Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP/WS Roundtable #3

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Tonight we discuss how one man's tweet with the hashtag TrudeauMustGo went viral over the course of week. We will hear the story and discuss what this means in regards to the political landscape as we sit today & moving forward. Guests: Martin Belanger a.k.a "Marty Up North" - 30+ years as an Engineer in the Oil & Gas sector who is better known as Marty Up North from his following on Twitter & YouTube. Alexandra Kitty - Author, journalist & expert in the field of propaganda Darshan Maharaja - Chartered accountant from India who since immigrating to Canada writes commentary as an independent on Canadian policies & issues November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's.   Get your tickets here: https://snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

Good evening and welcome to the Sean Newman Show on the Western Standard. We are talking the hashtag Trudeau must go. Today I'm joined by three guests, Martin Blanche, a 30 plus years and an engineer in the oil field and gas sector, who is probably better known as Marty Up North from his following on Twitter and YouTube, Alexander Kitty, author, journalist, an expert in the field of propaganda, and Darshan Maharaja, I hope I said that right, chartered accountant from a lot. India, who's since immigrating to Canada, writes commentary as an independent on Canadian

policies and issues. First off, to all of you, thanks for joining me tonight. Nice to be here. Thank you. Wonderful to be here. Thank you. I always do this at the start of these. It's just a reminder that this conversation is more of a roundtable.

I want you guys to be respectful of one another, certainly from a sense of respecting one of each other's opinions, but also, as it's different. virtual, sound quality, that type of thing. If we let one finish their piece and move on, try and keep things concise and to the point so that everyone can get their saying, I'd appreciate that. But either way, when you feel like there's something to be said, feel free to hop in. It doesn't always have to come back to me. I always bring up ping pong, Marty.

As you know, it's not a game of ping pong. It doesn't always got to come back to the host. I really want this to be a discussion, a round table, as you will. So with that all being said, let's start here. September 13th, the tweet went, I'm a 55-year-old Canadian. I'm married, father of four, university-educated, perfectly bilingual, and I'm an engineer solving problems for 35 plus years. I'm a volunteer hockey coach and an avidoreseman.

According to Trudeau, I'm an extremist who needs to be dealt with. Hashtag Trudeau must go. And since then, we've had 2 million-plus interactions, tweets with it. That's just Twitter. I've seen it all across. Instagram, Facebook, you know, different people have written about it now. You get the point.

I want to start, I guess, with Marty and go, what is Trudeau must go? And maybe lead us through a bit of the experience. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, you know, the tweet almost never happened. As you said in the intro, I work in Alberta, but I'm, you know, my previous social presence is as an outdoor guy. I have a channel where I focus

that's focused on the fact that I do a lot of hiking in Iraqis. And so I was supposed to be hiking two weeks ago. Forest fires in British Columbia, bad weather brought me back home. And I was at home last week and I was supposed to be on days off. So I wasn't working. And typical engagement,

I often get on Twitter and do some engagements with people. And that morning I was engaging with somebody and I don't exactly remember the circumstances, but somehow or other, we reference something to do with discrimination and the rights of minorities. And, you know, I've been on Twitter for a long time. I'm also political. I follow a bit of politics. And a video came to mind of Mr. Trudeau on a Quebec TV show saying something. And I was trying to use that while I was doing that engagement. And then the

engagement ended. But, but I, you know, afterwards, I'm still looking at that video. In fact, what I realized is I picked, the video is in French. And I ended up as part of that engagement, putting captions on the video. And, and it's in the process of translating and really thinking about what Mr. Trudeau had said that something snapped for me. And, and, you know, I'm going to paraphrase in English what Mr. Trudeau said in French. But, you know, he was on a talk show and he said something like the way out of the pandemic is through vaccination. And let's remember this talk show was back in September of last year during the political, during the election campaign.

So he said, we're going to get our way out of this pandemic through vaccination. And he said, there's still some people that are fiercely opposed to vaccination. And then the host, the female host, interjected and said something like they're extremists. And Mr. Trudeau didn't correct her. He continued on. he said they're often anti-science, often racist and often misogynistic. And then he went on further to say, you know, that leads me to ask the question as the leader of this country, do we tolerate these people?

And then he, you know, he went on further to say something else. So now the engagement with the other individuals over and I'm sitting there and I'm rethinking this. And like I felt, I felt attacked for some reason. And so then I decided that I was more or less addressing Mr. Trudeau. So I decided to send that tweet. So I picked an older picture of myself in black and white. And then underneath I just wrote, I flipped those words on him.

I said, you know, I'm a Canadian or I'm an engineer. I'm a father. I'm a husband. I'm a volunteer hockey coach, an engineer. And but according to you, I'm somebody who's an extreme. that needs to be dealt with. And so it was just like that. But then I also had a sense that I wanted to send it out to Mr. Trudeau.

