Juno News - February 28, 2023


“A dark day for Canada” Tamara Lich responds to POEC report


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

178.82736

Word count

2,745

Sentence count

137

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Tamara Leach joins us to talk about her experience with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's Privacy Commission, and the impact it had on her life and the lives of others. She also shares her thoughts on the recent release of the Privacy Commission's final report.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I said a few moments ago, we have a very special guest joining us, and this person has been
00:00:15.180 through a tremendous ordeal, and I'm so glad she's here today, and she has a bit of an
00:00:20.920 entourage with her, which I think is more deserving with her than it is to Justin Trudeau
00:00:25.380 when he shows up there, but the woman who united the country, who shook the world as the subtitle
00:00:30.720 of my book indicates, and who helped raise $10 million twice for the Freedom Convoy, Tamara
00:00:37.180 Leach, is with me. Tamara, thank you so much for being here. I know it's not the best of
00:00:42.240 occasions, but having you on brightens things up for me a little bit.
00:00:46.180 Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having us, Andrew. Happy to be here.
00:00:50.120 Hey, us. Let's contextualize this. Who are you with right now?
00:00:53.140 I've got two fellow board members with me, Miranda Gassier and Ryan Mihilowicz.
00:01:00.460 All right. Well, they're a little bit out of frame when we have the two of us on screen
00:01:04.300 together, but when you're talking, we'll do it on full frame, so we get it in all the glory,
00:01:08.060 but let me just first ask how you feel right now.
00:01:12.920 Well, it's been an emotional morning. I'm disappointed, but sadly not surprised. I don't
00:01:22.300 think any of us were really surprised, but we were really holding out hope for a different outcome.
00:01:29.840 When you look back at your participation in the commission, I think the one thing that I just,
00:01:35.960 having spoken to you on a number of occasions socially and privately, felt is that it was the
00:01:41.440 first and really only opportunity you've had to tell your story and to speak to Canadians and to
00:01:48.300 speak beyond the mainstream media depiction of you, the, you know, the Justin Trudeau's depiction
00:01:53.900 of you. And, and even with this result and with this report, do you feel there was something positive
00:01:59.280 in that experience or is the whole thing tainted for you?
00:02:02.360 Well, well, you nailed it exactly. I felt, um, that was obviously the first opportunity that I've
00:02:12.500 had to tell my story. And, uh, it was, I literally left, uh, the commission that day feeling like a
00:02:19.820 weight was lifted off my shoulders. Um, I really felt at that time that the commissioner was really
00:02:26.120 listening to me and, um, empathetic, I guess, to our, our plate. Um, yeah, I just, I'm still a little
00:02:36.740 shocked, I guess. I, I, um, like I said, this wasn't a surprising decision, but we, you know, we were
00:02:42.960 holding out hope for, for something a little more.
00:02:47.260 Yeah. I will say just going back to the commission for a moment there, there was something that I
00:02:52.240 actually felt was quite moving when, when Paul Champ, who's the lawyer representing the residents
00:02:57.360 and businesses of Ottawa, very much an, an anti, uh, very much a figure against a lot of what you've
00:03:02.520 stood for and what you've done. But he actually took a somewhat sympathetic approach in his
00:03:07.500 questioning with you and saying, I know you're not a national security risk. I know you didn't
00:03:11.160 pocket all this money. I know that you're not, you know, all of these things. And, and, you know,
00:03:15.040 certainly when you see that and hear that you have to wonder if it's legal strategy or if it's that
00:03:19.880 you had done just such a good job at, uh, presenting yourself in a good light that he
00:03:23.900 knew that trying to vilify you, you wouldn't work. But it did seem like even reading a bit of the
00:03:29.840 commissioner's report now that the sense is that, okay, maybe Tamera Leach is fine, but they couldn't 0.88
00:03:34.580 control all these other people. I, I, like you, I was quite surprised, um, by Mr. Champ's cross
00:03:41.500 examination of me because I, I'd watched him cross examine so many people before. So I was,
00:03:46.440 I was actually surprised when he came out and, uh, seemed to be a little softer with me. I mean,
00:03:52.000 he did ask some hard questions still, but, um, he didn't come out swinging like I anticipated that
00:03:57.220 he was going to. So, um, I think that was good. I, um, I think a lot of the testimony that, that was
00:04:04.420 heard at the commission really painted, um, the other side of the story. You know, there, there's so
00:04:09.960 many stories out here. And, and like I said, um, we heard them every day. And at the very least,
00:04:17.280 I feel that the testimonies that we heard at the POEC gave a voice to Canadians and Canadians'
00:04:25.160 concerns, if that makes sense. Right now, there are going to be a lot of people who, to go back to
00:04:32.460 2020, 2021 felt very pessimistic about Canada and very disheartened by everything that had happened
00:04:39.080 in Canada. And then a year ago felt very hopeful and very encouraged. And, you know, for a lot of
00:04:45.140 people, that chapter was the first time in a couple of years, they, they felt truly proud to be Canadian.
