Juno News - A look inside Trudeau’s militarized No-Go Zone in Ottawa

00:00:00.000 The Trudeau government created militarized no-go zones in Ottawa's Centretown.

00:00:04.120 We've never seen anything like this before in Canadian history.

00:00:07.340 What was it like on the inside this past weekend?

00:00:09.260 We'll talk to a journalist who was there.

00:00:10.820 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:17.000 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program.

00:00:19.840 So yesterday we brought you sort of a blow-by-blow of everything that happened over the weekend,

00:00:24.100 all of the police brutality, all of the excessive uses of force against peaceful,

00:00:28.720 unarmed protesters.

00:00:30.200 We've never seen anything like this in Canada before.

00:00:32.760 It was disturbing and disgusting to watch.

00:00:35.260 On Monday night after it was all over, the politicians got around to finally voting in

00:00:40.100 favor of enacting this Emergencies Act, even though the Emergency Act, even though the emergency

00:00:44.300 is gone, it cleared the protesters, it cleared the trucks, there's no blockades, there's

00:00:47.480 no borders being blocked whatsoever.

00:00:49.080 So we have this emergency in place, even though the events that called for the emergency are

00:00:54.860 over, and you could argue that they never even warranted such a drastic use of force.

00:00:59.000 Well, I want to go back and take a closer look at some of the things that happened over

00:01:03.820 the weekend, some of the instances of police brutality.

00:01:06.700 And to do that, to help us understand what happened, we're joined today by Andrew Lawton.

00:01:11.980 Andrew Lawton is the host of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:01:13.960 He's a journalist here at True North, and he was on the ground in the middle of protests,

00:01:18.360 including at times being victimized by police brutality.

00:01:21.540 He was sprayed in the face with some kind of a chemical irritant, probably pepper spray.

00:01:25.860 So, Andrew, I hope you're doing okay.

00:01:27.540 Thank you so much for all the reporting that you've done, and thank you for joining the

00:01:30.020 show today.

00:01:31.340 Hey, it's great to be here.

00:01:32.920 Obviously, I made it back in one piece, so all was well there.

00:01:35.580 And despite everything, this was such a hugely important moment in Canadian politics, for

00:01:41.200 media, for the political establishment, and also, I think, in Canadian history.

00:01:45.860 So I was glad to be able to be a small part of it for the True North team.

00:01:49.320 Well, you helped so many people get a better context of what was happening, and part of

00:01:54.420 the reason that we wanted you to be there was so that we could all bear witness to the

00:01:58.200 abuses that were happening in the name of our government and in an effort to, again, squash

00:02:03.820 a protest that was peaceful, that had good intentions, that people that were unarmed,

00:02:08.320 it was wild to see.

00:02:09.820 So, Andrew, can you walk us through, maybe set the scene a little bit for folks who might

00:02:15.200 not be too familiar with Ottawa or who haven't seen some of the footage yet?

00:02:19.080 Like, what was it like?

00:02:20.700 You know, you've gone to Ottawa many times.

00:02:22.200 What were some of the major differences between a normal visit to Ottawa and a visit to Ottawa

00:02:27.080 this past weekend?

00:02:28.540 Well, there were people there this past weekend.

00:02:30.840 I mean, that was the great irony of it, is that when everyone was talking about Spark

00:02:35.480 Street, which is the pedestrian thoroughfare in Ottawa and all the businesses shutting down,

00:02:40.360 it's like on a lot of weekends, I think that's how it's felt most times I've been in Ottawa.

00:02:44.100 So in this particular case, there was a bustle that just isn't normal in Ottawa on weekends.

00:02:50.080 That's always been one of my frustrations with the city, and that's been pretty consistent

00:02:54.100 since the very beginning of the protests' arrival in Ottawa, is that there's always been

00:02:59.680 activity, the infamous sights and scenes of this, like the bouncy castles and the hot tubs

00:03:05.740 and the bales of hay and all of that.

00:03:08.100 As much as these were novelties to a lot of people, they really did capture what had been

00:03:12.220 the vibe leading up to this past weekend.

