Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - The blurred lines between content creators and journalists (with Lance from the Serfs)

00:00:00.000 I'm I'm a little confused as to why, to be totally honest, the conservatives haven't started to address their misogyny problem, because I thought that would be like that's clearly if you look at the polls, you look at the numbers, that's where you are pleading support.

00:00:12.920 And it's not getting any better. Right. Like the whole like biological clocks tour is just not resonating with half the population. What a surprise.

00:00:19.680 um but like i'm so shocked like i really i heard him say biological clocks i was like oh there we

00:00:25.460 go i'm glad someone's finally talking about this the alarm keeps going off in my belly and i'm

00:00:31.180 really confused by it i think i needed to see a doctor but i can't in this country so

00:00:34.960 hello i'm rachel gilmore your least favorite person's least favorite journalist welcome to

00:00:48.980 Bubble Pop, a weekly show where we break down the biggest headlines so you don't have to doom

00:00:53.540 scroll. Then we'll dig deeper into something juicy that you should know about. In this episode,

00:00:58.160 we've got Métis comedian, entertainer, and Twitch icon Lance from The Serfs. He hosts the biggest

00:01:04.120 Canadian political Twitch stream, so we're going to talk about content creators and the federal

00:01:09.220 election. And we'll dig into what's being said and not said about Indigenous rights on the campaign

00:01:15.240 trail. But first, the news. By the time you're listening to this, there will be just over a week

00:01:20.480 left until Canadians head to the polls. We've had two debates, although unfortunately, because I

00:01:25.420 record this stuff on Thursday, only one has happened by the time I had to film this, so I'm

00:01:30.140 sorry if something juicy happened in the second one. But so far, the Greens got the boot, Carney

00:01:35.020 emerged relatively unscathed, Singh got in some good digs, and Polly have toned down his pitbull

00:01:41.000 nature. Though again, that's all from the French debate, so TBD on the English one. There were also

00:01:46.680 some big announcements this week, some fiery conservative infighting, and we got confirmation

00:01:52.300 that despite his silence, Trump does still want Canada to be the 51st state. Oh, and I had a

00:01:58.620 little scoop this week that ended in action too. Let's dive in. First things first, we have to check

00:02:06.540 in on the election campaign. The big news this week was that it was debate week. But as I'm

00:02:11.440 filming this, we're already through the first of two debates and it doesn't seem like anything

00:02:15.420 major has happened that would significantly move the needle. Carney survived the French debate

00:02:20.700 relatively unscathed as Pahliev dialed back his attack dog nature. Although Singh had a moment

00:02:26.620 where he pushed Carney on Israel's genocide in Gaza, pressing him to acknowledge what a UN

00:02:32.380 special committee and amnesty international have both already said that israel is committing a

00:02:37.900 genocide in gaza but carney responded by saying he won't politicize the issue here's that exchange

00:02:44.460 it's heartbreaking to see innocent people being killed mr carney why don't you call things as

00:02:50.380 they are this is a genocide people in israel do deserve peace and security but people in palestine

00:02:55.820 do as well what is going on right now is a genocide against people in palestine why won't you admit 0.75

00:03:01.020 it um the situation in gaza in the middle east is horrible but it's a genocide

00:03:11.340 but i never use that word in a political way to politicize the situation

00:03:19.260 all right it's a matter of facts that was mr khani's response meanwhile we got to watch four

00:03:24.300 male leaders talk about women's rights so uh that was a thing that happened but by and large despite

00:03:29.900 everyone's efforts to get a ding in mark carney's armor given he's the front runner again nothing

00:03:36.240 really happened that seemed like it's gonna move the needle which makes me think that the english

00:03:41.280 language debate isn't gonna do too much damage either but by the time you watch or listen to

00:03:45.580 this podcast you'll already know so uh maybe i am currently eating my words honestly though the

00:03:51.380 thing that really stood out to me during the debate night beyond the leader debate commission's very

00:03:55.840 awkward handling of the decision to boot the Green Party, which technically didn't meet the

00:04:00.620 requirements to participate because they didn't have enough candidates officially nominated,

00:04:05.200 although they did have them endorsed at the time that the deadline laid out in the Leaders Debates

00:04:10.360 Commission paperwork states. But the commission would have known that the Greens didn't have

00:04:15.440 enough candidates like well over a week ago. So why did they wait until Wednesday morning to tell

00:04:22.220 them. But the real screw-up was the commission's handling of the media. See, the commission only

00:04:27.900 allows one reporter from each news organization to participate in the post-debate scrums.

00:04:33.800 But Rebel News kicked and screamed and threatened to sue the commission, so they turned around and

00:04:39.880 allowed Rebel News to send five of its personalities into the post-debate scrums. I say personalities

00:04:46.020 because a court has already ruled that Rebel News doesn't qualify as a Canadian journalism

00:04:51.160 organization. Despite this, Rebel News and other far-right misinformation spewing outlets dominated

00:04:58.380 the questions in the post-debate scrums. These losers used this time to ask gross transphobic

00:05:04.840 questions, engage in residential school denial, and generally just spew self-involved trash about

00:05:11.420 their own persecution. On top of that, two people Mark Carney was forced to take a question and a

00:05:16.740 follow-up from. So four questions in total were directly tied to a hit piece on Mark Carney's

00:05:22.500 non-binary child and the health care that child received when they were a minor. That's right,

00:05:28.220 the founder of the outlet that published that piece and one of the dudes who co-wrote it both

00:05:34.040 got to ask Mark Carney a question and a follow-up. Although I will also say I really wish Mark Carney

00:05:39.860 had been better prepared for answering bad faith questions about trans rights because saying there

00:05:45.040 are only two sexes when intersex people exist is not it. But it's also illustrative of a much

00:05:51.940 bigger problem that these institutions face these days. Because of their fear of being labeled not

00:05:57.580 neutral or biased, the bodies who label journalists and adjudicate access are increasingly complicit

00:06:04.840 in the destruction of our information ecosystem. They need to meet the moment and that requires

00:06:10.540 growing a spine. Anyways, the debates were far from the only thing that happened this week,

00:06:15.140 so let's talk about the other stuff. The leaders made several announcements this week that fleshed

