Shaun Newman Podcast - #774 - Jarryd Jäger

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Jarryd Jäger is the British Columbia correspondent for the Western Standard and a lifelong resident of the province. We discuss Trudeau announcing his resignation as Prime Minister of Canada, how a designated terrorist group was to host an Islmac supremacy conference in Ontario, attending/covering protests and how Vancouver has changed over his lifetime. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Contribute to the new SNP Studio E-transfer here: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

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This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Tuesday. Maybe you caught it yesterday. I assume you did.

But Trudeau announcing he's going to be stepping down as leader of the Liberal Party. a whole bunch of other things in there as well. But, uh, okay, that's pretty big news. I never thought he'd say those words aloud. So, um,

you know, part of me was kind of like two, is hoping he would go all the way to the end and go for an election against, uh, Pierre and be absolutely destroyed. Instead, they're going to put in an interim leader,

well, he is the interim leader until the next leader is chosen, which, um, yeah, is going to be a hot tire fire to watch. Regardless, that's the big news of yesterday.

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So over Christmas, we went with the kids and took them for a test drive, a pretty, pretty solid machine. They're open Monday through Saturday, and if you've never been out to their showroom, they've got a beautiful, beautiful showroom, and you can test drive all these different machines out there. Just stop in and see Ryan. That's the manager of the place and tell them I sent you, all right?

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And so my substack review on Sunday at 5 didn't come out on time. but we got it out and we uh we uh tossed out some new pictures of uh some of the work we're doing and having a little bit of fun out at the studio that is uh underway and if you're wanting to uh get your your your name in line to uh you know to be on the wall uh you can be uh like uh grant and kathleen they're the latest to uh get on there but we're doing value for value so if you think what uh the the podcast is doing is worthwhile and you want to have your name on it you can e-transfer that's down the show notes you can join grant and kathleen along with lewis kevin tom and a whole bunch more um you don't have to give money you can also uh if you want to be a part of it skills labor if your business materials

money etc etc etc that's coming here in 2025 we're working on as we speak and that's going to be a ton of fun if you haven't bought your tickets to the cornerstone forum it's heading to calgary may 10th and the keynote and include Martin Armstrong, a CEO of Armstrong economics, Tom Luongo from Gold, Goats and Guns, along with Alex Traynor, Kramer Analytics, Chuck Prodnick. Of course, he's a retired Canadian military. Kalan Ford, she's the founder of Alberta Classical Academy, Chase Barber, founder of Edison Motors, Matt Erritt, Untold History of Canada Book Series. He is the author of it. Ben Perrin, he's the host of BTC sessions talking Bitcoin, Rod Gil Taka, the CEO of Canadian Coalition for Firearms, a firearm rights, I should say, and guests,

Most include Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Tom Bodrovix from Palisade Gold Radio. All the tables to sit at the speakers' tables are now on sales. You can buy those as well. Yeah, if you're listening on Spotify, Apple, YouTube Rumble, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, comment. If you're watching on X right now, yeah, I'm looking at you. Make sure to give it a retweet and a re-X. I don't know. We're calling retweets?

I don't know what we call that. Regardless, help me get through some of the, uh, the, The, I don't know, silos the B, let's expand this thing. All right. Let's get on to that. Tale of the tape. He is the British Columbia correspondent for the Western Standard. I'm talking about Jared Yeager.

So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Jared Yeager. So, sir, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, thanks for having me. I was saying to you know, you came across my ex-time line. and I was kind of like, what is this?

And then I started reading it. And then, of course, now you land on the day we're sitting here recording. It's just after Justin Trudeau announces his intent to resign. I don't know. Is it his resignation? You get the point, folks. I think a lot of us are pretty happy. Either way, Jared's found himself on a perfect time frame to hop on this side of things.

But I guess before we get into, thanks for joining me. but before we get into anything about Jared, let's just, what are your thoughts on Justin Trudeau, his press conference, and I don't know, what did you think from him announcing? This is a big announcement.

Well, I mean, it wasn't completely unexpected, but yeah, it was a matter of when, not if. And even with someone who has as big an ego as he does, eventually you have to realize,

like, hey, I'm not the right person for the job. And he pretty much said as much. If I'm dealing with all these issues within my own party, I'm not the right person to lead this country, especially going into an election. And so good on him for finally admitting that. And we'll go from here.