00:03:14.740 Now, obviously, it was fairly different this past weekend because the law enforcement action

00:03:19.340 was carrying forward.

00:03:21.240 But I should say, even on Friday, which was the day that I was pepper sprayed by police

00:03:26.160 in front of the Shadow Laurier, just a couple of blocks west on Parliament Hill, there was

00:03:31.920 still dancing, there was still music, they still had a DJ.

00:03:34.640 So even as that was happening and as this was coming to an end, it was still like that

00:03:39.320 sort of party at the end of the world atmosphere where people were still doing what they had

00:03:44.080 done for several weeks prior.

00:03:46.440 One of the things I saw that you tweeted was that you started to see tow trucks come in.

00:03:52.240 And prior to that, tow trucks had basically refused to get involved.

00:03:55.580 They didn't want to be towing some of their buddies or some people that they knew in the

00:03:58.840 convoy.

00:03:59.200 Maybe they supported it or maybe they were just worried about retribution.

00:04:02.600 There were also, we know, police checks and they sort of, the police did their best to

00:04:07.960 basically isolate part of the city, coordinate it off.

00:04:11.380 You couldn't get in unless you had a valid reason.

00:04:15.320 Can you speak to sort of the police presence and the militarization of Ottawa in the lead

00:04:21.960 up to clearing the protests on Parliament Hill?

00:04:24.960 Yeah, and an interesting story of this, and I had actually been just by virtue of where

00:04:30.280 I was standing, was able to get a pretty good view of this on Thursday, it was.

00:04:35.000 So before the police action had commenced, I had just arrived in Ottawa, I checked into

00:04:39.180 the hotel and then was, was out just seeing how the situation was.

00:04:42.880 And I was at that main stage area, which was on the back of a flat or on the flatbed of a

00:04:47.540 truck right in front of Parliament Hill.

00:04:49.420 And just as I arrived, I noticed that police were lining up, dozens of police officers were

00:04:54.840 lining up on Wellington Street in front of this.

00:04:57.700 And I wondered if this was them starting to move right now.

00:05:00.940 They were in the midst of the crowd.

00:05:02.420 And what had actually happened was they had been called by convoy supporters, by protesters

00:05:08.640 to deal with someone who was being very disruptive, someone who had allegedly spat on people that

00:05:16.680 were there. And police moved in and in a very methodical fashion, they built a perimeter

00:05:21.140 around this guy, they arrested him, he was quite resistant to that, but they ended up carrying

00:05:26.340 him to the police car. And then they marched single file out and people were thanking them

00:05:30.160 and applauding them. So police were in police were moving around, police were walking around,

00:05:35.160 there was no issue. When it became an issue was on Friday, when the police presence switched

00:05:41.300 to being that front line that was pushing protesters further and further back and ultimately squeezing

00:05:47.400 them. So they had no choice but to get off Wellington Street. But before then they were there, they

00:05:53.100 were around, but they actually had a pretty solid working relationship, the liaison officers

00:05:58.920 with some of the convoy organizers and protesters.

00:06:02.960 Well, that's sort of what we've seen over the past month is that there's camaraderie.

00:06:06.280 There's been a lot of sort of TikTok videos and Instagram videos of police sort of saying,

00:06:11.100 look, we wish we could be out there with you, we support you. And even throughout the protests,

00:06:16.440 you know, high fives and fist pumps. And it seems like some police, many police were in spirit

00:06:21.760 supportive, at least in the early days of the freedom convoy. But obviously there was a switch

00:06:27.340 at some point that the use of force became evident. I shared with you earlier, Andrew,

00:06:33.560 I'll read it now. There's a tweet by an individual named Dennis Rancourt or Denny Rancourt,

00:06:37.880 who is a, I believe he's a retired physics professor. And he's an Ottawa resident. He said,

00:06:44.180 I live in the center of Ottawa. Police brocades everywhere are 100 times more disruptive than

00:06:49.260 the freedom convoy ever was. We had to argue with police and show ID to simply go home after walking

00:06:55.080 our dog with my wife. So it seems to me that, well, at least according to this account,

00:07:01.420 that the police really moved in and made it difficult for residents to get around. Was that

00:07:08.060 the experience that you had as well? Oh, 100%, especially by Sunday, because by Sunday,

00:07:13.920 police had moved all of the protesters out of the areas where they had been demonstrating.