00:06:19.520 out their platforms. Though at the time I'm recording this, we still haven't seen fully

00:06:23.960 costed versions of those platforms from any of the parties, so we don't know if the math behind

00:06:29.900 those promises actually maths. But the leaders are promising that those costed platforms will drop

00:06:35.240 soon, which is good because by the time you're listening to this, the advance polls are already

00:06:39.700 open. But one announcement that caught a lot of people's attention this week was Pierre Polyev's

00:06:44.000 promise to become the first prime minister to invoke the notwithstanding clause. The notwithstanding

00:06:48.840 clause is a clause in the charter that gives prime ministers and premiers the power to override

00:06:54.320 certain sections of the charter, so override rights and freedoms, for five-year terms when

00:07:00.520 passing legislation. And while its invocation has become increasingly popular at the provincial

00:07:05.540 level, which is not good, it's never been used by a federal government. But Polyev announced he would

00:07:11.800 pop the clause's federal cherry by invoking it to overturn a Supreme Court ruling, specifically one

00:07:18.060 that found that a Harper-era policy allowing judges to hand out consecutive 25-year blocks

00:07:23.800 of parole ineligibility in cases of multiple first-degree murders violated the charter and

00:07:29.020 were, quote, intrinsically incompatible with human dignity. When asked if he'd be willing to invoke

00:07:33.920 the clause in cases other than overturning that one Supreme Court decision, Polyev said he's

00:07:38.440 willing to use it to quote, fight crime, which definitely isn't vague at all. In response,

00:07:44.260 Carney called this announcement from Polyev quote, dangerous, not because he wants multiple first

00:07:49.760 degree murderers to have an easier time getting out of prison, which to be clear isn't even

00:07:54.700 happening now because the parole boards who make the decision when someone is up for parole of

00:07:59.820 whether to grant it, usually say no in those cases. But rather, he was concerned about the

00:08:05.500 use of the notwithstanding clause. And to my delight, Carney's criticism prompted Polyam

00:08:11.860 to give us this absolute banger of a soundbite. Yesterday, Mark Carney said it was dangerous

00:08:17.880 to keep multiple murderers in jail for life. Mr. Carney, do you know what's dangerous?

00:08:26.620 murder is dangerous that's right folks murder is dangerous in case you didn't know meanwhile there

00:08:33.520 has also been some juicy conservative infighting this week Doug Ford's campaign manager has been

00:08:38.660 publicly talking smack about the federal conservative campaign calling the way that

00:08:43.620 they blew their massive lead in the polls quote campaign malpractice but here's where the drama

00:08:48.820 really heats up while it's one thing for a behind the scenes guy who is albeit quite powerful to

00:08:54.400 say this, Ford was then asked about his campaign manager's comments. And he said, quote, sometimes

00:09:01.320 the truth hurts. Ouch. But despite what that comment has led some to speculate about, on

00:09:09.840 Wednesday, Ford told reporters that he has no interest in taking over the helm of the federal

00:09:15.140 conservative party if the result of all of this conservative on conservative violence is Polly

00:09:21.000 am getting the boot. And to that I say, sure. As we've been watching all of this drama unfold here

00:09:27.620 at home, we also got another icky reminder of the ongoing threats to our sovereignty.

00:09:33.140 Donald Trump in recent weeks has been awfully quiet about his desire to make Canada the 51st

00:09:38.800 state. A little while back, Trump even called Mark Carney our prime minister and not our governor.

00:09:44.820 So, progress. As a result of all of that, some people started to wonder,

00:09:49.660 Has Trump changed his mind about all of that annexation stuff?

00:09:53.560 Well, I've got bad news.

00:09:55.260 The CBC's Katie Simpson asked the White House that very question,

00:09:59.220 and they confirmed that Trump hasn't changed his position.

00:10:02.420 He still wants Canada to be the 51st state.

00:10:05.660 Not cool.

00:10:07.400 The last thing I'd like to mention is a little bit of a scoop that I reported this week.

00:10:11.440 Because as the result of a tip I received,

00:10:13.960 I found a Canada connection to those horrifying mass deportations to El Salvador.

00:10:18.200 As I'm sure you've already heard, Trump has been deporting innocent people who he claims are members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador.

00:10:26.540 And both the Trump administration and El Salvador's president are refusing to send them home to their families.

00:10:32.040 But as most Canadians watched this whole situation unfold in horror,

00:10:36.760 it turns out that somebody with significant ties to Canada is a top dog at the company behind the planes that did those deportations.

00:10:45.620 See, when I first reported this earlier in the week, Christopher W. Jamroz was a board director

00:10:51.600 at Canada's largest museum, the Royal Ontario Museum. I say was because after I reported this

00:10:58.680 story, I got an update from the ROM that he has now stepped down from their board of governors.

00:11:04.520 But who is Jamroz and why should you care? According to his now deleted bio on the ROM

00:11:09.500 website, he is a mentor to students from the Schulich School of Business out of York University.

00:11:14.940 He co-chaired the Canada 150 Advisory Committee to oversee preparations to celebrate the country's 150th birthday.

00:11:22.900 But when Jamroz isn't busy engaging in what the ROM described as his lifelong advocacy of education and, quote, promoting diversity and inclusion,

00:11:34.440 he's also, according to one of his own bios, the, quote, executive chairman of the board of Global Crossing Airlines Group, Inc.,

00:11:42.800 a full-service passenger and cargo airline headquartered in Miami, Florida.

00:11:47.280 What is this company, which is often just referred to as Global X, you might ask?

00:11:51.940 Yeah, it's the ICE subcontractor that flew those 238 migrants to El Salvador

00:11:58.000 so they could sit in a prison. 1.00

00:12:00.020 Yeah, very cool.

