EZRA LEVANT ｜ Former Premier of Newfoundland Brian Peckford on Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
158.09796
Summary
Brian Peckford is the last surviving premier who signed the Charter of Rights into law 40 years ago. He now hangs his hat in Parksville, B.C. and has a lot to say, and we'll go through it all.
Transcript
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Today's a little bit different. We're going to have a long-form interview with the last surviving
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premier who signed the Charter of Rights into law 40 years ago, Sir Premier Brian Peckford. He was
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the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. He now hangs his hat in Parksville, B.C. He's got a lot
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to say, and we'll go through with him. I'd like to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News
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Plus just before we get to that. And it's the video version of this podcast. I do my daily show,
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to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. Thanks. Here's today's show.
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Tonight, a special visit with Brian Peckford, the last of the premiers who signed the Charter of
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Rights when it was drafted 40 years ago. We'll talk about the pandemic, freedom, and the rule
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of law. It's January 5th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's
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Brian Peckford was just 36 years old when he became the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador
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back in 1979 and was almost immediately thrust into the highest stakes interprovincial negotiation
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since Confederation itself, namely the repatriation of our Constitution from the UK and the drafting
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of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of the Constitution Act of 1982, as it later became
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known. He is the last surviving premier from those negotiations. What did those men
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40 years ago have in mind for our civil liberties? What would they think of our courts today and how
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they've let the pandemic lockdowns run rampant? Does Premier Peckford have any advice?
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Does he feel any hope? I spoke with him earlier today.
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And joining us now via Skype from Parksville, British Columbia, is Premier Peckford. What a pleasure
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to talk with you and to catch up. I look forward to a hearty discussion because you are, if I'm not
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mistaken, the sole surviving premier who signed the Charter of Rights back in 1982. You were premier of
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Newfoundland. And so your view on how the Charter has been applied in general, but also with regards to
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the pandemic is very important. It's the authentic meaning of the political leaders of the time.
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Tell me in a nutshell, how do you feel the Charter has been used or not used to defend civil liberties
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in this pandemic? I think it's been abused unbelievably. I think it's the provisions of
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the Charter, especially sections 2, 6, 7, and 15, which are the key ones as it relates to freedoms and
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rights of individuals, have been violated all over the place by every single government in Canada.
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And when I say every single government, I mean all the provinces, the federal government,
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the territorial governments, and of course the municipal governments who are creatures of
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the province. So there's innumerable violations through these pandemic measures by all of these
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governments. And they're trying their darndest to get away with it through a very nefarious
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and mismangling of Section 1 of the Charter. And this is where I have been arguing now for several
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months, both on my blog and at public meetings that I've held on Vancouver Island. Many people on
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Vancouver Island, the various communities, have asked me to come to speak to them to explain the
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Charter and explain the Constitution to them. And I have done so. And this... I'm so glad I'm on
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with you today to explain what it is that the governments are doing wrong as it relates to
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the Constitution. And the first thing, Ezra, is that everybody forgets when we talk about the
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Constitution, we're not talking about your normal legislation through a legislature or through the
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federal parliament, okay? Constitutions are created, as you know, by being a lawyer to enhance and protect
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the permanence of important values to that society, okay? In our case, unfortunately,
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it took until 1981, really 1982, until we had a written Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Before
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that, it was common British common law, customs and conventions that had built up over time. And
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even the Bill of Rights in 1960, God bless John Diefenbaker, was only a federal act of parliament and
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therefore only applied to federal jurisdiction. In other words, it didn't apply to the whole nation.
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So it was limited. That's why the Charter was important in 1981-82, because we are now applying
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rights and freedoms to every individual in Canada, from Bonavista to Tofino, from Iqaluit to Niagara.
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Every individual was going to have rights and freedoms enshrined in writing in a sacred document
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called the Constitution, where things of permanence lay. Now, this is where the provinces and the federal
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government and a couple of courts already have gotten it all wrong because they're more or less
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interpreting the Constitution as just another piece of legislation when it's not. And by the way,
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the first two concepts in the Charter are whereas this nation is founded on the principles of one,
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the supremacy of God, and two, the rule of law. And after that sentence, there is a grammatical
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thing called a colon. It's not a period, right? It's not a semicolon, it's not a comma,
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it's a colon, which means everything that comes after this, right, is interpreted in the context of
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the supremacy of God and the rule of law. And the couple of decisions that have already come down
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on lower courts, because none of the higher courts have ruled on the pandemic measures yet from a
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constitutional point of view, these judges have completely ignored the context into which they're
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supposed to render their decision, the supremacy of God and the rule of law. That's why I am so vociferous
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today and have been for some time now and will continue to be, because I think it's up to the body
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politic now and people like yourself and your program, which, you know, thousands of people
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all over Canada watch every day. The best way now that we can change those lower court decisions
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is to influence the higher court judges who haven't ruled yet and the Supreme Court of Canada.
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I say in Canadian terms, the hockey game isn't over yet. We're in the second period.
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We're in the second period. And so we still have a chance to change the outcome of the game.
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Well, let me stop you there for a second, because we're almost two years into this. I mean,
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most of these states of emergency were declared, if I recall, in March of 2020. We're in January 2022.
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And I haven't seen any major matters being treated in the courts of appeal, let alone the Supreme
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Court of Canada. Whereas in the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States has dealt with,
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for example, lockdowns in California. There was one wonderful ruling where churches were told they
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couldn't have singing, but Hollywood, you know, TV shows could. And the judges said, if you can sing
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on TV, you can sing on a church. And there were some wonderful cases smacking down California,
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smacking down Massachusetts. And the fact that they got to that higher level of judge,
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I don't think there's been a major case about the pandemic and civil liberties that's even got
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to the Court of Appeal, unless I missed one. Why is our system so slow?
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Well, you raise a really, really good point. And unfortunately, that's the way it is in Canada
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right now, that it has to go through these procedures to get to the appeal court. In other words,
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it has to go to the trial division of the Supreme Court of a province before it goes to the appeal
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court. Now, there's a couple outstanding. The decisions both out of BC and Manitoba,
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I think, are going to be appealed to the appeal court of those provinces. So we're quickly getting
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there. But the United States system is different than ours. Their culture of individual rights and
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freedoms is far more embedded. Their Bill of Rights began in 1791. 1791. Ours began in 1981.
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So the whole culture of jurisprudence in the United States, as well as the way the states of the United
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States protect their rights is much different than it is in Canada, especially individual rights. I think
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that's one of the reasons for it, because the courts are automatically seized with the importance of
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this. They view this as very like they do in the right to bear arms. These are very fundamental rights
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for America. You know, where Johnny come lately is when it comes to writing something in a constitution.
