you committed genocide, and it's like that accusation
is not backed up by history, byrecords, by any previous truth

(01:19:24):
and reconciliation commission orany data that we have out there
.
But Canadians are kind of likewilling to accept it because
they just feel awful about ourhistory and what's happening.
And I just I just thought, okay, it's important to correct the
record and have the truth outthere.
Like there were no bodies thatwere discovered Maybe there will
be, but like there's no.

(01:19:45):
There's no missing children,there's no.
If there were children that weremurdered at residential schools
, we would know about it, wewould have their names, who
would have their records, whowould have their birth records,
and so the whole story just kindof got taken away.
And so, you know, at first wewere super like, careful and
sensitive and I understandthat's a very sensitive topic.
I also just think it's bad forpeople to believe something

(01:20:09):
that's not true.
It's not a good thing for FirstNations children to grow up in
Canada believing that they werethe victim of a genocide.
If it's not true, believe thatthey were sent off to schools to
get murdered and that, like,priests and teachers were
killing children and thenburying them in the middle of
the night.
Like that story is just so,it's wild, it's so and it's so

(01:20:33):
emotionally driven.
And you know, if there'sevidence of it, it turns out
that that is what happened andwe should know that and that
should be part of our recordedhistory.
But, like one news report inthe middle of the summer with an
accusation in a press release,doesn't change like all of the
recorded history that we have.
And so you know, like I said atfirst, we just wrote a story

(01:20:54):
here and there questioning likewell, this is what we know so
far, this is what's beenverified.
There's no mass graves, right,there's no bodies that have been
uncovered.
There's been new excavations.
And then, after we startedwriting that, we attracted some
sort of like more academicpeople, like university
professors, historians, peoplewho really knew the issue deeply

(01:21:18):
, and we just published a bookcalled Grave Error, which is a
compilation of essays from theseprofessors who sort of look at
the records, the records ofenrollment in these schools.
They look at the number ofchildren who did sadly die
during their time at residentialschools, the cause of death,
the reason that you know we havethe records.
It's not like it's just like abig black hole mystery, like we

(01:21:40):
know how many kids were died atschool, we know their cause of
death.
And, yeah, just looking at theactual policy of residential
schools, like, for instance, itwas never compulsory, it was
never mandatory At most maybe aquarter of First Nations
children who ever went to theseschools.
So just sort of bringing somefacts into the story.

(01:22:07):
And I obviously want to prefacethis all, erin, by saying that
obviously there's a problem inCanada.
Like I grew up in Vancouver andwent to high school in Campbell
River and there's a couple ofnative reserves in Campbell
River and you know, it was kindof shocking to me to see how
like different it was that therewas like a high school where
like half the kids lived inCampbell River and the other

(01:22:30):
half lived on native reservesand then they came into Campbell
River.
Like the difference between thenative reserves and the kids
that lived in Campbell River,like it.
Just it still strikes me as oddthat we have this kind of like
segregated system and I thinkthat there's a lot of problems
in it and I think that theCanadian government made a lot
of mistakes along the way.
I mean the conversation we werehaving earlier about how

(01:22:52):
government creates more problemsand it solves more government
problems and more socialprograms, and social programs
usually don't actually help thepeople that they intend to help,
they actually hurt them.
This is all kind of like partof my criticism of having a big,
strong federal government, abig liberal government, but when

(01:23:12):
it comes to that story of theunmarked graves, just frankly
isn't true.

To pull this back, though.
A lack of evidence is anevidence itself and, to the
point of like, the impact ofthat story it and the 215 has
resulted in a significant amountof funding, and I'm in the
Stolo territory and our area hasreceived funding to do that
research, to go through theareas where they believe there

(01:23:41):
may be unmarked graves, so therecould be more information
coming as a consequence of astory that might not have been
aired exactly, accurately toyour point.
But there may be benefits forthe communities because if
nobody knew, there wouldn't be alot of funding to look into
this.
Now, because it's a nationalconversation, there's funding
available to do the research weneed to do.

But do you think?
I mean, I'm sorry, are yougonna find something Like
there's funding in your area totry to find bodies of kids that
may have been killed in theseresidential schools?
Like, do you have the names ofthe kids that are missing?
Like, what kids are you lookingfor?