00:12:01.740 So, Canada, it looks like someone who has strong ties to our country,

00:12:05.500 who mentors students at a Canadian university,

00:12:07.820 who helped oversee preparations for our country's 150th birthday and who was, until I reported on

00:12:15.860 this, a board director at Canada's largest museum, is also a top dog at a company intimately involved

00:12:22.320 with the horrifying mass deportations taking place in the United States. We have to keep

00:12:27.260 shining a light on the things that people choose to do in this era of backsliding human rights and

00:12:32.620 eroding democracy. Because we can't control when people choose to do awful things, but we can make

00:12:38.420 sure that they have to publicly own those choices. That's the news for this week. After the break,

00:12:44.140 we're chatting with Lance from the serfs about the blurring lines between content creators and

00:12:48.420 journalists, and the lack of discussion about Indigenous rights on the campaign trail. We'll

00:12:53.020 be right back. In a world where right-wing grifters dominate the internet, here's something

00:13:00.900 to brag about canada's biggest political show on the live streaming platform twitch is unashamedly

00:13:07.060 progressive lance from the serfs is a metis comedian and entertainer and he does a great

00:13:11.460 job keeping his followers up to date on the latest political news it's a trend we're seeing more and

00:13:16.660 more and one that i'm arguably also a part of albeit in a much smaller way lines are being

00:13:22.740 blurred between content creators and journalists and more and more canadians are learning about

00:13:27.540 the issues that matter from voices and in formats that you wouldn't typically hear or see on the

00:13:33.380 6 p.m newscast but is that a problem i don't think so at least not when the facts are right

00:13:39.380 to talk about all of this i am so stoked to welcome lance from the serfs on the show lance

00:13:44.100 welcome to bubble pop thank you so much for having me thank you for coming on oh my god the honor

00:13:49.300 is all mine um lance more and more people are getting their news from folks like you and to

00:13:56.580 a lesser extent a much lesser extent me on twitch why do you think that is i was about to start with

00:14:03.860 congratulations on all your success by the way i keep seeing you blowing up all over the place but

00:14:09.220 i just know so much that no one can get away from me that's really all i do clever yeah i like that

00:14:14.100 it's a shock doctrine yeah exactly learned it from why do i think that is um i i think honestly it's

00:14:21.300 uh it's a combination of two things i think it's a generational gap obviously i think younger people

00:14:26.180 are on devices and they don't buy paper and read newspapers and watch legacy media which is why you

00:14:32.580 see so much of like a lot of the mainstream like fox news and stuff like that their demographics

00:14:37.140 skew very old because that's a group of people who still you know use that as a form of entertainment

00:14:42.020 uh and i think also there's a a pretty neat level of sophistication to the technology between

00:14:49.300 say watching someone on a live twitch stream or a tick tock video or something like that versus

00:14:53.780 watching them on a tv where all you can do is yell at the tv and throw tomatoes but i'm sure as you

00:14:58.500 know now people can jump into your chat and communicate with you directly and try to influence

00:15:02.660 the show in real time which is kind of a neat uh feeling sensation you don't get in other media

00:15:07.860 yeah and like they can ask questions and i don't know i i find it really useful in that way so um

00:15:13.380 if anyone listening isn't familiar with twitch could you just quickly explain maybe like roughly

00:15:18.260 how it works oh totally um so twitch used to be called i think justin streaming or just tv yeah

00:15:25.140 justin tv essentially it's a streaming platform that was effectively started to stream video games

00:15:30.660 just to give people that parasocial relationship feeling of when you're at your best friend's house

00:15:34.420 and he's playing mario kart or something like that why not do that in the digital space and

00:15:38.740 then that started to grow and grow until eventually it got acquired by amazon they turned it into

00:15:43.140 twitch and there's also there's obviously like alternatives to twitch but um scary alternatives

00:15:51.300 we don't got to talk about kick or anything like that uh but i think at a certain point there was

00:15:56.420 a number of people uh you know for better for worse some of them are just kind of horrifying

00:16:00.740 individuals now but there was a lot of people who started using a section of twitch which is called

00:16:04.980 just chatting to talk about things uh not just related to video games talk about say politics

00:16:10.100 or movies or fashion or stuff like that uh and then that blew up until now that's the most popular

00:16:16.180 channel on twitch so as much as people want to say twitch is a video game platform uh you know

00:16:20.820 why are people doing other stuff on there it's really not i i mean it is it is yes primarily

00:16:25.860 focused on streaming video games but uh you have all kinds of different content that is produced

00:16:31.300 there now and live stream to their audiences you know this is kind of a massive question

00:16:37.540 but um you you mentioned that a lot of the demographic that watches mainstream or like

00:16:43.220 traditional forms of media i guess um like the 6 p.m newscasts and stuff tend to skew a bit older

00:16:48.820 but i'm wondering if there's anything else like any other areas where you think that traditional

00:16:52.900 media is kind of failing to adapt to this like new reality of how a lot of people consume their news

00:16:59.380 and information where do you think traditional media is falling behind um i think it's it's

00:17:05.700 probably a two-part answer for me the first one being that it is a good thing and i got to give

00:17:11.520 traditional media that that they still have some pretty rigorous checks and balances for the most

00:17:16.360 part not rebel news but for the most part yeah they're not considered journalists though a court

00:17:20.940 ruled against them which was very fun yeah but i think that whole thing is is like very essential

00:17:28.180 which is why people like me uh who are just jabronis who talk nonsense on the internet right

00:17:32.440 i need to use legacy media because i need something that is actually sourced and cited

00:17:36.220 and verified and so for that reason it is slower to have to actually hold yourself to account there's

00:17:40.780 a reason why tim pool can turn on like you know an led light in a camera and just spew the most

00:17:45.780 vile nonsense that he wants because he doesn't have checks and balances and that's so in that

00:17:50.340 sense the online media space i think has an advantage over traditional and that it's it's

00:17:54.640 fast it's quick it's why twitter blew up in the first place as soon as uh politicians and

00:17:59.240 journalists started using it there's a real-time way for you to just you are in the room like you

00:18:03.360 actually get to be inside of the the you know the press corps or whatever as they're telling you that

00:18:07.480 information people are addicted to wanting and to knowing the most amount of information possible

00:18:12.140 as quickly as they can so I think in that sense traditional media falls behind but where I would

00:18:16.820 criticize them heavily is traditional media is still preoccupied and this probably has a lot to

00:18:21.880 do with the corporate structure you know more about this than I do and the sponsorships and

00:18:25.940 And the way that they basically operate, they are still stuck in, I would say, promoting an old paradigm of the world that I think most younger generations are waking up to is ultimately destructive and going to kill us all.