00:07:20.160 Most of the really, if I can call them violence or violent incidents or the flare ups, whatever term

00:07:25.800 you prefer, had happened on Friday and then Saturday. So by Sunday, police had set up a fence

00:07:31.560 that was around several city blocks. They also had very hard perimeters for access. And one thing that

00:07:38.640 we saw, and there were some videos of this that were very, very disturbing, police harassing individuals

00:07:44.040 walking down streets that were open. Just one woman who wanted to get a coffee and they found out she 1.00

00:07:49.260 was from Alberta and said, we're going to arrest you unless you turn around. And the officer in the video

00:07:53.960 you see tries to grab her phone because he doesn't like that she is filming. So I was able to, as media,

00:08:01.180 and we can talk about just how this process unfolded if you'd like, but I was able to get into the Uber

00:08:06.460 secure zone on Sunday. And it was interesting that to do that, I had to go through, I think it was

00:08:12.580 two or three checkpoints really. And then when you get onto Wellington Street, the street that had been

00:08:18.300 filled with trucks was now filled with police vehicles, but it actually looked almost identical to how

00:08:23.320 it did a week prior. Well, it's really interesting. And I hear the city council enjoyed having a

00:08:29.580 pedestrian walkway so much. They're now considering debating keeping that as pedestrian only, which is

00:08:35.140 kind of silly because that again was one of the main justifications for clearing the protest and

00:08:40.120 enacting the Emergencies Act was that it was blocking businesses and it was preventing people from

00:08:45.360 being able to go about their lives. And it's funny how the police stepped in. Well, let's talk a little

00:08:49.680 bit about you as a journalist on the ground, because I know there was a lot of journalists,

00:08:54.040 both legacy media and independent. My observation is that the independent journalists were much more

00:08:59.940 willing to sort of get close to the front lines, get in on the action. They wanted to really show

00:09:05.980 the audience what it was like to be on the ground and that the legacy media were there as well, maybe a

00:09:10.760 bit more removed doing their television hits and their reports from afar. Why don't you tell us a

00:09:18.060 little bit about the journalists that were there and the sort of differing experiences that you had?

00:09:23.860 I would say it's not entirely accurate to say that all of the legacy media folks were doing their

00:09:29.540 reporting from afar. There were a number of camera crews that I saw that were pretty close to the

00:09:34.440 front line. And one challenge though that I'd note in my experience there compared to theirs is that

00:09:40.220 they had very large units, whereas they would have an on-camera reporter, a videographer,

00:09:45.640 a producer whose job it was to just pull the videographer so that they could walk backwards

00:09:51.960 while the producer is looking at where things are. And then they would also have someone else. And then

00:09:57.060 in many cases, in fact, almost all, they would have a private security guard that was with them.

00:10:02.020 So you'd have four or five person crews, which were able to move relatively seamlessly. And also,

00:10:09.120 I think to say in, you know, big flashing letters in a way, you know, we're media, don't you dare

00:10:13.680 try anything with us. Whereas for independent journalists, we don't have that. We didn't have

00:10:18.580 the private security. We didn't have the giant mammoth size camera. We were just there. In some

00:10:23.320 cases, independent journalists were just there with their phones. In some cases, they had a bit more

00:10:27.740 sophisticated setups. But the reality is it was a lot easier to beat up an independent journalist if

00:10:34.200 that's what you wanted to do, because you could claim, well, I didn't know that's what they were doing.

