Front Burner - ‘The Great Reset’, politics and conspiracy

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Last week, after a video of one of his speeches went viral, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to address a growing controversy over “The Great Reset”. The term means different things to different people. To the World Economic Forum it’s a vague goal to make the world more equal and address climate change in the wake of the pandemic. To Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre it’s evidence of a “power grab” by “global financial elites”. And to others, it’s part of a baseless and wide-ranging conspiracy theory. CBC senior writer Aaron Wherry has been covering this story in Ottawa. Today he helps us sort the real economics and politics at play… from the conspiracy gaining traction.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. We're in a time of anxiety where people are looking for reasons for things that are happening to them. We're seeing a lot of people fall prey to disinformation. So that's Justin Trudeau. The prime minister was responding

to a question about something called the Great Reset. Now is the historical moment, the time. We need a Great Reset. History would look at this crisis as the great opportunity for reset. Have you heard about it? It means different things to different people. To the World Economic Forum, it's this vague goal to make the world more equal, to address climate change in the wake of the pandemic. To conservative finance critic Pierre Palliev, it's evidence of a power grab by global financial elites. This idea that he's going to renovate Canadian society to fit his Trudopian ambitions. And to others, it means something else. Here is Tucker Carlson of Fox News.

This is our chance to impose totally unprecedented social controls on the population in order to bypass democracy and change everything to conform with their weird academic theories that have never been tested in the real world and, by the way, don't actually make sense. I'm sure this will come as no surprise to you, but things get even wilder and more conspiratorial the deeper you go on the internet.

CBC senior writer Aaron Wary has been covering this story in Ottawa, and he's here with me now to sort through the real economics and politics at play from the baseless conspiracy theory gaining traction. I'm Jamie Poisson, and this is FrontBurner. Hey Aaron, thanks so much for being here today. Happy to be here. Great, well I have been waiting all week for this conversation, So let's get rolling.

When it comes to the Great Reset, we have a lot to sort out here today. There's a real international economic recovery proposal. And then there's this conspiracy theory. And surrounding all of this is a whole bunch of politics. So let's start at the beginning. How was this non-conspiracy idea of a Great Reset first introduced? So if you go back to June, the executive director of the World Economic Forum, which is more commonly known as Davos or the forum in Davos that happens once a year, the sort of glittery gab fest. He, back in June, he sort of suggested or he framed the recovery from the pandemic, the rebuilding stage as countries come out of the pandemic, in terms of a great reset.

Which means to define and to design the strategies which should lead us in the after-corona phase. What is the objective? What kind of world do we want to build? What do we know? What did we learn? And it was very broad, but it was in terms of sort of, you know, taking stock of what we've learned from the pandemic, taking stock of where the world economy and where countries and the planet need to go next. I think the world which we want to create with the Great Reset has to be much more resilient. People will demand for more security. It will have to be more inclusive.

And trying to bring all that thinking together to build, a phrase you've heard a lot, build back better, essentially. To try to use the moment of the recovery to kind of make some long-term generational progress and change. Right, right. A tagline of Joe Biden's campaign as well. A tagline, actually, of a number of campaigns. I share the outlines of my plan to build back better.

A bold plan to build an economy of the future, not an economy of the past. Building back better means getting support to the most vulnerable while maintaining our momentum. And now is the time for all of us

to begin to build back better. You know, one more thing I wanted to ask you about here. A lot of people are fixated on the British royal family right now, thanks to The Crown, the Netflix show The Crown. And by a lot of people, I mean me, definitely me. So I know that the Prince of Wales also plays a part in this story and sort of the origin story of this. And what exactly does Prince Charles have to do with the Great Reset? Right. So he was one of, there was a forum at some point earlier this year, and he build again in a greener and more sustainable and more inclusive way, then we will end up having more and more pandemics. And this is the one moment, as you've all been saying, when we have to make as much progress as we can.

The Prince has talked in the past about climate change and trying to be conscious of that issue. So it's not entirely outside sort of what he's been around. But the presence of the future king, I suspect, really added to this idea that, you know, the globe's most powerful people were sort of coalescing around this idea. Right, right. You cannot get more elite than the royal family, I guess. idea. Right, right. You cannot get more elite than the royal family, I guess. So that is the origin of the Great Reset. Now I want to talk about how Canada's prime minister sort of gets embroiled in this big time, right? Like he used some of the language, the build back better. But I do understand a lot of this hinges on a speech at the United Nations from September. And what does Trudeau say in that speech?