00:18:38.600 You know, whatever you want to call that, neoliberal capitalism or the fact that, you know, there is an imperative for the West and imperial powers to align with countries that are doing genocide, whatever the case may be.

00:18:49.560 right um i i think that they are consistently regurgitating a lot of the same kind of like

00:18:55.920 state talking points or at least they don't want a lot of rebuttal from anyone uh left of center

00:19:00.920 or anyone too far right of center right essentially that's where they kind of position themselves

00:19:05.660 and i think because of that it's a detriment to them for anyone who already understands how a lot

00:19:11.840 of the stuff works to have to sit down and listen to someone kind of regurgitate you know old school

00:19:16.360 like you know neocon bush era politics is a little tough yeah and i i think that uh one of

00:19:22.820 the things that people tend to pick up on is the fact that you know there are these baked in

00:19:26.940 assumptions of what is new of what neutrality is and it's not neutral you know it is sort of there

00:19:33.800 is a perspective baked in there of what they consider to be normal or the baseline and i think

00:19:39.720 that a lot of people are kind of waking up to the idea that that um so-called objectivity is actually

00:19:45.480 a bit of a fantasy and it doesn't mean they're not doing good factual work but it just means that

00:19:50.520 i don't know i just wish that we could have a little more honesty about those sorts of biases

00:19:54.920 that exist in all of us and you know if you acknowledge that and are transparent about that

00:20:00.280 then you can just focus on the facts and people can contextualize any narrative based choices that

00:20:05.400 we all have to make to be able to literally communicate anything um yeah a little more

00:20:09.960 more effectively yeah I like total a little piece of tea for you I have yeah I have a lot of people

00:20:16.200 who work in legacy media for like a variety of different big stations I'm not going to name the

00:20:20.280 names just to protect them but I've had numerous people reach out to me asking hey can I come on

00:20:24.580 your show I love what you're doing I want to like you know reach more people and I usually do this

00:20:28.860 reciprocal thing like totally I'll bring you on is there any chance you can speak to like their

00:20:34.140 power panel to bring me on because it would be really good if I could bring my message

00:20:37.720 to legacy and 100 across the board it's always like oh no we don't do that and it's not because

00:20:42.720 they're being dicks it's because they're like they will never tolerate someone who is like you know

00:20:47.700 left wing on that panel they want a center to center right uh liberal and then hopefully a

00:20:54.080 not too far right right winger and that's that's the politics that they deal with yeah and you know

00:20:59.620 i i think that like where it gets a little tricky is a lot of the extreme right i find leaves the

00:21:06.220 realm of like the factual whereas a lot of the more like hardcore lefties are just like extremely

00:21:12.620 well like they're they're really into theory and like have some pretty like wild positions maybe

00:21:18.520 but like but like it's not as devoid of fact you know so it's i think that that's also like a

00:21:23.840 difficult thing to navigate because they feel like they can't have these more left folks on

00:21:29.080 unless they have the more right folks on but the right folks you know if you're inviting on like

00:21:33.620 tim pool you're not necessarily going to have a factual input from that dude um so yeah and you

00:21:40.080 know another thing i've noticed that leaders have started doing like from the politicians and stuff

00:21:45.860 is they've started to dip their toes into the online content creator world right like especially

00:21:51.920 in the states but in this election we've seen like polyev has done a few long form youtube podcast

00:21:57.800 interviews he did jordan peterson before the election and then did this like guy who i feel

00:22:03.720 like is trying to be joe rogan or something um but anyways um and then jagmeet singh also invited a

00:22:09.480 bunch of content creators onto his campaign bus only to throw one of them under the bus proverbially

00:22:15.720 um when it came out that she had the audacity to talk about the dehumanization of house indian

00:22:19.560 children and the green co-leader jonathan pedno did an interview with steve boots who's a youtuber

00:22:25.720 and streamer what do you think yeah he's great um what do you think of this trend that we're seeing

00:22:32.040 from politicians like do you think it's something that's going to continue and what do you view as

00:22:36.360 like the positives and negatives of it uh i think it's 100 going to accelerate uh because i think

00:22:42.680 the more uh people realize that it can be a useful tool especially with the you're seeing like you

00:22:47.320 know hasanabi in the united states uh going to bernie sanders rallies having aoc on his stream

00:22:52.040 a couple times uh i i actually was the person who was on that infamous uh among us stream with aoc

00:22:59.480 really and chakmeet singh yeah as well as the famous streamers yeah so i like that that was a

00:23:05.720 surreal moment right the whole thing was just kind of like it went by so quickly but um i think

00:23:10.200 they're going i think they're going to try and be doing that more and more people need to realize

00:23:13.880 the far right has been doing this already for a long time uh whereas they have enormous podcast

00:23:19.480 networks and uh alternative streams that you probably don't know about because most people

00:23:23.800 aren't terminally online and following these really weird like you are obviously i know for

00:23:27.660 living yeah but but the listeners probably aren't as online as you and me i hope not for your sake

00:23:33.940 i thought you were going to be like mansplaining diagonal onto me lance please

00:23:37.800 teach me about diagonal no no i i know you you like you track this really well but man

00:23:45.620 on the right they have so many worlds of podcasts and streams and stuff like that that when I

00:23:49.900 discover some of these bubbles I'm astonished at the viewership right like I don't think people

00:23:54.040 realize sometimes how big their numbers are because yes hate sells misogyny sells racism

00:23:59.140 sells all this stuff is really popular if you can find a corner on the internet to basically survive

00:24:03.940 as an ecosystem long enough but then you'll get all these smaller like you know MPs and MLAs who

00:24:09.020 actually are on those podcasts and it isn't until a major election cycle that it comes out that's

00:24:13.480 when you get all the clips that's that's when you get all these people coming out and it's like hey

00:24:16.180 this guy's a straight up residential school denier right but like he was on this podcast talking about

00:24:20.540 eating bugs and all this kind of stuff or same same thing happened over here with our conservative

00:24:24.720 our bc conservative leader so i think the right have been utilizing this almost dangerously to

00:24:29.160 fault because they're they're playing fast and loose with like you know extremists and stuff

