ANDREW CHAPADOS ｜ Andrew Lawton and Spencer Fernando
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Andrew Lawton and spencer fernando as they discuss the pepper spray incident that took place during the protest in Ottawa, Canada on the day of the anti-police protest.
Transcript
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thanks for watching another episode of andrew says we are here
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live or at least we'll say we're live with andrew lawton and spencer fernando how are you guys doing
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today i died like half an hour ago i'm not alive i don't know what you're talking about
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spencer how are you good good very high energy today spencer okay uh it's early in the morning
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i know um i'm thanking you guys for joining me the first thing i want to get to is with you
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andrew i saw in ottawa the pictures i saw a brief video but i haven't seen a full recollection of
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what happened when you got pepper sprayed can you review for our audience who maybe hasn't seen it
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what exactly happened during your coverage in ottawa i know we probably saw it from different
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angles i just want to get your take on what happened yeah and i'll try to give the condensed
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version of the story but but the one thing i will draw attention to is that it happened
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almost at the exact moment of the famous trampling incident where that indigenous woman was
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basically pushed to the ground by a movement of police horses and it was actually my
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effort to see what was happening there that really got me to miss what was happening to me or was
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about to happen to me it was in front of the shadow laurier it was the the day before the protest was
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really completely disbanded police were trying to push closer and closer to parliament hill and had
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managed to do it until the shadow laurier which is about you know two blocks east or so of center block
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and police had been keeping a pretty steady methodical pace for most of the morning which
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made it easy if you were a journalist to be there and and kind of be able to predict where you could
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safely be and i was where a lot of other journalists were especially news photographers
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and it was at that exact moment that the tactic changed very dramatically police rushed forward
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they broke either intentionally or unintentionally i don't know that solid line that they had that's why
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you had the horses go out ahead over near the sides police actually started pushing people against
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like a wall and that's where i got trapped and i didn't really have anywhere to go i wasn't able to
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move back and that eventually despite being about you know six seven eight feet from the front line
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i got pepper spray directly in my left eye and that was quite a shock because again i had been
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following every order to obey i had been deliberately staying out of the clash that was at that immediate
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front line of the protesters and police but evidently that was not enough how long did that take you out
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of commission for because i know you were there reporting and doing a bunch of stories there how
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long did that take you out for did or did you just keep going well immediately i mean immediately it took
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me out for you know probably a good five ten minutes or so just trying to like in the field get back to a
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point where i could see and my eye could open and i could work i mean that tweet that i put out
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with that photo of just like the close-up of like my giant swollen face was something i was like doing
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with kind of like one eye and and one finger as i was trying to kind of clean my eye out so it wasn't
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actually so but i knew it was important to document but later on i ended up having to spend a couple of
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hours going to the hospital and getting treated there because it was a particularly prolonged reaction
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which they advise you to seek treatment for so i don't have an exact time but it wasn't just about
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oh this minor inconvenience for a few minutes as i think a lot of people assume pepper spray is it
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can actually do some damage and i think it can be reactivated too if you if you rent try to rinse it
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out later given the like i said the live stream coverage and the coverage from people on the ground
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do you think this sort of exacerbates or you know further separates people down party lines because you
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could really get two worlds if you're looking at you know cbc or ctv coverage who are talking about
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you know a lot about themselves and a lot about how dangerous and and uh how they're ravaging the
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streets of audio or if you look at true north coverage who's on the ground you know talking to
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people getting stuff at the front lines do you think this could further separate people and there
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could be you know completely opposite interpretations depending on who you watch well i think that was
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definitely the case and just look at i mean i know everyone talks about the bouncy castle and the hot tub
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and all of these things but i think they're important symbols of it because to some people you would
