Should Senator Paula Simons Be Sued？ - Ethics Commissioner Responds
Episode Stats
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Summary
A follow-up to a video I did on a recent rant made by Alberta Sen. Paula Simons about the independence movement in Alberta and people who support it, and a letter I wrote to the Senate ethics officer about it.
Transcript
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Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel. Sunday, January the 18th, 3.30 a.m. Panama
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time. I'm still on vacation in Panama. My wife's sleeping in the room here, but I do
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have my big blue mug of coffee. I'm hoping I don't wake her up. Thanks so much for being
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here. And today, I want to do a follow-up on a video I did recently titled, Some People
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are Complaining About Senator Paula Simons. I'm doing something about her. Senator Paula
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Simons is an Alberta senator, and as I said in the previous video, she was not elected.
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We do elect senators in Alberta. She was never elected. She was appointed by Justin Trudeau,
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and she had some terrible things, disparaging comments to make about Stay Free Alberta and
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people who support the independence movement. It disgusted me. And when I heard about these
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comments, I thought, there must be some kind of code of conduct for senators. There has
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to be, and there is. So what I'm going to do right now, I'm going to read a little bit of
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my letter, not go through it, but I did get a response to my email that I sent out. So
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I sent this out to the ethics officer for the Senate, and this is just a short part of what
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I had to say. I'm writing in relation to the behavior of a Canadian senator named Paula
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Simons. Ms. Simons, in a recent interview with Courtney Theriot on CHED Edmonton, went
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on a rant regarding millions of people who live in Alberta. This rant was based on the current
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independence movement in the province. Ms. Simons said the following, well, I think to
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be blunt, and I will be blunt, I think a lot of the emotion that's driving the Alberta
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Prosperity Project is pretty ugly. It's not about making an argument about access to tidewater
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and pipelines. It's frankly xenophobic. It's frankly racist. It's frankly misogynist,
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very anti-woman. It's about taking Alberta back to some kind of imaginary 1950s world of,
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you know, women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. And I think this is virulently
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transphobic and homophobic. And I went on to describe my disgust with Ms. Simons, and I
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thought that she should have to live up to some kind of code of conduct. And there is a code
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of conduct for senators, which you'll see on the screen right now, and you can read a little
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bit of it. And I don't think she lives up to this code of conduct. So I wrote a letter
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and I wanted to get an immediate response to this letter and to what she was saying.
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So I did get one, and this is what came back to me. And it's re disgraceful comments of a
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sitting senator. And this is what it says. Dear Mr. Bolton, this is to acknowledge receipt of your
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email below, dated XX2026, in which you advise that you would like to make a formal complaint
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about Senator Simons and have provided information in support of it. While the ethics and conflict of
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interest code for senators does not provide a specific mechanism through which individuals
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other than senators may file a formal complaint under it, the Senate ethics officer will certainly
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consider the information you have provided, given that he does have the authority to self-initiate
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a preliminary review in cases where he has reasonable grounds to believe that a senator has
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breached his or her obligations under the code. We cannot comment further at this time. Thank you
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for bringing this matter to our attention. So right now they're looking into it. Do I expect much more
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from this or anything further from this? Not necessarily. Now, something that I did get along
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with this that came directly after the email I just read to you was this. And it talks about the Senate
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ethics commissioner would like to recall the message of disgraceful comments of a sitting senator. Now,
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I didn't know what this meant. My wife seemed to think that they wanted to recall the previous message.
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I just read you. I didn't know that was possible until now. My wife did. Apparently, you can't recall
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emails that you have sent mistakenly or you wanted to get back. So I'm thinking maybe they wrote me the
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first message. They had regrets and tried to get it back. But I just read to you what I got in my inbox.
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Do I expect any more to come of this? I would say no. I don't think people are held accountable. I talked
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about the Emergencies Act on that recent ruling about it. And I'd like to see Justin Trudeau arrested
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and possibly Chrystia Freeland for what they did to people during the convoy. But I don't think anybody
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will be held accountable for that. We're talking about government. We're talking about politicians.
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And I don't think anything is going to happen to Paula Simons. I don't think anything's going to
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happen at all. This was slander, defamation against millions of people, but also Stay Free Alberta,
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formerly known as the Alberta Prosperity Project and the people that represent it. Now, I have had
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somebody pretty high up in the independence movement saying perhaps we should go ahead
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with a lawsuit against Senator Simons for defamation and slander. And perhaps that's what they should
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do. What do you think? Whether it would be successful or not, I don't know. But it would be the point
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that would be made that you cannot say that and paint everybody with the same brush in this movement
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for independence. So I wanted to get you up to date on what was happening here. What do you think?
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Should Stay Free Alberta sue Senator Paula Simons for her disgusting and reprehensible comments about
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the independence movement and the people who are part of it here in Alberta? I'd love to hear what
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you have to say. I'll check out the comments and maybe I'll do a follow-up with them as well
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in upcoming days. Thank you so much for watching. I do appreciate it. Thanks for being patient with me
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as I've been here in Panama. It's been a little harder to do videos. Today, I managed to get this
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one done with my wife in the room. She's a pretty heavy sleeper. If you like the video, give it a
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thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.