00:04:50.700 And where are you now on this question? I mean, if you look today at how you feel and, and looking
00:04:56.360 around at, you know, people you've made, uh, friendships with along the way, how do you think
00:05:00.280 they're going to feel now? Well, what I'm hearing is a lot of disappointment. Um, obviously my phone's
00:05:09.300 been buzzing since, uh, since 10, 10, 15 this morning. Uh, there is some anger out there, but
00:05:15.380 I guess my message has always been, we, we need to stay focused. We need to stay positive. I, I truly
00:05:23.280 believe we can take this opportunity or, and look at it as an opportunity and, you know, we'll be busy
00:05:31.300 here today. Obviously there's 2000 pages in that document. We'll go through it today with, uh, the
00:05:36.200 lawyers and, and our team have a good look at it, but I really hope that this doesn't discourage
00:05:43.100 Canadians. It is so disappointing and I'm going to cry again, uh, but it's not like everyone hasn't 1.00
00:05:50.140 seen me cry a million times already. I just, I really hope that we can try and, and take this
00:05:55.580 and, and, um, steer it in a way that this can, we can have a positive outcome or we can, you know,
00:06:05.320 have a common goal or try and make change. You know, we're going to meet with the legal team
00:06:08.900 this afternoon and, and, uh, talk about next steps now. This was in your view, always, as you've
00:06:16.740 said time and time again, a peaceful protest. And one of the things that the report has really done,
00:06:22.700 I think is tried to cast doubt on that and, and really redefine, it seems what peace is and what
00:06:28.560 a peaceful protest is and, you know, about the disruption, about the noise, about things like
00:06:33.520 that. And, and what would your message be to the people of Ottawa that felt, you know what,
00:06:38.200 they showed up on our streets. They had these big trucks, they had these big horns. That was not
00:06:42.700 peaceful to me. Well, like I said, in my testimony, we were never there to, we never wanted to upset
00:06:54.100 the Ottawa residents. We really didn't, but we did feel that we had a message and, um, you know,
00:07:02.100 I guess the honking of the horns was unfortunate. I mean, I feel looking back, there's a lot of
00:07:14.440 things I guess we could have done differently, but I think we, for the most part, we did everything
00:07:18.420 right. I mean, when we saw what was happening, we recognized the magnitude and our first instinct
00:07:25.860 was to focus on safety, you know, making sure that our people were safe, everybody was going to be
00:07:31.480 safe, respecting the police. Um, if you saw any of the videos that I ever did or any of us did, um, even
00:07:38.020 Chris Barber's TikToks, we were all advocating for a peaceful protest and, and following the law and
00:07:44.980 respecting our police officers and, uh, and trying to get along with Ottawa residents because we needed
00:07:50.900 the support. We, we were hoping for the support. You know, the idea of freedom in January, 2022,
00:07:58.800 I think was freedom from vaccine mandates, freedom from lockdowns and restrictions. And I would say
00:08:05.960 from my perspective on February 14th of 2022, it changed dramatically. And now the Emergencies Act
00:08:12.800 was in play. And the idea of freedom was about something much larger than COVID. And I think that
00:08:18.700 was why you saw Canadians that might not have even supported the message that you were sharing
00:08:23.780 a few weeks prior that were saying, okay, I really don't like what the government has done now. I
00:08:28.900 really don't like how the government's acting. And I, that's going to be the big question. And I mean,
00:08:33.560 obviously this report, uh, says that there may have been a sound legal footing for Justin Trudeau to
00:08:39.240 do that, but, but that doesn't mean there was a sound moral footing. And I don't think that means
00:08:43.880 Canadians will in three, four or five years, look back upon this favorably.
00:08:51.960 I think you're right. I don't think they will. Um, and same with the, uh, the, when his father,
00:08:58.540 uh, called the War Measures Act, it was, it was, it was years later when that was started to be
00:09:05.000 condemned also, you know? So, uh, I guess time will tell, time will tell. I found it, I guess the one
00:09:13.160 takeaway from what we watched this morning that really struck me was, um, commissioner Rouleau
00:09:18.520 saying that he felt that it was appropriate that they enacted the emergencies act, but that the
00:09:23.640 government could have done more. So that kind of confused me. I mean, this is a dark day for Canada
00:09:31.400 in my opinion. Um, but we have to stick together and we have to keep working together. We cannot make
00:09:37.800 change in this country if we are all divided. One thing I have to ask you about it. And I found this
00:09:45.000 to be quite disheartening in, in commissioner Rouleau's report. And I don't know if you've come
00:09:48.680 across it yet, but he, he talks about the fringe minority comment, which I think now is so famous and
00:09:54.280 everybody knows what I'm referring to. And he, he basically makes excuses for Justin Trudeau there.
00:09:58.680 And he says, well, he was not really talking about them all. He was talking about just some of them and
00:10:03.800 the media took him out of context and so on. And you were one of the people that he was talking
00:10:09.400 about there. So how do you feel about that comment, looking back on it and, and the effect that that