In a separate event in the fall at the United Nations, he, speaking virtually, of course, gives a brief speech and he uses terms like reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change. And this there's a fair bit of background here, right? there started to be a conversation about once it's time to rebuild, when governments need to spend and stimulate the economy, here's an opportunity to do some big things. So that started out with the idea of a green recovery, like let's build back with climate change in mind. And then as the pandemic exposed issues, inequalities and specific issues in society, other issues like gender equality and systemic racism came into it. We need to address these health inequities. People

of colour make up 83% of reported COVID cases in Toronto, but they only make up half of the city's population. At the onset of the pandemic in March, women lost 60% more jobs than men. I do think that we're likely to see more women going part-time and dropping out, but this is an issue that's going to follow us for a really long time, for years into the future. And so all of this was sort of percolating and going on throughout the pandemic. The Trudeau government, at least initially, kind of resisted looking too far into the future. They kept insisting that there were too many issues in the short term that needed to be dealt with.

And then in the summer, when there was a bit of a lull, I guess, in the pandemic, at least in Canada, the Trudeau government allowed itself, liberals around the government allowed themselves to start talking about an opportunity, a generational opportunity to do some big things and make some big changes once the pandemic was over. Canada believes that a strong, coordinated response across the world and across sectors

is essential. This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. So that is sort of where he, Trudeau, comes into this. Right, right. And this speech that he makes to the UN in September, is it sort of like the culmination of a lot of the talk that we heard over the summer? Is that fair to say? bouncing around the internet about the idea of a great reset. And then the combination of Trudeau using words like reset and reimagine and opportunity, you know, it was sort of like connecting dots, right? Like, right, he suddenly gets brought into a larger idea that there is there is a sort of global, either move or plot to do things. Okay. And so talk to me a little bit more about this, because I guess

we're moving into the conspiracy version of the Great Reset now. And so like this speech was trending on Twitter globally last week. I'm a little bit confused about that because it happened in September. But, you know, talk to me about why it took off last week and what people were saying around it conspiracy wise. Right. So a bunch of things kind of converge here, right? Is there are voices around the internet worrying about a great reset. This clip of Trudeau from September suddenly resurfaces and starts getting passed around on Twitter. Kind of like, look at this. here it is, here's Trudeau openly talking about the reset. And then Trudeau gets mixed up in what has, in certain dark corners of the internet, been portrayed as not an organic conversation that is happening amongst global policy leaders about what to do coming out of the pandemic, but what is rather the rich and powerful,

about what to do coming out of the pandemic, but what is rather the rich and powerful secretly conspiring to pursue an agenda of sort of essentially world domination and tyranny to take advantage of the pandemic to pursue their goals of a new world order, essentially. It's not a conspiracy theory. It is a strategy from the World Economic Forum. If anything, I think this is an opportunity

that they're going to take hold of or they think they have a duty to, a responsibility to. So is this plan about climate equality and increasing the living standard for everyone in the world? Or is it about something far more sinister? What are your spidey senses telling you?

Right, I know that there are even some people who are going as far as to say that these like elites, these political leaders orchestrated the pandemic itself in order to like be able to do all of this stuff like socialist or whatever agenda they want to advance. You know, I know a fake email was making the rounds on social media purporting to be from like a Canadian politician who sits on this committee that is actually completely non-existent. And it's like laying out Canada's reset plans. And they're talking about stuff like the government is coming for your property and the government is going to force you to get a vaccine. All of this is completely baseless,

but this is the kind of stuff we're talking about, right? Yeah, there was at some point this fall, there was another sort of conspiracy theory going around that the federal, the Canadian government was planning to set up internment camps for people. You know, an MP, at least one MP, had to kind of come out and say, like, I understand I'm getting questions about this, but like, this is madness. This is insane what you're talking about. So I think it, you know, Trudeau, when he was asked about conspiracy theories last week, he said, you know, people are anxious. It's been a really tough year and that's maybe what's going on here. And it's possible that that's what it is. I mean, conspiracy theories seem to percolate all the time in even normal periods.