00:24:32.720 like that um on the the more mainstream or at least the successful left-hand side uh i'm not

00:24:38.180 going to drop names but i've had a ton of different political parties of different you know completely

00:24:42.660 different parties themselves right not just politicians reach out to me asking you know can

00:24:46.920 can we get an interview can we go on the show or stuff like that I think this is going to be a good

00:24:51.460 thing granted the people who are doing it like um you know including yourself I've seen you have

00:24:56.100 just wonderful interviews with Jagmeet Singh right um as as long as you're I think focused on um

00:25:04.020 like you in that interview had no intention of uh changing your own personal beliefs and and it

00:25:09.780 wasn't just like, here's a free press tour for you to say and

00:25:13.860 deliver whatever message you want. And I think that's really

00:25:16.420 important for especially leftist content creators is we are

00:25:19.980 building this stuff on our own, we don't have legacy media, we

00:25:22.620 don't have the global news, the CTV, the Fox, all that kind of

00:25:25.900 stuff, right. And the entrenched corporate parties do, and they

00:25:31.280 have. So we also have to be very careful with how we use that.

00:25:35.540 And in the past, bringing on people who, you know, I should

00:25:38.400 vetted more kind of stuff like that and you get better as you go on but like that that i think is

00:25:42.320 going to be essential going forward because we shouldn't take for granted the fact that like

00:25:46.560 it's essential i think at this point to have people who are willing to talk like you just

00:25:50.080 mentioned you know about the genocide of palestinians you won't you won't get that on cbc no

00:25:55.600 yeah um and that actually feeds perfectly into my next question before i go into that i do want to

00:26:00.720 say i think you have made a really good point about um it being a bit dangerous in some ways

00:26:05.920 for politicians to go on these live streams and stuff because sometimes they can fly a little too

00:26:10.400 close to the sun like i've even noticed sometimes when polyev takes a question from rebel news which

00:26:14.960 i think he assumes is gonna be this like maybe easier ride or something they sometimes ask

00:26:19.680 something that i think they assume he'll be in line with but it forces him to speak about issues

00:26:24.640 that he's maybe been trying to avoid like you know what the one of the only times he's been asked

00:26:29.360 directly about trans rights it was coming from a like a bigoted place within the rebel news question

00:26:35.040 But they were the ones who I believe asked him about like bathroom bans and stuff and forced him to give an answer on where he stands on that issue.

00:26:42.820 So it's like their intention might not be to hold these people to account, but they come from such a sometimes more extreme perspective that it can be a dangerous thing for the politicians.

00:26:54.300 But, you know, the thing I wanted to ask you about was, like, I sometimes worry about politicians using podcasts and this online creator ecosystem to avoid tough questions.

00:27:06.800 I think it's a bit less of an issue, as you said, with left-leaning streams, because the left is famous for eating its own.

00:27:13.220 There's nothing that the left loves more than, you know, going after one of their own.

00:27:19.020 But on the political right, things can get, like, really sycophantic.

00:27:22.740 so how do we avoid that like is it possible to avoid the content creator world being used as a

00:27:30.420 tool to do some media and like look like you're talking to the public while largely avoiding

00:27:37.660 accountability is there any way to get around that i think that people really need to vet the

00:27:44.060 people that they and and recognize that what are you bringing them on for like i think everybody

00:27:47.960 who has a platform needs to realize the way you use and the stories you talk about matter you you

00:27:54.780 have a megaphone one that is a privilege that not a lot of other people have and if you are shining

00:27:58.780 light on an issue that is obviously very serious to you and the way you craft that narrative is

00:28:03.320 important the same thing applies to politicians if you bring them on like if you're bringing on

00:28:07.200 a politician who you're in favor of some of those things then by all means talk about that but it

00:28:11.880 you know i i would genuinely tell someone like i i'm going to ask this and and if you're not

00:28:17.640 comfortable with that then you know i i don't want to have this interview because ultimately i can't

00:28:22.920 i i don't want to be on history having sat across from you or even through a zoom call

00:28:27.720 and knowing that i didn't actually ask this specific question at this moment in time right

00:28:31.640 um and to be honest every single person i've ever worked with is like oh yeah fine that's fine yeah

00:28:36.520 yeah or don't tell them and just ask it anyways that's what i would do

00:28:39.480 because then they can get ready for it you don't want them to give you anything pr trained you

00:28:44.420 know oh well that's true yeah i see you're the journalist again i'm just a jabroni on the

00:28:49.500 internet you're an excellent jabroni okay like you're like the best jabroni out there nice

00:28:55.400 yeah um yeah i and actually i speaking of your jabroni clout um you know obviously i'm talking

00:29:03.820 to you on the eve of the debate so we're doing this interview on tuesday evening which is i know

00:29:09.360 tough because there's probably going to be a bunch of stuff to talk about by the time this is

00:29:13.200 published and you guys are listening to this yeah exactly we're gonna know what happened at these

00:29:19.440 debates so you guys in the future already know but lance actually participated in a very special

00:29:26.640 debate once and so i wanted to ask him about it and get his um see if he has any advice or anything

00:29:34.320 he'll be watching for from the leaders because you debated tim pool who is i was i was like where is

00:29:41.920 she going with this yeah i'm sure you've debated other people too but yeah that was like one of the

00:29:46.560 most notable things that i've seen um and you know tim pool for those of you who don't know is

00:29:51.440 basically like a human thumb who was a unwitting beneficiary unwitting of the whole tenant media

00:29:57.440 thing where it turned out russia was footing the bill for personalities to make content like they

00:30:03.200 say they didn't know russia was footing the bill but uh some of the influencers involved did tim

00:30:08.480 pool was not among them um according to what he says so didn't give the money back though interesting

00:30:15.520 huh yeah yeah but but they are the victims don't forget yes a very wealthy victim um so i guess

00:30:22.160 i wanted to ask you like first of all i'm just so curious like what was that like uh to be the

00:30:28.160 the timpool compound uh you know everyone's like oh the smell must have been crazy i bet everybody

00:30:34.560 in there was just like you know carrying a gun and pointing it at you and uh to be totally honest

