Greg Wycliffe - April 08, 2025


Arrested for Honouring Sir John A MacDonald Statue in Queens Park #FREEJOHN

Hosted by
Greg Wycliffe
Mentioned
John A. Macdonald Egerton Ryerson Pierre Poilievre Mark Carney X. Support
Canada's 2-Tiered Justice System Pierre Poilievre bans Red MAGA Hats at Campaign Rally？ ｜ Controlled Op ep36

Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

177.03

Word count

1,048

Sentence count

83


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Daniel Tate has been charged with mischief under $5,000, which carries a 2 year sentence, for writing a message on a piece of plywood that says Free John on a statue in Toronto s Queen s Park.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 In a small act of rebellion, I went back to the statue in front of Queen's Park and I wrote on
00:00:06.580 the box, free John. As soon as I did that, I was immediately arrested and criminally charged
00:00:14.460 with mischief under $5,000, which carries up to a two-year prison sentence. I'm in downtown Toronto
00:00:22.540 outside the Ontario Court of Justice. Inside is Daniel Tate. He's in there because he spray-painted
00:00:28.040 a piece of plywood to say free John. Underneath the piece of plywood, of course, was the statue
00:00:34.540 of Sir John A. Macdonald, which has been covered up for some time now because it was vandalized
00:00:40.160 by Antifa activists. Hi, everybody. My name is Daniel Tate. Several weeks ago, I went for a walk
00:00:46.940 in downtown Toronto. I noticed that the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, our founding father,
00:00:53.080 was in a box. You posted a video just the other day. I'm wondering what the response has been
00:00:59.160 since you posted that video, both positive and negative. It's been unequivocally positive. I think
00:01:04.680 people have been looking for a voice to air out their frustration the way the country's been going
00:01:10.000 over the last several years. I think I'm that vessel now. There's a couple of haters. You're
00:01:15.960 always going to get them. The people who start Instagram accounts yesterday and they have zero
00:01:21.100 followers and know who are these people. But for the most part, 99% of everybody on Instagram has
00:01:27.720 sent me messages of support. In spirit, they're with me and I really do appreciate it. It energizes
00:01:33.900 me. So we're just going to keep on going. And I noticed on the drive down here that your message
00:01:38.900 free John has since been covered up. Yeah. Well, the real ridiculous irony of this all is after I was
00:01:45.980 upheld for two hours in a dusty sort of basement cell at Queen's Park and they let me go, I walked,
00:01:52.760 as I was walking home, it had already been painted over. Wow. So the groundskeeper at Queen's Park was
00:01:58.500 dispatched, probably one coat of paint, and it was already gone. So the whole thing is just utter
00:02:05.080 insanity. But, you know, I'm less concerned about me in particular this case. I don't care about this
00:02:10.040 case. What I care about is that our founding father of our nation, Sir John A. Macdonald, who unified the
00:02:16.540 colonies, created the amazing intra-provincial railway to connect the provinces. And it resonates
00:02:22.640 today because even today there's issues between commerce and trade between the provinces. This is
00:02:28.420 all metaphorical and symbolic that the one man who had the vision 160, 70, 80 years ago to have a
00:02:34.700 unified country is being boxed up. And the person who's trying to free him and defend his honor is being
00:02:40.660 persecuted by the state. And when they cover up that message so quickly, what do you think kind of message
00:02:46.700 that sends to the public? It tells the public, it tells people like me and you and every rational, normal
00:02:52.700 person that the government doesn't have our best interests at heart. The government is pandering to
00:02:58.160 activists, to people have a warped worldview and a warped view of our country. And if we continue to
00:03:04.700 sort of pander to them and accommodate them, then the decline of Canada will only accelerate.
00:03:09.940 The Sir Egerton Ryerson statue, the Queen Victoria statue and countless Sir John A. Macdonald statues
00:03:16.060 have been defaced, destroyed or torn down in broad daylight by radical far-legged activists. And in many
00:03:22.460 cases, no charges were laid. And in 2022, who could forget the calls to cancel Canada Day? That was met with
00:03:29.800 little to no pushback from sitting politicians of either political stripe across the country.
00:03:34.700 I asked Daniel how he feels about this worrying trend in comparison to the Canada Strong and
00:03:40.140 Canada First messaging we're hearing from Mark Carney and Pierre Polyev respectively during this
00:03:46.000 election cycle.
00:03:46.700 Well, I've been speaking to a lot of people and a lot of people feel it's hollow. And a lot of people feel
00:03:53.060 it's signaling of virtue by Canadians or Canadian leaders for that matter. And I would say to all
00:03:59.600 political leaders, put your money where your mouth is. We don't need empty sloganeering. We need action.
00:04:07.360 And the fact remains that not one political leader yet has stood up for me and what I did.
00:04:12.400 We haven't heard anything from our municipal leaders, provincial leaders, or the current federal
00:04:17.920 leaders who are in government right now. So it's all talk, no action.
00:04:25.040 Yeah. And I appreciate you for having the courage to take a risk to, you know, just to simply write a
00:04:29.920 message.
00:04:30.240 Well, I think it goes to show how, you know, disillusioned and frustrated I and so many
00:04:36.480 Canadians are. You know, like I've worked my whole life. I've paid taxes my whole life. This is not what I
00:04:42.720 normally do, but the country is in such a poor state of affairs that normal citizens like myself
00:04:49.200 are doing these little acts of rebellion to send a message. And so the message is out. I hope it
00:04:54.880 reverberates across the country because we're now in an election cycle and now is the pivotal moment
00:05:00.000 to decide what direction this country is going to go in. Daniel Tate is acquiring disclosure from the
00:05:05.840 Crown Prosecutor and will be back in court May 5th. Follow my platform online. It's called Integrity
00:05:11.840 TO. It's integrity underscore TO. I'm on X. I'm on Instagram or on YouTube. And just get the awareness
00:05:19.120 out. Share with your networks, share with your friends and let people know that what's happening
00:05:22.960 in Canada right now to normal citizens like me is unacceptable.
00:05:26.960 Absolutely. Thanks a lot for your time.
00:05:29.120 Thank you.
00:05:29.920 Follow Daniel Tate on Instagram and X. Support him. Let's make this an election issue, guys.
00:05:36.400 All these people saying elbows up, Canada first, Canada strong, and then we're just going to
00:05:41.680 let the founder of this country sit there in a box. And anybody who complains about that is going to
00:05:45.600 get thrown in jail for two years. It's unbelievable. Thanks for watching. We'll talk to you soon.
00:05:50.720 To support more journalism like this, send me a donation at gregwycliffe.com.