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Ours whole tradition was based upon British common law and customs and conventions, as I said earlier.
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So I think that's the difference. It's two different nations, two different evolutions
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You know, that's very, that's very interesting. Now, earlier in our conversation, you mentioned
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particular sections of the constitution, two, six, seven, and 15. Now I went to law school and I
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happen to know those sections, section two. Those are the fundamental freedoms, freedom of speech,
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freedom of association, things like that. And, but for many of our viewers, they would know those
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sections by what they actually say. Do you want to take us through? Because you said, yeah, I agree
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with you. Americans love individual liberty. Like one of their early mottos was don't tread on me. And
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it was a picture of a foot on a snake and the snake is saying don't tread on me.
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Exactly. But I think that Canadians don't realize that our constitution has some pretty good stuff
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in it. You mentioned the preamble, like section two, section six, seven, 15. There's some good
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stuff there that should be helping us now. Absolutely. I'm so glad you put it that way.
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And they've got to help us. We've got to, as citizens, ensure that what is written in this sacred
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document gets honored by the courts. And like you said, section two says freedom of speech,
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right? Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion.
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That's in section two. And then the freedom to assemble and the freedom to associate.
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They're being broken all over the place right now by the governments of this land. I mean, it is,
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it is ridiculous. And by the way, we'll come to section one again in a minute, but let's just
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do the other section first. Then we go on to section six. Section six is the mobility section.
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Okay. Mobility. In other words, the right of a Canadian, every Canadian, no matter where they live,
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what to move across Canada as they see fit to travel across Canada or to leave Canada. That's there
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in that section six as well. And then what's so, so important today, not only the travel one,
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but the right to pursue a living anywhere in Canada. And here we have governments laying people off
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right, left and center, based upon a fictitious notion that somehow the country is in peril when
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the country is not in peril at all. Then we go on to section, I love beautiful section, section seven,
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right? The right to life, liberty, right? And the security of the person and the security of the
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person comes directly to the jabs, right? It's the right of a person, right? A person has a right
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over their own person, right? And the government has no right to coerce or force people to get one of
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these injections. And it is violation of that section of the charter. And then if those three sections
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weren't sufficient, how about section 15? Equality before the law. Every individual in Canada
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is equal before the law. Now, right now here in Praxville, British Columbia, where I live right
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now, I am not equal before the law. I am not allowed to go certain places in this city that other people
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are allowed to go to because of my medical status. Okay. So that I'm, my, my rights are being violated
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under section 15, as we speak. So these are precious rights that only became written in a
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constitution 40 years ago. And they weren't put there lightly by me and the other first ministers
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at the time. And it was our proposal, by the way, Newfoundland's proposal that broke the deadlock
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on the night of the 4th of November, 1981, that led to the agreement the next day when all the first
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ministers met. You know, I'm pretty familiar with this. And these proposals of mine are in my book
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that I published in 2012 called Someday the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More. All of the
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proposals are, for the first time, were made public by me in 2012. So I know a little bit about what I'm
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talking about here, because it was my proposal and the Newfoundland proposal that broke the deadlock that
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led to the agreement that we have today. These things weren't done, you know, on the spur of the moment.
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That was a 17-month negotiation, this whole thing. And we knew we were talking about the Constitution. We knew
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we weren't talking about an act. That's why it's very important for me now, as the only first minister left,
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to appear before some of these courts, which I think I will be able to do through affidavits that different law firms
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are preparing for me right now, where I want to look the judge in the face, and it's quite likely
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to be on a Zoom like it is today, or Skype. Whatever it is that makes no difference. I want to look
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the judges of the Supreme Court or the appeal court of any of the provinces in the face and say,
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Your Honor, with due respect, when Section 1 was written, whereby provinces or federal government could
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override this charter. It was done in the context of the nation was in peril. The nation was subject to
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insurrection. The nation was subject to war. That's why it's in the Constitution. Constitution means
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permanence. It doesn't mean fickle acts of emergency declared by a province or the federal government over
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a virus for which 99% of the population recover, and a fatality rate of less than 1%. That's not
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insurrection. That's not war. That's not a state in peril. And so constitutions are written for permanence,
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continuity, and sustainability. And using Section 1 to try to get around doing these things
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is unconstitutional, in my view, and not what the founders meant.
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Just one more minute of that for folks who are not lawyers. So we have all these enumerated rights,
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freedom of a conscience, belief, religion, speech, assembly, association, mobility rights,
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security of the person, equality rights. But then there's this wiggle room factor, Section 1, that says
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that they can be infringed only if it's demonstrably justifiable in a manner of a free and democratic
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society. So the government has to really, really prove it.
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Well, what I'm saying is, it doesn't even apply, because the intent of it was in a state of peril,
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and we're not in a state of peril. Then I go on to say in the stuff that I have written,
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let's for argument's sake, as you're saying there now, it does apply. Let's say Section 1 does apply.
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Ha, ha, ha, ha. Sorry, governments, you have four tests to meet, even if it does apply,
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which I argue that it doesn't apply. And the four tests are, as you just said,
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the first one is, you have to demonstrably justify. I remember when these phrases were
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talked about, and we were talking about justify. And quite a few of the first ministers at the time
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wanted to make it stronger. Demonstrably justify. So we put that additional adjective, descriptive
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word in there. So demonstrably justify, number one. Number two, by law. And my view on that would be,
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if it's so exceptional as the government so described, then it should be a new law.
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Mm-hmm. Okay? Not existing law. Number three, it should be done within reasonable limits. Where's
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the reasonable limits today when the governments are every second week or every second month
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passing another edict? Okay? And by the way, demonstrably justify in terms of public policy,
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as you would well know, and many Canadians would well know, means if you've got to demonstrably
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justify a new public policy. It's usually a cost-benefit analysis or some similar kind of report to
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demonstrate that what you're doing has more positives than negatives. And then the fourth
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test was, all of these three tests have to be within the context of what? A free and democratic
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society. Well, a free and democratic society, in my view, means that the parliaments, all 14 of them,
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should be open and overseeing what is going on in the nation as a result of these pandemic measures.
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How can you have a free and democratic society if the parliaments are only open long enough to give
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them another edict or give them another something? There should be a parliamentary committee in every
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province. Mm-hmm. There should be a parliamentary committee in every territory, which is overseeing
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on behalf of the people what the government is saying they want to do.
