Candice Malcolm critiques Canada’s "Peter Pan" PM, Justin Trudeau, for his 2018 India trip—where he hosted convicted terrorist Jaspal Atwal—calling it a leadership disaster amid global populist shifts like Brexit and Trump. She blames his divisive policies, including a 450,000-immigration target clashing with 80% of Canadians’ opposition, and elite media suppression of dissent, labeling critics "far-right" while ignoring majority concerns. Through her True North Initiative, Malcolm plans expanded investigative reporting to counter "creeping Sharia law" narratives and hold Trudeau’s government accountable, arguing Canada’s global standing has eroded under his superficial, image-driven rule. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a feature interview with the founder of the True North Initiative.
It's Christmas day and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government for why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Well, over the Christmas break, when things are a little bit slower on the news side, we have long-form, semi-biographical interviews with some of the most interesting newsmakers or friends of the Rebel.
And our next guest fits both categories, a friend and a newsmaker.
Her name is Candace Malcolm, and she joins us now via Scott.
Great to see you.
Merry Christmas.
Nice to have you on the show again to talk a little bit more calmly as opposed to the frenzied news of the day.
Well, thank you so much, Ezra.
Merry Christmas to you and to all your viewers as well.
It's great to be here.
Well, thanks.
You know, it's been an amazing year for politics.
And I think it's the year, in my view, where the pendulum has swung back a little bit from the left.
I look at all the provincial premiers that are now conservative-oriented as opposed to the almost completely liberal map a year ago.
I look at opposition to the carbon tax in Canada and even overseas in places like France.
I look at, I don't know, I just feel like our side of the argument is being heard.
That's my sense of 2018.
What do you think?
I tend to agree, Ezra.
There was sort of the sense in Canada that, you know, among elites and liberals in Central Canada, that we were somehow immune to a lot of the forces that were going on around the world, whether it's, you know, populism or sort of a new alignment towards just, you know, patriotism and nationalism and putting your own country first.
And, you know, elites had their nose up in the air saying, oh, Canada's immune to that.
And it's clearly not the case.
I think it's sort of come a little slower.
You know, it happened in the UK with Brexit and the Trump election in 2016.
We saw these forces piling up.
And yeah, it's spilling over into Canada.
The sentiment is really there that people feel that elites are out of touch, that the stories being told in the media or by mainstream politicians just don't really reflect their day-to-day life or their day-to-day concerns.
And there is sort of this movement, this backlash, or, you know, you can call it populism or you can just, you know, call it democracy.
But I think you're right.
And, you know, as far as political stuff going on in Canada, I think Justin Trudeau has just had an absolutely horrible year right from the get-go.
We're sort of seeing the mask behind the man and the emperor has no clothes because the more we get to know Trudeau, the more that we see him in action, whether it's his disastrous trip to India or the way he bungled the NAFTA trade agreements with Trump, the silly things that he says when he's giving interviews and talking candidly, people kind and all this politically correct nonsense.
I think the more we see of Justin Trudeau, the more we realize just how absolutely unfit he is to lead our country.
Yeah, well, his trip to India, I think, was a turning point in terms of his image, because in his 2015 campaign and really ever since, he has been the stylish, young, handsome, dashing, mediogenic, selfie-loving, cool dude, as opposed to that stuffy Stephen Harper and his sweater vests.
And I think that worked, or at least it worked on the media.
And so we all sort of said, oh, I guess everyone loves the novelty socks.
But his India trip was like the highlight.
Like it was the apex.
He was doing, it was like Beyonce in a rock concert doing like five costume changes a night.
Trudeau literally would change costumes throughout the day, pose Bollywood style, do a costume change, pose at the Taj Mahal.
And it just tipped over from sort of, oh, isn't that neat to, oh my God, that's all there is.
I'm going to talk about the terrorist angle in a second, but I think before the terrorist questions of that trip came to light, and I'll ask you about that in a minute because you broke that story, I think he was also already reaching peak ridiculousness on the selfie front.
What do you think?
Yeah, it was sort of a confluence of so many different things, Ezra.
But, you know, even just to provide a bit more context in that, right before Trudeau went to India, he was having a really bad time.
He had gone in these national town halls to talk to Canadians.
And I think that that was kind of like, you know, his handler and his aides in Ottawa.
