Rebel News Podcast - August 14, 2021


EZRA LEVANT | Erin O’Toole fires a candidate for expressing concern about forced vaccine passports


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

171.05536

Word Count

5,487

Sentence Count

387

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

I was so disappointed to learn that Aaron O'Toole fired his Yukon candidate, who looked like a really good candidate, a candidate who lost by just 150 votes last time and looked like he was going to win this time, and he fired him for the strangest reason? I'll tell you about that reason, and my thoughts on it on today's podcast.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. I was so disappointed to learn that Aaron O'Toole fired his Yukon candidate who
00:00:06.040 looked like a really good candidate, a candidate who lost by just 150 votes last time and looked
00:00:12.260 like he was going to win this time. And he fired him for the strangest reason. I can't even believe
00:00:18.100 it. I'll tell you about that reason and I'll tell you my thoughts on it on today's podcast. But
00:00:23.120 before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video
00:00:26.220 version of this podcast. I think it really adds a lot of value. We put some effort into the visuals,
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00:01:00.300 Justin Trudeau. So please consider helping us that way. All right, here's today's show.
00:01:04.780 Tonight, Aaron O'Toole fires a candidate for expressing concern about forced vaccine
00:01:25.160 passports. Is that really the conservative position? It's August 13th and this is the
00:01:29.680 National LeVant Show. Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:36.520 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to the
00:01:42.120 government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:46.460 I love the Yukon. I recommend you visit it at least once in your life. You can get there by plane,
00:01:56.380 which is the fastest, by car from BC, which is the prettiest, I think, and by ship, including cruise
00:02:03.240 ships that dock in Skagway, Alaska. And then it's a short trip over to the Yukon. That's the most
00:02:08.260 adventurous. That's how the gold rush went in. I've had the good fortune in my life to visit Yukon all
00:02:14.020 three ways, so lovely, and pretty rugged, and pretty natural. And if you're out there, it's a choice,
00:02:20.560 I think, to be away from the big city. I mean, sure, they're high tech too. They're on cell phones
00:02:27.000 and satellite phones and the internet and everything, but you can't get coverage everywhere without a
00:02:32.920 satellite phone. And that's part of the point, I think, of the Yukon lifestyle. It's a bit more
00:02:38.660 natural. If your idea of a good time is going to a Starbucks to take an Instagram photo of
00:02:44.000 your cappuccino, you might not like the Yukon way. I haven't been there in the past year,
00:02:49.440 but I bet they haven't got as caught up in the COVID-19 mania as the big cities have, because
00:02:54.060 the mania is media-driven, especially social media. And I think it's a big city thing, because in big
00:03:00.060 cities, I think you're more afraid of strangers. You don't know everyone you meet. A small town,
00:03:05.480 you're comfortable with people because you probably know them personally. Even in the biggest city
00:03:09.860 there, Whitehorse. So just because Teresa Tam or some other politician in some press conference
00:03:15.540 thousands of miles away tells you to panic about being close to people, if you know everyone in
00:03:21.080 town, you're probably not going to take her advice. She's the stranger, not your neighbors in a small
00:03:25.660 town. I just get the feeling that panic and mania are more of a big city thing than a country living
00:03:31.440 thing. I tell you this because I think Jonas Smith, the Conservative Party candidate in the Yukon
00:03:38.800 until he was fired yesterday, I think he's probably a pretty typical Yukoner. Here's how he describes
00:03:45.080 himself on his own website. Jonas is professionally known in the Yukon as an advocate for the territory's