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So, both counts. Yeah. On both counts. Section one, in fact, in my view, as one of the founders of
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it and one of the creators of it, it doesn't even apply. But if, for argument's sake, you wanted to
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make it apply, then you have four tests to meet and they have not met any of the four.
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Yeah. Oh, it's even worse than you say, because when you say parliaments are
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reconvened just quickly enough to issue an edict, in most cases, those edicts are being issued by
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by bureaucrats that no one's even heard of before, sometimes even contradicting what the elected
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leaders say here in Ontario. If Doug Ford, the premier, even suggests liberalizing the lockdowns,
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you'll have some chief health officer from some district. No one's heard of the guy before. He's
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never been elected. He has no oversight or accountability democratically. And he just says,
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no, I'm issuing in an order. So it's not even the parliament, the parliament isn't even touching
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these things. Exactly. And that's the other problem we have, is that the parliaments,
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through their premiers and ministers of health, have given additional powers under these acts
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to the public health officers, which should never have been done. The public health officer doesn't
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report to you and me. The public health officer reports to the minister and the premier. And it's the
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minister and the premier who report to you and me through their parliament, which should be open
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overseeing this so-called emergency. Okay? That's what should be happening. So that free and democratic
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society provision test, number four, that's the other thing that hopefully I'll be able to argue
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before the appeal courts or the Supreme Court of Canada, is that even if this section one did apply,
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and I argue vehemently it doesn't. I remember well. I remember well. Because we were talking,
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we were very cognizant of the time we were talking about a constitution, not a federal act,
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not a provincial act. This was a sacred document. We were putting sacred rights into a sacred document
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for permanency. That's why it wasn't like the Bill of Rights in 1960, because it was only a federal act.
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It didn't have the same power. So we knew that at the time. This was not new to us. We knew that.
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And so even, but then again, like you say, even if it did apply, section one, just for argument's sake,
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none of the governments have met those four tests. So everything they're doing, therefore,
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is completely and unadulteratedly unconstitutional.
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Well, now let me ask you a question, because I would never ask you to try and speak for
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other premiers who were deceased and who, many of which I'm sure you haven't talked to in decades.
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But instead of that, perhaps you could just share with us some of the spirit of the times,
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what some of the premiers or even the prime minister and the federal justice minister, because,
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I mean, I have many quarrels with the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's dad.
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But I think he occasionally showed a flash of civil liberties. I mean, he brought in the War Measures
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Act and all. But I think this charter, he was trying to enshrine real civil liberties. And I don't
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know if his son cares about that. Can you tell us not, I'm not asking you to speak for them in today's
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question. Was there something back then that this premier said or that justice minister said
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that if people today heard, they say, yikes, we've fallen far from the intent of the original
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drafters of this legislation? Okay. Let's just get the historical context correct. Pierre Elliott Trudeau's
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version of the charter and of the Constitution Act failed. We came together as first ministers
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to see if we could patriate the Constitution, bring it home to Canada and no more have to go back to
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London for amendments. We were a complete and utter sovereign nation. That's part of what's in
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the Constitution Act 1982 and the charter. And so we sat down and started to negotiate in 1980.
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But halfway through the prime minister, Justin Trudeau's father, and this is not promulgated very much
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anymore. And every time I mentioned it in the speeches I give, the community halls that I go to
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and give these speeches, there's a hush in the room. Nobody remembers. Nobody has been told that the prime
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minister of Canada at the time left the table halfway through and said, I can't negotiate with you guys.
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You're too difficult. And so he left the table. And a number of us, by the way, in the room at the
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time, including Renny Levesque, by the way, had said, Trudeau won't stay at this table. Trudeau won't
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stay at this table. I said he would. And a number of others said he would. We were wrong. I think
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Sterling Lyon said that he wouldn't stay. I think Peter Lahey had some questions about it. Okay. So I want to
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give you the sense here. So he left the table. We thought he would return to the table a few weeks
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later, whatever. What did he do? He initiated an act through the House of Commons, unilaterally,
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to patriate the Constitution and his version of the charter. He figured he could do it on his own.
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We took him to court. Three court actions happened, one in Newfoundland, one in Manitoba,
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and one in Quebec, challenging his constitutional authority to do what he did through the House
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of Commons. At the same time, the conservatives were agitating that they didn't think the prime
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minister could do this, as so were some of his MPs, quietly saying this. Anyway, to make a long story short,
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on September the 28th, 1981, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that what the prime minister of Canada
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was doing was unconstitutional. He could not do it without the provinces. He needed so many of the
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provinces in order to be able to do this. So his version of the charter, his version of patriation,
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went up in smoke. And he was forced back to the table. And he came back to the table for those
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last three days, November 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And it was a proposal from the provinces, from yours truly,
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on behalf of the provinces, over the night of December the 4th, into the morning of November
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the 5th, that led to what we have today. It wasn't Trudeau's proposal. Trudeau's proposal was defeated
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by his own court, the Supreme Court of Canada. Everybody forgets that. And it's muted. When you
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go to the encyclopedias and you go to the various books on the patriation of the time, this is muted.
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As if, because so many people want to elevate Pierre Elliott Trudeau to be this great scholar and
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this great genius as related to the constitution. Well, sorry, folks. It was Pierre Elliott Trudeau's
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proposal that failed. And it was the provinces' proposal that won the day with the prime minister
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on side because, of course, he just got defeated a few months ago before that in the Supreme Court
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of Canada. So it's into that context. Now, as it relates to the premiers, let me say that the premiers
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who were very strong in favor of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were British Columbia, Bill
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Bennett, and his constitutional advisor, Mel Smith, and his minister, Gurney Gurnham at the time,
00:26:58.280
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister. But the British Columbia, and especially through their minister and
00:27:03.640
their advisors, were very strongly in favor, if it could be done properly, that the charter should be
00:27:09.480
enshrined in the constitution. Okay? Peter Loughey, same way. With reservations, because we were
00:27:17.240
scared at the, well, we got really scared after the prime minister left and then lost in the Supreme
00:27:22.520
Court because now he wasn't trustworthy. That notwithstanding clause, for example, that everybody
00:27:27.800
tries to talk about now and shouldn't be in and there and all the rest of it, was put there primarily
00:27:31.960
because nobody trusted the prime minister of Canada. And what reason did they have to trust the
00:27:35.800
prime minister of Canada? He had left the table and tried to get his own version of what Canada
00:27:40.440
was going to look like through the Supreme Court on his own, completely defying all the conventions
00:27:46.680
and all the customs of Canada since the reform in 1867. Now, Saskatchewan, Alan Blakeney, no question,
00:27:54.280
he was also very supportive. Also though, with reservations in the sense that they not impinge upon
00:28:01.400
the provincial rights, for example, the natural resource provision, which was strengthened in that
00:28:08.760
same act, by the way. And in my case, yours truly, we put a document on the table a year before supporting
00:28:16.840
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Okay? But we wanted it to be done in a balanced way, ensuring
00:28:23.000
that, for example, equalization became a part of the constitution, which we insisted upon and other
00:28:29.160
have not provinces, and it's in there as well. So the whole business of the Constitution Act 1982
00:28:35.880
was complex. Minority language rights was another key issue in that whole debate, right? And so,
00:28:44.040
and Angus McLean, who was then the prime premier of Prince Edward Island, was strongly supportive,
00:28:51.480
and a very wise old gentleman, elderly gentleman at the time. He was a veteran. He had been a veterans
00:28:57.720
affairs minister in Diefenbaker's government, as a matter of fact. Well, Angus McLean was a very
00:29:03.080
strong supporter of the Charter. The Sterling Lyon of Manitoba was concerned that what would happen,
00:29:14.680
and he predicted this, he predicted what's happening now would happen.