It was their excuse to just sort of get him out of Ottawa, get him out of the media bubble.
You know, he was having a bad news cycle when it came to things like the ethics report and his sore at the Aga Khan's private island in the Caribbean where he illegally took a private plane and didn't disclose that.
So he was having a bad time.
They sent him on this town halls and he just embarrassed himself.
That was when he made that people kind remark where he told a young woman not to say man-kind, but to say people-kind.
He told a young veteran that veterans were asking for more than the federal government was willing to give.
There was a couple of really awful sort of clips and soundbites that came out of those town halls.
And I think that the India trip was like designed to rescue his reputation.
You know, put Trudeau on the world stage, and you know that the international media will just swoon over it.
And there's nothing that the Canadian media like more than, you know, swooning over the international media, swooning over Justin Trudeau.
And so, you know, it was all so calculated.
And you get Trudeau in India.
You realize that there's a political problem going on there, that the Indian government and Indian officials are not happy with Trudeau over his actions and his sort of, you know, the sketchy behind-the-scenes partisan politics of the Liberal Party.
And then you have this just totally clueless guy that, you know, he's posing with Bollywood actors.
The Bollywood actor is dressed down, wearing like a black suit.
And there's Trudeau in this magical, colorful outfit with his entire family choreographed to the T.
And it's just, you know, talk about an out-of-touch elite, you know, a man that's just playing Peter Pan that's in a fairy tale, so, you know, removed from reality.
And it was just so cringeworthy and so embarrassing.
The fact that the international media rejected it and started basically mocking him and saying, who is this guy?
You know, it was a total catastrophe for Trudeau and his team, which is so obsessed and so focused on image.
You know, they're all style, no substance.
And when the style element starts falling apart, you know, that's when you're really in trouble.
And I think that was really, you know, a turning point for Trudeau.
Yeah, if I recall, it was a seven or eight day trip and there was only about one day's worth of actual business.
And I think the Canadian media were totally fine with it.
First of all, they love these trips also.
They get to go to exotic places.
It's first class for them too.
I think it took the foreign media, including the media in India itself, to break, to burst the bubble, to pop the balloon.
I think had it been in the hands of the CBC and the rest of what I call the media party, I think it would have been the amazing PR success that his handlers wanted it to be.
But you actually were the one with the big pin popping the balloon.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about that shocking story that you broke?
And I couldn't even believe it.
I couldn't believe the story was incredible.
And I couldn't believe that I knew the reporter breaking the story.
You, tell us a little bit about Jazz Paul Atwall, a convicted terrorist and attempted murderer.
Yeah, it was a storyline like right out of a, you know, a Stephen King novel or something.
But, you know, Justin Trudeau, so basically, Trudeau arrives in India.
The government is snubbing him.
You know, Prime Minister Modi is a really jovial, friendly person.
He usually goes to the airport to greet foreign leaders as they arrive.
And, you know, we like to think of Canada as, you know, being, you know, an important country, you know, an English-speaking ally in India.
And so, you know, Trudeau gets snubbed.
There's a lot of sort of discussion about concerns from the Indian government, from the Punjab government, over Trudeau's relationship with a group of Khalistani independent separatists.
So for people who don't know, you know, Sikhs have long wanted a homeland, an independent state in a part of India.
You know, not all Sikhs, but there's a movement among Sikhs, and they call themselves Khalistanis.
So there is this group, you know, the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history was carried out by a group of Khalistani extremists.
And, you know, in Canada, it is a problem.
There's a community within the Sikh community that promotes these ideas.
And so that was sort of the background.
You know, there was all of these concerns that the Liberal government and the Trudeau government were too closely aligned with these extremists that the Indian government is very concerned about.
And so, you know, while these sort of conversations are happening and people are speculating as to why Trudeau doesn't have a more substantive agenda while he's in India, all of a sudden we have pictures of a convicted terrorist, a person who was sort of a leader of these Khalestani extremists in Canada, a person who had been convicted of attempting to murder a Indian cabinet official who was visiting Vancouver, visiting family,
you know, we're talking about 20 years ago.
But he tried to assassinate this person.
The man who was convicted of trying to assassinate this Indian leader is with Justin Trudeau.
Photos have been circulated.