It would have been nice to see things happen a little bit faster. You know, Parliament's proroked until March 24th now and then leadership race. So who knows when we'll actually see an election, but at least the ball is rolling now. Now the ball's been rolling for four years, it feels like. But, I mean, at this point, we all knew an election was coming in October. This is just kind of, I don't know, a lot of people wanted to see Justin Trudeau go against Pierre

and just get absolutely lamb-baseded. So that's a sad moment. I don't know. On this side, I didn't think he'd ever say it. I thought his ego wouldn't allow him to literally come out and say the things that you're just like, guy he's saying you know like I guess I'm not the guy and I didn't think he'd ever say that I don't did you ever think he was going to come out and literally go on stage and be like I don't know I can't do Justin impersonation folks but you get the point do you think he would ever say those things

I had hopes but I wasn't too optimistic so yeah I was pleasantly surprised when he actually came out and said like hey yeah I'm the problem it's me uh would you look at that I'm the problem Jared, tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, normally I get right into who the heck is on the podcast, but I'm like, this is wild. You know, I just, brilliant on your part. It's like, let's just back this off. We backed it off about 45 minutes, folks, of us having a chat, or I guess half an hour.

And I thought that, I'm like, you're on the ball. Yeah, that makes complete sense. I was like, the only other way is we were going to sit together and watch the bloody thing unfold. But tell us a bit about yourself. Obviously, you've never been on the podcast before, and I want to chat about one of your articles in particular. But for the audience who's probably never heard of Jared either, tell us a little bit about yourself. So I'm born and raised in Greater Vancouver. And yeah, I went to UBC, got a degree in international, not international relations.

That's what I started in. And then I switched my major four times. So by the end, I thought I'll just combine everything into. to interdisciplinary studies, kind of make my own degree. And that kind of set the stage for my career in journalism, because I had such a well-rounded education that I could kind of tackle any topic that came to me. And so after university, I started with the post-millennial.

I was there for just over two years, and then came over to the Western Standard to cover the election here in BC, and I've been with them ever since. What was it about, journalism that, because it like, was that always the goal then or was that something you kind of fell into? Oh, no, ever since I was a kid. Like, go back to my parents' house and in my room, I find stories that I wrote back when I was six, seven years old. And it's, yeah, I've always been a writer

and I've always been interested in, you know, what's going on in the world. And so it just, just made sense. And forgive me. How old are you today? Uh, 28. 28. 28. Okay. Okay. You got, you're going to have the forever baby face for people not watching. I'm like, Jared's going to be the guy who's 50 and everyone's like, are you 27, right? Like you got to, you know, I have a problem with, well, I don't have a problem. I grow lots of hair, as you can tell, a big old beard on me, where I sit today. When you talk about growing up in Vancouver and being a journalist or wanting the background in journalism, when, you know, and being there now and covering the election and everything, what did what have your eyes caught from, uh, Vancouver in that world over the course of the past two years? Well, I would have to say because even though I was living here, I was never really immersed in in BC politics or Vancouver politics. And so covering it so in depth, just immersing myself in that world, it's really been quite eye-opening because, you know,

I could see the changes in society and, you know, just walking down the street. But to actually know why that happened and like what happened, in the in the background to make it so like that I was kind of shocked because people when I told them oh yeah I'm from Vancouver you know first thing that would come to mind is maybe you know the drug crisis or homelessness or high cost of living but as someone who's lived here my whole life I was just well that's just kind of how things are it kind of yeah maybe take a step back and kind of look from an outsider's perspective and think huh we do have some real issues here that need

that need dealing with. Do you think they can, you know, like when you say we have some real issues here, you know, it's funny. When you're like, when you say you're from Vancouver, my first thought, I'm like, I wonder what he's going to say? My brain goes right to Hastings. Like I just, I go like, that is a strange place that most of the, well, not most of the world, but most of Canada, that doesn't have a, maybe they have a small similarity to that.

But overall, that's pretty unique to Vancouver is Hastings. Oh, for sure. You know, when you talk about the problems and now starting to cover politics, do you see people then trying to rectify or fix or solve, whichever word you want to use, the problems that are plaguing Vancouver? Oh, definitely, definitely. Like, especially over the past few years, there's been backlash to the, you know, the leaders who are implementing all these policies.

And, you know, I kind of paid attention to that from the other. outside as a regular citizen, but then jumping into covering all this stuff, I see just how big that backlash really is. And I think the results of the last election showed just how done people are with these problems. Even the NDP, they acknowledged, like, hey, maybe we got a couple things wrong. Let's kind of try something else. And good on the conservatives and everyone on that side for pushing them to do that. Otherwise, who knows, maybe we just keep going down the same road. How is, because where we left the BC election, I think, and you'll know the final tallies, it was like 47 for the NDP and then two for the green and 44 for the conservatives. Am I,

in the ballpark there? I believe so, yes. Yeah. Was, let me just get it here. Yeah, it was 44 for the Conservatives, 47 for the NDP, and two for the Greens. Dang, I was good. Hey, there you go, folks.

My memory is working. How has that been playing out, right? Like, from your eyes, has that been, you know, because right at the end, there was a few different ridings that they, um, they, The mail-in ballots changed things and different things like that. They took a lot of time on a few different spots. It was like, I don't even know.