00:03:52.740 responsible mining industry and for his volunteer work with the Every Student, Every Day Student
00:03:58.400 Attendance Charity, as well as his decades of experience in the hospitality industry and arts
00:04:03.220 community. He's a third generation Yukoner, used to work for the premier there. I have to say he looks and
00:04:08.980 sounds like a pretty great candidate. He served on the Conservative Party's National Council, so he's no
00:04:15.680 neophyte. In fact, and how painful must this have felt, in the last election federally in 2019, Jonas lost by
00:04:25.180 just over 150 votes to the Liberal. So close. And that Liberal MP just announced he's retiring, so he's
00:04:34.380 not running again this year. So I have to think that Jonas Smith had a pretty good chance of winning in
00:04:40.680 the Yukon. He came within a percent of winning last time and the winner's retiring. I think Jonas is the
00:04:47.120 man to beat, but he was sacked yesterday by Aaron O'Toole. O'Toole must have met him or at least dealt with
00:04:54.800 him electronically since he was on the party's national council. So what did this guy do or say
00:05:01.080 that was so bad? Well, I'll tell you. Here's a story from the Yukon News. Yukon Conservative Party
00:05:07.440 candidate booted from position due to vaccine views. Smith said he was told the reason for his
00:05:13.740 disallowment was his opposition to calls for implementation of mandated workplace vaccinations
00:05:20.280 and vaccine passport requirements in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He phrased it really well,
00:05:27.860 Jonas Smith did, at least I think he did. Listen. I believe in standing up for the rights of all
00:05:34.020 minorities, including those of the unvaccinated, be it for medical, religious, or personal reasons,
00:05:40.360 and that our country needs less discrimination, not more, continued Smith. Generations of Canadians have
00:05:45.960 fought for our Section 15 charter rights as well as freedom of choice when it comes to matters
00:05:50.320 of bodily autonomy. And these proposed vaccination-related restrictions will vastly alter what
00:05:57.400 kind of country our children will inherit, he said. Smith said mandatory vaccines will create a two-tiered
00:06:03.240 society. Well, that's all true, and I think it's very well said. Now, here's the thing.
00:06:11.300 There are no vaccine passports yet in Canadian law, at least not yet. Some universities have brought
00:06:19.540 them in, though all the ones I've looked at so far have exemptions for medical reasons or other reasons
00:06:24.860 too. The province of Quebec says it's going to bring in a vax passport, but they haven't filled out
00:06:30.440 the details yet. It's not a thing yet. But there is no federal vax passport, nor a Yukon one,
00:06:36.580 and even that control freak Theresa Tam hasn't called for one yet, and she's about as authoritarian
00:06:42.700 as they come. I think the public has to know this is one of the worst-case scenarios in terms of an
00:06:49.260 infectious disease outbreak, in that their cooperation is sought. If there are people who are
00:06:55.060 non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers that can quarantine people in mandatory
00:07:04.180 settings. It's potential. You could track people, put bracelets on their arms, have police and other
00:07:13.020 setups to ensure quarantine is undertaken. So there's no vaccine passport. Even the liberals
00:07:19.460 haven't called for one yet. They might well do so. I fear they will, but they even, even they haven't
00:07:26.340 had the audacity to do it yet. I bet they're going to wait until after the election is over.
00:07:31.080 This thoughtful candidate for the Conservatives in the Yukon thoughtfully talks about protecting
00:07:36.000 minorities and not segregating as a society, and he's sacked from running as a Conservative
00:07:42.700 candidate? Just fired? Told he's not in anymore? Just done? Here's how Trudeau's CBC state
00:07:49.720 broadcaster reported it. Conservatives drop Yukon candidates citing opposition to public health
00:07:57.000 guidelines. A party spokesman says Smith doesn't support certain public health guidelines.