So if anybody who goes through my timeline on Twitter will see that I sell them use hashtags, it's not something I do. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to use a hashtag. And I, you know, I start typing Trudeau. And then, and quite honestly, in French, if I'm thinking, Trudeau, you've got to go or you've got to leave. it's like Trudeau, it's nasty slang, but I'm kind of, I mean, I'm, my French brain is engaged at that point. So Trudeau must go is how it came out for me. And it was, you know, it's an existing

hashtag, boom, send it out. And that was it. Then I went outside to go mow my lawn. You know, and, and Marty, to follow up on that, I mean, I was just joking with you before we started. I put out a tweet the other day and I don't have notifications. I'm not a big guy on that. I just, you know, puts something out and then you see you come back and you're like oh god that that really hit well that was on you times i don't know uh a million i mean you come back and not only do you have uh people engaging with it you have um people engaging against it and i actually wanted to bring well well at first it was you know the first thing that happens so at that point my my my twitter channel has whatever 8000 followers and so when i come back four hours later after cutting my lawn um i

I got like, you know, a thousand likes. And so it's like, I know that's resonating because I don't normally get that many likes on a tweet. And then it's being retweeted, which is fabulous, which is interesting. And, you know, if you've been on Twitter long enough, you kind of understand sort of these mechanics of what's happening. So I know something's happening. But then more remarkable is that I'm getting comments. And normally when you start getting a lot of comments as a result of a tweet, it's negative. because, you know, it's easy to like something, but it's hard to, there's no unlike button.

So if somebody doesn't like your tweet, they're going to comment. So I'm like, I'm opening up to go see what the comments are, and they're overwhelmingly positive. So it's like, oh, I'm not being ratioed in a negative way. And then something really, really remarkable happened, which is people took that sort of weird template that I created. Yeah, cookie cuttered what you'd done and stuff. But it wasn't entirely cookie cutter because it was, um,

their own story and then how they ended it. Like I ended it somehow, you know, I don't remember exactly, but I think I said, you know, according to you, I'm an extremist who needs to be dealt with. Somebody else said, according to you, I'm racist. According to you, I'm, you know, people took a different, and I just want to say a fourth thing or another thing is that the comments were fabulous as getting comments.

But then the other thing that I realized is that the tweet that somehow busted out of my echo chamber because I was getting comments, from people that I recognize that I would not normally get comments from because, you know, if you follow Marty up north, you're following me because of my outdoor adventures, my slight political leanings and a few random things. I mean, Marty up north on Twitter doesn't, you know, it doesn't usually get a comment from somebody in Nova Scotia who's a nurse. So would you say, uh, Alexander that he tapped into something that, that has been lying a little bit dormant or, or something along the lines of that? I know we

We've had previous discussions on how much propaganda really has been on the mainstay here in the media and everything else. What do you think happened there? Because at the end of the day, it kind of reminds me when the truckers left. When the truckers went, it just kind of encapsulated a group of people's energy. And when they saw it, they understood it. And what Marty's talking about feels kind of similar. It's very similar. What in journalism people know about it?

called putting a face on the story. So you can talk about a constitutional law and people go, whatever. When you start putting a face on somebody and you say, this person's been negatively impacted by this law, people can relate. So what happened here is we have now, you know, a person that people can relate to saying, okay, my life has been totally disrupted. I've been totally gratuitously labeled a villain and this is who I am. You know, naked for the world to see and I am brave. This is who I am. And now, you know, I'm paying taxes to this institution that's targeting me.

And people can relate to this. This is like, you know, a nightmare for people. You're minding your own business. You're being kind. You're being nice. And then somebody for, you know, trying to rig a board to win something is attacking you. And we can all relate to this. You know, you do your job and your boss yells at you.

Or you're very nice to somebody. who stabs you in the back. And this is what we have. We are starting to see people who are saying, I am not a villain. I am not a faceless enemy because with propaganda, we make people enemies by embracing their faces. So when we had this saying,

okay, we're putting a face on this person. Now you have to look this person in the eye and explain yourself to them. This nice person who's paying their taxes helps other people, shares their experiences, and now you're going to tell him what. See, look at him in the eye and say it again. Give me your evidence this person is bad.

I bet you if I talk to everybody around, they're going to say, this is a really nice person. Sorry, and that's exactly what I was thinking. And for me, it was like it was one point in particular. You know, after analyzing it, I realize his whole quote was bad. But for me, at that moment, it was one point. And it was being called anti-science because I'm like, wow, he just, he just, he just stereotyped somebody who's against the vaccine in this instance as anti-science. And that's drunk with me because I'm an engineer. I have a degree on the wall that says Bachelor of Applied Science.