The concern that I would have is when you point to
records and the individual,rodney Clifton, who wrote the
article, was like, well, whyisn't there any chief in council
who've come forward withrequests?
Well, like I'm on council formy community, we are two years
behind on our audits.
We're trying to figure out howto address our housing issues.
Like we are not sitting in aroom like, hey, what should we

(01:24:38):
draft a BCR, a band councilresolution, about?
Today we are working to addressso many issues and we're
treated like a municipality withvery little funding.
And so when he made thatcomment it was like maybe you
don't understand how bandcouncils work, but most of the
time we're behind andoverwhelmed with all the
problems that we're trying todeal with.
And so to the point of likewhich kids we're talking about

(01:24:59):
over a hundred years.
So certainly some of thoserecords A could be falsified.
B, not everybody may have beendocumented.
And C, if a child did pass away, the fact that they could
falsify those records or nothave documented some people
coming into those schools tobegin with would be some of the
problems with the claims thatthere's no evidence for these
children and so many of theparents again being a sensitive

(01:25:22):
topic, they had no faith thatanybody would care.
There was a well understanding,even locally, that if the
Indian agent said something youdid it, and if you didn't you
had a problem.
We have spots in the lowermainland where indigenous people
were hanged, and so the powerimbalance during that period

(01:25:42):
would not have led people torush in and go.
Oh, I'm sure journalists careabout what our circumstances are
.
For so many Canadians they hadno idea Indian residential
schools even existed and that'snow being taught.
But to think that anybody caredabout these problems 50 years
ago, 100 years ago, is kind offoolhardy.
So when I saw that it was like,well, maybe we're not putting

(01:26:04):
ourselves into the context ofwhat those times may have had on
people.

But you're conflating times too, right?
Like when you're talking abouthow there were first nations or
natives that were hung in thelower mainland, like I'm sure.
I mean, do you know the datesthat happened?
My guess is it was in the 1800s.
Like when we're talking aboutresidential schools most of them
opened like inner war period,like we're talking about like
the 30s to the 60s, right, ormaybe the 20s to the 60s.

(01:26:30):
First of all, the 20s were atime when the Spanish plague was
killed.
A quarter of the globepopulation, right.
Like the average one in fourchildren were surviving to the
age of 18, right.
So like people just died a lotmore frequently back then.

(01:26:52):
But To which?

people celebrated Joseph Trutch within our region.
He said the extinction ofindigenous people will come at
the consequence of many of thesediseases, so they're not a
problem to worry about, which iswhy he downsized Indian
reserves, which Douglas gaveanticipatory reserves to.
So the kind of overall ethosduring that period was that all
these people are gonna dieanyway, so we don't have to

(01:27:14):
worry about them.
So it wasn't like there was alot of love for indigenous
people during some of theperiods we're talking about.

Well, okay, so I was talking about in an entire
population, not just firstnations.
Like everyone was dying fromthe black plague, right, people
were dying, and I'm sure you canfind awful quotes because it
was a different time when peoplehad different views.
I'm sure you could find quotesfrom first nations saying awful
horrible racist things aboutwhite people too, and you can
find awful horrible quotes aboutwhite people Like I don't think

(01:27:42):
that the two sides had the bestrelations back then, and I
think that-, but one had all thepower and one had none of the
power.
Yeah, there's definitely likeregrettable circumstances.
But, aaron, I'm talking aboutlike the fact that there's
claims that there were hundredsof children that were murdered
in these schools but that wedon't know the names of those

(01:28:03):
kids, like we don't know whothey are.
Like I mean, I'm saying this asa mother, like if I send my kids
off to school and they don'tcome home, like I'm not just
gonna say like, oh well, oh well, no one cares anyway, so I'm
just gonna, I'm not gonna talkabout it, I'm just gonna go
along Like if something happensto your children, you're gonna
let it know, even if it's justin your community.

(01:28:25):
Like you're gonna have a recordthat your child died at a
school.
Like, even if it's just thatyou keep that record in your
community.
Maybe you don't go tell thewhite sheriff down the street
because you don't trust him.
But the idea that there's justall of these children that were
murdered by nuns and priests andteachers, like you say, like a

(01:28:48):
lack of an evidence is anevidence.
That's a pretty, that's one ofthe worst accusations that you
can level against another humanbeing.