00:10:37.500 I didn't know they were there in that capacity. So I mean, for example, when we saw that video of

00:10:43.560 Alexa Lavoie from Rebel, she was very close to the front line when she got hit with some canister on 0.94

00:10:49.380 her leg. For my part, I had actually made sure to have a bit of distance between myself and the

00:10:54.280 front line when I ended up getting pepper sprayed. And it still didn't really save me as we saw. And

00:10:59.260 I guess in one eye didn't see. But I would say that for the journalists covering this on the ground,

00:11:07.040 getting in there, there were a lot of incidents that really need to be brought up. There was one

00:11:13.080 pool photographer or a wire photographer, I can't remember which agency who was arrested and zip tied

00:11:18.160 and had to get his editor to help have police release him. And you have to wonder if that had

00:11:23.840 happened to an independent journalist, would police have been receptive to the call from you as they

00:11:28.280 were from someone at some fancy New York agency. And other journalists as well threatened with

00:11:33.780 arrest. I was at one point threatened with arrest for walking down a street that I had a legal right

00:11:38.520 to walk down. So these are significant challenges that were facing journalists on the ground. It

00:11:44.200 wasn't just the incidents you saw, but a lot of stuff that you didn't see as well.

00:11:49.120 Well, so I want to I want to talk a little bit about this because so the Ottawa police were

00:11:52.820 explicitly saying even if you're a journalist, you have to get out of there. We saw them handing out

00:11:56.960 notices earlier in the week. And they handed one directly to a woman who was setting up 0.93

00:12:00.740 a camera, obviously a journalist. We have the Ottawa police who were live tweeting. You can

00:12:05.320 comment on this before as well, because I've never seen it before, where the police were sort of

00:12:09.540 refusing to reply to questions from the media. I know because I put in several questions over the

00:12:14.520 weekend. They weren't replying. They weren't replying to calls, emails, tweets. They were just sort of

00:12:19.260 putting out their own explanation of what was going on. And one of the things they said, so here on

00:12:24.660 February 18th, they tweeted, all media who are attending the area, please keep a distance and stay out of

00:12:30.380 police operations for your safety. Anyone found within areas undergoing enforcement may be subject

00:12:36.180 to arrest. There will be a media availability later today on Elgin Street. And so they're basically

00:12:41.660 saying, don't don't come. Don't be here. If you if you are, you may get arrested. Just come to our

00:12:47.480 media availability and we'll give you your talking points later on. We'll tell you we'll tell you what

00:12:51.800 you what you can report and how you can report it. Can you comment on on on this idea that that the

00:12:57.480 police suddenly have the power to arrest journalists who are just trying to tell a story to Canadians?

00:13:02.560 Yeah, and I'm glad you brought this up because this was something I was trying to sound the alarm

00:13:06.480 about even before that tweet from them, because I went right to the source. I went to the Emergencies

00:13:11.640 Act, which was where police were drawing much of their power that they used in the past weekend. And

00:13:16.220 the Emergencies Act is very clear in any secure area that's designated as such by the government,

00:13:22.260 by police, whatever the case is. It only applies to restricting the flow of people that are there for

00:13:29.120 unlawful activities. Now, even if you accept that the protest is unlawful, which I don't, but even if

00:13:35.700 you accept that being on Parliament Hill in that form of protest was an unlawful activity, being a

00:13:41.900 journalist is not. Being there to document not to participate is not an unlawful activity. Now, police

00:13:49.440 were saying that the onus was on you to prove that you were there for a lawful activity. And I could

00:13:54.780 say, well, I'm here as a journalist. I'm here with True North. Here's a letter from my editor. I'm here

00:13:58.880 to report. I'm not here to protest. And that was not something that worked with any universality,

00:14:04.160 quite the opposite. But that was what the law said. The law said you can be there if you have a lawful

00:14:09.640 reason. And it said, basically, if you live or work in the area. Well, if you're a working journalist,

00:14:15.080 you're there for work. So there were significant problems. And then that tweet from Ottawa police

00:14:19.820 was just not grounded in the law. But the law as it exists on paper doesn't matter when you're in a

00:14:25.980 situation and an officer is threatening to arrest you. It's wild. And even the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:14:31.320 Association, Andrew, jumped in and they wrote this warning journalists about safety risks in the protest