I had the photos of this person, Jaspal Atwal, at an event posing with Sophie Trudeau, posing with different liberal cabinet ministers and MPs on the official guest list.
Somehow was able to make it past all of the screening and vetting that one would have to do to get invited on the delegation with the prime minister, traveling with the prime minister in India, attending official events in New Delhi and Mumbai.
He was on the invitation list for two events.
You just couldn't imagine that kind of PR disaster and the security risk of having someone with that kind of storied background.
I mean, it's just so shocking.
So I broke that news in the Toronto Sun.
There was a bunch of other sort of follow-up reports of this individual who just has an absolutely sketchy past.
And you really start to realize how closely aligned the Liberal government is with this group of people who, again, are considered, there's two banned terrorist groups in Canada that are affiliated with Khistani separatists.
And Jaspal Atwall might claim that he's no longer a part of these groups, but he was a part of them in the past.
And even in that court ruling when he was found guilty of attempted murder, the judge called it terrorism and said that he was a terrorist, Ezra.
So, I mean, it was a pretty shocking story.
Yeah.
And the chutzpah of taking, I mean, it's important that you point out, he's not just a terrorist.
He tried to assassinate a cabinet minister from the country of India, and then Trudeau brought him to the country of India as a VIP guest.
I mean, that would be like bringing a PLO terrorist to meet the Israeli government.
It's so, if you were to have a screenplay in Hollywood, the studios would say, oh, it's too much.
No one will ever believe it.
It requires too much suspension of disbelief.
Like, it's too crazy.
But the crazy didn't stop there.
And I don't want to just talk about this today, but it was one of your great scoops.
And I think it helped cement the change in Trudeau's reputation from this international darling to a serial bumbler and fumbler who frankly has caused disasters in every foreign affairs file.
So it was a disaster.
And there could be a thing to say.
You could say it was an absolutely wrong decision.
I apologize.
It was bad judgment, bad vetting.
You could own it, and it'd be a one-day story of embarrassment.
But instead, and this is what's so incredible, they claimed it was a setup by rogue elements of the security services in India.
They actually ran with that.
The liberals said, no, Justin Trudeau didn't do anything wrong.
Liberals didn't do anything wrong.
This was like planted, like this person was planted on our guest list by people in India to embarrass us.
It didn't even make sense in its own terms.
It was crazy.
I felt that way too.
It was like, you know, sometimes when you're reporting on a story and you're really in depth, you're talking to a lot of people, you're talking to a lot of sources, you kind of wonder, like, you know, am I too down, too far deep in the rabbit hole?
Like, is there something I'm missing here?
And that story came out in the CBC, Ezra.
So, you know, Trudeau can always count on his friends and allies in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to basically just write their narrative into the news.
And there it was on Sunday evening, a senior source telling reporters that it was rogue Indian, it was rogue elements in the Indian government who had orchestrated this entire thing to embarrass Trudeau and make him look weak on this Kalestani terrorism issue.
We found out that the senior source was not a partisan liberal appointee, but none other than the national security advisor, the top nonpartisan civil servant advising on national security issues in the country.
It's supposed to be the pinnacle of professionalism and sort of hard-nose policy.
And here this guy is kind of doing his own thing, briefing the media, demanding that it be off the record, not providing any evidence to back this claim.
And I mean, it took, what, eight months for the report to come out as to, you know, the parliament did an investigation into what happened and why the national security advisor was briefing reporters with this ridiculous conspiracy theory, Ezra, that had no backing in reality that really upset the Indian government because they, you know, to make it all worse, you know, as much as the diplomatic fiasco that we were in the middle of, Trudeau doubles down and just blames the Indian government.
Trudeau's Foreign Policy Revelations00:10:31
He mentioned it in Parliament as well in an exchange in the House of Commons.
Well, the report just came out this month, Ezra, and there's absolutely no evidence and nothing to substantiate the claim that there were rogue elements.
It was just really a conspiracy theory.
And we know that the national security advisor who retired a couple weeks after all this whole scandal, that he was having private conversations with top officials in the PMO that were behind closed doors and the committee wasn't privy to any of those conversations.
So the idea that this was all cooked up scheme from Trudeau and his inner circle is pretty evident at this point.
It's pretty sad that they came up with this cover-up conspiracy to try to offload any responsibility.