So I took a, I just took offense at that. And in fact, there's more. I should have taken offense to more. But for me, that was the bid. Darsha, and I'm curious your thoughts. you know, Alexander brought up rigging a board, and I've read your, you know, your latest article on protecting the king and different things like that. We saw the response, some of the response to the growing trend of Trudeau must go, was there was Russia, it was bots, he wasn't real, all these crazy things. What are your thoughts on all this from your, you know, your purview, where you're sitting?

Sean, this is a social phenomenon that they are trying to prevail over thinking it's a political game. So, you know, there is a mismatch as to what the requirement is and what they are doing. Because in politics, of course, it's a zero-sum game. And in a social phenomenon, you have to find common ground. It's not a zero-sum game. So they have brought out their standard repertoire of tactics, saying these are, first of all, bots. When it was proved that they were not bots,

then we have seen the similar sequence in the case of that infamous video of the St. Trudeau singing while he was on a visit to the Queen's funeral, where they denied that the video is genuine, then when it could not be denied anymore, they said it's from last year. It follows a sequence. So, and one interesting thing is that the liberals are always, you know, banging on the drum that the conservatives want to bring American policies into Canada. And while that is a separate subject, here they are importing the American tactics from

American politics into Canada, saying these are, even at the time of the truckers' convoy, someone on CBC openly asked if Russia was behind this. So this was the Russian collusion campaign against President Trump. Now, I normally stay away from, you know, dragging American issues into Canadian discussions. But here they are making it plainly obvious that they are following the American playbook. And this is, it's only going to make this worse. Can I ask you a question? And, you know, so I agree with what you're saying, because I witnessed it.

Now, there, there, there was a suppression that happened, right? I think people tried to discredit me and me naively. I got back, you know, I put a second video trying to convince the world that I wasn't, and people were convinced, but I understand that a political insider might attack me like I was a bot, but I was, I was attacked by people that were, in my opinion, are not political insiders. So why would others attack me? I've written an article about this. It's titled Structural Dysfunction. Because as a society, if you view, we are structurally dysfunction. We are unable to do anything

that increases the global competitiveness of Canada. And in that, I made an observation that we are no longer a nation of people seeking a common shared destiny. Rather, we are different antagonistic groups seeking to dominate each other. So if I say something and then if Marty Upnor says something exactly opposite to that, my objective then becomes to demolish not only Marty's position but Marty himself. Wow. That is where we are at. I witnessed it.

It was incredible. But now go ahead. Sorry, Alexandra. And you have to remember a lot of those people who are so-called. attacked you, we're paid to attack you. So what we, you know, the open secret is the government and PR firms hire people to pretend to be regular people online and they attack you. This has happened to me and somebody will do it.

And I will just, you know, whether it was through Twitter or whatever, I'd say, okay, who's paying you for that tweet? Immediately they disconnect that account. So a lot of times this is like an echo chamber. They will have few people. And then the followers who are trying to just go find, you know, a cover will go along, not realizing that this is somebody who's gotten the ball rolling. So I, so, you know, we had positive tweets.

Government paid for positive tweets, the federal government in Canada saying, oh, three cheers to our health department. Those were all paid for. They've paid U.S. people, influencers. So we've had social media influencers where you can buy their opinion and they will speak. spew it. So then we take regular people, making them feel like they're under siege, and it's a common ploy. So a lot of the times when you see something negative, all you have to do is like, okay, who paid you? Where did you get this information? All of a sudden, you're like, and the person

just disappears because that's what it is. They're trying to get the ball rolling because they don't want people to, another point of view, to be seen as not only equal, but sometimes better. So when we're looking at social media, don't forget that a lot of times these things are choreographed and it's not, you know, Russia. It's sometimes it's your own government thinking this is an easy way to keep people quiet and make them think that they're in a minority when then in fact they're probably, even if they're in a minority, it's probably like 40% of people think the same way that just a certain smaller faction has the courage not to have a filter and say this is who I am,

take it or leave it. I was going to say that it's been already released. I think it's Black, Blacklocks had released the data on. And it's hundreds of thousands of dollars in social media influencing that the current government has done on social media influencers. So Kitty, you're bang on with that because one of the things, Marty, you would have faced once it started to really trend, would have been absolutely that. They were trying to find a way to get the steam out of it. Well, I mean, you know, I've had a week to digest what happened. It's so interesting what I've witnessed.

I mean, I describe it as phases. So phase one is, you know, it happens and people are retweeting and sharing their story. Phase two is immediately there's an attack of trying to bury the story. And then me is sort of weirdly in the center of this storm. I'm starting to get emails and letters from people. And it's like I could have literally accumulated a stack of stories like this. And I thought people were upset because, or I thought what resonated with them is that they didn't like being stereotyped by Trudeau. But what I found out truly is that Canadians, a lot of Canadians have hurt, have been hurt by these measures in the last two years.

and I mean real hurt. So maybe we'll get into that. But so basically I have this stack of letters and, you know, here's how I got hurt. So let's say it's, you know, 2,000 letters. And so, all right, we get past this bot war. So now I'm desperately walking around with the stack of letters saying, is there a reporter somewhere that wants to look into this? You know, there's thousands that can end.