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look at the convoy and just see this big block party and other people you would look at the
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convoy and see this radical haiti hate fest insurrection and again i'm not going to whitewash
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it there were some people that of course were were not there and all just having fun i mean these
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were isolated incidents though the general vibe the general atmosphere was a peaceful protest
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and a very fun environment for people up until the very end and when you have people looking
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at that and seeing a fringe minority with unacceptable views and seeing all of these
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things that the media were claiming were happening there how can you not have this confusion in these
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parallel societies that are unfolding so trudeau calls this emergency act and spencer i want to get
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your take about when they go do that second vote and then they revoke it almost immediately within a
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couple days what do you think was the purpose of that was that just trudeau flexing his muscles
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saying hey look i can keep going with this with with impute with for as long as i want or is that
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sort of actually them saying oh we don't need this anymore it turns out that we don't actually need it
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or this is giving us blowback what's your take on them getting that vote and then basically taking it
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away within a couple days yeah i think it was a way for him to kind of impose his will on the people
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who in his caucus really who were starting to push back you had joel lightbound who was criticizing the
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government and then you had i think uh i think it's nate erskine smith and he was kind of hinting
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that he didn't like the idea but then he said he only voted for it because the government called it
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a confidence motion so i think the liberals uh trudeau was starting to feel that he was getting
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too much push back and he wanted to you know kind of threaten his own people and uh impose his will on
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them and so it is kind of a flex of power to say you know i made you vote for this against your
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your morals and against your beliefs and now two days later i'm revoking it i mean he also humiliated
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jake meet singh which i'm sure he enjoyed doing so yeah i think it was really a power move
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well what about the bloc coming in with the conservatives on these votes unanimously of
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course and you've got four parties split uh two and two what do you think the strategy behind the
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bloc coming in and supporting the conservatives was there they they always like throwing a wrench in
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things it seems sometimes successfully sometimes very successfully sometimes nobody even notices
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what do you think the strategy was for that particular vote yeah i think with the bloc it's
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that they don't like the federal government imposing powers right they may not have opposed
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uh exactly what the government was doing if they had been in charge of doing it perhaps in quebec
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but they don't like the idea of the central federal government imposing things uh that would you know
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influence what quebec could do or take away the rights of people in quebec right so it's not
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necessarily the most altruistic position for them but that does sometimes line them up with
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the conservatives who have lately been opposed to you know government overreach and government
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infringement on individual freedoms so kind of a relationship of convenience there but you know
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i think we'll take what we can get when it comes to politicians pushing back against some of this
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stuff andrew do you see it the same way to add to that the yeah the only thing that i think the
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bloc quebecois dislikes more than conservatives is federal government overreach into provincial affairs and
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the last thing they want is the federal government going in and conscripting quebec tow truck drivers
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freezing quebecers bank accounts all of these things so i mean i have a great deal of disagreement
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with the bloc quebecois but on this i their concerns again especially given the invocation of the the old
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war measures act and the flq i think quebecers have a very keen awareness for just how dangerous
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legislation like this is for sure and it's always very interesting when you know enemy of my enemy
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becomes my friend essentially which i think what what is what was happening there i want to move on
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because i want to get you know how highly i consider you both in the canadian realm of politics i want
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to get both of your takes on the conservative candidates that are coming up it's a few months
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away and you know people are throwing their hat in and john surest if you i mean i just remember him
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for his name but if you have voted for the first time within the last seven years let's say when
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justin trudeau got into office you're probably not going to know who he is if let's say you
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turned 18 and now you're 25 or 24 what do you think the the strategy is there is it one of these