00:14:36.940 zone is reasonable. Threatening them with arrest for doing their jobs is not. Time and time again,

00:14:42.140 Canadian courts have ruled against exclusion zones and other limits on the press. So this whole idea,

00:14:47.960 Andrew, that we had like a red zone in Ottawa, that video of the police officers harassing a woman

00:14:52.880 from Ontario for the crime of wanting to get a coffee or walking down the street, brutality against

00:14:58.080 journalists like yourself and Alexa over at the Rebel, the instance I hadn't heard of that, but of a

00:15:02.960 photojournalist getting arrested zip ties. It's wild. It doesn't seem like that aligns with the rule of law

00:15:09.740 in Canada. Even just the idea, Andrew, that the Emergency Act was supposed to be debated on Friday

00:15:15.540 and they canceled that because of the police activities that were caused from the Emergency

00:15:19.880 Act being enacted. I mean, can you speak to, I know you're not a lawyer, but can you speak to the

00:15:24.880 legality of like, I mean, there's such a, seems like such a separation of the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:15:29.560 Organization, which is a, you know, left-wing progressive organization is calling out the abuse

00:15:35.100 against the rule of law in this country. And it seems like there's a total disconnect between the

00:15:39.600 letter of the law and the, you know, the activities and the actions of police on the ground in Ottawa.

00:15:45.660 Like how did that situation happen? What do you make of it? Yeah. And just on the note of the

00:15:50.280 canceling the session of parliament, this is where geography is a bit interesting and tells a rather

00:15:55.580 unique story here because on Friday, which was when they decided to cancel the House of Commons

00:16:01.420 Sitting, which was again, focused specifically on debating the Emergency Act, the police action was

00:16:07.180 several blocks east of Parliament Hill. The police action was in front of the Chateau Laurier and it

00:16:12.240 was on Saturday when the police action was right in front of Parliament Hill and parliamentarians were

00:16:17.260 back in. They were back there when at that point they had to lock the doors and institute a lockdown

00:16:22.060 and say no one could go in or out of Parliament Hill. So once the MPs and their staff went in in the

00:16:26.900 morning, they locked up and that was that. And I think that a lot of that was due to the

00:16:31.180 backlash from canceling Friday when it would have been much safer because on Friday, that area right

00:16:36.460 in front of Parliament Hill was completely open. People were passing through, police were passing

00:16:40.460 through, politicians, protesters, anyone could go through. So the Emergencies Act, I read, I went like

00:16:47.240 I said earlier, right to the source when that came out because I knew that this was going to be

00:16:50.560 something I wanted to cover. And I was even nervous. Am I going to encounter issues trying to get from

00:16:56.060 the airport to downtown? Now, fortunately, I got in before they set up the perimeter they ended up

00:17:01.660 setting up. But the challenge is that your rights, when they exist on a piece of paper, it's all well

00:17:07.420 and good and they may help you in court down the road. But on the ground, you're relying on a police

00:17:13.100 officer's interpretation of the law, a police officer's interpretation of the orders they've received,

00:17:18.780 and the person who gave those orders as interpretation of the law. So there are a lot of areas there where what you

00:17:25.420 have a right to do can break down and deny you that right and put you in harm's way. And in some cases,

00:17:31.900 as we saw, whether it's pepper spray or tear gas or arrest, and certainly put your rights in jeopardy

00:17:37.820 when it comes to you trying to do your job. Well, I think that's why it's so important that so many

00:17:42.940 people are now retaining lawyers and going back, back to the letter of the law, because you're right,

00:17:48.220 it is based on interpretation on the ground, you know, these police officers are obviously under a

00:17:53.100 great deal of stress with the orders that they're being told and the crowd in front of them. And

00:17:57.820 you know, it can't be easy. However, we certainly saw a lot of abuse, and I'm glad a lot of it was

00:18:04.620 caught on camera. I want to ask you, Andrew, a little bit about the sort of reaction coming out

00:18:10.540 of the weekend. I noticed that Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie, she sent out a message on