00:29:19.240
Really? Sterling Lyon of Manitoba. Sterling Lyon was one of the skeptics.
00:29:25.800
Hmm. He went along with it. What would he think today?
00:29:31.320
Well, I'm not going to ask you to put words in his mouth, but what did he say back then that would
00:29:35.960
make you think he would be upset today? He said the same thing that the prime minister just tried
00:29:42.680
to do and didn't succeed on, in the decades hence, they will find a way. They will always find a way to
00:29:54.680
usurp individual rights and freedoms. He was strongly in favor of individual rights and freedoms,
00:30:01.240
but he didn't see this as being a necessary final tool. He reluctantly came around
00:30:09.320
to it because we persuaded him about section one and about the notwithstanding clause and other
00:30:15.960
things. And he became a supporter of it as did his attorney general. But when you ask me now,
00:30:22.600
New Brunswick and Ontario, sadly speaking, stayed with the prime minister all the way through the
00:30:29.800
time when he was doing this unilaterally and lost in the courts. So we were called at the time the
00:30:35.240
gang of eight. When we really weren't the gang of eight, it was the group of eight,
00:30:39.240
the group of eight of us who opposed what the prime minister was doing because it flew in the face of
00:30:43.880
every constitutional convention since 1867. And that's what the Supreme Court of Canada said.
00:30:48.840
Okay. So, and we weren't the gang of eight either, because there is a myth out there,
00:30:54.040
which I tried to dispel in my book, which is still in a lot of the history books about the gang of eight
00:31:00.200
or the night of the long knives. There was no night of the long knives. That's a lie. That's a myth.
00:31:05.560
That's a lie. That's a myth. I'll say it over and over again. Quebec, we couldn't find Quebec that
00:31:11.000
night to go over that proposal with them on the 4th, November the 4th. They were in Hull having a late
00:31:17.000
dinner, but they did see the proposal the next morning before it became presented to all the first
00:31:23.720
ministers. So we weren't trying to go around anybody. Now, Quebec, of course, was always
00:31:30.840
attentive to its own cultural and linguistic issues. And let's put that aside for a minute.
00:31:36.280
But tell me what the Quebec view was about civil liberties, because I mean, again, Quebec and its
00:31:44.520
French history, I can see both sides. I can see a love for civil liberties that goes back centuries,
00:31:51.400
but I can also see sort of an authoritarian, you know, Napoleon, you know, there's a bit of a
00:31:56.520
Gaullist character there. What was Quebec's view about freedoms and the individual back in these
00:32:05.560
constitutional negotiations? Levesque was very strongly in favor.
00:32:11.400
René Levesque, yeah, of freedoms. Absolutely no question about it. I knew René Levesque very well
00:32:18.360
on a personal basis, as well as in politics. And we fought about his vision of Canada versus
00:32:23.880
mine or others. And every premier of Canada, by the way, had a really good relationship already,
00:32:29.400
notwithstanding his view of where Quebec placed in Canada and all of that. But I think you're right.
00:32:37.960
You hit the nail right on the head when you said there is a ambivalence in the Quebec, in the French
00:32:44.040
character when it comes to, on the one hand, very strong in favor of civil liberties. On the other
00:32:48.600
hand, there is this more authority streak in them as it relates to kings and people like Napoleon and
00:32:57.560
the Gaul and so on. And so I think they've always been, you know, what shall I say, ambivalent
00:33:06.280
towards how to treat this. And we could see that through the talks that we had with the Quebec
00:33:12.200
people because the Quebec people were part of the group of eight when we opposed what Trudeau was
00:33:18.120
trying to do unilaterally. But both Claude Morin and Jacques Parizeau, who were big advisors of Levesque
00:33:26.440
at the time, I think especially Mr. Parizeau would be more on the authority side. Morin might be in the
00:33:33.480
middle and Levesque would have been more on the civil liberties side. I think that's where it came down.
00:33:38.520
But they were very powerful intellectuals in the government and the leadership and the decision
00:33:45.800
making of Quebec at the time. And Levesque did respect them and look up to them. So I always argued,
00:33:53.720
by the way, that if Morin and Parizeau had not been there in those last few days, we would have had
00:34:01.320
go back on board. Let me ask you about today. I mean, I've learned a lot about the history of the
00:34:09.160
negotiation behind the Charter of Rights and the Constitution in general. I didn't know many of
00:34:13.720
those details. But here we are today. And I feel like every institution in society that was meant to
00:34:21.240
be a check and a balance on runaway governments and even tyranny, if I can use the word, they've all
00:34:27.080
failed. The official opposition is not opposing, either federally or at any provincial level.
00:34:34.120
All the parties seem to agree. And the odd skeptic who pops up is immediately sacked.
00:34:39.480
Just the other day, a cabinet minister in Manitoba. The media in general, if anything, is hyping
00:34:47.480
it up. And if a politician goes soft, the media shames them. The colleges of physicians and surgeons
00:34:57.000
are smacking down any doctors who have a second opinion, which used to be a big part of being a
00:35:03.240
doctor. I'd like a second opinion. The chambers of commerce at most have asked for subsidies or bailouts.
00:35:12.680
I haven't seen a chamber of commerce or even an independent business group call for an end to
00:35:17.880
the lockdowns. Every single niche in society, they've all failed simultaneously. So, I mean,
00:35:25.240
the analogy I use is like a fishing net when all the knots on the net break at once. If you have one
00:35:31.080
or two knots break, you're still going to catch some fish. But when every single knot fails at the
00:35:35.720
same time, you've just got a bunch of string there.