00:08:04.500 But that's another CBC lie, isn't it? Because that's not what a vaccine passport is. It's not
00:08:11.760 a guideline. It would be a rule, an order, a legal requirement. That's how the term is used. And you
00:08:17.340 can see in Smith's comments, that's what he's worried about. The force of law, the forced outcome,
00:08:22.580 segregation, discrimination, not guidelines. So what is Conservative Party policy on the
00:08:30.300 question? Are they for vaccine passports? Are they for vaccine passports and also for banning
00:08:37.500 criticism of vaccine passports? Or for vax passports and for banning criticism of them and for banning
00:08:48.200 even a discussion of them before the rules are even set? That's quite some ban. It's a ban about
00:08:55.540 talking about bans. I think this Jonas Smith was on to something when he worried about the Charter
00:09:01.680 of Rights. Speaking of which, look at this from the Globe and Mail. Debate on vaccine passports would
00:09:08.260 expose Quebecers to conspiracy theories, Legault says. So Quebec is bringing in a vax passport,
00:09:14.580 but no debate is allowed? Democracy is on hold for the pandemic, apparently. Democracy is on
00:09:20.360 lockdown because, get this, quote, I don't want certain people, whom I won't name, to come explain
00:09:27.140 that there's a conspiracy. It's not good to be vaccinated, that in the end we're putting a
00:09:31.760 microchip in people's arms to follow what they're doing. Stories like that, Legault said in Second
00:09:36.680 in Quebec, North Quebec City. I don't think we need that in Quebec. Got it. So someone you won't name,
00:09:43.920 you're afraid that they're going to accuse you of being a tyrant in a goofy way with a microchip.
00:09:50.180 So you will, in fact, be a tyrant in a real way by banning all debate. That's what I'm worried about.
00:09:57.220 Not a microchip, by the way. I'm worried about a guy banning democracy. I mean, whoever's worried
00:10:02.480 about microchips, I'm not sure if banning debates about it, microchips or not, is going to allay their
00:10:08.060 fears. Banning a debate to stamp out conspiracy theories. Is that like thinking kerosene will put
00:10:13.880 out of fire? I'm guessing the conspiracy theories will grow. Here's what the Parti Québécois said.
00:10:21.440 This is not a banal measure that we want to put in place and will deprive a certain number of our
00:10:26.580 fellow citizens of the rights to which we are accustomed, PC health critic Joel Arsenault said
00:10:31.980 in an interview Thursday. This is why we believe that we must analyze all the ins and outs of a
00:10:36.600 measure like this one to ensure that it is used in the fairest and most equitable way.
00:10:41.200 The Parti Québécois, Arsenault said, wants to know when the passport system would end.
00:10:48.760 Ooh, that's a good question, isn't it? When will it end? That's a very real question.
00:10:55.340 The lockdowns haven't ended. The two weeks to flatten the curve is coming up on two years now.
00:10:59.980 I think I know the answer to the question, when will the VAX passports end? And I think the answer is
00:11:04.480 never. I think. I think the VAX passports are the camel with its nose in the tent and then everything
00:11:11.380 will be loaded on these VAX passports. Not just COVID-19, but everything. All your health information,
00:11:17.760 all your politics, your finances, your freedoms, because that's how China does it with their social
00:11:23.540 credit system.
00:11:24.540 Dear passengers, people who travel without tickets or behave disorderly or small being in public areas
00:11:33.300 will be punished according to regulations, and the behavior will be recorded in the individual credit
00:11:39.600 information system. To avoid an inactive record of person operated, please follow the relevant
00:11:46.720 regulations and help with the orders on the train and at the station.
00:11:54.720 Yeah, when will this VAX passport end? Or is there no end in sight? Is it like the temporary
00:12:00.820 income tax just till we beat the Kaiser in the Great War? Does it end? Sorry we can't talk about
00:12:07.380 that, because it might lead to conspiracy theories. There is one political leader in Quebec who is
00:12:13.020 worried about all this. Conservative party leader Eric Duhem, whose party gained its first member
00:12:18.100 of the legislature when Claire Sampson joined him in June after she was ejected from Lagos Coalition
00:12:24.800 Avenue in Quebec, told reporters in Quebec said he had received two doses of vaccine but doesn't
00:12:31.060 support the passport system. Duhem said he has received more than 130,000 digital signatures on an
00:12:38.360 online anti passport petition that was posted on his website. You know, Eric Duhem, who's a friend
00:12:45.540 of our show, had a press conference yesterday at the legislature in Quebec, and he invited our Quebec
00:12:51.180 reporter, Alexa Lavois, and she went, but security wouldn't let her in. Now, he told her to come. It was his
00:12:58.920 press conference. She went. Security kept her out, saying she wasn't accredited. But by whom?