00:18:16.460 Twitter saying this, I am appalled to see Canadian journalists assaulted, harassed,

00:18:20.460 intimidated and prevented from doing their job. It's unacceptable. Journalists are critical to our

00:18:24.300 democracy, and must be free and safe to do their work. Now, this is a little bit coded,

00:18:28.780 because we don't know exactly what journalist she's talking about. And there were sort of two

00:18:32.220 different instances of this sort of intimidation, harassment, abuse, preventing someone from doing

00:18:39.580 their jobs. There's the there's abuse aimed at journalists from the police from the enforcement,

00:18:46.060 the tweets that we showed, you know, what happened to yourself, the people being arrested, there was

00:18:51.100 another independent journalist, a YouTuber who was who was arrested just simply for asking for

00:18:56.140 directions, it seemed. I don't think that's what Melanie Jolie is talking about. I think she's talking

00:19:01.340 about another side of the reports, there was a Canadian press story that came out over the weekend

00:19:08.220 as well. Journalism experts say threats to the press during a protest were a wake up call. So they're

00:19:12.620 talking about a different kind of harassment of journalists. And this is taking place by the

00:19:17.180 truckers, they allege, against journalists. I know there was that one clip of a French TV

00:19:22.700 reporter who was pushed on air totally unacceptable. And I think everyone who sees that is, you know,

00:19:28.060 annoyed and condemns that kind of idiotic behavior. I'm wondering though, Andrea, did you see the 0.99

00:19:34.060 journalists get harassed by truckers and by protesters? And can you sort of speak to this media narrative

00:19:41.660 that's coming out of the protest that that journalists were somehow unsafe and that the

00:19:46.780 truckers and the protesters create a hostile environment for them? I did see the harassment.

00:19:51.740 I don't want to say it was by truckers. It was by people that were in the protest,

00:19:55.740 whatever they were, whoever they were, I don't know. There were two incidents on Saturday,

00:20:00.140 I think it was, one involving Glenn McGregor, another involving Evan Solomon, where people were

00:20:05.340 surrounding them shouting all sorts of obscenities at one point, enough that a hit had to be

00:20:10.620 cancelled because they couldn't go to air with what was being said. And at another point, someone

00:20:14.940 getting very in your face, very aggressive. And I didn't see Glenn McGregor for all that long,

00:20:20.460 but I will say about Evan Solomon, I saw Evan a number of times over both of my visits to Ottawa,

00:20:26.220 at the beginning and at the end. And anytime someone had a grievance with him, I saw him take

00:20:31.660 all the time in the world listening to that person and hearing them out, which is exactly,

00:20:36.220 I think what we need to have more of from anyone in society, which is more dialogue

00:20:40.380 and discussion. And in some cases, that's not enough. People just want to scream.

00:20:44.620 So I could see if you're a reporter that's out there alone, I could see that being very threatening.

00:20:49.900 I mean, obviously words are not actual physical violence, but if someone is shouting at your face,

00:20:56.300 it's the type of situation that could be a powder keg. I think it's wrong. I think it needs to be

00:21:00.860 condemned. I condemned it when I saw it when I was broadcasting live. And I also said something later

00:21:06.460 on about it. However, and this is the however, I think there has been an almost exclusive focus

00:21:13.660 on that form of harassment and targeting of journalists and not on the harassment and

00:21:18.860 targeting that's taken place by the state when it comes to the voices like the Canadian Association

00:21:24.540 for Journalists. And like a lot of the journalists themselves that are talking about this online,

00:21:29.420 these companies have equipped their journalists, like I mentioned, with large crews with bodyguards.

00:21:34.620 In one case, there was a, you know, the one of the beefiest people I'd ever seen protecting

00:21:39.420 one particular reporter, I can't even remember who it was, but they had this protection

00:21:43.660 to basically serve as a buffer in case the crowd gets out of hand. And I think that's fine. I think

00:21:48.700 employers obviously want to make sure their staff are safe when they're going out into the field.