But when there's a global pandemic and people are worried about all sorts of things, and then people start talking about changes they want to make going forward, it's all kind of mixed together in this cauldron of bad faith and worry. And it gets spit out as this sort of global conspiracy to take over the world. Right. In addition to this speech by Trudeau, you know, and some of the other things that we've talked about, like this is coming from all over the world, right? There's this viral French conspiracy theory documentary. It's been referred to as a French plandemic. It's called Hold Up. The two hour, 40 minute documentary claims to shed new light on the health crisis, but it also effectively brings together an accumulation of conspiracy voices and skeptics.

And there was another big YouTube video this summer that took off. It features Donald Trump and says that he's the only one that can thwart this secret plot. So you see like this conspiracy theory kind of also dovetailing with like anti-maskers and QAnon. You know, this idea that Trump is at like the top of this fight against this cabal of like a pedophile ring, essentially. And he's also the only simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empower empowering Canada's

entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So, you know, you mentioned that Justin Trudeau has responded to this, but, you know, this debate, this Great Reset debate has also bled into Canadian parliamentary politics. Conservative finance critic Pierre Polyev has been criticized for playing into this conspiracy theory with a petition against the Great Reset.

And what is he arguing? Right. So as this was sort of pinging around the internet over the last couple weeks, Pierre Polyev comes forward with his petition, which asked people to sort of pledge their support for or their opposition, I guess, to what he described as global financial elites calling for a great reset, which would re-engineer economies and societies to empower the elites at the expense of the people, and that Canadians must fight back against global elites preying on the fears and desperations of people to impose their power grab. And he links Trudeau to that. So he, Polyev goes pretty far in brushing up against

what is going out into the world as a conspiracy theory. I sometimes wonder if the government's not just covering up the WE scandal here with this endless filibuster, but they also don't want any scrutiny of this grand reset the prime minister is now talking about. The government's grand schemes for social and economic engineering to cover up the power grab that he has lusted over since the beginning of this crisis. The other interesting element here is that Aaron O'Toole, the conservative leader,

then steps forward. He tweets out his own message, which doesn't say anything about global elites or freedom, but he plays the same clip of Trudeau. He essentially suggests it's insensitive to be talking about an opportunity, quote unquote, at this time. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals want to use the pandemic to implement a massive and risky experiment to remake the economy. Which is a bit of an extension of an argument the Conservatives have started to make going back to the throne speech in the fall. You know, they're essentially trying to capitalize on an opportunity to pursue their own ideas and agenda. Right, right. And Aaron, you know, what do you make of all of this? This is where I find this really fascinating because there's definitely a massive conspiracy theory part of this.

But also it's also based in like a real thing. You know, as you mentioned, this is the government that has talked often about reimagining, about opportunities. They've actually used the word reset. And so Pierre Polyev has been criticized for going too far, for flirting too much with the conspiracy. But does O'Toole have a point here? I think you're right. You have to push aside the conspiracy, but does O'Toole have a point here? I think you're right. You have to push aside the conspiracy theorizing and the, you know, the ideas that the global elite are conspiring to take over the world and impose socialism or whatever. What has happened here is there has been this discussion about how countries and governments should move forward and can move forward coming out of this pandemic. And the Trudeau government did try to harness that

energy in the summer. You know, said quite explicitly they were coming forward with a throne speech in the fall that would talk about a pivot point and a plan for moving forward. And that vision included, you know, expanding childcare, expanding pharmacare. We have long understood that Canada cannot succeed if half the population is held back.

Canadians need more accessible, affordable, inclusive and high quality child care. Building a clean economy, dealing with systemic racism. Important steps were taken with the release of Canada's anti-racism strategy for 2019 to 2022. strategy for 2019 to 2022. So that they've at least talked about that agenda and the conservatives have, you know, just introduced a new leader. They don't yet have a full offer for what they want to do. And to be fair, the liberals haven't really put a lot of detail into what exactly would go into their plan. But the sort of conservative, for now, the conservative response to what the Liberals are talking about is essentially this is too early to be talking about these things.