00:10:14.680 had on the approach that you've had to the government and, and that, you know, your friends
00:10:18.520 sitting beside you today and around the country have had to this government in the last year?
00:10:22.520 Well, I thought it was quite humorous, honestly, at the, at the inquiry, when Miss Cipiak, you know, 0.98
00:10:33.080 asked him about calling Canadians names, and he denied it. And I've seen it, like I said, in my
00:10:38.040 testimony, my prime minister was calling me a racist. And he was questioning whether or not I should be
00:10:45.400 tolerated. And like I said, and I stand by it, if you are going to lead a country, you lead everybody
00:10:53.240 in your country, you don't get to pick and choose who, who you get to look after and who you don't get
00:10:58.600 to look after. Yeah, I, I, I, that's quite stunning. I know that, and I've been deliberately cautious about
00:11:09.800 which questions I ask you and how I word this because I know that you are still under some
00:11:14.920 bail conditions here, which we've reported on in the past. And I think that's an important point,
00:11:19.640 though, for people is that even if the trucks are off the street, the emergency that commission is
00:11:24.120 over, this is still very much an ongoing thing for you for for Chris Barber. And I, I wanted to just
00:11:31.080 ask if you have any updates you can share about this at all. And if you can't, that's absolutely fine.
00:11:36.040 But about where things are and what you're expecting in the future.
00:11:40.920 Well, we did have a I was in court yesterday morning, which was why I was late for the
00:11:45.800 documentary. Actually, the irony is that we were we're in Calgary right now. That's why we're all
00:11:50.200 together. We came up here and went to the premiere of Trudeau on trial last night, which was a documentary
00:11:57.240 created about about the inquiry. So it's kind of ironic that this is happening today.
00:12:02.200 Mm hmm. I'm sorry, I forgot your question. I forgot my question, too, now because I was so
00:12:08.360 enthralled with what you were saying. But it was basically about just the status of your your legal
00:12:13.000 ordeals right now. Yes. So so we were in court yesterday. What was supposed to happen yesterday
00:12:17.880 and today was we were we had a motion for particulars to be heard as we're trying to get
00:12:23.480 that information out of the Crown prosecutor. What ended up happening was the deputy Crown,
00:12:28.600 the deputy Crown stepped in and they are applying for a different judge. They want an out of town
00:12:37.720 judge apparently to preside over next month's hearings because Mr. Barber is obviously filed an
00:12:45.320 application of a charter breach when the Crown prosecutor released all of his text message information.
00:12:51.560 So they're looking to change the judge for that, which would mean that we would be changing judges for
00:12:56.360 the rest of our hearings, which would be which would cause a delay for everything. So we're really
00:13:02.200 hoping that doesn't happen. She's going to render her decision on that, I think, March 13th.
00:13:07.400 Well, we'll certainly keep an eye peeled on that. And just because your fellow your road captains
00:13:12.760 there have been so patient in during this interview, I just wanted to give the floor to them for a
00:13:17.880 moment and just any thoughts they have about the the movement right now, about the commission,
00:13:22.200 about Tamara, about anything. The floor is yours here. Well, what happened today, I don't think I'm
00:13:32.760 taking a positive out of it and I'm hoping to bring Canada together and we can all create something and
00:13:42.840 bring peace back into this country.
00:13:44.360 That's what all I can say right now, because I'm kind of
00:13:52.440 I don't know. I think we're all stunned. I think we're all a little bit shell-shocked still, you know?
00:13:56.440 Yeah.
00:13:56.920 Is that, you know?
00:13:57.880 It comes from a place of, um, I was just talking about the first couple pages of my book. I can't
00:14:03.160 tell you how many times they said the words, how can any of this be wrong? And I think that it just,
00:14:08.840 it's really hard to, um, come to this place today and, and still feel that, that we did nothing wrong,
00:14:16.280 but, you know, stand up for our democratic right to protest. And Rouleau took that away in a sense
00:14:22.840 today. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a step back and focus on where we go next from here.
00:14:28.840 Well, thank you so much, not only for, for coming on, but for taking such, I think, uh,
00:14:36.360 I'm getting a little emotional now, but, but in spite of everything you've all been through,
00:14:40.280 taking such a hopeful approach to something that I, I think right now, a lot of people are
00:14:45.000 going to feel very, uh, dark about. And as I've said to you privately, Tamara, that I want you to
00:14:50.040 send me a text the minute those bail restrictions are lifted and I'm going to be like on a plane
00:14:54.040 to medicine hat and we're going to do this properly and in person. And then we're going to like
00:14:57.720 drink until the night is, uh, until the night is morning. So, uh, I hope I can still, uh,
00:15:02.120 I hope I can count on that spare room you told me about there. Absolutely. All right. Well,
00:15:07.480 thank you to all of you and, uh, seriously, thank you. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much,
00:15:12.920 Andrew. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North
00:15:17.560 at www.tnc.news.