And then, and that was the, you know, the people who responded to that call, were the independents, a couple of independents. You've seen me, I've been on a few very small independent podcasts, but the closest thing to a mainstream journalist was a small little story by Brian Lilly and people saying that, and they didn't even report on, I'm like, well, I was basically telling him, that's not even the story.

The story is like, there's a thousand people that got hurt. Marty, that's an interesting point. We talk about what politicians have done and the Liberal Party and kind of their game plan as Darshan brought up. But the media response, once again, is really interesting to watch, right? Obviously, people who follow the podcast, know I'm very open to talking to a lot of things that kind of get shuffled under the rug and you bring up independent media folk talk about it.

That led me to your work, Darshan. but our mainstream, our big hitters haven't touched a lot of different things with a big old pole. What are your thoughts on that? And feel free to hop in, Darshan, because you wrote a boat, I thought you did a very balanced article. I loved your piece. Your first piece, Darshan, was fabulous. Oh, thank you. But you know, Sean, I wouldn't call them big hitters because they aren't.

I can just imagine the, you know, confusion in the editorial rooms in all the major newspapers and all the media outlets. Because this is obviously a story that's going to continue. It's going to have an impact in the future. And they can't ignore it, but they have to because of various constraints that they have voluntarily put on themselves. So, you know, what is needed now is what Marty has started, which is to collect all the individual stories and then compile them somewhere.

and then put them out again so that this thing keeps rotting. Because that's, I think, now the latest game plan from the government to let it run its course and then it gets forgotten. Yeah, because and I've learned that different groups have collected those stories as an example. You know, one story that shocked me is that veterans of the Canadian forces, some of them have been discharged, you know, kicked out of the army for refusing to get vaccinated. And I heard some horrific stories about that. And then I'm learning that they have their own groups and it's thousands.

So, I mean, wow, if there's a thousand veterans of Canada who've been discharged for this, how is that not a story? And that's only one example. I mean, it was emotionally draining for me for the last little while. thankfully, I'm grounded and I have a group of friends on social media and locally with a, you know, a strong support base. But there are Canadians who've been damaged by the policies of this government. Marty, if I may jump in here. Sorry, Alexander.

If I may jump in here. Thank you. You know, the case of the health care workers who were fired because they didn't take the vaccine is in my view and without disrespect to anybody else. It is the most egregious example. Because imagine the early days of COVID when the perceived risk of the effect of catching COVID was as high as Mount Everest. Like it was almost like you were going to die if you got COVID. At that time, they were dealing with infected patients, infected with COVID. They took a massive personal risk.

Nothing happened to them. Or maybe they caught COVID and recovered. And now because there is a mandate for vaccines and they say, if you don't want it or we don't need it in their opinion, we fired them unceremoniously. It's absolutely horrible and this is going to be, you know, written about in the future. If we still remain a frequent. In the flying term, we call it going from hero to zero. And exactly, a nurse who a week ago was helping you wipe the vomit off your shirt.

And now, because that same nurse is unvaccinated, that same person said, I don't want her near me. I was like, wow, how's that possible? Well, I want to bring it back to Alexander. You were about to speak up. I think it was in accordance with all the different stories Marty was hearing, all the hurts out there and how none of the media is touching it. You were about to hop in, Alexander. I want to give you a few moments here. Well, the reason is that the press took the traditional press, the archaic,

version 1.0, they're very much the appeal to authority. This is their scaffold. And they cannot now walk back and say, okay, we believed this lie. We've caused damage to tens of thousands of people because we're trying to reclaim some old glory and we want to tell you how to think and that you'll be impressed with us. There's no way that you're going to have a traditional media ever admit fly. It's almost cult like now where they feel like they're under siege. Everybody's attacking them.

No, people aren't attacking you. People are telling you you're causing them damage and permanent damage. And you're not being held accountable. Now, the press will be held accountable. There will be inquiries going, okay, why did this old institution impose this, making people homeless? Let's not forget that there are homeless children as we speak, trafficked children as we speak. And it was the lockdowns from 2020 that started this spiral of despair. So we have a media who's been quiet about this.

They only get direction from whatever press release they get. This is why we have to focus on realizing that that doesn't, that's an inert institution. The future of journalism is independent outlets. So if you have all these stories from people, you become an outlet in and of yourself. this is where the shift is becoming very much clear. In 2020, people started their own media outlets. They did better research. They would do more quality research than the status quo.