But it's not against a mass scale, it's against a
broader system.
Right, it's not one.
I'm not saying this guy wasresponsible, which, to your
point, would be incrediblydisrespectful.
It's that the system would havecaused these deaths, these
people working within the system.
I actually have a lot ofsympathy for the individuals who
worked with them.
We do know that many of thepeople who wanted to work in

(01:29:18):
Indian residential schools overthe past 100 years were not the
most well-intentionedindividuals, that going up into
the middle of nowhere andworking with kids was not
something many people wanted todo, and some of them had
perverse incentives, darkincentives and harmful ideas on
what they would be able to do ifthey ran.

So like a bunch of, so the government recruited
a bunch of murderers to go offand like kill kids, like.
I just am trying to understandthe accusation because, again,
like because we're writing well,this is a super controversial
topic.
I've heard from a lot ofCanadians.
I really respect what you'resaying and I'm happy to continue
this conversation as long asyou want, cause I think I can
learn from you in this instance,cause you're a lot more
connected to it than I.
But I've heard from people whosay, you know, there was an

(01:29:57):
Indian residential school in mycommunity and they got more
money than the public schools orthe Catholic schools and they
had more resources and they hadbetter teachers and they had
nicer buildings.
And I've talked to people whowere graduates of these
residential schools and they saythat it changed their life and
it made them on a better pathtowards succeeding in a modern

(01:30:19):
economy.
So like there's two sides to it,right, it's like I'm sure a lot
of people went to school andhad a miserable experience and
they were homesick and they weresad.
A lot of people really wantedtheir children to attend these
schools because they saw it asan opportunity for betterment.
Like I said, the schoolsweren't compulsory, they weren't
mandatory, they weren't goingand scooping people up from

(01:30:39):
their house, despite there's asort of a thought that that was
happening, that the Canadianpolice were going door to door
and scooping kids up and takingthem to these schools.
That's a myth, as far as I canunderstand.
People wanted the schools andsure, like in any environment,
there's gonna be an abuse ofpower.
There was abuse and there washorrible, unspeakable abuse and
it's tragic and anyone who wasinvolved in that should be held

(01:31:03):
accountable.
There's a reason we got rid ofthis program.
It obviously failed.
It didn't work, although somepeople did benefit from it.

But fair to say that churches have had a system to
protect their own, not just withindigenous people, but there's
documentaries about how they'vemoved people around to avoid the
exact accountability thatyou're describing.

What?
What church is?

there, there's man off the top of my head.
There's a Netflix documentarycalled like mother Something,
and she was a nun and she workedwithin the system and in the.
Us.
Okay and that she was murderedand that a few of her colleagues
were murdered and that thepriest they have Documentation

(01:31:45):
that he was committing theseatrocities.
They have documentation thatchurch is new and that they were
deliberately moving him around.
I can't remember the name ofthe documentary off the top of
my head, but like this is acontroversial that this has
happened.

Yeah, I think that that there's been abuses in
power and, and they used tohappen at churches and, and now
they happen in other places.
I just think, I just think weshould be careful about clinging
and jumping to this narrativelike I mean, for you as a I
don't know, your, your first,your native, your first nations,
yes.

Yeah, from the Chihuahua first nation.

Yeah, okay, sorry, I don't want to like miss
label you because I in KembleRiver, all my friends who are
native, they would callthemselves native or I'm fine
with that term.

I'm also against the , the political correct nature
of like I don't care you.

I just don't want to like offend you or be
Like if it were my community andall of a sudden they were like
hey, candace, like my family'sEnglish and British and we've
been in Canada for 300 years.
If all of a sudden they told me, like you know, you were the
victim of this, like horrificatrocity that may or may not
have happened and you're avictim like I For my community,

(01:32:55):
I wouldn't want to walk aroundwith that mantle of I'm a victim
.
And one of the things I noticedwhen the first one, the
unmarked grave story came outand I questioned it, we're like
people were really angry andattacking me.
A lot of them were firstnations people, native people,
who just were like FU, youstupid idiot, shut up, you'd try
to kill us.
You, you know your settler,you're a legitimate here like

(01:33:17):
just really nasty stuff.
And I and I saw the pain thatthey had and and I felt for them
.
It's like they're told thatthey're a victim.
They're told that the societythat they live in tried to
systematically Eliminate themlike genocide, that murder them,
mass murder them, that thatthat kids in schools, like their
parents and grandparents, wouldgo to school and get murdered.