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situations where you hope that he's just a fresh face in some people's mind because he's jumped
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around a lot what do you think the strategy is there is it just you know get myself back in there
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get some money get some emails what do you guys think andrew you want to go first
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yeah i i do think there is a legitimate question of of are you yesterday's candidate are you this
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guy coming back i mean there's a history of that happening in canadian politics justin trudeau was
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was gone was in retirement and came back and if you are just looking at it from an objective
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historical point of view his most successful term in which he accomplished the most not saying that
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it was good accomplishments but the one he accomplished the most in was undeniably his last term
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so i do think there is a sense of someone coming out of retirement and having a last kick at the can
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of sorts i as far as the the translation of that to voters i don't know one thing that is working in
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his favor is that the media loves him the media loves talking about jean chariot people like jerry
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butts are saying yeah we should all be paying attention to jean chariot and a former liberal
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senator wrote an op-ed defending him as being a true conservative which is great because for for all of
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my assessments of conservatism i go to liberal former members of the senate
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but i think that legitimately canadians will will know the name and if they don't know it directly
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they'll be told to know it they'll be told he's someone who's relevant but as we see that doesn't
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always translate within a leadership contest to success peter mckay got that treatment he was the
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one that everyone wanted he was the one that the globe and mail was writing about and in the end he
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didn't even come close so as far as whether he is going to win or not i don't know if he's connected
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enough to the conservative base or if he has enough of a campaign that he can sign up new members
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convince current members that'll be the big question in a leadership context anyway spencer
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how much influence do you think that some of these corporate media outlets can have in pushing like
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somebody pushing somebody like him into contention well it could be quite a lot right because name
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recognition is really half the battle if not more in a leadership race especially with a lot of
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candidates and so he's going to get that immediately and you know as andrew said right people who don't
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know of him will be made to know of him he's going to get more favorable coverage i mean you already
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see look at the difference in coverage he's getting compared to pierre polyev right i mean it's quite
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different and so that's going to be a challenge for polyev and for you know more true conservatives
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in the race they're going to have to fight not just against the charade campaign but also against
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the media and they're going to spin stories as well i mean it just you know came out a few days ago
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that you know huawei is saying well no actually you know john charade wasn't actually doing that
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much in terms of the two michaels it was uh it was more about 5g and lobbying the government for us
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so i mean if that happened to someone like polyev that would be ever that'd be the main media story
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right you know polyev caught lying or something like that so it's it's charade's going to get somewhat
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better coverage than other people would but again with the rise of independent media and with social
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media it's not quite as easy for the establishment press to push a narrative and then just assume
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everyone's going to go along with it leslin lewis is probably an underdog in most people's uh books
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during the last election you know she had i think one of the if not the most the second most votes if
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i'm not uh overall if i'm not mistaken there and then she settled into her position that she is now
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now she's running again do you guys think she has a shot at winning andrew do you think she has a shot
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at winning or is this just bolstering her for further down the line because she's got a long career ahead of
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her i think people like her she says a lot of good things she has good ideas she is one of the
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people that's brave enough to come out against the grain against the party on some issues she did that
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uh be one of the first people in uh to speak in ottawa what do you think her campaign's goals are
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going into this well i think that the campaign goal is to win and i think that she did have a very
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strong showing she was a relative unknown in 2020 had never held office no one had ever heard of her at
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the beginning and ended up again with a very significant amount of name recognition and a
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lot of support from a lot of members of the conservative base even a lot of peter mckay