So now the gold standard for journalism is not in traditional press. It's an independent press. So Alexander, you're almost saying that the media can't report now on this story of the people who got injured because they're complicit. and they were part of the injury, I think is what I'm hearing. And I almost agree with that. I mean, Darshan, I think, was it you who put out that piece recently or one of your colleagues on how the Toronto Star had used, like, terrible references to justify a headline?

Yeah, it was one of my Twitter friends who dug up all the tweets that were on the front page of Toronto Star, basically saying we don't care if we, die, et cetera, you know, all sorts of horrible things. And this person decided to dig into each tweet and see what its history was. And like, one was liked by two people, another by seven people, maybe retweeted once. So assuming... You're one step above from fake. I mean, there's the, they're, they're completely illegitimate references. Absolutely. Now, nobody noticed these tweets and for Toronto Star to dig them up. And

I'm assuming here that they weren't sponsored. But if they were genuine, then for someone to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find these tweets and then make it into a theme and put it on the front page of the largest newspaper in Canada, as Alexander said, this is press 1.0. So is it nefarious to say or to think that some of the media is actually complicit? Like, is... Yeah. To repeat what you were saying, you asked a question and then I didn't hear an answer for it, was, is the media can't report on everything that Marty's hearing and seeing because they're complicit.

Is that a thought? It's more than a thought. I mean, we can, we see evidence of it. I mean, you have, as a journalist, you have to basically report on the state of reality. So if you have a homeless camp and they're not reporting on it, or if there's a protest and you're not reporting on it, you're not reporting on the state of reality. You're sanitizing. You're imposing a narrative that doesn't exist. You're using bad logic because some prodig who puts a paper crown on their head and says, I'm an authority.

You have to do that. And they do it. This is complicit. You know, we have had people. How many people have their lives have been ruined? Why don't we hear about this on the evening news? Because that goes against the narrative. Because that's what old journalism was.

Because you have to remember, before social media, media was a one-way form of communication. So the gatekeepers could tell you what they told you was the state of reality. Who was in, who was out. You didn't have to report. And this is what journalism was for decades. So they cannot, they don't, they're so rigid in their thinking. They have no idea what social media does. They're still thinking this is a passing fan.

If the internet becomes unworkable, somebody is going to create something new. We have now understood that communications must be a two-way street. And the media could never get it through their head, that they are not, you know, that their word isn't final. Their word is in alpha and omega. That's interesting. Actually, I have a question for you.

That's interesting. So earlier, I think you said, you know, like, I'll say this. We have a form of government. Look at our government. Look at our democracy. I mean, it's based on a monarchy. Our former government is like 150 years old. So we're on government 1.0.

You're saying media is on 1.0, maybe something else. Now, if I look at the public or technology, technology is on like version 1,000, and then the public is somewhere in there. So they're not all aligned and keeping up at the same pace. who leads who. So what needs to change first? Is it is it the public that will change, which will suddenly make the government change, or is the media, like? Our new media are independent media. Yeah, it's independent media that's changing it. But I'm talking about, okay, sure. It's a small pop before the Big Bang. So this is why

small outlets like this are so important because it is changing things. You're standing up to an authority that's told you. Because the one thing that people in power do not understand this version 1.0 is that people always thought what they thought. They just did not have an outlet to say it. So they think if we have censorship, oh, now everybody's going to think what we want.

No, you always had those thoughts. You never had a chance to express them before. Once that genie's out of the bottle, you're not getting it back in the bottle. I'll say one thing here. I think in the middle of 2021, I wrote two articles about the harms that were being inflicted on a lot of people because of the restrictions and lockdowns. First one was about the suicides and drug overdoses and cancelled medical treatment. The other one was specifically about the harms on children because of disrupted education, etc.

In both these articles, I referenced official data from authorities in Canada. Have you seen any mainstream media do a story on that? No. Once in a while, they will report that someone's cancer surgery was postponed and then finally when they called to say we can reschedule it, the person had passed away already. Now, that is anecdotal reporting. Look at the data and present an overall picture to the people so that they can, but they won't. That's actually what I'm formally known on Twitter as doing. I've been critical of some of the policies, and I've been trying to get people to open their eyes by looking at exactly what you did. I mean, I did it very recently.

I can go into the section of the government of Alberta's live statistics, or whatever they call it, and where they report on deaths on a monthly basis. And in Alberta, we have, you know, 18 categories for reporting deaths. And there's a category called. And so two things that are immediately apparent. The deaths in the first quarter of this year are off the chart compared to any other quarter, even during the peak of the COVID. And then there's a, and the category called Other, which used to trend at about 800, it's at 2000.