00:13:03.440 She was invited. Security gave her a phone number to call, and no one answered it. Hey, guys, no
00:13:10.280 conspiracy theories allowed. Little tidbit, I follow some conservatives on Twitter, of course,
00:13:15.920 including a few senators I like. I like Senator Judith Seidman, and she tweeted something that asked,
00:13:22.120 I thought, a good question, about the science. She tweeted about a study from a respected doctor
00:13:28.860 showing that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are actually only about 50 percent effective against
00:13:34.980 the Delta variant. And she wrote, quote, important growing body of evidence on the reduced effectiveness
00:13:42.520 of mRNA vaccines against Delta infections. That's all she wrote. Do you know who she is, by the way,
00:13:50.420 besides the senator? You probably haven't heard of her. Let me read from her bio.
00:13:54.140 The Honorable Judith Seidman is an epidemiologist, health researcher, and social services advisor
00:14:01.860 who was appointed to the Senate of Canada on August 27, 2009. An epidemiologist, you know that means
00:14:08.600 someone who studies epidemics, right? Pandemics, that sort of thing. And she simply said, we need to
00:14:14.180 pay attention to this troubling research. And her tweet was deleted within a day.
00:14:20.020 I thought it would be, so I took a photo of it before she took it down.
00:14:26.240 Did Erin O'Toole order her to delete that innocuous tweet? She's a senator. He can't fire her.
00:14:36.280 She's an epidemiologist. She's an expert. And she didn't say anything other than, hey, look at this study.
00:14:40.580 Let's pay attention to this issue. But that's too much for Erin O'Toole, I guess.
00:14:46.220 Erin O'Toole is firing candidates who care about civil liberties, like Jonas Smith.
00:14:51.880 It looks like he's telling senators to shut up. He's going further than ever, further than Teresa
00:14:58.480 Tam and Justin Trudeau have, in his love for vaccine passports. I don't know if Erin O'Toole
00:15:04.720 believes any of this himself, or if he's just worried about getting on the wrong side of the CBC
00:15:10.160 and the media party, who are nuts about the pandemic. I think Erin O'Toole doesn't really
00:15:15.380 believe in anything too deeply. He just does what he thinks the media wants him to do, the media party.
00:15:22.000 Which is why he's for the carbon tax, which is why he's for open borders, mass immigration.
00:15:27.560 Which is why he hasn't said a word about Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilbeau and their massive censorship
00:15:32.040 plans. And which is why he's firing his own candidates for worrying about vaccine passports,
00:15:37.860 as they should worry. I think Erin O'Toole is going to lose the election and probably lose 20
00:15:43.940 conservative MPs riding. My only question for the 100 or so MPs who will survive his disastrous
00:15:52.380 leadership is just how far are they willing to go down his bizarre policy path now to please him.
00:16:00.700 Because when he loses in six weeks, when he's no longer leader, those surviving MPs will still be
00:16:10.060 stuck with whatever they say in the next month or so on the subject. They shouldn't go down with his
00:16:17.240 ship. They should live to fight another day as conservatives or they'll lose as his party will
00:16:23.400 less than a rule. Let's get with us for more.
00:16:37.800 Welcome back. Well, Jonas Smith, I have to tell you, I've never met him,
00:16:41.700 but he seems like a really good guy. Seems like a great Yukon-er. Seems like he's involved in public
00:16:49.360 life. And I have to tell you, I was impressed with the way he talked about civil liberties. You just
00:16:55.560 don't hear that language, that vocabulary anymore. And maybe there's other things I don't know about
00:17:01.660 him. I'm sure there are. But for a guy to talk about how we have to not divide ourselves and protect
00:17:07.740 minorities, not just racial or religious minorities, but, you know, medical minorities or conscientious
00:17:14.760 subjectious, I'm going to say I found his comments almost touching. And for him to be sacked, to be
00:17:21.240 defenestrated, to use the fancy word, thrown out of a window with no notice, warning, appeal, or
00:17:28.340 explanation other than you had wrong think. I think that bodes poorly for the conservative party.