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supporters were putting her second on their ballot now i think that a lot would have to go right for
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her for her to come out with a win but i should also qualify that by saying the ranked ballot makes
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that possible so someone like roman babber who has done a lot of work on the anti-lockdown anti-vaccine
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mandate stuff is not well known outside of ontario he could have a very strong showing and then his
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support if he gets dropped off the ballot might flow to leslund lewis that's one example
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if something really strange happens where jean chariot people are really really really not liking
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pierre polyev and they want to just put anyone before him if he gets eliminated that could flow to
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leslund lewis as well and she could also come out of the gate with a very strong amount of support on
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the first ballot with the support she has from a lot of social conservative groups who are very well
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organized so there is a path to victory it would require a lot of different things to happen but i
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also think that she's starting not as an unknown this time she's starting as someone that came out of
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the last leadership race unblemished and also someone who was sidelined by erin o'toole she was very high
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profile because of her showing in the leadership and then after the election she's denied a portfolio in
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the shadow cabinet denied a portfolio in the conservative leadership and she was really just
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shoved to the back benches when a lot of people were saying uh why why is this woman who's speaking
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for a lot of people in the party getting this treatment so i i think that there is a lot of
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support for her i just don't know how much it's going to be and and where it's going to come from
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spencer yeah i think you know in the last leadership race there was kind of a lack of energy you know from
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uh the base you know they weren't too excited about a lot of the uh about a lot of the candidates and
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so i think she benefited from that and that she was more outspoken and she was uh you know more true
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to the the views of many people on the conservative base and the other candidates were seen to be
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and so i think this time some of that energy is with pierre pauliev some you know will be with
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roman baber and so i think she'll she'll do pretty well but i think she has a bit more of a challenge
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this time in that the energy is you know a lot of the base is excited about some other candidates as
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well she's not really the only one who's capturing that energy so i think it'll be a little more
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difficult this time but it'll be interesting to see right i mean a lot of it's going to come down
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to you know do patrick brown supporters go for sheree and do sheree supporters go for patrick
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brown whether they have an official deal or not they seem to be certainly uh working relatively
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closely together at least in their message i mean you see their people retweeting uh some of the
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same stuff on twitter so i think it'll be interesting to see if you know lesla lewis
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her supporters where they go and what impact that can have on the final ballot yeah and i want to
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talk about patrick brown mainly his tactics is what i wanted to talk to you guys about regarding him
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to me patrick brown is pulling out some of the let's say at least five years old 2016 style um
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sort of an attack an attack campaign on pierre whether you agree with that or not i think he's
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going that style a little bit and he's got his thing with the ice rink we all know his face when
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david menzies caught him he's got his past controversies with uh all these allegations
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uh a lot of it's been retracted by papers now what do you guys think do you think this andrew do you
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think this is the style of campaign is going to work he's got a lot of support in his city i feel
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like judging by the people who came out and supported him uh last week do you think this
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style of campaign is going to gain a lot of ground for him sort of going head to head with pierre
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polyevre it's i mean again it certainly is dragging the perceived front runner into a fight which means
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that you are seen by a lot of people as being at their level i mean if pierre polyevre didn't think
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patrick brown was worth all that much he wouldn't bother responding to him so i do think that i mean
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true north for example ran a story about the pair polyevre and patrick brown spat so obviously people
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are paying attention to it i do think with patrick brown it's kind of interesting because here's a guy
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who's a complete hustler in a sense of he works hard and he went from being a backbench conservative
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mp to being the leader of the ontario pc party because he was picking up the phone calling people
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he'd be at every event he'd talk to everyone the problem is that he does not have similar to roman
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babber a national footprint he has a provincial footprint and he really has a regional and municipal