(01:33:37):
Like how are you setting thesekids up to be successful
citizens in a society like like.
I Forget about like verifyingfacts and how many kids died and
whether it happened or whetherit didn't happen, but it's like
if, like this, this narrativethat's being pushed, telling
little kids, little firstnations kids, that their country

(01:33:59):
tried to kill them and thatCanada is an illegitimate
Settler state and that you wantto have the land back.
So you're gonna like get theseawful white people off the land
and give it all back and havethis like utopian idea that
someday you'll go back to likeliving freely in the forests
with like Mother Nature andHaving this like beautiful life.

(01:34:20):
Like that's just never gonnahappen, right, and it's such a
bad message to tell little kidslike.
I think that the messagessurrounding first nations should
be much more Empowering.
Like we should talk about how,like incredible it is that these
people lived off the land, andhow they were warriors and how
they fought for their kin, andhow the men were strong and they
took care of their families,and how the women like Raised

(01:34:41):
children and in thesecommunities like like I want the
stories around Canadian firstnations to be like positive
Triumphant stories of victoryand instead what I see in the
media is just like these sad,sad stories of like, okay, let's
pull up, let's, let's, let'sinterview a guy who's like,
who's like brother committedsuicide or residential school,

(01:35:02):
and like this is gonna be theface of first nations.
He's drug addicted and he'she's, he's got alcoholism and
it's like the people thatthey're holding up.
It's like that's just such asad message to be sending to a
community and I just think youcan do better than that.
Like I don't want that messagethat Canada committed genocide,
which is not.
The records don't show that.
Like I have yet to see agovernment policy that says

(01:35:25):
let's just murder them all,let's kill them all and here's
how we're gonna do it.
Like like that's just not partof our history.
I don't think that we shouldwrite it in.
And I mean as far as.
As far as mistreatment of Firstnations people, residential
schools yes, that's very welldocumented.
It's also well documented thata lot of the experiences were
positive, right, so, so, so,overall, bad system gone.

(01:35:46):
Why we don't do it anymore,right?
At the same time, let's notlike invent things about the
history that probably didn'thappen, just for the sake of
like getting some more money foryour band so that you can do
some research that may or maynot lead to anything like.
From my knowledge, there's beena handful of excavations carried
out in first nationscommunities across Canada Costs

(01:36:09):
millions of dollars to theCanadian taxpayers.
No human remains have beenfound, none, no human remains.
So the places where peoplebelieve that there could be
bodies buried, the few placeswhere they allow them to exhume
the bodies, there's nothingthere and it's like eventually
they're gonna find something.
Sure, eventually you're gonnafind a body.
I mean, it's a big country andthere are people living here and
people die.
But you know, some of the newsstories are and that came out

(01:36:32):
afterwards.
It was like, you know, there'sa place that where they found
715 unmarked graves in acommunity in Saskatchewan and
then someone came forward andsaid, well, that's a graveyard,
that's a known graveyard andit's not just a graveyard for
the residential schools, it'snot just a graveyard for the
First Nation, it's a communitygraveyard that includes the
bodies of both, like whiteCanadians and First Nations.

(01:36:54):
So why are we pretending thatthat's the same thing and adding
it to this tally of oh, theseare all the dead children, when,
when, really, what we're justtalking about is like an
abandoned graveyard, right andagain, it's like it goes to the
narrative because people justsee the headline mass graves
found, lots of dead kids, kidswere killed, genocide happened
and that's the message that theytake away and and it's just

(01:37:15):
from my perspective Creating somuch division, so much hatred,
so much like contrition andsadness.
Like you see, they have thisNational Day of a child,
wherever more is orange was walkaround with a feeling of like
existential dread.
Like I hate my country, I hateCanada, I hate what we did.
We're so awful we murdered allthese kids and it's like that's
such a bad governing ethos, likethat's such a bad thing to

(01:37:38):
think about your country, eventhough the history of the entire
world is full of awful Eventsand wars and people murdering
each other.
Like that's like the history ofthe entire civilization of
mankind.
You know, canada should be astory of like triumph.
It's like look at this amazingsociety that we built.
We had built it throughdifferent groups coming together

(01:37:59):
.
We had the French, the English,the Scottish, the First Nations
.
They came up with thesetreaties, they, they built a
civilization in a completelybarren, like frozen tundra place
that no one else in the worldwanted and we've created this
amazing society that's so richand so abundant and so well
educated.
And let's be the future andlike people from all over the

(01:38:19):
world want to come here let'sbuild.
Let's be like a tech innovativehub.
Let's like be home to like themost successful people, the
freest people, like strongcommunities, growing birthrate.
Like like let's, let's, let'sfind like a positive message
that we can all rally around.
Be like, yes, I love Canada.
They made a ton of mistakes andI hated that residential school
program, but look where we aretogether now.