00:17:35.100 Join me now to talk about this. This is one of our favorite guys, Andrew Lawton with True North.
00:17:39.240 Andrew, welcome to the show. I have in front of me your new article,
00:17:41.640 conservatives bar former MP and leadership candidate Pierre Lemieux from running. So it's not just
00:17:48.040 Jonas Smith. It's Pierre Lemieux. And there's other candidates too. First of all, welcome. Second
00:17:55.400 of all, tell me what you think's going on. Well, it's concerning. And, you know, the Pierre Lemieux
00:18:01.260 one is interesting. Here's a guy who took a riding that hadn't been conservative since the 1950s,
00:18:07.660 Glengarry Prescott Russell in Ontario in 2006. And then he increased his margin in 2008 and 2011.
00:18:14.980 And like a lot of conservative MPs, lost in 2015, tried to reclaim it in 2019, wasn't successful,
00:18:22.460 wanted to run again this time around. And the party said, no, our rules say that if you lose twice in a
00:18:27.900 row, you can't run a third time. Okay, rules are rules. Except the rules also let a candidate get a
00:18:34.480 waiver from that, which has been given in other cases, such as with Costas Menegakis in Richmond
00:18:41.160 Hill. So the party very specifically did not allow a three-time MP to run. You may say, well,
00:18:48.360 what's the deal? He's a social conservative. And given what's happened with Derek Sloan,
00:18:52.680 what we've seen happen with other social conservative nomination candidates,
00:18:56.660 even without evidence, it's fair to ask the question of does him fitting into that ideological
00:19:03.480 section of the party have a role in him not being allowed to run? And I've had a lot of backlash. And
00:19:10.520 I know you get this as well, Ezra, from people that say, well, you know, defeating Trudeau has to
00:19:14.420 be the first priority. We can't write these stories that start looking like conservative infighting.
00:19:20.040 If you don't like the dirty laundry being aired, stop dirtying the laundry is my take on this.
00:19:24.680 Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is what's frustrating about Aaron O'Toole is he, if he
00:19:31.160 disagrees with someone or if he regards them as a leadership rival or as someone stealing more
00:19:35.900 sunshine than him, he, he deals with them not by reforming them or finding a special mission for
00:19:43.780 them or even giving them busy work. He just silences them or tries to kick them out. He had Jim
00:19:49.660 Karahelios, another leadership candidate, kicked out for saying mean things about him in the
00:19:54.640 leadership. Well, you know, you, if you, if you can't handle that, you're probably not going to
00:19:59.900 do well against the liberal war machine. And, and even Pierre Polyev, I think it's widely acknowledged
00:20:05.680 he was demoted from finance critic because he was shining too brightly and he made Aaron O'Toole
00:20:10.880 look dull by comparison. I mean, this Pierre Lemieux, I don't know him, but if he could take a riding
00:20:16.580 that for 60 years has been liberal and he won it a few times and they're finding this excuse not to run
00:20:22.880 again, I don't know. I just don't know how many people you can purge and still you call yourself a
00:20:28.140 big tent. I mean, he, he, O'Toole says he's a big tent, but anyone who thinks a bit different than him
00:20:35.340 or anyone who's a little more conservative than him gets thrown out of that tent pretty quick.