And that people in the media fell for it, and that the CBC dutifully wrote that story.
It's just so embarrassing, Ezra.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it was a huge screw-up.
And then to say, no, no, no, India tricked us.
Like that.
India, I mean, I have an affection towards India.
The more I study the history of the British Empire, the more I study India, its role in freedom, the more I get to know Sikhs, the more I admire the country, the history.
I love the fact that it's a democracy.
I love India for its democracy more than the left loves China for its economy.
And to think that, and there's a lot of people from India who live in Canada now, and I think they're generally very successful immigrants to Canada.
I really think that's a relationship that Canada could have done well by.
Largest democracy in the world, second largest country in the world, very soon will overtake China in terms of pure population numbers.
Maybe it already has.
And just to just not nuke it, I don't want to use that word, but just to wreck that relationship, just to get through a few tough days of media spin, that shows a juvenile, childish unseriousness of foreign policy substance.
That's my point.
Candace, is that trip not only burst the bubble on his selfie-loving narcissism, but it bursts the bubble on anyone who thought that Trudeau was actually a serious, substantive international player.
That's at least what I take from it.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I think that there was a very sort of superficial knowledge that most people had about Justin Trudeau that he was sort of painted by his handlers and his PR people as the anti-Trump.
So Trump came in and he was this sort of hard-nosed law and order kind of conservative guy.
And Trudeau was his opposite.
Trudeau was this warm, love-y, you know, liberal who just, you know, wanted everyone to hug and get along.
And I think that the more people got to know Justin Trudeau, you know, there's really like a lack of substance when it comes to him, but there's also another side, and that is this sort of cynical, partisan politics.
Like he puts his own personal fortune ahead of the relationship with this very important ally that Canada has.
So the whole point of the eight-day trip was his image, but it was also, there was also a partisan reason there, and that was that the Liberals wanted to impress the diaspora.
They wanted to court votes from specifically the Sikh community, but also the entire Indian diaspora.
And that was why the whole week was so light on serious official state business and so heavy on visiting all these different sites and taking pictures and using, gaining all this material essentially to be used in the 2019 election.
And you're right that the Indian diaspora in Canada is incredibly successful.
Sikh Canadians have always contributed tremendously right back to fighting on behalf of the British Empire in the First and Second World War.
They've had tremendous contributions.
But instead of acknowledging that Trudeau is the leader of all Canadians, he plays this really sort of sneaky, divisive vote bank politics where he tries to court very specific groups with very specific language.
And I think that was another part of what was exposed through that trip was just how sort of dishonest the government is and Trudeau is when it comes to kind of dividing Canadians into little groups and then providing different messages to different Canadians in the sort of divisive kind of way.
You know, I think of Trudeau's international adventures, India, just the worst disaster.
China snubbed him.
Cuba, Trudeau, absolutely abases himself in an over-the-top eulogy for Castro.
And Cuba repays Trudeau by using a sonic weapon to give brain damage to our diplomats there.
We got a rough deal with Donald Trump in NAFTA because Trudeau insisted on talking about feminism and global warming.
Things couldn't be worse between Russia and our foreign minister, Christia Freeland.
Saudi Arabia is, you know, they get all the good stuff selling us their oil while they, you know, the relationship diplomatically is awful.
I can't think of a single country in the world, Japan and Australia, put them in the list too.
I can't think of a single country in the world where relations between them and Canada are warmer today, with the possible exception of Iran, that Trudeau, again, without any reason, is so affectionate towards.
I think, I mean, John Manley said it the other day.
Here's a quick clip of John Manley saying, we've never been more alone.
We've never been, in my view, as alone in the world as we are now.
I think John Manley's right, Candace.
I think for all of his savoir faire and his international glamour, Trudeau has made Canada more isolated and smaller in the world.
Yeah, I think there's just such a confusion on behalf of Trudeau and the Liberals as to what Canada's role in the world.
Remember, Ezra, when they first were elected, they made such a big deal of saying that Canada was back, that under Harper and the Conservatives, Canada had disappeared from the world stage, and that Trudeau was ushering in this new era of positive Canadian influence in the world.
And as insulting as that was to so many Canadians, you kind of wait and wonder what exactly that foreign policy agenda is going to be.