00:30:39.480 his staff are all so kind so friendly it's it's it's like it's a it's a it's a little army of

00:30:45.600 people he's got a compound in the in the same way like you would find in waco texas kind of thing

00:30:50.280 where it's they they are heavily armed they have been like a ridiculous oh yeah they have a

00:30:54.960 ridiculous amount of guns but they're not literally carrying them he just has gun rooms he's like

00:30:58.840 he's preparing for some massive kind of civil war like on on some scale there like okay they had

00:31:04.120 yeah they have chickens they have their own farming food like they're they're getting ready

00:31:08.040 for it kind of stuff so i didn't even know that about i thought that maybe it was just like in a

00:31:12.820 room in like a normal house or something no no he's got a compound it's it's like a you have to

00:31:16.980 get shuttled in there down a long like you know driveway into like the compound kind of stuff

00:31:22.180 there's so much money on the right that is wild yes they had a fleet of lexuses like i think they

00:31:28.600 must have had like seven or eight lexuses and that was just the cars that he wants for people

00:31:31.860 i'm sure they're cyber trucks now but at the time those were the cars that were like driving people

00:31:35.260 around i was like oh my god this is obscene how much money this one youtuber makes yeah um but

00:31:41.000 uh yeah it's uh it's one of those cases where the staff are the friendliest people in the world

00:31:45.460 they're all they're all so kind even if they're conspiracy minded uh and then the only person

00:31:50.560 who was a monster was timpool to be honest even even moon lord was nice everyone was really kind

00:31:57.000 and did you learn anything like in terms of rich like i guess i don't know because debates are such

00:32:04.900 a weird kind of human interaction right it's like i feel like people aren't really going in trying

00:32:09.760 to learn from each other they're they're just trying to win um and obviously what you experienced

00:32:14.720 was kind of one of the more extreme forms of that we're gonna see the politicians go after each

00:32:19.300 other in that way was there anything that you learned from that experience about debating as

00:32:23.380 like a skill uh well to be clear I am I am not a master debater I just really wanted to defend

00:32:29.080 a lot of views that I find abhorrent and why not he's he's platforming me just so we're clear right

00:32:34.020 like the guy gets I think like 50,000 live viewers you know I'm lucky to crack a thousand on average

00:32:38.700 so like he's he's 50 times larger in scale so it was it was a platforming but what shocked me

00:32:45.640 to be totally honest with you is i have arguments in my head that make sense to me that i i figure

00:32:52.880 i could tell someone who happens to be a bigot like for example i'm bi and i was going to talk

00:32:59.100 to them specifically about uh their views on gay people and so i was starting by saying it was like

00:33:04.300 but you don't think that being gay is a choice because if that's true then being straight is a

00:33:09.240 choice and like what turned you straight or what would be i thought that would be enough right

00:33:12.980 and then they started going on this whole thing where like if you are attracted to trans women

00:33:17.620 you're just by default gay and then i was like well if we if i bring up examples of people who

00:33:22.080 you consider to be attractive trans women would you still consider like you know we were just

00:33:26.020 going down this rabbit hole but i realized that they were more concerned with defending their

00:33:30.180 principled beliefs than they were with any of it making sense they eventually got to a point where

00:33:34.220 they were willing to budge on uh maybe being straight can be taught and maybe being gay can

00:33:40.060 be taught i was like really yeah because then they were talking like well what happens in prison

00:33:44.040 well how do you explain that well how do you explain prison and then i was like well i think

00:33:48.460 you're in a very small community of people who are all the same gender i don't think that's the

00:33:52.800 same thing being able to be converted it seems like they get hyper specific to try to like i

00:33:58.740 don't know i know yeah bring this stuff up i know that's totally unrelated to what we're talking

00:34:02.420 about no it's not it's not though because that's sort of a debate tactic that they used you know

00:34:06.120 was like going extremely specific having these like examples that aren't the the average experience

00:34:12.680 to try to skew things like that's definitely part of it yeah that that part was weird but um in

00:34:19.180 terms of like if i compare that to the leadership debate we all know what the leadership debates are

00:34:23.820 gonna be it's gonna be uh most uh jug meat and and pierre will team up against carney because

00:34:30.200 he's in the front runner uh jug meat will probably get some really good sound bites against uh pierre

00:34:34.920 at some point because he's got a really good one saved in the pocket uh Pierre will attack

00:34:39.340 Carney the whole time and then occasionally attack I think Jagmeet specifically uh for

00:34:43.660 wanting a pension even though his pension is for three times although he might not want to attack

00:34:47.440 Jagmeet too much because he needs the NDP to come back to because that's where the support is going

00:34:53.080 like coalescing under the liberals so I'm curious to see because he has a lot of like tried and true

00:34:58.320 attacks for Jagmeet that he could deploy for sure but it's like it'll be interesting to see if he

00:35:03.200 actually goes for it or if that's like a sign of how he's having to shift tactically i'm i'm a little

00:35:10.080 confused as to why to be totally honest the conservatives haven't started to address their

00:35:14.820 misogyny problem because i thought that would be like that's clearly if you look at the polls you

00:35:18.680 look at the numbers that's where you are pleading support and it's not getting any better right like

00:35:23.160 the whole like biological clocks tour is just not resonating with half the population what a

00:35:27.980 surprise um but like shocked like i really i heard him say biological clocks i was like oh

00:35:33.660 there we go i'm glad someone's finally talking about this the alarm keeps going off in my belly

00:35:39.520 and i'm really confused by it i think i needed to see a doctor but i can't in this country so

00:35:43.660 yeah because we live in communism

00:35:45.720 yeah i well then they put out that other ad though right they did the andrew sheer ad where

00:35:53.700 basically treating uh the liberals like a crazy ex-girlfriend we're talking math math yeah and

00:36:00.260 i was like who's this for or the or the racing cars i was like again who is this for who what

00:36:06.020 demographic are you are you clinching right now by doing this whole like you know i also love to drive

00:36:10.900 very expensive uh fast cars you know yeah okay congratulations yeah yeah you know and actually

00:36:18.340 that i again that's a good segue into the other thing i did really want to touch on which is

00:36:23.620 you know um you're talking about their issues with women but also one thing that's been really uh