00:35:39.960
A very good way of putting it. I'm putting up before you right now, you may remember this book.
00:35:49.240
Democracy in Canada, the disintegration of our institutions.
00:35:54.200
Donald Savoie is a scholar at the University of Moncton.
00:35:57.480
This is, in my view, perhaps the definitive book on explaining what you just asked.
00:36:04.280
Okay. It started around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau time when suddenly the Parliament of Canada
00:36:11.640
began to diminish in its importance. The parliamentary committees began to diminish
00:36:16.520
in its importance. It started to move away from the Parliament to the Cabinet and Cabinet ministers.
00:36:23.400
And if you remember, I think you're old enough to remember, there were strong regional ministers one
00:36:29.720
time. Alan McKechnen came from Cape Breton Island. Very strong, strong minister. There were strong
00:36:35.400
ministers from the West. Donald Mazinkowski comes to mind right away, right? There were some, Otto Lang,
00:36:41.000
I think, was from the West as well. There were strong regional ministers. But gradually over time,
00:36:48.360
the minister's power started to diminish. And the power moved from the Cabinet to the Privy Council
00:36:54.920
office and the Prime Minister's office. And today there's over 1,600 or 1,700 people just working
00:37:01.320
in the Privy Council office and the Prime Minister's office. Nothing happens now without some bureaucrat in
00:37:07.880
one of those offices having put their stamp on it with the Prime Minister being involved.
00:37:13.720
And so ministers now are not powerful ministers like they were before influencing public policy.
00:37:20.120
Parliamentary committees get shut down during the Judy Rabel affair, for example. SNC-Lavalin,
00:37:27.480
the Parliamentary Committee, got closed down, even though the former minister had more that she wanted
00:37:32.440
to release about what was going on at the time when the government tried to obstruct justice in our country.
00:37:40.040
And so we have seen an MP become a social worker, a glorified social worker, and that the Parliament
00:37:47.080
has by stealth, without a shot being fired. And this is what Donald Sebois is saying in his book.
00:37:53.480
So it's been a gradual erosion over time, but the pandemic sort of crystallized it all. It all came
00:38:01.560
together during the pandemic. It all came together during the pandemic and made possible what you just
00:38:08.200
talked about. Remember now, the government of Canada is so involved in health that there's over 40 billion
00:38:14.680
every year that goes to the provinces, right, under the Canada health transfer. There's another 15
00:38:20.840
billion that goes to the provinces under the social transfer. So the provinces are not as independent
00:38:26.520
anymore as they used to be, because they're so beholden to the federal government. And the federal
00:38:33.640
government itself has all these parliamentary secretaries. So how many ministers are there?
00:38:38.520
31, 32 ministers? That means there's 31 or 32 MPs that got extra jobs. Then you got the
00:38:45.560
parliamentary committees, all chair people from the Liberal Party, okay? How many of them are there?
00:38:50.760
So when the prime minister wakes up every morning, he's almost got everything sewed up before he has
00:38:55.800
his breakfast. He knows he has all of these people in his pocket. And nationally, he has most of the
00:39:01.720
the provinces in his pocket. Because besides getting these billions of dollars in health transfers and
00:39:07.000
social transfers, five provinces get equalization on top of the Canada health transfer, on top of the
00:39:14.040
Canada social transfer. So what has happened has, without a shot being fired de facto, the prime minister of
00:39:21.240
Canada is really the president of Canada, or a monarch of Canada. And all of these serfs that are now
00:39:30.120
cabinet ministers, and this is what Savoy is saying in his book, all of our institutions have failed.
00:39:35.240
And so we are de facto, without having the messy situation that the Americans get themselves into,
00:39:42.600
which helps to save their democracy, we have nothing to save ours. And the judiciary now, we're going to
00:39:48.520
have to fight hard to get them to rule properly on the charter. And we don't have the kind of, what shall I
00:39:56.280
say, activism, amongst our courts, or amongst, like you said, the chambers of commerce, or the
00:40:02.520
ordinary people, to stand up in civil disobedience and say, this has gone too far, that our parliamentary
00:40:09.400
democracy has been stolen from us by stealth, and we want it back.
00:40:13.960
Wow. You know what's interesting is, even though the entire establishment, every institution you can
00:40:22.200
think of, is in the tank for the lockdown, it's almost as if the more compliance there is, like
00:40:30.440
it's 80 percent, 90 percent, that the shrillness of Trudeau and the other messaging goes up. I mean,
00:40:37.320
just the other day, he said in French, that if you are not for a vaccine mandate, you are most likely
00:40:45.400
an extremist, a racist, and a misogynist. Here's a clip of that in French.
00:40:50.600
Yes, we are going to get out of this pandemic for the vaccination. And we know all those people who are
00:40:57.080
trying to hesitate a little bit. We're going to try to convince them. But there are also people who are
00:41:02.040
far away from the vaccination. Who are extremists. Who are not in science, who are often misogynists,
00:41:08.120
who are often racistes. It's a small group, but who takes place. And there, there, there is a choice in
00:41:16.600
as a leader, as a country. Do we tolerate these people? Or do we say, well, let's see, the most
00:41:23.320
people, almost 80 percent of the Québécois, have done what they need to do. They have been vaccinated.
00:41:27.800
We want to come back to what we like to do. It's not those people who are going to block us now.
00:41:33.320
That's shocking language, but it mirrors what he said in the last election campaign. Those people,
00:41:39.960
we see in other countries, Emmanuel Macron saying similar things about, I'm going to try and
00:41:45.880
irritate them. We've seen like a strange demonization that certainly not sunny ways,
00:41:51.720
Justin Trudeau of 2016. I'm worried that it's that as what they're trying isn't working and
00:42:00.600
they're going to try harder and harder, harder lockdowns, more bans, more punishments, crazy
00:42:06.280
public denunciations. I'm worried that he's going to try and flatten what remaining resistance there is.
00:42:11.560
And I'm speaking selfishly because I think that he's going to try and censor online critics like
00:42:17.800
us. I think he's going to try and punish those few voices like I think of Maxime Bernier in the
00:42:24.120
People Party of Canada. And you can like him or not. You can he can be your cup of tea or not. But at
00:42:28.600
least he's a difference of opinion. I see attempts to almost criminalize him. He actually was arrested
00:42:36.280
when he went to Manitoba for a political rally. I feel like we're actually teetering on some
00:42:42.920
authoritarian police state tactics. And I don't want to be too dramatic, but I really do see it.