(01:38:41):
We're rich.
And like we're solving allthese problems for curing cancer
and like you know, ai is beingdeveloped here and Bitcoin or
whatever.
Like we're doing blockchain.
It just like Canada could havethis like really exciting,
youthful, energetic future.
But instead it's like the thingsthat we choose to focus on.
It's like, alright, let's,let's spend like another year

(01:39:03):
talking about, like how horriblethings were in 1930 and it's
like horrible thing that may ormay not have happened.
It's like, okay, alright, ifthat's what you want to talk
about, fine, but that's like.
That's just not like aninspiring thing that I think
that we should dwell on, wasteour time.
I think it's important againwhy we publish that book.
Grave error is it?
Just try to correct the recordand and you could read grave

(01:39:23):
error Maybe.
Maybe read it and then come onmy podcast and we'll have a
debate about it, because itsounds like you know, you, you
you see things at differentperspective, in a different way,
and it's possible to have ablind spot.
I'm missing it, and that thereis a real reason why we should
be spending all this moneyTrying to excavate and see what
we find.
I mean, I'm hoping thatpossibility, but what?

(01:39:45):
What I didn't like was like themass, the gloom and the message
that we're sending to kids thatCanada commits genocide and we
kill kids and that we tried tokill First Nations people, which
I don't believe is true.

There is a lot there .
First, let me say I have a lotof admiration for you for being
willing to share and talk aboutthis issue, because I can
sympathize that.
It's a very difficult issue andyou're likely not in the
majority of people and so it canbe challenging to do those
types of things.
And I'm sorry that people hadsuch a negative response to you
bringing this information about,because initially my reaction

(01:40:21):
was like oh no, like you'regoing there.
But then I really thought aboutthe value of journalism and
it's to have these honestconversations.
People aren't always gonna lovethe story, but the story needs
to be told in differentperspectives and Analysis and
information needs to come about.
Just because somethingsensitive doesn't mean that it
shouldn't be covered like everyother story.
We should be respectful andkind and generous and maybe Give

(01:40:44):
deference where deference isneeded.
But we need to have an honestconversation and that's why I
was excited to kind of have thisconversation, not because I
think I'm all right and you'reall wrong or you're all right
and I'm all wrong, but becausethis is a complicated topic.
It's about history and we haveto be able to have tough
Conversations about history toyour own point.
I do think that, working as anative court worker assisting

(01:41:05):
indigenous people through thelegal system, their whole
philosophy right now is I'm avictim, the world has been
terrible to me, they've beenterrible to my parents, they've
been terrible to my grandparentsand I've never been given a
fair shot.
Some of those, I think, arewarranted.
I think a lot of those claimsthat the world has not been fair
to them and their parents andtheir grandparents, and they've
Experienced atrocities andintergenerational traumas, real.

(01:41:26):
I think all of that's valid.
The problem is you have to wakeup tomorrow morning and make
your own decisions and you can'tjust, every time a problem
arises, say that it's somebodyelse's fault and you're not
gonna take responsibility.
It's why I'm a huge admirer ofJordan Peterson is because he
says you can come up with allthe things that why your life
sucks and why it's not fair, butyou still have to wake up

(01:41:46):
tomorrow morning and make yourbad and live your life and try
to improve things for people.
So maybe there's less suffering, maybe the world's a better
place in the grand scheme ofthings.
I do think that I support theresearch going on right now
because, if ever, if there's onegrave, if there's one I don't
know grave.
I want to know about it and soI'd be willing to invest that
money.
It's not really my money, butI'd be willing to support those

(01:42:09):
initiatives to get the finalanswer and if if there isn't
evidence, then we can haveclosure on the issue.
But I think it's important thatwe make sure that we we know
the answer to a question likethat in order to have peace.
Just like if you're lookinginto the Holocaust and those
histories.
You want to have definitiveanswers to some of these
questions.
But, candice, I have a greatadmiration for the work you do.