Was it a week? Was it 10 days? Until they actually said, okay, the NDP have actually won. Has there been any fallout or what are your eyes seen sitting in BC? Well, for one thing, we have a real opposition party now, which is really holding the NDP to account. There's a few MLAs on the conservative side. Where anything happens, they're the first to pounce on it. Take to Twitter and say, like, hey, NDP, fix this.

And they've been good at mobilizing support within the community to, again, put pressure on the NDP. So that's been nice to see. Very interesting to me just sitting a province over, right? Like we watched, we did live coverage of it. We watched it play out. And, you know, it was very tight. And now, like, you know, like, obviously things move on and I'm not sitting in BC. So it's, you know, people ask from time to time, like, I wonder what ended up happening in BC.

And from your eyes, having an official opposition party that can actually hold the NDP to account has been a great thing. I mean, people wish the conservatives maybe got the majority. I'm sure they do. But them having that many seats, they can really put a lot of pressure then on the NDP in your eyes. Exactly, exactly. And for such a young party, like, that's a pretty exceptional achievement in and of itself to go from zero seats all the way up to 44. Now, one of the things that, well, the reason I reached out is I read one of your articles on, and you're going to have to break this down for me because I was trying to like, like, party of liberation is the theme of the conference, eliminating obstacles that are delaying. return of the Islamic caliphate.

I hope I'm saying that right. I read this. It's out in Ontario. And I read your article. I'm like, what? I just need to, you've got to help me understand this. Like, what is going on? Well, it's pretty hard to believe, hey?

So basically this group, I'm trying to pronounce it, his but Tarrier. They're a designated terrorist and extremist group pretty much everywhere else in the world. including most of the Arab world Germany and the UK but not in Canada not in the US and so they've been kind of given free reign to

recruit members hold meetings and promote their ideology which is essentially the return of Islamic Empire beginning in the Middle East and then you know obviously expanding outwards

and so yeah the The theme of the conference is basically how can they defeat the non-Muslim world powers to ensure that this caliphate comes into existence. And the reason that they're banned in a lot of these other countries, for example, Pakistan, is because they want, they advocate essentially for the end of nation states. and they want all Muslim nations to unite under their idea of Islam and kind of form together the Islamic Caliphate. Doesn't this seem like... I don't know. But it doesn't it seem like it's a bit of a... I don't know if it's a growing trend, but certainly I'm starting to notice it more like the one that, you know, from India is the Palestinians.

right and and and i was just in just on new years i was talking to a guy who had immigrated from india and i asked him about i was just like just give me the cole's notes like do you know anything about this he's like oh yeah and i'm like oh are they as bad you know like i don't know he's like india is is created a called him a designated a terrorist group sorry and yet he goes here in canada they're allowed to like roam about and it isn't a big deal and then you know and she got maybe india I don't know. Maybe it isn't as bad as what you think. But then I read this story. I'm like, so now this is the second from different cultures, you know, that, and I'm sure the listeners are going to rattle me off a bunch more. But like, this is the second one now where I'm like,

and there's probably more than I'm forgetting. That's getting to play out rate in live, you know, in real time in Canada. They get to meet. They get to protest. They get to do all these things. And you're like, like, this is pretty strange, isn't it? Oh, yeah. And, you know, Canada has become, I don't know, a safe space for these extremist groups. And to put that in perspective, last year, because this group, they hold their conference in Ontario every year. But last year, the government of the UK designated them a terrorist organization, basically zeroing in on their, can't even say hatred of Israel, that they want erase it from the map.

And so obviously that was determined to be a little bit too extreme to be going on in the UK because they would hold rallies and go out on the streets and, you know, in with all the anti-Israel protesters. And so the government eventually said, okay, that's enough. You guys are banned. And so when that decision was made, a day later, the group here in Canada, they canceled their conference. because I guess it kind of scared them like oh maybe we should kind of lay low for a while

but then what surprises me is since then like over the past year they've become emboldened enough to say hey I guess the conditions are fine now for us to host this conference and I think that we can lay the blame for that in large part at the foot of the federal government which is really taking its time to not just condemn these hateful groups, these anti-Semitic groups, but to do what the rest of the world has done and designate them terrorist organizations. What's like when you release this article, I don't know, do readers reach out? Like how has the feedback been on, I don't actually know how that works. Do you get tons of feedback off of the things you write, Jared?

Oh, for sure, for sure. And especially with this article, tons of people reached out to me all across the country. And the more it took off, the more people in their respective regions kind of brought attention to it. And a lot of readers in the Mississauga, Ontario area, they really hammered the mayor over there saying, hey, how can you allow this? to take place in your city because last year there was a vigil planned for

I believe it was Yahya Sinwar one of the leaders of Ahazbullah and she compared him to Nelson Mandela. She said like yeah they're both freedom fighters

and so yeah so a lot of people went after her for essentially making the city what do you call it like a safe space for these types of people and she to her credit she took action and used what resources she had to make it clear to this group that you know you're not welcome here and as a result it looks like now they've moved the conference to hamilton and And again, people shifted their, their ire over to the mayor of Hamilton, Andrea Horvath. And she put out a statement just this morning saying the same thing, like, you're not welcome here. So the public backlash to this has been immense.