00:20:41.980 Yeah. And again, I mean, there's a disorganization aspect here too. In, in the, in the case of Pierre
00:20:47.240 Lemieux, he filed his papers in January and just on August 6th, last week was told no. So you got
00:20:54.240 to wonder why are they stringing him along? We see this happening in Ontario politics as well. Stella
00:20:59.300 Ambler, a former federal conservative MP, uh, was approved as a nomination candidate. And then the
00:21:05.880 Ontario PCs decided to scrap the nomination and appoint someone anyway. So there are a lot of very
00:21:11.340 legitimate questions here as to what the end game in all of this is. If you don't want to have open
00:21:16.160 nominations and you want to have handpicked candidates that are going to hue to the leader's
00:21:20.500 positions, that's fine. Just own it, just own it and say, this is who we are. That's what Justin
00:21:25.620 Trudeau has done. And for the most part, it's worked for him. He doesn't even bother promising
00:21:29.400 open democratic nominations. He just says, these are the people we want. This is what they have to
00:21:34.700 think. And the media gives him a pass on it. The conservatives, it seems like are trying to have the
00:21:39.880 best of both worlds here. They're trying to say, yes, we're an open big tent party, but then if the wrong
00:21:45.220 person wins, they have to quickly pivot and adjust that.
00:21:49.560 Yeah. And I got to tell you, in a lot of these cases, I don't think that these guys being thrown
00:21:53.180 out are the wrong person. I mean, maybe I'm a little enamored with this Jonas Smith in the Yukon, but
00:21:58.000 boy, a guy talking that, um, thoughtfully about civil liberties doesn't seem like the wrong guy to me.
00:22:05.060 Um, I don't know. I just, I'm disappointed by that. I have a theory and it's that, it's that
00:22:11.260 Aaron O'Toole doesn't really hate these guys. He's served with some of them in parliament before.
00:22:16.820 Some of them have been even in cabinet with him before, uh, under Stephen Harper. He doesn't hate
00:22:22.400 them. Uh, he's not even ideologically appalled by them. I think Aaron O'Toole is just so terrified
00:22:28.400 by what the mean girls think. And by that, I'm joking. I'm referring to the CBC and the Globe and
00:22:33.880 Mail and the Toronto Star and their Ottawa press gallery that has such a clique, so much peer pressure
00:22:38.480 to think a certain way. I think that, you know, throwing out Jonas Smith, oh my God,
00:22:44.580 we have to get rid of him because the CBC loves vaccine passports so much. Or, oh my God,
00:22:49.300 we got to get rid of Pierre Lemieux because he's too socially conservative for the Toronto Star.
00:22:53.760 I don't even think that it's Aaron O'Toole's own views. I think he's trying to guess what the media
00:22:59.380 party wants him to say and preempt them because he just doesn't want them to be mean to him,
00:23:04.440 which they're going to be anyways.
00:23:05.840 No, I would agree with that. And even the fourth wave alarmism we've been seeing from the
00:23:11.540 Conservatives in the last week of, oh, it's so dangerous to have an election in the Delta-driven
00:23:16.000 fourth wave. Or maybe it was American Airlines, Delta, I can't remember, but I get my variants
00:23:20.320 mixed up. But if they're doing that, I don't think they're true believers in that. I think that they
00:23:25.060 see that as being the cudgel they can use against Justin Trudeau. But it's the same here. I don't think
00:23:30.460 that they actually have an issue with these people. I've talked to a lot of people on Aaron O'Toole's
00:23:35.220 campaign. I know they're solid Conservatives, but Conservatives tend to, with a capital C,
00:23:40.640 the Conservative Party tends to default into fear and panic. We saw this with Andrew Scheer's
00:23:46.240 campaign in 2019, where Andrew Scheer, who's been a former reformer from out in the prairies,
00:23:52.480 he's on side on a lot of these issues. But once he's in that position, it immediately goes into
00:23:57.880 what's the safest, blandest, most banal thing we can say. And that tends to be dogma for
00:24:04.700 Conservative campaigns.
00:24:06.140 Yeah. Let me ask you about vaccine passports, because Quebec is talking about bringing theirs
00:24:11.600 in in just a few weeks. Manitoba has sort of a proto-passport. It's like an ID card.