00:36:30.820 it hasn't been a huge conversation on the campaign trail has been indigenous rights and a lot of the

00:36:36.020 times that indigenous rights have come up in any capacity on the campaign trail it's been in the

00:36:41.380 context of like resource extraction or racist stuff being said about indigenous people by

00:36:48.020 a conservative candidate um kind of says it all right there exactly you know so i did want to ask

00:36:53.220 you like as a prominent indigenous political voice what are your thoughts on the nature of

00:36:57.780 this campaign and the things that are being said or not being said when it comes to indigenous rights

00:37:04.180 yeah i mean um i mean i guess i i should start by saying that i i'm metis so you know we're by

00:37:09.460 definition a combination of like the colonizer and the colonized right yeah that's why i look

00:37:14.020 so creamy white as you can see before um but on that issue i mean i've been a long time advocate

00:37:20.580 for you know land back i've been a long time advocate for speaking out against the you know

00:37:23.960 the residential school system the horrors atrocities genocide etc sorry i don't have

00:37:27.240 to make you bleep more words so i'll just okay those words are fine it's just the f word really

00:37:32.400 that's the only okay all right well we're doing good on that right i haven't dropped it too many

00:37:37.880 times yeah you're good i uh i i think uh i would i would recommend everyone check out uh pam uh

00:37:44.300 palm water's uh recent uh episode of the breach she talks a lot about how all the candidates have

00:37:50.060 fair in terms of Indigenous rights. But I'm going to be honest, this this election cycle is one of

00:37:54.540 the most depressing I've seen for that topic, specifically because we are in a crisis of a

00:37:59.320 national identity right now, which is combining with the fact that everyone's worried about Donald

00:38:02.760 Trump taking over Canada. And so Canada and Canadians have suddenly become hyper nationalistic

00:38:07.100 in a very short amount of time. And like, I'm not saying in and of itself, the idea of being proud

00:38:12.200 to be Canadian is evil, that makes you a bad person or the whole elbows up. I mean, come on,

00:38:16.520 the Mike Myers stuff I understand why they're doing it it's all very cute and it's it's Canadian

00:38:20.300 wholesomeness uh that uh you know really speak to a lot of normies and stuff like that but that 0.75

00:38:25.060 conversation immediately usually erases indigenous land rights and they usually get trampled in the

00:38:30.080 process which is really horrifying and I've been trying to listen to a lot of people that I respect

00:38:33.640 a lot like Brandy Morin for example she's a journalist and her and a lot of other indigenous

00:38:38.040 journalists have been trying to position themselves in such a way that I mean I agree

00:38:43.140 with the overarching concept that if Trump takes over Canada, he is not going to be respecting

00:38:48.860 Indigenous land rights. Trump is going to be turning it into the 51st state, and then that's

00:38:53.400 going to be pretty much the end of that. And the fact that we've made a lot of progress,

00:38:56.540 and when I say we, I mean, like, it's because Indigenous activists and, you know, people have

00:39:02.060 been fighting so long and so hard, as well as doing a lot of really important stuff through

00:39:05.400 the courts, which is also incredibly important, right, that we have won a lot of victories. We

00:39:10.000 have signed on to uh you know untrip uh we we have uh begun the process of you know uh i live in

00:39:16.320 vancouver uh the squamish nation over here uh just recently got one of the largest land back

00:39:20.460 acquisitions of the most expensive property in canada and they've used it to build low-income

00:39:24.960 housing towers immediately that was one of the first things they did right so it's just like a

00:39:29.340 beautiful success story there they won a land back title and they're using it to house people

00:39:33.280 awesome like the can't can't you know say anything other than that's uh inspiring um so it does worry

00:39:41.020 me i i you know what else sucks is the mark carney residential school stuff i don't think he really

00:39:45.980 handled that well i don't think anyone did and on the other end you cannot right wingers cannot try 0.52

00:39:51.800 and weaponize that when you've got aaron gunn residential school denier and you're standing

00:39:56.220 behind him that means you are officially making what he says part of what you consider to be

00:40:00.340 acceptable behavior and that's frankly abhorrent so yeah it's not it's not been great yeah and i

00:40:07.300 i think on the aaron gun issue and you know like pierre polyev has been just like he's been like

00:40:15.760 a one direction fan towards harry styles when it comes to sir john a mcdonald like he's like

00:40:21.120 every few days he talks about sir john a mcdonald who was an architect of the residential school

00:40:26.080 system and he's like a vehement defender of john sir johnny mcdonald's legacy um and combine that

00:40:33.280 with the air and gun stuff with the um talk about resource extraction and like building pipelines

00:40:39.360 and speeding up permits and you know the impact they keep saying you know oh we're still gonna do

00:40:44.800 um effective consultation but i'm seriously skeptical of that um i i guess i wanted to

00:40:50.720 ask you like do you feel like there's a backslide happening here because like it felt like we were

00:40:56.800 having some really good conversations about canada's you know our history and present day

00:41:04.960 um you know colonialist attitudes and the atrocities that have been committed against

00:41:12.320 indigenous folks here and i guess i was just wondering like do you feel like there's a

00:41:15.200 backslide happening here yes i don't think it started now though i think the backslide

00:41:20.160 began during uh a couple years ago when a lot of the residential school uh graves started getting

00:41:26.800 discovered and um that led to the biggest backlash i've experienced in my you know personal career

00:41:32.760 covering this stuff which was the residential school denialism movement which really was

00:41:37.260 propagated by people like lauren southern and keen bexty uh both of well previously ripple news but i

00:41:43.700 think uh keen now does north something he's got some other juno news now with uh oh really they've

00:41:49.880 collabed yeah it's really they made a really fun video like walking in front of parliament looking

00:41:54.780 very serious announcing their new collab is and it's like a subject so super cool anyways awesome

00:42:01.140 yeah uh that backlash wasn't just them there's like a lot of journalists like terry glavin stuff

00:42:07.400 like that but like you could just see immediately this was something in which there was going to be

00:42:12.180 a really easy angle for people to push back on if they happen to not want to believe the true history

00:42:17.740 or the dark narratives of what took place by going after something as simple as well where are the