00:21:53.900 But you also have to arm yourself against the government when the government's going to go after

00:21:57.820 you. And I mean, arm yourself legally, arm yourself by knowing your rights, by asserting your rights.

00:22:02.700 And it's been quite unsettling that a lot of these voices that for a month have been talking about

00:22:08.300 condemning abuse against journalists and harassment of journalists have not also been as well as that

00:22:14.380 going after the threats to independent media. And I think one of the big reasons for that

00:22:18.860 is because some of the situations we talked about earlier weren't happening to legacy media journalists.

00:22:23.820 Right. Well, I think it's an interesting conversation. Perhaps we can have another day

00:22:28.300 because, you know, that sort of anger and vitriol that we see against those legacy media reporters,

00:22:34.220 I'm happy to hear your report there, Andrew, and good for Evan Solomon for, you know, keeping a cool

00:22:40.300 head and being willing to engage in dialogue, something that liberal politicians in this country

00:22:45.260 are unable to do. But obviously, that anger doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? It's like,

00:22:49.420 from my perspective, these legacy journalists, legacy media journalists have been feeding a fake

00:22:55.180 narrative about the truckers from day one, saying that this was a violent insurrection,

00:22:59.820 saying that they were occupying Ottawa. I appreciated Andrew Scheer's tweets pushing back at Evan

00:23:04.140 Solomon and Glenn McGregor saying, what do you mean occupied? None of the buildings are occupied. When

00:23:09.180 you think of occupied, the Capitol, you kind of think that people are inside the building holding

00:23:14.860 people hostage. I mean, that's sort of what the word conjures an image of or some kind of a foreign

00:23:19.740 occupation of foreign troops. So just a sort of hyperbolic use of language that we see from a lot

00:23:25.580 of journalists feeding this really irresponsible narrative, predicting violence, bringing out the 1.00

00:23:30.140 worst, taking, you know, the one the one idiot who showed up with a Nazi flag and pretending that the 1.00

00:23:34.540 entire group possessed a Nazi ideology. I mean, there's so much malfeasance on behalf of the legacy media 1.00

00:23:40.300 that I think that some of the frustration, obviously, you're right, the behavior is totally

00:23:43.740 unacceptable and needs to be condemned. You shouldn't you shouldn't take it out that way. However,

00:23:48.300 there's something there that the media need, the legacy media journalists need to do some

00:23:52.060 self-reflecting and understand that the reason that these people hate them is because of the

00:23:57.100 coverage that they've given and the way that they are feeding the news to Canadians. So we'll have

00:24:02.700 that conversation another day. Andrew, I want to ask a final question. Yeah, if I can just jump in on

00:24:07.100 that for a moment, I think it's cyclical. And I actually had this conversation with someone that I met in

00:24:11.980 Ottawa, I said, Okay, even if let's say that every one of your grievances is valid. And

00:24:16.700 heavens knows, I know lots of reasons that people can be frustrated with the mainstream media. But

00:24:21.260 even if your perception is entirely valid, entirely accurate, is what you're doing going to do anything

00:24:27.660 to change that? Or is it only going to give them more ammunition to then tarnish all of them? And the

00:24:31.980 person did to their credit say, Wow, you know, that's, that's actually a good point. So, so even if it's

00:24:36.140 correct, there's a tactical question there. So I'm not saying don't be frustrated with the media, I'm saying

00:24:40.540 that people need to channel that in a way that is producing better results. And the best advice I

00:24:46.060 could give if you don't like it, if you don't think they're going to listen, ignore it. The power comes

00:24:50.700 from people watching and giving them credibility and giving them ammunition. Oh, that's so true.

00:24:55.740 Andrew, I absolutely agree. When I saw that footage of the individual pushing the French reporter on a

00:24:59.980 live TV hit, I couldn't think of a stupider thing for a protester to do to galvanize everybody 0.91

00:25:05.580 against them. Like, like, that's going to be the big takeaway. Look at this. This is an actual 0.92

00:25:09.740 assault that we caught on camera. It's the stupidest way to show your frustration with the 1.00

00:25:15.020 media. The best way, by the way, is you're right, turn off, turn off, turn off the legacy media, 1.00

00:25:19.900 turn on True North, share it with your friends, find other independent sources, find independent

00:25:23.660 journalists that are telling the story in a fair and accurate way. I completely agree with that point.