I mean, it turned out it was basically selfies with Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron and a bunch of puff pieces in the media about these so-called bromances.
But then when it comes to the real relationships and Canada's role in the world, as you pointed out with all of these countries, whether it's because Trudeau refuses to budge on the special privileges to the dairy cartel in Canada, whether it's their just totally schizophrenic idea of when to call out human rights, like we're going to call out Saudi Arabia for human rights abuses on Twitter, and meanwhile,
we're going to vote in favor of Cuba at the United Nations over and over and over and over again and refuse to condemn any of their bad behavior, refuse to even call for gender equality.
Justin Trudeau's absolutely favorite topic when it comes to Cuba.
I mean, it's just totally nonsensical.
Even Iran, which Trudeau made such a big deal, again, in courting the Iranian vote during the last election and talking to the Iranian diaspora in Canada, saying that he pledged to reopen relations and normalize things and have a consulate going in an embassy.
Well, he hasn't even done that.
I mean, even his own promises, I don't advocate or advise renegotiating a deal with Iran, just given how that country is basically a state sponsor of terrorism, a rogue country that's absolutely destabilizing the entire Middle East.
Trudeau wanted to be friends with them, and he couldn't even make that happen.
So, yeah, Canada is lost on the world stage.
It's sad to see how far Trudeau will go groveling to the United Nations to try to get a meaningless temporary seat on the Security Council for what?
You know, we're willing to sacrifice all of our values, all of our relationships, all of our friendships.
You know, Trudeau's foreign policy, Ezra, it actually looks a lot like Barack Obama's foreign policy, which was basically to go around the world, grovel, apologize for America, make America look weak, and turn his back on our West's closest allies.
So, yeah, Trudeau's just been utterly disappointing on that front.
You know, Candace, I'm enjoying talking over some of the news highs and lows of 2018 with you, but I did promise at the beginning of our discussion that this would be semi-biographical, and we haven't done that.
And my excuse is because that Jazz Paul Atwall story, the story of the terrorists that Trudeau brought to India, was your scoop.
And so I just wanted to take the opportunity to recount that incredible moment because I think that was such a turning point for Trudeau.
I should say that you're also the author.
I want to make sure I got the title right here.
Stupid Things Trudeau Says.
That's your book, right?
Yeah, that's right.
That was sort of a lighthearted, satirical book.
I couldn't help it because Trudeau's just said so many remarkably dumb things over the years that I wanted to catalog some of these quotes and comments and try to put them into some context for the readers.
You know, and it's funny, and you know what?
It's true.
And anyone who pretends they're not stupid quotes, I mean, there's so many of them.
We know the people kind one.
We know when he says budgets will balance themselves.
We've got to grow from the economy from the heart out.
Give me one or two other just clangers that if it were George W. Bush or Dan Quayle, we'd never stop talking about.
Well, sure.
After the Sochi Olympics in 2014, the Winter Olympics, when Vladimir Putin and the Russian army invaded Ukraine and Crimea, Trudeau went on a political talk show in Quebec and said that the reason that Putin invaded Ukraine was because he was mad that his hockey team lost during the Olympics.
Why Canada Welcomes Refugees00:07:07
And even at the time, even at the time, the host sort of looked at him like, are you serious?
Oh, it was incredible.
So there's a whole collection of his favorite digs against Alberta and the people of Alberta back before he became prime minister.
He would always make those comments in French, though, Ezra, just so that we couldn't clip them and play them back to the people.
But he said that Canada would be better off, is better off when people from Quebec are in charge and the country suffers when Albertans are in charge.
He said that if Canada was really the candidate of Stephen Harper, he would be for Quebec leaving and becoming its own country.
He really had some incredibly divisive and controversial things to say about the Canadian Confederation and specifically about Alberta.
Yeah, you know what?
We were just chuckling at all the goofy things he said, but what you just said there are positively dangerous.
Well, listen, I do want to talk a little bit biographically because, of course, we know you from your column with the Toronto Sun, and I'm so glad you have that forum, because it's one of the few newspapers in Canada that still allows conservatives to be conservative.
I regret the National Post is no longer as strong in that department.
There's still some good writers on the Financial Post, but I'm so glad you have that place.
So you write for the Toronto Sun.