(01:42:31):
I have a lot of respect for thechallenges you face Bringing
nuanced perspectives to complexissues and it's why we've gone
so much longer than a usualpodcast Does is because I
actually really like how youthink about things and when you
walk through an issue.
I don't think we get enough ofthat.
I think it's really admirablethe way you break things down
and and find ways to connectthings, and I'm just I'm honored

(01:42:53):
to have been able to share thetime with you and to be able to
learn from you, because I thinkyou put a lot of work into
making sure that you understandissues before you report on them
, and I just find that work so,so valuable.

Well, I appreciate that.
Can I just ask one questionthen, just to go back to?
I know?
I know it's been a long time.
I don't know if you have to go,because you asked me if I had
any time.
I have to pick up my kids fromschool and I have an hour or
something, but Okay, so, so soyou say that you, you want to,
you want to do the Excavationsand you want to spend the money
on the research to find closure.
Right, it's, you're either goingto find something and and then,

(01:43:27):
and then we can talk about thatand address it and Properly
mourn or whatever, or we'll findclosure.
Do you think that if they do,like, at what point, with
excavations and and research andlike, like, is it going to take
a decade?
Is it going to take 50 years,like, like, will there actually
be closure if you can't findwhat it is that you think you're
looking for?
And then the second question isLike, say, the price tag for

(01:43:50):
that is like a hundred milliondollars or five hundred million
dollars or a billion dollars orfive billion dollars, like, at
what point?
Do you think that maybe themoney would be better spent,
like on social programs or oneducation programs around
scholarships, like like, do youworry that this isn't perhaps
the best use of public money?

(01:44:11):
Because he says not your money,it's not my money.
But I just wonder, like, if, ifI were to say, okay, we're
gonna earmark five billiondollars for unmarked grave
research over the next ten years, and, and and I came to you, I
said, aaron, would you ratherthat five billion dollars go
towards like scholarships, ormaybe go towards like building
statues of native heroes acrosslike Canada, or like helping you

(01:44:34):
know, like kind of again to mypositive message, like helping
tell positive stories ofwarriors that did incredible
things for First Nations, likelike you know, it's a trade-off
everything in government'strade-off, so do you think that
that five billion dollars wouldbe well spent on that research?

to the first question, I would say they've
already identified specificsites, so there's no real risk
of Having like this, like we'reresearching everywhere and the
oceans and and anywhere thatkind of comes up.
I think this is already sayspecifics from what I'm hearing
within.
Like some of the researcherswho are doing things here,
they've already identified spotsthat they're looking and we

(01:45:11):
should get news within the nextsix months to a year.

Like you would?
Would you find closure like ifthey came back?
Because because there was justa Excavation that got finished a
couple months ago and theyfound nothing, yeah, so so is
that?
Is that closure, is it?

done, we're not gonna.

We're not gonna worry about that anymore.
We're not gonna tell our kidsthat they were kids.
We're not gonna tell ourcommunity their kids murdered at
that site anymore because theydidn't find it.
So it's done.

I think that's closure.
Okay, I think whether or notpeople want to report to your
own point, whether or not theCBC wants to write that story, I
don't know I think you'll bewilling to write that story,
which is again why I think thework you do and the work your
team does is valuable, becausesome people that's not gonna get
a lot of clicks, that's notgonna get a lot of views and
it's not gonna go along with thenarrative we have.
To the point you made a whileback, I do think that the, the

(01:45:57):
rate of Indian residentialschools were as diverse as the
the population we have today.
I know for a fact that I knowelders who have been to the
residential schools here and Iknow that they weren't glossy,
great places.
They I know people who havesaid I'm not gonna tell you what
I went through, I'll tell youthis little thing, but I'm not
telling you the meat of it.
I know that they tried todestroy our language.

(01:46:18):
I know that they tried todestroy a culture.
I've spoken to those people andso I do think that, to your
point, we need the good and thebad.
I don't want to just seeindigenous people struggling on
the streets and hearing abouthow they're over represented in
in the criminal justice system,how they're over represented in
drug use, how they're overrepresented in like Sexual
exploitation.
I don't want just that story.

(01:46:39):
That's why I interview chiefs,elders, experts, community
leaders, people who are making adifference, because I think we
need both of those pieces.
I need to understand thehorrible things that happen so
they don't happen again, and Ialso need to understand the good
things and the people who arepioneering, like chief Clarence
Louis, who's trying to bringeconomic development to his
community.
I think you need that balanceand I do.