And I'm quite grateful for it. How did you, if you don't mind Sharon, like, how did you stumble? Like, is this, like, how did you find out about it? Like, like, oh, so for work, I spend a inordinate amount of time on Twitter. And as I was scrolling through, I saw this video. Just shared by a smaller account and I kind of looked like, oh, something's up here. And so I did some digging, went to their website, found all the information and quickly put a story up. And yeah, it just went, went crazy viral.

Isn't that that that that that right there's something you think about it you know like I think about the the podcast and how I find a ton of people now I find a ton of people a lot of different ways but one of the ways is X right like I was thinking even as we started I'm like I remember when he changed it to the name X like how long is going to take me to say that right because Twitter is so ingrained and you know I don't how long ago was that now folks but I'm starting to I guess the hurdle is maybe starting to start to to be jumped because I lead off with X regardless. X has been a really interesting platform,

especially since Elon took over because, you know, like I find tons of interesting people on there. And you just said, you broke a story on this terrorist group, getting together off of a couple of videos and then doing research online. I mean, I just think of how, how important is it to have X where you can open it up and actually start doing some digging?

And that doesn't make any sense. And then actually do more and then explode something on there. I'm like, think about that for a second, folks. Like that's, that's a pretty wild thought, I think. You know, that there's a social media platform. And maybe that's the way it's always been done. Not always been done, I mean, but in maybe the last decade. Yeah, I think like the similar, similar thing.

have happened just expedites the process, right? Because for example, like I saw that video. It was suggested for me. I guess the algorithm knew I was looking for stuff like that. And kind of shared it with a bigger audience. I wrote a whole article in a Twitter thread. That thread went viral. And then the more people that share it, the more people see it, obviously. And then eventually it even caught the attention of Elon Musk. who he didn't share the article. He shared someone else's tweet with a screenshot of the article. But yeah, the community notes, they came in and verified that everything that I had said was true.

And so, yeah, I mean, without X, I think we still would have found a way to bring attention to this. just having that platform made everything 100 times faster, right? And because you can respond in real time, like the mayor of Mississauga, just to clarify, she compared Nelson Mandela to the leader of Hamas, not Hezbollah. Yeah, she was commenting in response to people who were commenting on my post. And so before she put out an official statement on her website or whatnot, she was talking on X. And it just goes to show. Like that's...

Have you ever had... Have you ever had in your... in your career anything quite like this? Like, is this something unique? Or are you like, oh, no, this actually happens. It's once a year. 10 times a year. Whatever it is.

Well, as of now, it's once a year. Because, yeah, covering protest is kind of my thing. And so when these groups were holding their October 7th anniversary rallies, last year. I was down on the ground here in Vancouver and I got a couple of clips that went pretty, pretty viral. One of a bunch of the anti-Israel protesters burning the Canadian flag and another one of the protesters openly declaring to cheers from the audience, we are Hezbollah, we are Hamas. And those clips went pretty viral, caught the attention of, well, millions of people, but also political leaders here in BC.

I was discussed in the House of Commons. And Pierre Poliov, he brought attention to it as well. So that was kind of my first, I guess, big break. And so I guess kind of fitting that the second one also has to do with terrorist groups. When you talk about your specialty of going down and covering protests, and you're around, you know, I don't know, are the extremist groups, probably. But I guess like, you know, most people are like, me, I'm probably not going to go down there, right? And certainly you're not going to film it.

Has that been like, yeah, I don't know, walk me through that. Like, is that something that's nerve-wracking or is it way more peaceful than the common person things? I don't know. I've always kind of been drawn to these sorts of events, like the, just, the controversial things but i never i never really went down to these things regularly until i started working at the post millennial and one of my now former colleagues beth everything i learned about covering protests and being out in out in the field like that i learned from her because she would go out into these things, like right into the middle of, you know, the Antifa protests and the anti-Israel

protests and just really put herself not in harm's way, but, you know, there was a potential that something could happen to her. And seeing that, I was like, huh, okay, well, I guess, yeah, if you do this properly, you can make it work. And so, yeah, she taught me everything I know. and I've just gotten used to it. Like for me now, it's, it's nothing to just walk into these protests and just kind of start filming. Like,

I feel, I feel pretty comfortable because I know, I know where to go, what to avoid. So when you, when you say she taught you everything you know, right, like,

oh, how to cover a protest properly. What is that, like, I guess, what do you mean? Like, is there certain things you shouldn't do?