00:24:18.260 We learned today, we actually got an email that was leaked to us from the military, that the
00:24:22.960 Canadian Armed Forces are bringing in their own kind of vax passport. So they're coming. We see
00:24:27.560 Toronto mayor calling for it. I think they're coming. And I don't think it's being debated within
00:24:34.640 the Conservative Party properly. Obviously, it hasn't been debated in Parliament. So Aaron O'Toole firing
00:24:42.360 Jonas Smith from the Yukon is sort of a policy statement in a way.
00:24:46.720 Do you think the Conservative Party of Canada supports vaccine passports? And maybe answer,
00:24:54.260 do you think the leader does? Do you think the MPs and senators do? And do you think the
00:24:58.520 grassroots members do? Because right now, that's the state of the art. The party fires you if you're
00:25:04.260 a skeptic. What do you think?
00:25:06.140 Well, I certainly don't think the grassroots members do. And I would say most of the caucus
00:25:10.120 doesn't as well. But the problem is that it's increasingly, and this is a danger seeming like
00:25:16.440 a lot of Canadians do. And the Liberals, I think, are going to run with this as a wedge issue. I don't
00:25:21.940 know if you saw the Globe and Mail editorial this morning. Yes to vaccine mandates. Yes to vaccine
00:25:28.900 passports. Now, this is a media outlet in Canada saying vaccines should be mandatory. We should have
00:25:35.600 to prove we're vaccinated. And that's kind of an uncontroversial position to a lot of the media
00:25:41.140 party type. So I do think that it's going to be positioned as a wedge issue for conservatives.
00:25:46.820 My danger here, I don't know if you also saw Francois Legault, he was asked why not debate
00:25:52.360 the plan to put in vaccine passports. And he said that he doesn't want to debate it because doing
00:25:57.680 so could allow some people to share conspiracy theories with Quebecers. So there's a free speech
00:26:03.240 component here too. It's not just that you're expected to support vaccine passports. It's now one of
00:26:09.060 these many issues that we're not even allowed to discuss. There's a correct position that the
00:26:13.880 overseers have set out. And anyone who deviates from that must be censored, at least in Quebec.
00:26:19.460 You know, it's funny. I mean, the Globe and Mail editorial, I really don't care what some anonymous
00:26:23.900 Globe editorial writers think. I know Aaron O'Toole does. But one of the issues they've been obsessed with
00:26:29.700 for years is, I think it's called Bill 21 in Quebec, which is the secular law that if you work in the
00:26:38.820 public sector, you can't have an ostentatious or conspicuous religious accoutrement. So for example,
00:26:44.600 you can't wear a hijab. You can't wear a big cross, I imagine. You can't have a Jewish yarmulke,
00:26:52.180 I guess. I don't know all the details of the rule.
00:26:53.860 So the Globe and Mail has been ferociously opposed to that for years, citing the Charter of Rights and
00:27:01.400 Freedoms. And fine. I mean, I get the other side of that. Personally, I want a secular,
00:27:06.080 nonpartisan public sector. But I can understand why people say you can have reasonable accommodation
00:27:11.220 and allow a yarmulke or a Sikh turban or a hijab. I see both sides, frankly. And I can think about
00:27:17.640 a hundred issues I'd rather talk about than that in terms of importance. But the Globe and Mail has made
00:27:22.260 it their signature issue. And because they're so, they care so much about the Charter of Rights for
00:27:28.980 Minorities. Okay, good. Appreciate that. And then they come out saying, I don't care if you have a
00:27:34.220 medical reason, I don't care if you have a religious reason, a conscientious reason, vaccine passports,
00:27:39.620 or you're not even allowed in private sector establishments like restaurants and gyms and bars.
00:27:44.940 I just don't know how these Toronto fancy pants can have in their same mind, we must allow hijab,
00:27:51.120 Sikh turbans, and yarmulkes in the public sector. But you're not even allowed to be a conscientious
00:27:57.260 objector, religious objector, or medical objector in the private sector. And that's fine charter-wise.
00:28:02.620 I just don't know how they're such acrobats to hold both of those irreconcilable positions at once.