00:42:21.980 bodies that's the one I get the most and that's the one that's honestly like that one breaks my

00:42:25.600 heart because like you know the the initial uh Kamloops investigation started because of the

00:42:31.360 discovery of uh a children's uh I believe ribcaids or jawbone it was a child bone that started this

00:42:38.140 whole thing so like that that's what set this off um at this point they have exhumed child-sized

00:42:44.260 skeletons in saskatchewan for example so if you literally are just some grim weirdo who needs to

00:42:49.120 see kids bodies you have them now so go go enjoy the bodies but i mean outside of that it's like

00:42:54.480 the the the truth and sorry the truth and reconciliation commission uh has the testimony

00:42:59.980 of thousands thousands thousands and thousands of survivors so i think in this day and age to

00:43:05.240 be actively engaging in genocide denial or propaganda is grotesque and yet we have you

00:43:12.240 know candidates like aaron gunn who are actually completely i guess supported uh by the the

00:43:18.000 conservatives despite how horrifying i find it um i would use that as a footnote to say everyone go

00:43:23.720 watch sugarcane if you haven't seen it already go watch the documentary sugarcane it got nominated

00:43:27.740 this year for an academy award uh for best documentary feature it's the most powerful

00:43:31.380 film i saw this year no other land is incredible too i'm not trying to take anything away from no

00:43:34.820 line also beautiful amazing film go watch them both but uh sherry kane was just like oh my lord

00:43:39.380 like you know awesome i haven't seen it so i'm really excited now i have something to

00:43:43.540 you gotta be in a you gotta be in the right headspace yes yes it's quite heavy yeah yeah

00:43:49.380 yeah kind of like where i just made you take this conversation so thank you for covering all that

00:43:54.180 like very tough stuff um oh no worries actually you know what i can i can put a happier note on

00:43:59.300 this this is the only thing i will thank russia for and putin's administration is he effectively

00:44:05.460 i think got rid of lauren southern and lauren chen right with the tenant media stuff like yeah

00:44:11.060 because they're not posting anymore they have not they have not posted since then lauren southern

00:44:15.780 is going on seven months of no new videos and almost like eight months i think of no twitter

00:44:20.020 posts or anything so they are just like yeah wow i guess uh thank you putin you know never thought

00:44:29.300 That's 100% getting clipped.

00:44:31.320 100% down, right there.

00:44:34.060 All right, Lance, I should probably start to wrap this up,

00:44:36.880 but I did want to throw one last question at you,

00:44:39.880 which is like, is there anything that you wish

00:44:43.340 that more Canadians understood about the role

00:44:46.180 that streamers like you play in the information ecosystem

00:44:49.100 or like anything that you just want them to know?

00:44:52.000 It could also not be about that.

00:44:53.200 Is there anything I didn't ask you that you want to say

00:44:54.720 that you just have the platform right now?

00:44:57.420 Oh, fun.

00:44:58.100 I'll use it to virtue signal about how incredibly noble I am and say that these platforms are actually getting way more and better utilized by journalists in places like Gaza right now who are taking platforms like TikTok and uploading videos and uploading content that we would never see.

00:45:20.420 We would not have seen or known anything that is happening if it were not for, again, like the hundreds of brave journalists who've been doing that.

00:45:26.640 That that is a revolutionary change between like when I was growing up and, you know, the justification for the Iraq war was happening one day on the news and they were bombing Baghdad the next day kind of thing. 0.94

00:45:37.880 So this is one of those moments where it's like it's a lot harder to try and convince the general population to get on board with war crimes, atrocities, if they can see them or if they can see young people who are capable of taking those stories like a lot of incredible TikTokers do and then actually explain them in ways that everyday people might not understand, whether that be tariffs, the economy, stuff like that.

00:46:00.420 that that's where a lot of people and don't get me wrong not not all streamers not all tiktokers

00:46:05.600 not all youtubers are built the same there are again a an ecosystem a healthy one on the right

00:46:10.580 where they are just spreading misinformation all day uh i mean you should tune into people

00:46:15.800 like rachel gilmore uh who do a good job of breaking them apart and exposing their lives

00:46:20.580 i hear she's great yeah yeah i've heard nothing but good things nothing ever no one ever said

00:46:25.360 anything bad about her i think honestly one of the the funniest was it you who responded to

00:46:32.320 someone being like rachel's like the taylor the wrens of canada and then you're like awesome yeah

00:46:40.400 that's a huge compliment so thank you yeah she does really good work yeah she does good for

00:46:44.800 taylor yeah yeah okay awesome well lance this has been a great conversation um i want you to pump

00:46:52.400 your socials tell everyone where they can keep up with you because they probably just really

00:46:55.600 enjoyed listening to you and want to hear more so tell them where they can do it uh you can find me

00:47:00.800 everywhere social media is sold at the surfs tv that's the surf spelt like lords and surf surfs

00:47:06.960 not surfing so at the surfs tv for most things and then our channel uh that does daily news is

00:47:12.720 at the surf times on youtube and uh thank you to everyone who just helped us uh get past the

00:47:17.520 100 000 sub uh milestones so that's i'm gonna get a plaque oh my god amazing that's so exciting

00:47:23.880 congrats all right lance thank you so much for your time i really appreciate it bye

00:47:29.200 thank you for listening to this week's episode of bubble pop i'm rachel gilmore your least

00:47:36.900 favorite person's least favorite journalist if you enjoyed this episode consider subscribing to

00:47:41.320 bubble pop on substack patreon youtube or wherever you'd like to listen you can also find me on tiktok

00:47:47.180 instagram twitch and blue sky i'd like to say a special thank you to hans vivian wenzel for

00:47:51.580 making the incredibly groovy music for bubble pop you can find more of his stuff on spotify

00:47:56.300 under the artist name hans that's a lowercase h with an exclamation mark thanks again for spending

00:48:01.740 this time with me doing this is a literal dream job and i couldn't do any of it i couldn't get

00:48:06.780 scoops i couldn't sit here talking to you without your support so thank you so much and i'll see you

00:48:13.420 you next time.

Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - April 18, 2025

The blurred lines between content creators and journalists (with Lance from the Serfs)

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Transcript