00:42:50.360
I wouldn't have agreed with your statements a month ago or two months ago. I was still holding out.
00:42:58.120
But as each day goes by, by the way, I don't know if you read the articles by David Solway.
00:43:06.200
He's a very, very incisive Canadian poet out of Quebec, but has lived quite some time in the United
00:43:13.720
States. And I think he's traveled around Canada quite a bit. And I think his wife has been a
00:43:18.040
university teacher. So on Solway, he's also a poet as well as an essayist. He writes a lot in the PJ
00:43:23.480
media in the United States under that. And he's got a new one in there, an essay just 24 hours old.
00:43:29.960
I really recommend it to you because he's coming to the same conclusion is that you and I are coming
00:43:35.640
to. What I say in my speeches, and by the way, I'd like you to know, like right now, I've done
00:43:42.920
quite a few town hall meetings. And the one thing I've noticed that you would really appreciate is
00:43:50.680
that there is a sense, there is a sense among the body politic, among the ordinary class,
00:43:58.040
that something is wrong. And it's in their belly. I went to, I went to a church down in the suburb of
00:44:06.600
Victoria in December. And the people who asked me to come down, I was going down to another event
00:44:11.880
on the legislature steps. And they persuaded me to come down. They said, Brian, we want you to come
00:44:17.800
down. We want you to explain the constitution to us. And we think you can do that to us.
00:44:23.160
And so they rented this church. And they promised me 150 people would turn up. They had 150 people in
00:44:30.360
a new group, a liberty group. When I turned up on the steps of the church, quarter to seven for seven
00:44:37.480
o'clock, there were 400 people trying to get to the church. They had to open the top part of the church
00:44:45.080
and the bottom part of the church and bring in audio visual equipment. And I spoke in the middle
00:44:50.360
part of the church so that everybody could hear and see me as I was explaining it. I gave a speech
00:44:56.280
like I'm giving today kind of thing for about 40 minutes. The question and answers were over two hours.
00:45:05.640
And there was a sense of electricity in that room that I had never felt for a long, long time.
00:45:10.840
And it was one of extreme, deep concern for their nation. They see it falling apart. They see their
00:45:20.280
rights being eroded. So you are correct, Ezra, right from the ground, right from the ordinary people.
00:45:26.200
I've got a meeting coming up in the just south of Duncan in Kabul Hill on Saturday night, weather
00:45:32.680
permitting, where again, the people are asking me to come and speak to them and do the same thing as
00:45:38.280
that I did, you know, only 30 or 40 miles away in Victoria back in December, because they had heard
00:45:45.560
about that speech and some of their friends had attended it. So I point this out, and David Solway
00:45:51.400
in his latest essay talks about this. And one of the other things they talk about in my speeches is
00:45:56.840
democracy is a minority governance system on this planet. Always was, quite likely always will be.
00:46:05.640
It's an unbelievable, as Churchill talked about it. It's a very fragile concept, very hard to sustain.
00:46:14.520
And as civil involvement decreases, so does democracy. And that's what's happened in Canada.
00:46:21.560
Civil involvement has decreased. Citizens have left it up to their MPs and their MLAs to do everything,
00:46:30.280
and have ignored what was happening, that the MLAs and the MPs were having no more power, right? And
00:46:37.560
suddenly now, after 44 decades, it's happened, or five decades, it's happened. And so there's an unease in
00:46:44.520
the country at the local average citizen, and they don't know what to do about it.
00:46:50.120
You know, and when you're not allowed to gather, and when you don't gather in your traditional
00:46:56.280
gathering places, your churches, your parliaments, your town halls, your clubs, your gyms, your theaters,
00:47:03.320
your restaurants, your diners, well, then you have to meet electronically online. But then there's a
00:47:09.160
whole level of censorship there. You can't say things on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,
00:47:14.680
if they change the narrative. So by forcing people to live online, they're forcing them to live in a
00:47:21.960
filtered world. And sometimes you don't even know that you're being filtered because a voice just
00:47:26.840
one day disappears. And it's not a happy future.
00:47:29.880
Yeah. Remember, remember, the Trusted News Initiative was signed back in December 2020.
00:47:36.840
CDC is part of that, you know, that $1.2 billion corporation that you always talk about,
00:47:43.000
and rightly so, and rightly so, and rightly so. They're part of it. And so are the other
00:47:49.720
major media outlets in Canada. And what does the Trusted News Initiative say? And this goes for all
00:47:54.920
the main news operations in the world. We're not going to carry anything negative about the vaccine
00:48:02.200
or the pandemic or the virus. We're not going to carry anything negative. So like you say, everything
00:48:07.560
is blocked off. It's only, you know, thank God for vehicles like yours, which my wife
00:48:12.840
and I support because we believe in the freedom of speech. And that's what you stand for.
00:48:18.200
Thank you. I mean, you made me think they're trusted. All right. Trusted by Justin Trudeau,
00:48:25.400
You know, I feel like things are getting darker in some ways, but I do acknowledge what you say,
00:48:35.080
that ordinary folks are starting to say this isn't right, including people who said, all right,
00:48:40.920
I'll get the jab. If that's all you're asking for me, I'll get the jab and then we'll get back to
00:48:46.120
normal. Now they're saying, hey, you said it was back to normal, not an endless series of jabs.
00:48:51.880
You just took away all my rights. And hey, you said the vaccine meant I wouldn't get sick again,
00:48:56.760
but I did get. So a lot of people who I wouldn't call political, who I would say are quite agreeable
00:49:03.880
and went along with it, I think they're starting to have second thoughts. And I see some hope there,
00:49:10.540
but I also see more viciousness on the part of the enforcers. Can you give me some reason for
00:49:17.500
optimism? I mean, we've talked about the charter that you helped create, and so far the courts have
00:49:22.620
not weighed in. Are you hopeful that if this gets to the right Court of Appeal or even to the Supreme
00:49:26.700
Court that we'll see some relief? Because I'm not hopeful.
00:49:30.780
No, I know you're not. And I know others who are not. But like I said earlier at the beginning of this
00:49:36.380
of this interview, it's still the second period. And though I understand that the period and a half to go
00:49:44.300
is full of people who are not necessarily sympathetic to what the charter really actually says and means.