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one so he needs to make himself part of the national discussion and if he's firing potshots at
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polyevre that's one good way to do it spencer if he's doing this with pierre do you think you know
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however much you believe is passed or not is troubled past do you think that becomes a problem
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for him or do you think people even care at this point in you know 2022 politics yeah well i think
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the liberals are looking at this and they're just watching and writing their attack ads right i mean
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you can imagine it right so pierre polyevre becomes a leader what does fellow conservative
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who patrick brown think about pierre polyevre and then they run patrick brown's comments
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and so the liberals i'm sure are really enjoying this and you know this is where i think the cpc
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made a serious mistake with their six-month leadership race i mean this is like what a week
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into it we've got six more months of this kind of stuff going on and that's going to do severe
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damage to the party i mean whoever wins right so polyevre wins you're going to have a faction of the
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party that brown recruited who are going to say oh a racist one and then you know patrick brown or
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jean chariot wins you know there's going to be a whole bunch of people in the conservative party
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including many mps who are going to be quite pissed off and not really happy at all and that's going
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to be a problem so i think a six-month uh leadership race was a serious tactical mistake for them and i
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think they could pay the price for it uh that's an interesting point especially with provincial races
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coming up in the summer i didn't think about it from that perspective but the last person obviously
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last but not least pierre polyevre and andrew i watched some of your interview with him
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i think you did a great job especially when you ask him questions about things about hairy things
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about things that people are talking about online like the world economic forum did you get the sense
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that he is much different than the other candidates did you get the sense that he's you know going to be
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a different type of conservative leader maybe leaning further towards an audience a ppc audience that's
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going to like him or do you think that it becomes if he becomes party leader it's going to become
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sort of the same thing we expected under erin o'toole how do you think he becomes a leader
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uh in that sense it's a really good question and i think that one of the big frustrations i've had
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with conservative leaders in the last two elections andrew share and erin o'toole is their inability or
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unwillingness to communicate conservative messages and to do it in a capable clear and consistent way
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uh in the case of andrew shear he seemed to be apologizing for being a conservative in the case
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of erin o'toole he just abandoned conservative policies when he faced pushback from the media
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so i think that a politician that's going to own their message and actually get down if the media
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wants to get dirty get down and dirty with them and that's something pierre polyevre has shown a
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willingness to do i've seen him push back against the premises of trick questions from the press
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and and i'm not comparing him to ron de santis but i do think there is that ron de santis like quality
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you know i guess i am comparing him to ron de santis then but i i think in this in the specific way of
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how he owns what he believes and and pushes back against the media there's something in that that that
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is very useful and i think it helps them because you know the the existing knowledge or wisdom of
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conservative campaigns just hasn't been working you need someone that's going to try and go on the
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offensive so i think on style alone that will set him apart from others on on the actual substance
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it stands to be seen i mean this is a guy who's been a long time conservative mp he's got a voting
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record people can look at that he's not a social conservative he's doing the o'toole thing which is
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saying that i believe in free votes and i believe you're a part of this party but i'm not offering you
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anything but he is also very solid on other red meat conservative issues like free speech he was a
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supporter of the trucker convoy quite early on so i i think that for a lot of people he he's not just
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this far-right candidate for some he is in the media he is someone who's relatively mainstream in
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conservatism but he has a much different way of communicating that spencer when people look at
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pierre and i'm playing devil's advocate here and they can say you know he didn't speak up about
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lockdowns or you know quarantine facilities in canada um he's basically said end all restrictions
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but he hasn't said specifically you know let unvaccinated people fly should we expect him
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to come out and be a man of the people of the entire party and like i said touch into those ppc style