00:28:08.400 I just don't even know. Well, if I may, I think it's because they're not actually reaching either of
00:28:14.160 those positions through an assessment of freedom. Even the opposition of Bill C-21,
00:28:18.840 they may cloak their concerns in charter language and constitutional liberties language,
00:28:24.120 but their actual basis is diversity and multiculturalism. They're not using freedom
00:28:30.360 as the foundation for that argument, because they don't view these things through that lens at all.
00:28:34.900 So when it comes to vaccine passports, the civil liberties aspect doesn't factor in at all.
00:28:39.700 They're thinking of, we need to get to this COVID zero outcome,
00:28:42.560 the consequences on individual choice be damned, and this is how we're going to do it.
00:28:48.100 Yeah. You're so right on that. Listen, it's great to see you again. There's so many ways people can
00:28:52.760 enjoy your stuff. Andrew Lawton's show, that's your regular show. Appreciate that.
00:28:57.480 tnc.news. We love True North. We think you guys are wonderful. And you just came out with your new
00:29:06.840 video documentary called Assaulted, and that's at assaulted.ca. That's about gun control. Am I right?
00:29:15.060 Yes. And very timely with the liberals trying to further encroach on the rights and livelihoods
00:29:21.880 of law-abiding gun owners. So it's a four-part series that we produced over the last few months
00:29:26.260 that is out in its entirety now. Well, that's great. You know, folks, we love the fact that
00:29:30.620 you're watching us here at Rebel News, and I appreciate the eight bucks a month you pay us
00:29:34.000 for this show. But do yourself a favor and subscribe to tnc.news. I bet you do already.
00:29:40.820 And check out Andrew's show. And I got to watch Assaulted, too. I know about it. I know it's there.
00:29:47.340 I've just seen a little bit of it. I got to make the time for it.
00:29:49.380 You donated to it. Your name's in the credits.
00:29:51.160 You know what? I donate a little bit here and there where I can to TNC. Thank you for the shout
00:29:57.020 out. You guys are so rare. And I can count on one hand's fingers the number of independent
00:30:02.720 journals, Black Locks in Ottawa. That's a small group there. So I just think it's so important
00:30:09.860 that we got to support the few independent voices left. And Andrew's just such a great one. So we
00:30:15.720 thank you. Good to see you, my friend. Have a good weekend.
00:30:18.400 And you.
00:30:18.800 All right. There you have it. Andrew Lawton. Stay with us more.
00:30:21.400 Well, folks, that's the end of the show. It's pretty much accepted that this Sunday,
00:30:39.460 Justin Trudeau will call the election. I think that's almost a certainty. As I mentioned the
00:30:44.740 other day, I've started seeing liberal ads online. They apparently started running a bit early.
00:30:51.100 Liberal candidates are in campaign mode, opening offices, getting their literature ready. So it's
00:30:56.420 coming. I think it's going to be a quick election. I mean, it's a fixed number of days,
00:31:04.660 but I don't think it's going to be very eventful. I think Justin Trudeau will win.
00:31:07.980 I think the conservatives will lose support. I think Maxime Bernier will pick up a few points
00:31:14.460 from disaffected conservatives. I don't think Derek Sloan got his new party quite together in
00:31:19.920 time. But I think that so many demoralized conservatives are going to stay home and vote
00:31:24.760 for those alternative parties. And I think the media will ensure that their boy, Justin Trudeau,
00:31:29.840 is carried across the finish line, even though he's been a disastrous prime minister.
00:31:33.240 In short, I think that six weeks from now, we're going to have a stronger Justin Trudeau,
00:31:38.780 a weaker conservative party, and there's not going to be any real champions for freedom out
00:31:43.520 there. I'm very upset about things, but I promise you that at Rebel News, we will continue to fight
00:31:48.840 for freedom, both journalistically and as we do increasingly in the court of law. Hopefully we'll be
00:31:54.180 able to preserve what's best about Canada that way. That's our show for today. I'll see you on
00:31:59.180 Monday. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
00:32:03.240 Keep fighting for freedom.