00:49:54.700
And I agree it's an uphill fight, but the fight is not over. And I think if people like you and me
00:50:02.940
and many others across the country can start saying the following. We Canadians want the appeal court
00:50:12.940
judges and the Supreme Court judges to rule on the pandemic measures in the context of the charter
00:50:21.740
as it was written and as the words mean in 1981 and 82. You must interpret it under the context of
00:50:30.620
the supremacy of God and the rule of law, because that's how the charter starts. Those words have
00:50:37.500
not been changed. Those freedoms have not been changed. Those words mean what they say. There's no
00:50:43.260
been change in those words and those definitions. We want you to save our constitution and thereby save our
00:50:51.260
country as a democracy appeal court judge and Supreme Court judge. And so I think we've got to get very
00:50:57.500
specific and very direct. Our last hope is our appeal court judges in the provinces and the Supreme Court
00:51:05.420
judges in Ottawa. That's our last hope. The clock is ticking. The second period is starting to wind
00:51:13.100
down and we only have one period less. But if we can mobilize enough individuals to say what I just said
00:51:21.580
and to start speaking out, writing letters, even to the judges themselves, writing letters to the
00:51:27.260
judiciary themselves and saying, you are not, you are not defending our constitution as written and you
00:51:33.580
have an obligation to interpret it as it was written in 1981 and put into law in 1982. These words have
00:51:43.900
not changed. Then I think we have an opportunity. If we don't, I've written this many, many times in the
00:51:49.740
last month. If we don't, then our democracy will fail. We will exist as a country, but it will not be a
00:51:56.220
democratic nation at all. It will be a country that we do not recognize. Wow. Well, that's as good a
00:52:03.420
point as any as to close our conversation for today. I learned a lot about the history of the
00:52:08.380
Charter of Rights. It's a pleasure to catch up with you and to hear your interpretation of those words
00:52:13.340
that you helped draft, that you helped write. You're the last remaining surviving premier from those
00:52:19.420
high stakes negotiations 40 years ago. Premier Brian Peckford, what a pleasure to spend some time with you. Thank you.
00:52:26.220
Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback. Stephen with an S says what a devastating blow it would be
00:52:44.460
to get her on board with Rebel News. It's exactly what we need. Max would throw CBC in the garbage
00:52:53.980
where it belongs now. Up to about 10 years ago, I liked CBC. You know, I think the CBC,
00:53:03.420
right from the very beginning, was uncompetitive, anti-competitive. I think of all the money that
00:53:09.340
crowds out organic competition, of how all the money sops up the talent. So I think it's almost
00:53:18.140
impossible to have a large counterweight to the CBC when it gets such subsidies.
00:53:25.820
It's sort of like when Air Canada was a crown corporation. How could you possibly
00:53:30.220
run an airline against it when Air Canada was out to lose so much money?
00:53:34.620
But it's not just the money and the competition of the CBC. As you can see, it's the ideological
00:53:39.980
training. When a woman who describes herself as the most left-wing producer in the room
00:53:45.740
says she's now on the right because they're just on purpose recruiting for wokeism,
00:53:51.580
I think that's the worst effect. It's not just that the CBC is probably responsible for half of
00:53:57.180
this country's debt up until the pandemic. I know you think that sounds crazy, but 75 years,
00:54:04.140
basically blowing a billion dollars or more in today's dollars. I'd say a quarter of our national
00:54:10.860
debts from the CBC. And it's funny because less than one percent of Canadians watch CBC news on any
00:54:17.420
given night. Gene Trusper says, makes me wonder if there is any sort of connection between the CBC,
00:54:26.220
which I grew up with, and black rocker Larry Fink. It seems that Larry, old boy, is the one largely
00:54:32.940
responsible for the spread of wokeness in the financial corporate realm.
00:54:40.540
No, I just don't think it has any connection to it. I think that that is natural, homegrown leftism.
00:54:48.300
Sure, they bend the knee to woke and to globalism and political correctness. And sure,
00:54:55.180
they sign on to all the usual climate change and all the ideas from the World Economic Forum.
00:55:00.380
But this is not engineered by some outside force. This has been how the CBC has been my entire life.
00:55:09.500
It speaks volumes when a liberal quits the CBC. Thanks for reading her letter to us. We'd never have heard it otherwise.
00:55:18.300
Matt Brevner's song hits the nail for sure. No wonder the powers want it banned.
00:55:26.220
Yeah, I don't listen to the CBC a lot. I haven't tuned into their radio.
00:55:31.180
But something tells me they're not debating that email, even though most other media in the country
00:55:37.900
have at least given it notice. Some, like the National Post, reprinted the letter in full.
00:55:42.060
Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:55:47.740
to you at home, good night. And keep fighting for freedom. And let me leave you with a video of the day
00:55:53.580
by Sidney Fisard at church with Pastor Arthur Pawlowski, just hours before he was arrested on New Year's Day.
00:56:03.420
Do what you want to do at City Hall. Do what you want to do at the Capitol. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
00:56:14.180
You know, I believe that we have been defending ourselves for the past two years.
00:56:20.340
I believe it's time for the villains to start defending themselves.
00:56:23.900
So I'm not talking about violence. I'm talking about non-compliance, peaceful, resistance, civil rights type of movement,
00:56:30.800
where we finally come to a point together in unity, in solidarity, if you will.
00:56:36.620
And we will say to them, enough, it's enough. I mean, you're pushing. We're going to push even harder right now.
00:56:41.960
At the cross, at the cross of where I first fall, but when the word of my heart flowed away,
00:56:54.840
it was there, my faith, I received my son, and now I am happy all the day.
00:57:03.460
You see, the cave of Adullam is a story of misfits, those that were running away from corrupted authorities,
00:57:13.380
those that were in distress, in debt, and they came together to the stronghold called the cave of Adullam
00:57:21.540
to form the mighty men of David's, unbeatable army, that to this day, thousands of years later,
00:57:32.020
we learn about those heroes of faith that would stand in the middle of the field.
00:57:37.860
And one guy would kill almost a thousand warriors.
00:57:42.080
Another would stop the entire army in the middle of the field,
00:58:01.040
When you see an evil approaching, when you are a true shepherd of God's people,
00:58:10.080
you cannot help it, but stand up and say, get out.
00:58:21.760
When I went to Pastor Arthur's service this past Saturday,
00:58:26.980
that later that day he would be arrested again, as we've seen in the past.
00:58:31.220
I wish I could say this was an isolated incident.
00:58:33.900
However, for the past two years, our great dominion has been under attack.
00:58:37.340
From coast to coast, pastors are now facing the wrath of politicians
00:58:41.560
who say they're trying to control a virus, fail in their pursuits,
00:58:45.400
and then blame everyday Canadians for that same failure.