Before that, you were with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Way back in the day, you were a staffer for Jason Kenney in Ottawa.
And now you're the boss of the True North Initiative.
We've mentioned that before, and we know your colleague, Andrew Lawton, obviously an old friend of ours, too.
Can you give our viewers a bit of a briefing?
I think I know what it is.
Would you call it a think tank?
Would you call it a forum?
What exactly is the True North initiative?
Sure.
Well, I kind of like to think of it as sort of a next generation think tank media platform hybrid.
And so the concept when I started it, when I created it, was I used to work in the immigration department in Ottawa.
When it came to discussions about immigration, immigration security, border security, you know, the issues just never get discussed fairly.
And there's so many special interest groups and lobbyists on the left, you know, whether it's refugee lawyers or refugee groups or, you know, different special interest groups that are lobbying the government.
And really just when it comes to media stories, they make it one-sided because they provide these over-the-top quotes or put out these reports that really advocate for open borders and something that goes against the Canadian, the best interest of Canadians.
So the idea with True North was to try to counter that, to provide some common sense, rules-based suggestions, and to sort of try to keep the media honest by providing the other side of the story.
That was about three years ago, and the ideas kind of morphed and broadened into kind of creating something like our own media platform.
So we do create some reports.
We still try to do the sort of policy think tank stuff, but we also focus on getting the information out to Canadians and telling that other side.
We do some investigative reports.
We've hired Andrew Lawton, a great journalist out of London, Ontario, to provide his own commentary and his own reports.
We focus a lot on doing, you know, everything's online, so, you know, through Facebook and through our website, and just engaging with Canadians, having that robust conversation about immigration that the elites are so afraid to have as, or they're so afraid to talk openly about immigration.
They don't want to have a debate.
You know, the whole United Nations Migration Compact was just rushed through without even consulting with the Canadian people.
And I think the reason that elites don't want to have a conversation with Canadians is because they know that their positions are offside.
They're not consulting with the public.
They're going against what people want.
And, you know, that's so unfair to the Canadian people.
This is our country, the country that we've built, our ancestors have built.
We should have a say in the future of our country.
And so again, True North just really seeks to facilitate that conversation and to provide balance to the insanity of politicians and the mainstream media journalists.
Yeah, you guys are really strong on the immigration file.
And I think it obviously comes from your history working in that department.
I always show this graph here.
This is from August.
Angus Reed asks the question, do you think immigration numbers are too high, too low, or just right?
And as you can see here, this is a historical graph that goes back decades.
And the number of Canadians who say the number is too high is at 49%.
It's never been higher.
The number who say it's too low, we should invite more folks in, is 6%.
Again, that number has never been lower.
And the number who say, well, I guess I'm fine where it is is 31%.
I think those people just don't want to take a position, or maybe they really think the number as it is is fine.
So you add up those who think it's fine as it is or should be lower, that's 80%, and yet Trudeau is going in the direction of the 6%, increasing it, and is contemplating jacking it up to a staggering 450,000 people a year.
I think you mentioned right at the beginning of the show how populism is on the march around the world.
That's going to light a fire in this country.
I believe, Candace, that if anything is going to start, I mean, God forbid, Macron-style riot protests.
I don't want violence in Canada, but if anything's going to light a match of populist rebellion, it's going to be opening up the borders to a lawless, chaotic immigration in the face of 80% of Canadians that wishes to the contrary.
And a combination of that, Ezra, and the fact that Canadians are just not consulted, that Trudeau continues to ram through his agenda.
I mean, he's the one that's driving this sort of populist notion.
You know, Canada has long been open and understanding of immigration.
We've long been a country that's welcomed immigrants, integrated them, and welcomed them as full Canadian citizens.
And that is our record.
That's why Canada's immigration system works.
And as soon as you sort of stray away from that and say, you know what, we're just going to accept all migrants.
We're going to change the definition.
So a migrant is now a refugee.
Refugees don't really have to follow Canadian immigration law.
So, you know, our immigration laws are going to be put on the back burner so that we can welcome all these people.
I mean, that's what's driving the change in public opinion.
And it's been a drastic change over the last 10 years or so, where Canadians used to generally support immigration, be pro-immigration, and understand that, you know, we need to continue to welcome newcomers to grow our economy and to have new innovation and all these other things.