Is there certain areas you, you should? should avoid. I assume the answer is yes, but like when you say that, like what do you, paint me a picture. Like when you walk up to a protest, all right, you see them all standing there. Like, what's the first thing you should know should do or shouldn't do? I don't know. Like, what's one of the first lessons you learned? Well, the most important thing is, uh, not to join either side in terms of like shouting the slogans or, or like, you shouldn't participate in the protest. You should be a bystander. Your job.

as a journalist is to cover what other people are saying. Right? And you can, that's not entirely objective. You can pick and choose which quotes you want to include in your post. But for example, like, even when I go to a pro-Israel rally, I don't join in with them and start chanting. You know, I'm Israel, hi, right?

I'm kind of off to the side and then just letting things happen. Because once they, you know, once they see someone in their midst recording and kind of joining them, I don't know, there might be a little bit, a little bit wary. So, yeah, best thing to do is just stick to the outside, just kind of be as inconspicuous as possible. What, what, I'm curious, how many, like in your, in your, I don't know, I call it, I, I have a short career. So don't take short career to mean anything offensive or anything. I just look at I go, we're both in pretty new careers, if you would. When you look at your short career of covering protests, I assume, and maybe I assume this is wrong,

that different groups of people have a different feel of them. Like, is there certain groups you show up and you're like, I got to have my head on my shoulders, this, you know, hmm, this is interesting? Or are they all like that? Like are like is there do each group have a bit of a their own mentality or their own like atmosphere or are all protests relatively similar? No, there's definitely some where I feel like, okay, I need to kind of take a step back here. Especially the the anti-Israel protest because, you know, a lot of the people who were there, they're what you could call pro-Palestinian. Like they just want, you know, peace and

the region they want the the bombing of gaza to stop but then right next to them there's someone who wants to eradicate israel from the map and it's it's in situations like when i heard that that speaker say we are hesbullah we are chamas that i kind of like i don't know i something changed in that moment i was like okay this is this is a different kind of protest but when it's when it's peaceful when they're not, you know, parroting extremist talking points, then, you know, I feel relatively the same, no matter which protest I'm at, whether it's an anti-climate change protest or, you know, covering the trucker convoy when it came through Vancouver.

In those cases, it's just people with a message who want to get that message out. But, yeah, the anti-Israel ones are a little bit different feel to them. You know, when you, when you're talking about that and you say things, you can like, something's changed. Have you thought about that? Like, I assume it's because they, they have intent behind their, like, they want to eradicate that group of people. Or that, maybe that thought process. I'm not sure. I don't know.

You're the guy standing there. You're going, something has changed. When you say something has changed, like, I feel like it's probably palpable. It's like, uh-oh. The old air just. got a little bit cooler or whatever you know where do you want to associate with it have you thought about that like like at i don't know further than that's just changed uh well like i was saying earlier these groups they've become emboldened over the past year to kind of say whatever

they want and do whatever they want and yeah in that moment um i kind of felt like okay maybe they've been thinking this for a while, but now they feel comfortable enough to say it out loud. And that's a, like, that, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, like, once people start professing, we are a terrorist group and, you know, just openly in Vancouver, like that's, I think that should put fear into the, into the, into the hearts of everyone. Sorry, no, finish your thought. Finish your thought. I was just going to say, to the government's credit after that,

because it was a group called Sammy Dunin that organized that protest. And shortly after that happened, the government finally designated them a terrorist organization. Obviously, they found ways to get around that. They're still, their proxies are holding rallies here in Vancouver. But that particular group, I guess they did cross a line. when they openly declared themselves to be a terrorist group. So at least,

at least that was sort of dealt with. I guess the next thing, you know, you're talking about like an actual, they're like saying things and they're, you know, talking about being an actual terrorist group and wanting to do things like that and death of Canada and like wild,

wild things. I'm like, is this 50 people? This is 500 people. This is 5,000 people. This is 50,000 people. Like, and once again,

at the rallies you're at. I'm not, well, I mean, I'm concerned about all of Canada, but I mean, from your eyes, when you go there, you know, like, a camera can zone in and you can, you can have and make it feel like there's 5,000 people there. Or you can make it seem like there's only five people there. When you're at this and you're hearing these things, you're like, holy man, the old vibe in this place just changed real fast.