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voters or do you think he goes more of an o'toole way where he's he has all this bark but once you know
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they get pushback if he's in power the lead the leader of the party that he's gonna you know
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rescind these promises that he had yeah you know i think we could certainly have more confidence in
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him than o'toole you know o'toole was very conflict averse you know he got scared at seeing
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whenever the media criticized him so he just tried to placate everybody and make the problem go away
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by basically surrendering to the narrative of his opponents i think with polyev and with other
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conservative mps too it's useful to look at how their message changed when o'toole was the leader
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and then when he he wasn't the leader anymore right i mean they they certainly started talking a lot more
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freely about any restrictions about you know opposing government overreach and so i think that that's
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something to look at too there's obviously always going to be pressure you know within parties from
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what the leader wants and that obviously influenced a lot of them but i think he'll certainly be tougher
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than o'toole you know to a certain extent every you know conservative leader does a bit of a pivot
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to the center just as you know liberals and ndp somewhat well the ndp not really but the liberals
00:22:26.080
will try to do that as well you're going to be a little more aggressive talking to your your party
00:22:30.380
base than you would be to the public but the the idea is there's a way to do that that's still
00:22:35.040
consistent with your principles right maybe you change your tone a little bit but you're not
00:22:38.300
changing your ideas what we saw with uh with aaron o'toole is he not just changed he didn't just
00:22:42.920
change his tone to be a little more moderate but he he completely reversed himself and abandoned
00:22:47.960
his ideas so since polyev is a better communicator i see him being able to manage that a little bit
00:22:53.520
better and you know he has been sharing a message for quite some time especially on economic issues
00:22:58.260
that has been uh quite consistent so i imagine he's going to keep doing that yeah i like what he has to
00:23:03.440
say when he talks about the economy and especially around the pipelines in regards to when he says that
00:23:09.300
about in uh russia and ukraine you know we should be building more stuff here flowing our oil here i would
00:23:14.700
like to hear him speak more about you know gun legislation and free speech legislation and like
00:23:19.760
you said there's six months there's probably plenty of time for that i'd love somebody to ask him about
00:23:23.560
it but when i think about gun legislation specifically not knowing how you guys feel about this
00:23:28.240
but i can't remember the last time that some of this stuff started getting walked back i know stephen
00:23:34.180
harper i believe got rid of the you know you have to call the rcmp or the opp when you're moving your
00:23:39.960
your firearm but that's since been gone back and they've expanded the gun list andrew do you think
00:23:45.020
that we get to a point where we can actually start talking about you know opening up our freedom of
00:23:50.360
speech laws or opening up our gun rights do you think we get to a point in the next election cycle
00:23:55.140
where that becomes a hot topic yeah i mean i think it's going to be a hot topic in the election because
00:24:01.380
the media will take any relaxation of firearm restrictions as being you know just opening the
00:24:06.540
floodgates to people walking around with you know handguns and machine guns and all of that but
00:24:11.520
but i do think that we are at a point in the country where we need to just stop apologizing for
00:24:16.560
things that make sense from a policy perspective i'm a gun owner i did a documentary about firearms so
00:24:21.900
i know this issue very well as someone affected by it and also as someone who's reported on it
00:24:26.580
and aaron o'toole had proposed initially a very sensible approach to firearms that he completely
00:24:32.440
rolled on when he was getting questions about it in the campaign pierre polyev he has a lot of rural
00:24:37.340
people in his riding i know he has spoken out about guns i'm going to be looking to see in his
00:24:41.640
leadership platform what specifically he'll do i i spoke to jean charret about this because he had
00:24:47.120
backed the long gun registry when he was quebec premier and he basically would only commit in my
00:24:52.540
interview with him to no new restrictions he wasn't committing to rolling back any of the
00:24:57.360
trudeau restrictions so i think that you have to look at especially the prohibition that went in
00:25:02.220
place in may 2020 and also the legislation the liberals are trying to put forward right now to
00:25:07.580
allow municipalities to ban handguns i think a conservative leader needs to say no and no to both
00:25:12.520
of those andrew i think i know the answer to this but can you explain to people why the liberal
00:25:18.080
government does a gun ban list as opposed to you know regarding function or type of weapon can you
00:25:26.640
explain that for people i don't think most people understand the reason why we just got a mass
00:25:30.560
list of weapons well i i the one thing i will say and it's a bugaboo of mine i don't call them
00:25:36.940
weapons because a weapon is is based on intent a gun is a gun a gun is a firearm and i think that
00:25:42.940
what the liberals or what canadians need to know first and foremost is that effectively all guns are
00:25:48.440
illegal in canada unless the government says they're legal there's no right to bear arms so anything
00:25:53.820
that is allowed is because it's been specifically designated as such and you have to have a license and go
00:25:59.640
through that so every gun in canada has to be classified and the three categories generally
00:26:04.060
are non-restricted restricted or prohibited and because you have a system that's based on
00:26:09.880
classification it licenses the government in a way to reclassify which is what happens not
00:26:15.900
irregularly but what happened in that mass form almost two years ago as far as the list you're right
00:26:23.140
to point out that it's not based on usage you've got guns that were non-restricted that are more
00:26:28.220
dangerous in the wrong hands than guns that are prohibited because of the way they look and the
00:26:33.400
problem is that government really in that order and council started focusing on aesthetic and look