00:58:48.560
Instead of attempting to represent the people they claim to serve,
00:58:51.780
they now assault those who continue living their lives
00:58:54.520
without the stamp of approval from bureaucrats claiming to advocate for public health.
00:58:59.120
This would be understandable if the state were going after pedophiles and murderers.
00:59:03.160
However, they have now turned their gaze to those who feed the homeless
00:59:08.800
Pastor Arthur is no exception, who, along with Pastor Tobias,
00:59:12.120
was in attendance the day I went to the Church of Adulam.
00:59:15.300
Both had been arrested recently, and both have been given conditions,
00:59:20.800
Even still, it was not anticipated that later that same day,
00:59:24.340
Pastor Arthur would be in bondage courtesy of Calgary police yet again.
00:59:27.880
We will provide you an update soon on the arrest and the release of the two Pawlowskis soon.
00:59:33.680
That'll come in an interview shortly from Adam Sos with Arthur's lawyer, Sarah Miller,
00:59:40.980
a donation portal dedicated to Arthur's legal fight,
00:59:43.640
which aids Sarah in fending off these vindictive authorities
00:59:49.060
This defense is possible because of your donations,
00:59:51.660
which would qualify you for a charitable tax receipt.
00:59:54.000
Today, however, we're going to take a look at what Pastor Arthur was doing before his arrest,
00:59:57.900
just hours before when I was at the Church of Adulam.
01:00:00.980
As you'll hear, after service, he had intended on joining a peaceful vigil,
01:00:05.740
or what some have called a protest, outside the home of the Minister of Health.
01:00:09.280
But before we show you that, I want to show you the sort of church service
01:00:12.800
the province of Alberta has tried to obliterate,
01:00:18.100
which had already been suppressed through a ruling by a man named Adam Germain,
01:00:24.760
He ruled that any time Arthur was critical of the lockdown measures,
01:00:31.200
he would also have to give the government's stance on these same matters.
01:00:35.080
Thankfully, Sarah Miller was able to get that Chinese Communist Party-style
01:00:39.140
compelled speech order stayed while she appeals the rest of Pastor Arthur's conditions.
01:00:46.300
and send the Judicial Council a message by going to firethejudge.com.
01:00:50.240
Now, without further delay, here's Arthur and the church service that he provides,
01:00:54.400
which Adam Germain and Premier Jason Kenney are trying to suppress.
01:00:58.280
And I'm glad to be able to share that message with you today.
01:01:24.180
The foundation is being pulled away from under their feet.
01:01:31.340
My family is all I had in life, and I can't visit them anymore
01:01:35.440
because they took the shot, and they won't have me anymore.
01:01:44.140
There was this young man who had not taken the shot, and his family had.
01:01:48.400
And his father called him up and said, you're not coming for the Christmas gathering.
01:02:03.760
And as the funeral director was dealing with the family, that father said,
01:02:11.540
if I could just go back in time, if I could just unsay those words, I would do it.
01:02:21.540
You see, we are hearing from the corrupted, totalitarian, you know, evil, wicked politicians of today
01:02:33.920
They are enslaving and destroying, pillaging, murdering.
01:03:14.520
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
01:03:17.000
See how long you're going to last with your laws
01:03:31.960
Don't they have their own families and children to think about?
01:03:40.080
And now they're being used as the weapons, as the tools for the tyrants.
01:03:47.320
Please stop being used by the wicked, evil people.
01:03:51.180
Please stop harassing citizens that you swore to protect.
01:03:58.980
And if you cannot do your job, then resign and let somebody else take over.
01:04:08.300
They are doing the same thing to me, of course, and to others like us that, you know, we dare
01:04:18.440
That's a taste of what the state wants to shut down.
01:04:21.080
And after that service, Pastor Artur and his brother David had been arrested and hauled
01:04:28.160
Right before their arrest, a peaceful vigil, or what some have called a protest, was held
01:04:35.120
Artur and David were both in attendance, but not to trespass nor to harass, as Premier
01:04:41.280
Instead, let me share Pastor Artur's message that he shared earlier in the day that pertained
01:04:46.880
Today at 4.30, there's going to be a special rally.
01:04:51.200
They're going to meet at a park on 42nd Street Northwest, up in the Market Mall area.
01:04:57.560
You know, I believe that we have been defending ourselves for the past two years.
01:05:03.720
I believe it's time for the villains to start defending themselves.
01:05:08.920
I'm talking about non-compliance, peaceful, resistance, civil rights type of movement, where
01:05:14.820
we finally come to a point together in unity, in solidarity, if you will, and we will say
01:05:22.100
I mean, you're pushing, we're going to push even harder right now.
01:05:25.320
After the vigil was over, the Polowskis were hauled away Gestapo-style, as you've probably
01:05:30.480
heard Artur say before, and made to spend the night in custody.
01:05:34.240
I'll show you a quick clip of their dramatic arrest, then listen to the message Tobias had
01:05:39.900
He was on his way back to Manitoba at the time, but I reached out and am thankful for
01:05:56.160
You get orders from corrupted politicians, corrupted leaders, and this is what you do.
01:06:02.860
So it had been a long time since we had been together, so we were both excited and had
01:06:09.660
a good time together, knowing little that that very day he would be arrested yet again, and
01:06:17.520
I got that news as I was traveling home, and I was shocked.
01:06:23.320
I didn't want to believe it, and was sad to see my brother being arrested like that.
01:06:33.080
Yet, we want Pastor Art to know that he's not alone.
01:06:42.540
We know that when one suffers, we suffer with him.
01:06:47.940
When they attack one of us, they attack all of us.
01:06:51.840
We by ourselves are very weak, but together we are strong.
01:06:56.440
And I'm thankful that Pastor Art keeps standing.
01:07:00.580
We're here for each other, and thank you all and love you all for your support.
01:07:09.360
Let me say again quickly, to help Artur in his legal battle against the state, go to saveartur.com,
01:07:15.960
where through our partnership with the registered Canadian charity, the Democracy Fund, donations
01:07:20.620
will go straight to the legal fight he's now faced with.
01:07:23.660
And let me remind you, donations now qualify you for a charitable tax receipt.
01:07:27.340
Thanks for tuning in to the end and hearing out the message of those now being persecuted
01:07:40.080
We spent 24 hours in jail, and we're facing three more charges, believe it or not.
01:07:46.680
So if you can, if you're willing, go to saveartur.com.
01:07:56.580
They saved us before, and I know they're going to do everything in their power to save us again.
01:08:05.700
Even though the government is persecuting and prosecuting us left and right,
01:08:10.200
we're still standing, and we are fighting for you as well.