Like, are you talking about like thousands of people or is this a smaller number? Well, at that protest that I was talking about on October 7th, there were hundreds of people. And yeah, it's so hard to tell because I got a shot of the crowd cheering after the person got on stage and said, we are Hezbollah, we are Hamas. And, you know, I tried to look and see how many people are actually cheering along. And it was surprisingly a majority. Now, you have to think, like, a lot of these people are, you know, true believers in that ideology. But I also noticed that there were a lot of, for lack of a better word, like North American leftists who they were cheering along. But part of me wonders, like, do you really know what you're cheering for?

or have you been kind of fed this idea of what this is about? No, these are just freedom fighters or whatever. And so, yeah, it makes me wonder, like, these people who are cheering, like, do they know really what they're cheering for? I assume that happens at almost all protests, though, no? Oh, yeah, yeah. Right? Or you got your people that are like true believers. They know exactly what's going down, what's being said.

the inner workings. And then there's probably the people there that have not no clue, but certainly not all the specifics. I assume that's pretty much normal for any protest. Oh, definitely. Especially the ones that, you know, kind of have like a, I guess a happier message to them, like the climate change protests. Like you get people there who are, like they, I guess they're the ideologues at the forefront.

But then you have people. at the back, we're like, hey, this seems like a good cause. I'm going to come and I'm going to chant what they're chanting. Right. I mean, it's a little more dangerous when you're dealing with chanting terrorist slogans, but it's the same, it's the same idea. You know, maybe chatting terror slogans isn't such a great idea. When you're, I feel like maybe, and maybe I'm wrong on this.

But at the same time, I'm like, when you're covering protests, you probably get a pretty decent vibe of some underlying problems of a society. Maybe I'm right on that. Maybe I'm wrong. But I just see like, oh, that's a red flag. That's, that's a guy. Oh, that's interesting. Because if that's the realm you're in, you're probably starting to pick up on some trends of like, oh, we should probably be concerned about that. When you say it at Canada today, what are the things that you think Canadians should know about? That is like, yeah, it isn't full blown, but, you know, this is a trend that I'm seeing that we should be concerned about. I'd say my number one issue right now is just the

ability of these extremist groups to kind of operate freely and some of these extreme views to be held and like just openly. And I think a lot of the issue comes down to people being afraid to speak up or say anything for fear being labeled Islamophobic or bigoted or anything like that, right? Because, and it's, which is sad, because the more that we as Canadians are afraid to speak up about this, the more that emboldens these hate groups to come in and basically render Canadian society inoperable.

Right? Like if we can't all come together and say like, hey, this group is bad. They shouldn't operate here. How can we how can we have a functioning society? Obviously there needs to be healthy discussions, but in some cases it's pretty pretty clear cut. And I think one thing I've noticed with the backlash to this Islamist conference in Ontario is that it's not just the usual suspects who, were coming out against it, you know, more so the right wing. But it's also just regular people who are like, hey, this seems like a bad idea. And so maybe the tides are turning. But yeah, I think we, just as a society, we need to be more okay with speaking out against these groups without fearing being labeled hateful or anything. We need to stand on those principles. That's been

well that's one of the things I like Bo Dax honestly is you know you mentioned in there covering the the Freedom Convoy when it came through Vancouver different parts of that protest and certainly

one of the things I like about X is in order to get to like what group do we not want in society there has to be a healthy conversation otherwise you get what happened in COVID where it's like no we don't want these people, but they're not allowed to debate, debate the merits of it because every platform under the sun scrubbed them from, you know, just went kind of scorched earth on, on that thought process.

So when you have a diversity in opinion, then you get to have healthy debate to where you can get to hopefully, like, maybe this isn't a group we want to have, you know, promoted in Canada. and maybe we get to a point where we can actually have an open discussion and get to that consensus of like, yeah, we don't need that. Exactly. And I think that's happening. But what needs to come next is action, right? Because, you know, sunlight is the best disinfectant, right? And these groups coming out and kind of exposing themselves. And then that going on to X, going viral, more people, seeing it, that's good. Everyone knows they're bad now. But then we need leaders to come in and say, like, we agree that they're bad and not just say that, but then take action to back that up. Say like, okay, you're not allowed to do this anymore. You're not allowed to do that. This group is banned. And I'd like to see more of that, more follow through from the politicians, rather than just we condemn all forms of hate in Canada,

the usual response when anything like this happens. You know, you're 10 years younger than me. Your age group, are they like, are you an anomaly, I guess is what I'm curious about, or there are a ton of, you know, late 20s that are starting to pay attention to the state of Canada or, or, you know, I don't know, your thoughts on that? I think for a while we didn't have to. And so a lot of my friends, they're kind of politically oblivious, for lack of a better word. But in the recent months, like, it's become kind of hard to not think about politics, right?

Like, you can be completely detached from anything that's happening in Victoria or in Ottawa. But when you're walking down the street and, you know, you pass 10 people who are overdosing and, you know, almost dying in front of you. And then you go on, you know, realtor.com and you're trying to find a house to buy. And it's way outside your price range. You're kind of forced to say, like, hey, why is this happening? And kind of get involved.

And so I've seen a shift over the past little while of people, especially in my age bracket, who are kind of looking at buying their first home or starting a family. And I've seen them get more, engaged with what's happening, which is good to see because... Well, engagement is important, right? If you have low engaged, well, I don't know. I heard what is what is they say politics is in a spectator sport, right?