00:26:38.860
a lot more i mean it used to be for the longest time that you could buy a 50 caliber rifle that could
00:26:44.100
shoot you know three kilometers away and that was non-restricted like a hunting rifle and then you had
00:26:50.560
other guns that you know shot little 22 rounds which will still hurt and they could kill you but
00:26:55.380
conceivably they're they're not as dangerous as other rounds you had guns that fire those that
00:26:59.820
were restricted because of certain things so you do need someone who's going to come in and take a
00:27:04.060
sensible bigger picture look at this instead of just catering to emotions which is what the liberals
00:27:09.600
have been doing okay spencer i want to go to you and talk to you about justin trudeau and i want to ask
00:27:16.300
you he's he's in europe um obviously addressing ukraine and russia what do you think his strategy is right
00:27:22.840
now is it i'm running away do you think he's actually doing any good over there what do you
00:27:27.760
think is is his plan right now i i think he's trying to stay out of the spotlight after the the convoy
00:27:33.300
stuff but i want to know what you think about this yeah i mean his international image took a massive hit
00:27:39.560
which i i think really upsets him because he he clearly prioritizes how he's viewed around the world
00:27:45.300
it would seem more than how he's viewed within canada but uh you know it's tough i mean there is
00:27:50.280
obviously a terrible situation going on with russia's war against ukraine i do understand
00:27:54.780
that world leaders like justin trudeau you know whether we like it or not he is the leader of the
00:27:58.740
country he does have to go talk to other people and uh you know do some serious things so i hope
00:28:03.620
you know for once he's going to actually take it seriously not view it as a photo op there are things
00:28:08.120
canada can be doing and that we should be talking to our allies about one would be increasing our
00:28:12.060
military spending countering russia in the arctic making sure we can contribute to our alliances and
00:28:17.520
obviously you know you're getting more oil and gas and at this point wheat out to the world right
00:28:21.800
because there's could be severe wheat shortages and food shortages so there are a lot of things
00:28:26.800
canada could do to help our allies and to help the world and so i think we should be doing that but
00:28:31.700
it remains to be seen whether trudeau will take it seriously whether he just has another uh you know
00:28:36.780
andrew trudeau and biden are using this conflict as an excuse for gas price increases the carbon tax
00:28:47.460
is being increased again inflation is now because of biden or because of uh putin as if it wasn't
00:28:55.860
happening before how much legs can they use this as how much legs is there to this excuse how long can
00:29:02.960
justin trudeau say you know the economy isn't my fault inflation isn't my fault gas prices and the
00:29:09.160
pipeline isn't my fault maybe that one isn't his fault actually but how long can he use this as an
00:29:14.520
excuse and how long can he you know continue running a country this way same with biden but we're not in
00:29:20.520
america right now how much longer can justin trudeau continue this downward spiral before people have
00:29:26.320
finally had enough dare i say yeah i mean let's not forget that cbc was trying to stoke the idea
00:29:34.140
that the russians were behind the convoy before russia invaded ukraine so blaming russians is a
00:29:40.240
popular canadian pastime in the left uh even when they haven't done anything so when they have done
00:29:45.160
something it's great because then you can just like really ramp up the whole everything's russia's
00:29:49.500
fault like to justin trudeau russia is the new scott bryson i mean scott bryson was responsible for
00:29:54.820
everything up until 2021 when jody wilson raybold and all of that other stuff had happened that was
00:30:00.920
all scott bryson's fault we're in a new era it's all russia's fault and it's a very convenient
00:30:05.520
scapegoat because yeah russia is an aggressor and yes there are global effects on on oil prices and
00:30:10.460
the economy when this is happening but it cannot deflect against what was already happening in the
00:30:15.540
same way as the pandemic justin trudeau has blamed the pandemic for running up a deficit
00:30:19.960
neglecting to acknowledge that he was on track to run up quite significant deficits even
00:30:24.480
before the pandemic came about so i think people have to start looking at what was happening before
00:30:29.620
these magical external factors arrived spencer the verbiage on the left right now is buy an electric
00:30:37.920
car um the gas prices are here to stay um you know this is a time that we can all you know put a few
00:30:46.000
extra dollars into the government's pocket to stick it to putin and i want to ask you because our for the
00:30:51.260
episode we've done together on this show was called the called and about the great reset a lot of these
00:30:56.840
policies moving forward are about you know uh climate change and and moving towards green energy
00:31:03.600
which i think is just a shift in who's the billionaires how much of this do you think is is
00:31:08.560
governed on an international level and and i don't mean they're saying uh you know there's some
00:31:12.820
secret cabal i think it's quite public toronto sun says it's a fantasy land and doesn't exist but how
00:31:18.780
much of this is you know big corporations getting together and saying you know we can sort of sort
00:31:23.840
of shift influence in this direction and get money flowing in the direction that we want and you know
00:31:29.100
we can blame it on putin whether you whether you agree with the war or not or no matter what side you
00:31:33.720
are on how much of this do you think is decided on an international level with these huge uh conglomerates
00:31:38.980
whether it's me media uh master cards in the world economic forum you know microsoft is do you think
00:31:44.680
there's actual planning going on there or do you think this is actually just a coincidence coincidence
00:31:49.120
of leftist governments doing the what they think is the right thing yeah i think a lot of it is just
00:31:55.140
you know governments taking advantage of a situation that they didn't create or plan but you know they take
00:32:00.200
advantage of it very quickly obviously with the pandemic we saw trudeau say it's an opportunity you
00:32:04.380
know most people wanted to get back to normal trudeau saw it as a way to get away with certain things
00:32:08.960
that you know often wouldn't you couldn't get away with when people weren't you know afraid in a crisis
00:32:13.340
i do think you know there are a few things i mean one canada certainly uh can help the world as i
00:32:19.320
said and we should be doing that so i think it'll be interesting to see what you know our governments
00:32:24.260
will do will they actually wake up and realize look you can't tell people to go buy electric cars if
00:32:28.480
they can't afford the price of gas right i mean electric cars are very expensive and there's serious