You know, that consensus is slowly fading away.
And it's directly because of the policies and the attitude of elites, specifically Justin Trudeau and his liberal government.
Tommy Robinson's Canadian Impact00:10:53
And then on top of that, the way that the media sort of bullies and name-calls anyone who's critical.
I mean, you've long been the sort of boogeyman to the mainstream media that they call you far-right or call you extreme.
Well, the views that you're expressing are the views of most Canadians.
And it's the same with us at the True North.
We have now started to be called the same kind of things, accused of the same kind of name-calling and being xenophobic and all this stuff.
Well, what we're trying to do is just have an honest conversation and sort of tap into the sentiment of Canadians who have valid concerns, have valid worries.
And the more that Trudeau and the media try to demonize us, the more angry people become.
And that's how you end up with these sort of populist revolts.
So they shouldn't be blaming people like you and I.
They should be looking in the mirror and looking at their own policies and their own tactics and the way that they treat the citizens of their country.
You know, I was listening to you and how the official establishments, it's the media, it's the politicians, it's academia, it's pop culture, like it's it's it's even police.
All the establishment is basically tamping down the bandwidth of debates on these issues.
And you made me think of the United Kingdom because of course we have some staff there, Jack Buckby and Martina Markota, and we used to have Tommy Robinson.
And earlier this year, you and Andrew Lawton came to London to report on the trial of Tommy Robinson.
It turned out to be a very quick court hearing.
It was basically adjourned by the judge.
But I'd like you to share with our viewers, because Tommy Robinson is probably one standard deviation more rambunctious than me.
And I think I'm one standard deviation more rambunctious than you, Candace.
So you're polite company.
And so, I mean, he has a rough background.
And I don't think he hides it at all.
In fact, I think in some ways he is sort of a spokesman in some ways for working class Brits.
It's still stratified there by class and region.
And I'd like you to share with our viewers your thoughts.
So you came to the UK, you met Tommy, you came to the court, you came to the trial, and we crowdfund your ticket and that of Andrew Lawton.
And our rule was you just had to show up and report, no editorial oversight from me or the rebel.
We just wanted another pair of eyes there to see what was going on.
So can you tell our viewers what you thought of the event itself, of Tommy, and are there any lessons that you learned in your time in London that might apply to your thinking about Canada, especially on these politically incorrect issues?
Yeah, certainly.
Well, first, thank you so much to you at the Rebel and to your generous viewers and supporters that enabled that crowdfunding.
It was a really great experience to get to go over to London and get to report in a different country and have that experience.
So thanks for that.
And yeah, I mean, going there, what I sort of kept feeling like was, you know, this is where Canada is heading.
This is like Canada 10 years into the future if we continue on the same path.
Where you're right, you know, England and London is much more sort of class-based.
So people don't want to listen to Tommy because of the neighborhood he grew up in and the accent that he has and his lack of maybe formal fancy education.
But the issues that he's raising are just completely obvious and evident.
The fact that there are these unintegrated immigrant groups, mostly Pakistani, but other people from different Muslim countries, that form these gangs.
They do despicable, horrible things in grooming young women to show a complete lack of respect for the country that they're in, but also the independence and the rights of these young women, these girls in many cases.
And then on top of that, you have the institutions, the police, the courts, journalists, academics, social workers, all willing to cover up and ignore and sort of lie about the prevalence of this phenomenon.
I haven't heard of that stuff happening in Canada, but we're not far away and we see elements of it.
For instance, after the Danforth shooting where it was just completely sealed and there was no information coming out and the police were sort of playing part of this sort of PR game.
But anyway, in London and in the UK, more broadly, Tommy Robinson is a sort of a hero of his people.
He's part of the underclass for sure, but he's fairly smart.
He's articulate.
He's ringing the alarm bell about these issues.
And the way that the government just completely clamps down on him and tries to find any excuse to arrest him and silence him and put him away, while the media are playing that role as well and demonizing him and trying to deplatform him.
I mean, the whole thing was really eye-opening and sad, you know, considering that Canada got its political institutions.
We inherited from that same tradition in the UK to see how they've sort of abandoned freedom of speech and the rule of law, the idea that everyone should be treated equally.
And they've created a special situation for migrants, but just because they're migrants, just because they're Muslim, they don't have to follow the same set of rules.