Like you got to be involved in it. Otherwise, you know, you get what you get. And certainly right now we have gotten a healthy dose of something that is not what any, I don't think most Canadians want, right? Like, I mean, everything you just said, it's like, well, I want to buy a house. Can't afford one. I want to start a family. Can't afford to do that. You know, and like the fact that 10 people overdosing as you walk down the street, I mean, I can't imagine, you know, where I come from, seeing one person overdose would be pretty, I don't know, shocking.

10, I'm like 10. You saw 10 on the same? you know, I'm like, that's, that's pretty wild. That's a wild thing to just say even. Oh, yeah, exactly. It should be, but it's almost like, especially the living in downtown Vancouver, you become desensitized to it, right? Like you walk down Granville Street, well, any night, really.

And yeah, you'll pass just hordes of people just doing drugs out in the sidewalk. And some, like I say, passed out on the, on the street. and then you look around and everyone's just kind of going about their business, stepping over them. It's like, how did we get to a point where someone's dying on the ground and nobody's calling 911? It's just like, another one.

Like, that's pretty, pretty dystopian, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what,

what, like when you're sitting around the dinner table, the coffee table, the, you're sitting at the pub, you're having a pint, I don't know what you do in your office. hours, but you're sitting around having a chat in Vancouver and people are talking, like,

does this come up a conversation? He's just kind of like, you know, like, yeah, another guy died. You know, oh, another stabbing. It's just part of being in a giant city like Vancouver. Well, it didn't used to be. Used to, like back when I was in high school, like I grew up in Maple Ridge, which is about an hour to the east of downtown Vancouver. And my friends and I, after school, we'd come down and, you know, hang out for the evening,

walk down Granville, whatnot. And even back then, like the issues were kind of restricted to certain areas. Like you would know, okay, don't go down to the downtown east side because that's where that's where this is happening. Or don't go here. That's where this is happening. But what we've seen over the past 10 years is everything's kind of spreading to even the nicer areas of downtown. Right. And, you know, on Granville Street, you know, you'd walk down and you'd see some.

you know, traveling homeless people just playing music, smoking weed, whatever. But you wouldn't really see hard drugs. And now it's like every block. Like I said, there's just a group smoking crack or shooting up. And there's a new place that just opened called the Rec Room. It's been built as like the new go-to spot on Granville. And I was walking past it a few weeks ago. And there's just a bunch of needles, a bunch of used needles sitting outside the entrance.

and it's like, this is not okay. How did it get to this point? I don't know. That's, um, maybe. Well, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I'm curious your thoughts on, the things that come out is like safe supply. I'm like, well, I don't know. Like, to me, that doesn't seem like a good idea, but maybe, you know, maybe you have

different thoughts on that. I mean, I'm mine, I would say a minority of the deaths, uh, due to, to overdose here in BC are due to, you know, tainted supply and, you know, dirty needles and stuff like that. But where a safe supply goes wrong, I think is that, you know, it gets people into these rooms where they can do their clean drugs safely. But then it just sends them back out out onto the street. Like that should, like, safe supply should be like an aspect of a greater plan. It can't just be the plan, right? And there's a there's a safe supply activist down here, a guy fellichella. And he's made the point that like bars are kind of like safe supply

centers for alcohol, right? Like you go, you drink and then you leave. But if an alcoholic needs help, you wouldn't tell them, you know, just go to the bar. are and then go on your merry way. Right? Like, yes, that's a good place to start. But then you need to be, you know, put in treatment. You need to get the help that you need to eventually wean yourself off the, off the drugs or alcohol.

It's not, it shouldn't be a plan to just allow people to keep going like this just in a safer way. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. BC is always, well, it's such a beautiful place, right? Like, I mean, it's absolutely gorgeous. But then you see some of the policies that have been put in place there.

You hear your, you know, one of the things that I think about, you know, like you growing up near the heart of Vancouver is, you know, one of the things sitting here for a homeless man or a homeless woman where I sit and it gets to minus 40. and you know like you just go you don't want to stay here and so everybody just talks about how people head west they had to they head to better climate and you guys are the last stop essentially and so you know not only do you have the problems of bc and some of the policies that happen there but then you also have the problems of i assume all of canada or a majority of canada because they had i don't know what the the watershed spot would be if i don't know if that's

the right way to say it, but, you know, of where people travel towards Vancouver, but you would probably see people from all over Canada ending up at your doorsteps. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jared, I appreciate, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this. If people want to find your work, your writing, anything like that, where would they go? So you can find me on X at Jared Yeager. And of course, all my stuff is on the Western standard. And on the side, I do a lot of travel writing as well.