00:32:33.020
supply chain problems there too people shouldn't imagine that somehow the electric car supply chain is
00:32:37.440
independent of everybody else and so i think it'll be interesting to see what happens you know i think you
00:32:43.000
know seeing ukrainians stand up for their country has inspired a lot of people and you know it kind
00:32:47.300
of we we can sometimes take freedom for granted although not not what we've seen recently in
00:32:51.780
canada but seeing people you know giving up their lives you know to fight against a dictator and to
00:32:56.540
fight for their freedom really kind of makes us realize how we we are lucky in many ways to be
00:33:00.860
in a somewhat free country at least and so you know i think we have to get serious we have to build up
00:33:06.580
our military we have to build up our oil and gas sector and it remains to be seen if we'll do that i mean
00:33:12.000
you had melanie julie yesterday saying oh canada's we're not a military power we're we do diplomacy and
00:33:17.700
we convene we're a convening power whatever that means so you know i think there's i would i suspect
00:33:22.640
there's a divide in the government right now between people who realize that look the green energy thing
00:33:26.700
that's that's a big failure not just uh you know economically but also strategically but you know
00:33:32.760
there's a fight going on trudeau i think is going to try to stick with his ideology you know very much
00:33:37.060
just hope this all goes away and he can go back to you know pandering to you know the kind of
00:33:41.540
unrealistic green you know proposition so i think we'll see what happens i think canadians need to
00:33:46.120
really demand that the government get serious though andrew last question to you and piggybacking
00:33:51.400
on what i was asking you earlier about the economy china russia and it seems like india now are teaming
00:33:57.080
up for you know their own currency their own trade how much do you think this hurts western countries in
00:34:02.680
the long run particularly here in north america do you think this was a a mistake to to ban all
00:34:07.740
these russian things outright and say you know let's call for russian nhl players to be gone some
00:34:12.760
people said that's like they've kicked them out of uh soccer competitions and international
00:34:18.080
competitions do you think that this is going to hurt in the long run uh due to an overstep or do you
00:34:23.680
think this was an inevitable when for eastern powers let's call them to sort of get together and say
00:34:29.620
hey we don't need the west you know one thing that comes to mind when you ask that question
00:34:35.520
andrew which is that when people like me were saying that we should be boycotting the olympics
00:34:40.900
in beijing a lot of people were saying well it's not fair to the athletes to let them become victims
00:34:46.420
of our politics yet a lot of those same people are the ones saying we should ban the russian pianist
00:34:52.080
and ban the russian hockey player and tum out the russian vodka and all of that stuff and and i think
00:34:57.280
that that is a contradiction that i'm not hearing anyone square and anyone account for the fundamental
00:35:03.340
reality is that people are political when you're talking about movements across borders but i don't
00:35:08.640
think we should be going after russian individuals that have nothing to do with the conflict and
00:35:13.820
also are in many cases critical of it as in the case of the pianist and all of this is happening
00:35:19.480
while the big fish the russian oil and gas imports are not being addressed you've got countries in
00:35:25.300
europe hungary is an example here that have just a complete energy dependence germany on
00:35:31.060
russia or a significant enough one that they can't afford to take the principled stand now i think we
00:35:36.840
have to talk about what we do to wean ourselves off of of energy dependence on countries like russia
00:35:42.280
but in canada's in the u.s's cases especially especially there is no excuse for energy rich countries
00:35:48.960
to have had to get in bed with it in the first place and i know that for me china is the one that i
00:35:53.540
follow a lot more with the belt and road initiative and china's attempts to basically economically
00:35:58.460
colonize the world but we should be learning from this and not letting ourselves get into this position
00:36:03.380
of dependency with other countries in the future when we don't have to yeah and when you look at and
00:36:09.060
when we're playing the moral game you have to bring up places like china or saudi arabia which we spend
00:36:13.980
many more billions of dollars on oil than we do uh russia let's check out saudi arabia's human rights
00:36:20.000
record at any time um i know i said last question but spencer i want to know given the convoys and
00:36:26.840
everything that's happened the explosion in interest in canada are we going to see a lot more focus
00:36:31.820
internationally on canada's next election on the conservative election do you think
00:36:36.780
i think so you know i think for a lot of people you know the image of canada is a you know very
00:36:42.980
you know quiet you know docile you know submissive place was shattered which i think is really good i mean
00:36:48.640
the fact that canadian stood up and push back against the government shows that there's you
00:36:52.400
know more toughness and courage in the country than i think perhaps a lot of people on the outside
00:36:56.500
thought there was so i think we are going to see more attention on canada i also i think because
00:37:00.700
trudeau's image has really degraded internationally so much the the focus will be different you know
00:37:06.880
people are going to be looking at canada as a very different kind of country and seeing what kind
00:37:10.800
of leader we're going to have and kind of taking their blinders off which is good i mean you know
00:37:14.680
one of the big problems i think our country's had for a long time is that we pretended that just
00:37:19.400
being polite and ignoring problems was somehow a virtue when that really means the problems just
00:37:23.880
fester and get even worse and so the fact that we're actually you know there may be you know more
00:37:27.800
political aggressiveness and more political conflict but i think in the long run that means
00:37:31.640
we're going to be more honest with each other and actually have real debates about the problems
00:37:35.000
in our country and only by really debating things can you actually start to fix them so i think
00:37:39.000
you know in the short term it's going to be stressful for some people but in the long term i think it's good
00:37:43.080
and yeah i think the world will be interested to see how canada starts to change thank you guys so
00:37:48.440
much for joining me my canadian politics brain trust spencer fernando on twitter i think spencer
00:37:54.040
fernando.com yes that's right yes and tnc.news and andrew lawton uh you never know when he's going to
00:38:00.120
get pepper sprayed could be today could be tomorrow watch to find out thank you guys for joining me
00:38:08.760
i'm holding on way too long and i don't know why