00:25:28.700 Just final question for you, Andrew. What's next? You know, we sort of see the elites in Ottawa

00:25:34.460 breathing a sigh of relief, a little bit of celebratory atmosphere there that it's quiet and calm

00:25:39.660 and things are back to normal, aside from the large police presence. But at least the truckers

00:25:43.740 are gone from their perspective. We had this emergency act in place. We had Trudeau hinting

00:25:49.500 over the weekend during a press conference that they're going to keep it in place for a couple

00:25:52.620 months just in case the truckers come back. We know that the police are actively trying to identify

00:25:58.700 anyone who's at the protest to try to freeze their bank accounts, apparently. Hopefully nothing like

00:26:03.580 that happens to you. But, you know, you were on the ground. You have a good feeling for these

00:26:08.700 things politically. What do you expect to happen next? And how do you think this thing is all going

00:26:13.980 to wrap up? So I think the challenge with the grassroots movement is that as much as there were

00:26:20.060 people that became the voices of the convoy, there was no hierarchy. There was no official convoy leadership.

00:26:26.060 You had one group that was controlling the money. You had a number of different operational

00:26:30.940 centers. And this was a story that I was actually starting to dig into and was making good headway

00:26:36.380 before, of course, the police moved in. You had different logistical operations that were

00:26:41.740 supporting the convoy in different ways, financially, with security, with getting food to truckers,

00:26:47.020 with getting fuel, all of this sort of stuff. But even with that, you still have a grassroots movement,

00:26:53.100 which is why some people wanted to leave before others. Other people were saying, hold the line,

00:26:57.260 hold the line, hold the line, until the police moved in at that very last moment. And even now,

00:27:03.100 you still have that. Tom Marazzo, who I spoke to, who's one of the organizers, for lack of a better

00:27:08.780 term, he's saying that we need to shift our battle to the courts. He said, the convoy is over, the

00:27:14.140 protest is over, but we need to now assert our rights in court over the money, over our civil liberties,

00:27:20.300 and over the vaccine mandates. You have other people that as well, in large numbers, and I don't know how

00:27:25.420 many are literally 30 minutes outside of Ottawa with their trucks fueled up, ready to go. And some

00:27:31.740 of them may want to head right back into downtown Ottawa, the second those police blockades are lifted.

00:27:37.500 Now, will it be as powerful? I'm assuming police will have some way to prevent that. Maybe it's by

00:27:43.180 keeping checkpoints in place. But I see a lot of the measures that the government could do to prevent a

00:27:49.340 second blockade from forming a second protest from forming will be a lot like taking off your shoes

00:27:55.580 to go through the airport, where it becomes, you know, in a way more intrusive than what it was

00:28:01.180 trying to stop, and more enduring than what it was trying to stop. And all of these things that

00:28:06.780 governments and police will have to do are all because they failed to do the obvious thing from

00:28:11.580 the very beginning, which was let's talk to these people. 100% Andrew. All right. Well,

00:28:17.340 we really appreciate your reporting. Thank you so much for being on the ground. And thanks for

00:28:20.780 keeping us up to date on all things Canadian politics. Folks can check out the Andrew Lawton

00:28:26.060 Show. It's a great program. Is it two days a week now, Andrew, or three days a week?

00:28:29.420 Well, it's the convoy has thrown the whole schedule into alert. So we're rebuilding,

00:28:33.580 and we've actually started doing them live. So we'll have we'll have more this week. And then

00:28:37.420 hopefully we'll settle back into a groove next week with three shows a week again.

00:28:40.780 Excellent. All right. Thank you so much. That's Andrew Lawton. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is The

00:28:44.860 Candace Malcolm Show.

Juno News - February 23, 2022

A look inside Trudeau’s militarized No-Go Zone in Ottawa

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