So if you want to find that, it's linked on my ex account. What do you mean travel writing? Like, I mean, I guess I understand what you mean. But at the same time, I'm like, we talk in travel writing like you went to Colonna? Or we're talking travel writing like you went to, I don't know, Belize? Not that far. So mostly Europe, like half my family lives over in, in Europe, so I've been over there quite a few times.

And yeah, going back to, well, ever since I can remember, I've been a pretty avid traveler. It's kind of slowed down over the past few years, just with work and everything, more responsibility. But for a while there, it was just pretty much go, go, go. And so what I've done recently is go back through all those old trips, and even some of the recent ones, and just kind of recounted some of the most memorable stories and talked about my favorite destinations.

What are your favorite destinations? Because I love, you know, things have changed on this side too. Kids and work and everything, but certainly enjoy traveling. What has been some of your favorite destinations? Obviously going back to Germany is always nice to see family, but South Africa is probably one of my favorite places in the world. Why? Why?

Well, it's a bit of a long story. So during COVID, you know, obviously couldn't travel, right? And so I thought, okay, what can I do? And so I found this app, Tune in Radio. It allows you to listen to radio stations anywhere in the world. And I came across this one from Johannesburg. And you know, I didn't know too much about South Africa, so I thought, okay, I'll just give this a shot.

And over the next few months, I just fell in love with the show and got to know the hosts. And yeah, I just immersed myself in that country. And it was interesting. After like a year or so of listening, I felt like I knew quite a bit about life in the country because, you know, get it from a local's perspective. So like I could tell you what the best grocery stores to go to, where the safest areas were. but I couldn't tell you what are the top 10 tourist attractions in Johannesburg. And so that was kind of a weird place to be.

Like I was almost like a temporary local from 10,000 kilometers away. So eventually we actually went down there, met up with some of the guys from the show, which was pretty cool. And since then, I've, you know, every day I tune into South African radio first thing in the morning. and yeah, just mentally, I'd say half the time I'm like mentally over there, even while physically being here in Vancouver. And so, yeah, I'm working on a longer book right now about that trip and just what interested me in South Africa. It's coming along quite nicely, but yeah.

And then, and then I believe I heard in there, your families, you got a majority of your family or a good chunk of your family sitting in Europe and Germany specifically? Yeah. So my dad, he's from Germany and then my mom's from Canada. They were actually pen pals back in the 90s. And then that's how they met? Oh yeah, yeah. And he moved to Canada in 95, just like a year before I was born. and yeah, he's been here ever since. But yeah, his whole family still lives back in Germany. How, forgive me, you know, like I know people meet on the internet these days.

Like I know a ton of, like I understand that, but pen pals. Like did they just both sign up for, uh, oh, I want to be pen pal this person? Or is there more to the story than they just were pen pals? I mean, it was in the newspaper. I can't remember who it was. It was either my, my mom looking for. a pen pal in Europe or my dad looking for a pen pal in Canada, but somehow they found each other through the, through the newspaper. And yeah, it's a funny story, though, because my dad sent a

picture of himself to my mom, but he never saw how she looked until he actually arrived in Vancouver. And they, they hit it off. And yeah, next thing you know, you know, in today's world, and in today's world, that would be a scam where you're like, yeah, I didn't see them at all. Yeah, I just, yeah, got somebody I'm talking to over in some other country. That'd be a giant scam. We'd be like, that is a scam right now. Jared, that is a scam.

But your parents, you know, like, that's a, that's a, that's a wild story. Yeah. Honestly. She was up in, in small town Canada, too, up in Quinnell. Wow. Near Prince George. And yeah, yeah, yeah. He met her at the, uh, Quinnell.

airport and that was that that Jared appreciate you you hopping on doing this um uh well i don't know you writing for the western standard i follow what the the group there does and among other places here in canada and i just you know i don't know what the future holds for you but certainly i'm glad you got a chance to or gave me the opportunity to have you on i should say and uh showcase some of what you're doing here for for Canadians and well i guess we'll wait in see what comes on your side of things either way thanks for for doing this this morning and what a what a day justin trudeau uh stepping well announcing his resignation and we'll see where that goes we'll see with the liberal leadership uh any predictions on who's going to be the new leader of the liberal party

could be anyone at this point but i think if i were to put money on it either carney or christie clark i think christie clark maybe i think christopher It's a little bit too tied to Trudeau's record. So it'll be hard for her to distance herself from the disaster that's unfolded over the past nine years. But Carney and Clark, they're kind of, you know, relative newcomers. They could hop in and say, hey, we'll take it in a new direction. But it's anyone's guess right now. And then any guess on when the election actually happens?

Sure. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but. we've all been saying that yeah yeah yeah i've no idea october for sure folks we'll see if it happens before then uh jared thanks for hopping on and doing this and uh well well we'll pay attention with everything you got going on in the future thanks for uh for hopping on yeah thanks for having me