(01:46:59):
To your second question aboutfunding.
I think you can do that withmost things you can go.
Do we want to fund thedentistry program?
Or could we get a better healthcare system and have more
doctors in our city?
Like we can do that withanything.
I just support the fact that,whether or not it's private
institutions funding theresearch or if it's government
programs, I'm open to where themoney comes from.

(01:47:19):
But I do think that that's aworthwhile thing, because many
families that I know of and manyof the chiefs I've interviewed
have this looming question whowas lost, what was lost and how
do we come to peace with that.
And how do we get truth andreconciliation If we don't have
the truth?
Please, please, coveredproperly.

Because one of the things that I thought
interesting I interviewed one ofthe authors for the book gray
there and they basicallydescribed it.
Like you know, we did the truthand reconciliation Commission.
That was like 10 years ago andduring that process they came up
with a list of all the names ofthe children that they believed
were killed and died atresidential schools.
And they had that list and itwasn't a very big list, it was

(01:47:59):
like a couple of hundred names,right, and so that was kind of
not dealt with but addressed andit came up and we had that and
then and then and then now it'scoming up again, but the numbers
are like much, much, muchhigher and so it's like okay.
So we tried to deal with it.
We did have this discussion, wehad this community, like it was
raised, and I mean I think it'sunfortunate many Canadians don't

(01:48:21):
learn about residential schools.
I learned about that in when Iwas in high school.
That was part of the schoolcurriculum.
But then I went to universityin Edmonton and I know that some
of my friends didn't know aboutit, like they'd never heard
about, they never learned aboutit.
So I think I think it's goodthat everybody's learning about
it.
I don't think that nobody waslearning about it back then,
because I did, but but now morepeople, like I would say, almost
every Canadian Probably nowknows that there was a

(01:48:43):
residential school program andthat that it wasn't a very
well-won program and that therewas a lot of, you know, horrific
things that happened at thatschool.
But it's like you know, are wegonna have to continue like?
Is every generation, everydecade, is something like this
gonna come up and we're gonnahave to like, like, like, go
through it again?
Maybe, maybe this is part ofour history and what we have to

(01:49:03):
do to have that reconciliation,but at a certain point I just
don't know that's productive.
Anyway, I know, I know we had along conversation.

I'm not all, but yeah, the only thing I'll add is
to your point about the 40years of the, the conservatives
getting the bad treatment.
I mean, like you can go to themissing and murdered women's
inquiry, the truth andreconciliation.
We haven't had a hundred yearsof going through these issues.
We're at maybe two or threeyears of real, solid research
and understanding.
So I don't think we're at thepoint where we need to go Whoa,

(01:49:30):
whoa, whoa.
We've we've done enough andwe've done our part.
We can put a close to the endof this book because a lot of
the people are still alive today, but I do.
I do have to wrap, unfortunately, this interview up.
I think it leaves the door open.
I'd love to speak with youagain because I think again you
bring really good perspectives.
I have no disagreement with the, the value of the information
that you're bringing in and theimportance of having that

(01:49:51):
different perspective, and Ithink other people are afraid to
talk about this.
So I find again, that work veryadmirable.
Would you mind telling peoplehow they can connect with true
north and you on social media?

Yeah, sure, and I appreciate I.
You know the way that we haveuncomfortable conversations is
just like this.
It's like maybe thisconversation will inspire more
people to have these kinds ofconversations in their own lives
, and so I really commend youand applaud you for the work
you're doing.
Yeah, I'm Candice Malcolm.
You can find me on Twitter.
I'm on there and our website isTNCNews.
True north and got a podcast.

(01:50:24):
I'm done a couple times a weekand I, for a long time, I wrote
a column in the Toronto Sun, butI'm not doing that anymore, so
my work is exclusively now attrue north.
So Connect with me that way andI really, really appreciate.
I think you're brilliant youngguy and you've got a great,
tremendous future ahead of you.
So I appreciate you, Iappreciate getting connected
with you and meeting you and Ireally appreciate the interview

(01:50:45):
the honor is all mine.

As I said, I think so many of the topics you cover
aren't being heard about inother Platforms and I always go
to your videos on what's goingon in Parliament, on what
questions are being asked, onwhether or not it's fair, and so
I have.
I'm a follower, I'm a fan ofyour work and I think the work
that you're doing is reallyvaluable to bring about an
enlightened and informed society.
So thank you again for sharingyour time.

Okay, all right , aaron, take care all the best.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}145. Candice Malcolm: Crime, Politics and Indian Residential Schools Debate

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