You shouldn't be trying to capitalize. This shouldn't be looked at as an opportunity. And anyway, the way you're talking, it sounds like you're pursuing a bunch of risky ideas. It's a speech from the throne that brought nothing new to Canadians. It's the same old liberal grand schemes and grand promises and big, big words. And they've been saying these kinds of things for the last five years. Too many have lost hope.

Mr. Trudeau says we're all in this together, but Canada has never been more divided. You've got a bit of what I kind of think of as a bit of a phony war for now about some pretty big questions about what government should be doing, what priorities it should look at, and how exactly it should go about trying to address those priorities. And what's your sense of what this current government is actually going to do, though? That's an interesting question. It's hard. It's always hard to know exactly how things are going to look in reality. You know, governments can say, we want to expand access to child care.

But there's a pretty big distance between we want to expand access to child care, but there's a pretty big distance between we want to expand access to child care. And here's exactly how we're going to do it. Here's exactly what we're going to do with the provinces. Here's how much money we're going to provide. Here's what that new access is going to look like. Same thing with anything involving climate policy. It's one thing to say you want to meet or exceed Canada's target for 2030 emissions reductions. It's another thing to say, and exactly here's how we're going to do it. At this point, it's still a

fair amount of big promises, which is something this government has embraced, which this prime minister has embraced. But it's always that big question of exactly how the pieces fit together and how the policies get implemented. Is it fair for me to say here that like, we're hearing a lot about building back better about reimagining about opportunities, we haven't actually seen necessarily anything concrete from this government yet, which like I imagine might give some of the people who are very much wrapped up in this conspiracy theory, some comfort? Yeah, I think there is a bit of a vacuum here where there are big promises, there are big ideas, there's lots of talk about building back better, about reimagining, about resetting. But we aren't really having a debate about practical proposals.

We're still talking about, you know, should we be thinking about reimagining? Is this an opportunity? You know, we haven't reached the point, and we hopefully will soon, where the Liberals are saying, here's what we think we want to do on child care. Here's how we're going to do it. And the Conservatives can either say, well, we do things differently, or we aren't going to do that at all. So we're in this kind of weird world where the liberals are trying to sound ambitious. The conservatives are trying to sound deeply concerned and trying to warn people about what the liberals might be up to. But we don't actually know exactly what the liberals want to do and exactly how they do it.

And therefore, we don't know exactly what the conservatives would do differently. Quite funny. And now you have like all of this conspiracy theory kind of filling the gaps in between all of it. I know that there's an economic update coming next week. Finance Minister Christopher Freeland will be delivering an address. Do you think that we're going to see anything there, any signals there? I think you might see some broad signals. I don't think you're going to see a child care plan in the economic update. I don't think you're going to see a child care plan in the economic update.

I think you might get a sense of what kind of fiscal room the Liberal government is willing to give itself moving forward to deal with all these things. It's not quite clear when the building back better part can start because we're still in the middle of a pandemic. And when you've got lockdowns, it's not really clear that you can embark on big spending plans that are attempting to really generate economic activity or change things at the same time. And so there's a bit of trying to figure out exactly when the building back better part can start. Right. If we're currently still in like full blown triage. All right. So we are going to be watching out next week for that economic update. And Aaron, I hope you'll come back on soon and keep us posted on everything that's going on. But thank you so much for this conversation. Happy to be here. All right, so before we go today, some news on the vaccine front.

Health Canada is saying that approval for the promising Pfizer vaccine should come around the same time as FDA approval. So right now, the U.S. regulatory body is aiming for December 10th. Federal officials also said that as many as 3 million Canadians could be vaccinated in the early months of next year. But there are still a ton of questions around how a rollout is going to work here, when a vaccine will be widely available, and how far behind Canada may be when compared to other countries. We're working on an episode on this and I hope that you'll tune into it next week. That is all for this week. Front Burner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts.

The show is produced this week by Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chao, Shannon Higgins, Ali Janes, Derek Vanderwyk and Jasmine Manning. Our sound design this week was by Derek Vanderwyk and Mandy Sham. Our music is by Joseph Chavison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. And we will talk to you on Monday. Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.