I don't want to get into the details. But I agree with you. I'll go in there, find that evidence, put it out there. And I go, how come I'm the only one who, why is nobody else? looking at this evidence. There's evidence everywhere. It's always interesting to me sitting on this side of things, that you go, they're going to continue along, doing what they're doing, thinking nobody can see it. And I've talked to Alexander about this a lot, except the longer they do it, the more people that see it. What are they reporting

on? Like these are the things that people want to hear about. Why aren't they talking about it? And then when they do talk about it, they frame it in such a way that you're like, man, that's... I mean, yesterday people were talking about Mr. Trudeau's escapade singing Bohemian Rhapsody. That's insane. Well, I'm curious. On a media front on moving the dial forward, the three of you, has this hashtag, this last week, has it done anything to move the dial forward? Has it eroded some of Trudeau's character yet again? I mean, I don't know how many more things need to be piled on to that.

We can go off the list of things. Has it opened up new conversations? Certainly for us, three, this is a new conversation. And certainly being on the Western standard and being able to do it there is a new format as well. For me, that's moving the Dow forward. For you three, have you seen things what you would consider moving the dial forward, whether we're talking media, politics, or just the general public? I'd like to let my colleagues answer here, not colleagues, the other guess, because I'm so in the middle of it at this point that I don't even know what's happening outside.

Well, and the lovely thing about you folks is you're out east. You know, here in Alberta, it's very hot topic. I'm curious. Out east, are they talking about it? Do you think it's moved it forward? I mean, I just reiterate the same question. And we can start with Darshang, if you like, and then Alexandra. Sure, Sean, I don't think it has moved the dial forward because we are structurally disfunked society where, and in that article I have given example of Pierre Trudeau's national energy policy where it is still as hotly debated as it was 40 years ago.

Even when the energy minister in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet wrote an article, I think it was in Edmonton Journal, I came across it and I read it. And even his points were being refuted. Now, this was the guy who was there in the inner circles. He drafted the policy. He faced the backlash to the policy. Now, 40 years later, he is having, you know, a very mellow discussion. But these issues will never go away. And another thing about Canadian political debates is that when a factually false claim gets inserted in the debate, it never goes away.

no amount of refutation is going to suffice. So, you know, we are kind of always in a time walk. The only hope is that enough people on the boundary between the two camps, if they can be swayed what typically in election we call them swaying voters, then we can expect to see some change. But as Alexandra said, the future is going to come from independent journalists and commentators not from the establishment. And it's true.

What we're seeing, Canadians are very lovely people. We don't, we're not expressive in the way Americans are expressive. We have to look at the last federal election. I mean, the liberals were absolutely convinced they were going to get a majority. And they didn't move. They were still a minority. So this was people, and they weren't happy. So what we're seeing now is people are just kind of biding their time.

They're not going to go out and say, okay, this is this or this is that. They're just going to go to the polls and go, do we have a viable alternative of somebody who's a futurist who has a vision of the future for Canada that brings these, you know, are different groups together. This is the question that it needs to be answered. If we have a viable alternative, people will go for that alternative. They're not going to make a big deal. They're just going to go in quietly and vote and come out.

So different places in Canada have a different way of seeing things. And this is actually really good for this country. We're not a monolithic thinkers. We are a plurality. And when you think about, I remember a book from Peter C. Newman called The Canadian Revolution. And he said, when you think about how big this country is, how different people think, we are an impossible country. And yet we can. pull together in a heartbeat.

This country represents a global future. Well, we're not talking about globalization where we all have this monolithic, one-size-fits-all thinking. Canada, if it kind of understands that it's a natural magician where you don't look, if you don't look down and you don't look back, you can walk on air. Once this country understands, and we're at the point now, we've kind of been people who survived all this attacks in the last two years. If they're thinking in the future, they're not looking at vendettas at the back,

they're not looking back, they're not looking down, and they have a vision of the future. They're the ones that are not just going to guide this country to places that has never been before. They can be an inspiration to the rest of the world because Canada knows how we can, we have Quebec, we have the Maritans, we have the prairies, we have Ontario, we have, you know, the northern provinces. And yet we have, you know, been able to put a railroad, We're all interconnected. We, it's funny. You know, Americans, they're fighting each other.

They're fighting each other. We don't seem to be fighting each other. We understand the seriousness of what can happen to this country. Actually, I don't think we understand the seriousness because in the conversation I've had, I've talked to people who come from behind the Iron Curtain and they understand it. But I want to answer your question, Sean. I appreciate their answer. but I think there's been a movement of the dial.

I'll tell you, there's been a movement of the dial. I've heard it. So one of the things I heard very clearly from thousands of people in the last week, everybody's saying stop following the social media. I've heard that so much, you know, and I think that's a movement of the dial. People are realizing get, get and not the, that I said, the social media, get off the mainstream media.