It's scary.
You know, I talked to a lot of people while I was over there, Ezra.
And I think that people see it.
People understand it.
The reason that Tommy Robinson is as famous as he is is because he's effective and he's speaking about something that's true that people there just aren't getting through their mainstream media.
So I think that it's great that there are independent journalists like you that are really involved in covering this story and raising the alarm.
And I was grateful for Andrew and I to have the opportunity to go over there to see it with our own eyes to try to tell the other side of the story to the British public while we're there, but also to bring back those lessons to Canada and to make sure that we can safeguard ourselves at any sign of these kind of trends happening in Canada.
We can call it out for what it is, ring the alarm bell, and make sure that that sort of stratified double standard and the horrible crimes that are committed without justice so that that kind of thing just never happens in our own communities.
Well, I'm so glad you feel that way.
I guess I think of the True North Initiative, that's a phrase from our anthem.
And stand on guard for thee is another phrase from our anthem.
It sounds like you're doing that.
By the way, folks, if you want to see all the reports from that special week when we were there with Candace and Andrew and we brought an American reporter named Cassandra Fairbanks and an Australian named Avi Yamini, you can see all that at realreporters.uk.
Real reporters, of course, in contrast to the Media Party of London, which is the worst of all.
Candace, let me ask on this note.
I mean, you've had an amazing 2018.
You've really led the charge.
Obviously, you broke the story of the year, Jazzball out while amazing.
You fight hard, whether it's carbon taxes or open borders immigration, this UN Global Compact for Migration.
What are you going to do in 2019?
Maybe some of it's a surprise and you don't want to let the cat out of the bag now, but give our viewers a bit of a hint.
What are you up to?
What are your plans for True North Initiative?
Are there any events you're looking forward to in 2019?
What do you think is going to come?
Well, definitely we're looking forward to it.
We've had a great year in 2018 just in terms of getting stories out there and telling the other side, but also recruiting people into our fold.
We've had great success doing fundraising campaigns.
There's a lot of Canadians that are really willing to open up their wallets and give us a little bit of money here and there to help support our cause.
So we're going to be growing.
We're going to be focusing on doing more investigative reporting.
We've got a couple of exciting names of scholars that are going to be joining the organization to help us write reports and again to counter all of the sort of politically correct cultural relativism and creeping blasphemy or creeping Sharia law that happens in Canada.
So we've got a bunch of projects that we're going to be rolling out and we're just going to continue to counter the media bias, to hold the Trudo-liberals accountable and to try to advocate for the policies that we believe in, which is basically limited government and freedom, responsibility, promoting Canadian values and Canadian rights and responsibilities.
Well, we can hardly wait to see what you do next.
And we wish you great success.
I think that you do a lot of important things.
In my mind, the fact that you still have a platform in the mainstream media, if I can call the Toronto Sun that, is incredible because all the things you say are the kinds of things that get the de-platformers going, if you know what I mean, the people who try and ban and get people they don't like fired.
So I'm glad that you have a foot here in the Rebel and a foot there in the Toronto Sun and that you're talking to both sides because it's so important that people hear your point of view.
It's great to see you again.
Thanks for spending so much time with us.
I know you're a fan favorite with our viewers, so they'll be thrilled to have spent this time with you too.
Have a great new year and we'll see you in 2019.
Thanks, Ezra.
Yeah, it was great to get into the issues a bit more.
And, you know, with the Toronto Sun, it's like, you know, they try to discredit the Toronto Sun.
They hated our reporting after the Danforth.
They hated what we had to say on the UN Compact.
And so, you know, we're constantly having to deal with that same kind of thing.
But, you know, when it comes, at least it's a newspaper that's sort of still broadly considered part of the mainstream media.
And I'm appreciative of that voice.
But I also think that the future is here online and, you know, with outlets like The Rebel.
So, you know, best of luck to you two.
You've been doing incredible work over there and continue to enjoy watching The Rebel grow.
Well, thanks for those kind words.
And good luck to all of us.
We'll sure need it.
All right.
Take care, my friends.
Okay, bye, Ezra.
All right, that's Candace Malcolm, fan favorite, Toronto Sun columnist, and the boss of the True North Initiative.
Sounds like they've got a lot of great things ahead for 2019.