Like, ignore them. I've heard that repeatedly. So people are waking up to that looking to a new place for information. So there's a movement of the dial there. And then I think the other movement of the dial is that to your point, Alexander, I think you were touching on it. Canadians are nice people, but they only get pushed a certain way and then they snap. And, you know, we're the ones who, my ancestors, my family,

we're the ones who left the farms in 1939 and went to Germany. You know, I joke about it. My grandfather is like, okay, you know, hold my beer. Johnny, you start harvesting. I got to go take care of this guy and then I'll come back. And we came back six years later and took care of the problem. So Canadians get pushed or very nice, which is why you're able to get them vaccinated because Canadians got vaccinated because they did it for somebody else.

They didn't even do it for themselves. But anyway. Absolutely. I'm hearing now a pushback. I'm afraid that spring might just go boom. So they're, you know, and the trucking convoy started it. And this is playing on to that. But I just want to go back to my comment on the people from behind the Iron Curtain.

I've met that that's sort of a weird subgroup that I've talked to lately. And they're like, I can't believe you Canadians aren't seeing what's going on. You know, that's... Well, you know, when I talk about moving the dial, I guess in my brain, you know, and I feel like a lot of listeners' brains, I could be wrong. You envision the dial as we move the dial and now we're at, The throttle is way we go. Except it's so incremental.

I mean, I used to think things could happen fast. And the trucker convoy proved that it can. But it also took two years to get there, right? It took time. It took pressure. It took a lot of things to go wrong before, you know, that snapback happened. When I think about the dial, I just look at it and I go, maybe one of the best things that happened about this is when you look back at some of Trudeau's comments,

When you look back at some of the people saying nothing bad has happened, your bunch of winers, whatever the wording they use, is this media, you know, they're calling it a campaign, which I find interesting, but this media thing that caught on put a lot of faces to people. And when you can see somebody's face, whether they're, they oppose your views or are right alongside you, there's something human in that that we grasp on to. Well, it's closer to bringing us. face-to-face because, you know, well, especially in the last two years, we haven't even been

face-to-face. Look at us. We're still doing this in a podcast, right? Maybe someday. Perhaps that's perhaps something that's, perhaps as it was a virtual way of turning the dial by getting back to face-to-face, is people putting a face. Maybe someday, the Western Standard budget, show it to the Western Standard, we'll pay, have Darshan and Alexander come to Calgary. We can all do it in. Well, Sean's putting the bill, folks. We'll go for a hike in the mountains. actually we'll go do the podcast and bam there you go um as we slowly close in on time guys i don't want to keep you here all day i really have enjoyed uh the conversation you guys give me some of some of your time i i wonder what's next and i or what people are keeping their eyes on um

with you folks being out east and and certainly seeing different things from your your purview i'm just curious, what do you see happening here in the next months? What is what is, what do you have your fingers on the pulse, so to speak? We'll start with Alexandra and Darshan feel free to hop in. But let's slowly wind down the conversation as I don't have all day to keep you. But in saying that, I know the listeners would love to have more. Well, I think one thing where I'm seeing is the slow realization for people who've been fighting back and realizing they don't have to attend every fight they've been invited to.

And they're thinking of the future. So you have all these people trying to pull you back into that old way where we're going to tell you what to do and we're going to rig things so we always win. And people, and I said started with independent journalism. And it's now taken off where you get more information from an independent source than you do from a mainstream source. Because people who went into a mainstream source, what they did, they wanted something, a guarantee, and they wanted attention. The less attention they get, the more their start for attention, the more, you know, we can fruit those resources, instead of being upset with them saying, okay, you don't do anything, you don't have any value. We're going to put it to people who have value, and we're going to pay attention to them.

So what we're going to see now is a reallocation of mental resources, emotional resources, to people. People who actually care about other people through smaller outlets, through smaller venues. We're going to see a resurgence of the smaller venue like we've never seen before. And things are going to be much more different. We're going to have a lot more variety and texture. And with that, we're going to have a better understanding that we don't have to collapse because you can see in the media they're trying to say doom and gloom, doom and gloom. We're all going to be poor.

No, if I decide I'm not going to be, you're not going to tell me what to do. going to be the captain of my own ship and we're starting to see that in a bigger way in a post 2020 world darchan your your thoughts on the future i i must say for alexander i always love the positive spin i don't think we have enough of that in the world uh today um but darshan your thoughts uh from ontario vantage point you know there are these uh festering issues like the chaos at the airports and uh the hit that the border cities and towns are taking because of the era you can. Again, you know, the approach from the government will be to tackle this politically rather

than operationally. So how far their suffering continues is going to play a big role in whatever future. I share Alexandra's optimism. But the way it goes will be decided by how long people's suffering will continue. And Marty, any final thoughts from you? you've been the man caught in the whirlwind of all of this. I'm picking up on what Darshan just said. It's, you know, the fight will depend on how much fight are the people, do the people have in them?

And what I've witnessed is that some people are really hurt. So the fight is pretty big. And it's not about just simple things like the ability to travel or go get your Starbucks. Now I think there's people who've been hurt and they want a sort of a bit of justice. So I don't think this, it's going to, there's going to be a change. I don't think this is just going to peter out. But it, but it's, it's, I feel positive and I feel a change. And I hope, I hope, I hope we, I hope we get a government 2.0, some, some change in the

government. In fact, now I'm getting way out there, but I'm thinking, you know, maybe with the passing of the queen, God, you know, God bless their majesty, maybe there will be a change. And we can go to version 2.0. I think there's going to be a change in indefinitely in media and then people are always changing. So I have no prediction. But there's a positive change happening. Well, I think I can say this on the small media fronts, kind of speaking a little bit to the positivity in the air to end an episode.

But I look at something a little closer to home, Marty. And I speak to Alberta because, you know, we got an election happening here. and the ballots are coming in and October 6 is not that far away. And the lady rated now at the top. Now, I'm not saying she's going to win, but the lady that is leading the polls is Daniel Smith. And how did she get her rise by talking to the common person, by going all these small, you know, on the podcast,

on all these small little shows, going to all the people and talking to them, and you see that. And you wonder if that isn't a format that will work well in the future for whoever runs in politics. It doesn't have to be her. And I have no idea if she'll win. But she is leading the president. pools currently. And then you think of the Western standard for my own self folks

three years ago going from you know as Daniel Smith actually joked on stage right like two lists hockey player had no teeth, you know, put in the face of Buckwood's more Canadian than that. Two, three years later sitting here in the Western standard their rise of being a leader out west. You know

tomorrow night or two nights from now I sit down with Theo Fleury and Joseph Borgo and Jamie Slay and their team as they try to do something in the media realm. and just seeing more of this competition or friendly competition. I don't know what to call it, but all these different things trying get in the realm of trying to give the people what they want, which is access to real people, the stories, the truth.

And hopefully I point out Alexander multiple times a little positivity. Give access to people, but I want to throw one quick, I'll aim it right at Danielle right now because she's the next potential person who might change. But what I've heard in the last week is Canadians are tired of being pitted against each other. So, you know, stop doing that because if you continue, if the politicians continue to pit Canadians against each other, that strategy somehow or other worked during COVID, but it's not going to work. We're done right now and we're going to go back to being Canadians, which is just people that look after each other. That's what we're known.

So I'm shocked that they managed to divide us, but stop dividing us. Well, actually, I'll bring back. back Darshan and Alexander for a second. Yeah. I feel like that's a strategy that has worked over the course of time, split the population. So it may surprise us right now, but I think if we look into history, actually, it's worked over and over again. It's almost the playbook.

Would you agree with that? Whoever, Alexander, Darshan, whoever would like to hop in? It's classic Machia Valley. Get two groups of people to hit each other, so they run out of steam. then the elite comes in, takes the resources and rules. Problem is now we have more and more people who understand that, who recognize that rules, and they're going, you know what, I'm going to make a deal with the other side.

And the other side goes, you know, that's better. We can bypass the people trying to take our resources, bypass the people who are deflecting our attention from our future, want us to fight a battle for no good reason. The more people say, no, I'm going to negotiate, I'm going to make a deal. I'm not going with an antagonistic approach. That changes. That old playbook will no longer work.

The more people go, nope, you're not going to roping me into a fight. And somebody tries to demonize you. You go, that's your opinion. I'm going to go and build things while you have your negative opinion. You want to stay with somebody who's negative, who's confining you, or do you want somebody who's positive who thinks the very best of you and what sees you as having a potential to make a better, future. This is where the battleground is. And the best thing of all is to say, I'm not going on

this battle group field. I'm going to go to an arch area territory and I'm going to build something. You can stay here and fight. I'm not going to fight. And we're seeing more and more Canadian saying, I'm going to build. I'm not going to get bogged down because life is short. We lost two years of our lives. We're not getting them back. They don't tack that on. So let's try something different. What's your thoughts, Darshang, before we close out here, do you agree with that? I agree. And to what you said, this is an age-old tactic. I have seen it growing up in India.

I have seen it when I lived in Kenya, you know, pitting groups against each other. In Canada, we have a lot better cohesiveness compared to many other countries in the world. But as Marty said, it worked, this divisive tactic. and I think it worked because of this huge scare. And it was easy to divide people. But I think we can compare this to bull fighting when you can fool that bull with that red cloth only once. If the bull has been through that experience,

next time it knows that this is a fake target. Good point. There you go. Don't get fooled for the cloth. Great way to end. And I appreciate you find folks joining me for this. I really do love to giving me some of your time. I hope you've enjoyed as well.

I hope the listeners learn something. And for the Western Standard facilitating this spot for Marty and I on this side and Darshan and Alexander hopping in from afar. Appreciate it, guys. And look forward, hopefully, to the next time we all get back together. Thank you so much. Have a great day, folks. Thank you, Sean.

Thank you, everybody.