Juno News - A Tax By Any Other Name

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:00:06.740 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.860 Coming up, the Supreme Court upholds Justin Trudeau's carbon tax,

00:00:16.400 the gun control movement thinks liberal bans don't go far enough,

00:00:19.440 and why one MP is welcoming China's sanctions against him.

00:00:25.120 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to another edition of Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:00:35.120 This is The Andrew Lawton Show on True North.

00:00:37.540 As with a couple of weeks ago, we are once again not in the regular home studio.

00:00:42.720 I am on the road in part of the production for Assaulted Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners,

00:00:48.540 a documentary project you've heard me talk about,

00:00:50.540 and I'll actually talk about a little bit later on in the program

00:00:53.360 because there's an interesting news story on the firearms front that ties into the work I'm doing.

00:00:58.200 But other than that, it is a regular show.

00:01:00.520 We're going to be talking to Aaron Woodrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in just a few moments.

00:01:05.920 And the reason for that is because the Supreme Court of Canada last week ruled in a 6-3 decision

00:01:11.280 that Justin Trudeau's carbon tax is in fact constitutional.

00:01:16.360 Now, I know a lot of people on the left are viewing this as in some way vindication

00:01:20.760 for Justin Trudeau's policy and vindication for the climate alarmism

00:01:24.840 and vindication for all of the things that Justin Trudeau has accused the Conservatives of being deniers

00:01:29.680 and all of that stuff.

00:01:30.880 But in actuality, that wasn't what happened.

00:01:33.540 It is a win for the government.

00:01:35.160 Yes, the Supreme Court upheld that this thing that the government wanted to do

00:01:38.260 was actually something the government was entitled to do.

00:01:41.400 But a lot of the spin we're getting from the left right now

00:01:44.080 is not what the Supreme Court determined.

00:01:47.360 Take a look at this tweet from Gerald Butts.

00:01:49.420 He writes,

00:01:50.420 This is a great day for climate change action in Canada.

00:01:53.700 Congratulations to the many, many people who have worked their arses off

00:01:57.560 on the national climate plan over many, many years.

00:02:01.360 Hashtag climate change.

00:02:02.740 The hashtag really clinches it.

00:02:04.460 And then Gerald Butts adds in a second tweet,

00:02:07.260 Some days make the Himalayan piles of bull bleep you put up with in politics worth it.

00:02:12.200 Today is one of those days and then some.

00:02:14.260 Take a moment to appreciate it.

00:02:15.620 Hashtag team Trudeau.

00:02:17.160 I know I will.

00:02:17.900 And again, there's that climate change hashtag,

00:02:20.300 which just makes the tweet turn into real action on climate change.

00:02:24.200 If you don't hashtag it, it doesn't count.

00:02:25.940 But one of the big issues here is that the government was given the green light by the

00:02:29.960 Supreme Court because of the determination that global warming was an issue of national

00:02:34.860 concern in the sense that regulating greenhouse gas emissions is an issue of national concern.

00:02:40.300 Issues where the court determines that provinces don't really have the ability to act

00:02:44.880 are areas where the federal government can, under rare circumstances, claim jurisdiction.

00:02:49.620 That was one of these circumstances under the peace order and good government section of the Canadian Constitution.

00:02:56.740 Now, if I'm boring you, that's kind of the whole point of this.

00:02:59.580 This was not a case about climate science.

00:03:01.600 It wasn't a case about global warming.

00:03:03.680 It wasn't a case about any of the things that the government has tried to position it as being a case about.

00:03:09.060 It was about the separation of powers.

00:03:11.540 Now, I'm a big believer in provincial autonomy and provincial rights.

00:03:14.980 So I'm actually annoyed by this for that reason as well as about the carbon tax.

00:03:19.140 But this was not a vindication of the carbon tax as policy.

00:03:23.940 And that's so key here because the liberals are trying to say that this is proof that the carbon tax is the best way of doing everything.

00:03:30.260 But that isn't in fact the case.

00:03:32.440 One of the things that we know, and I was actually sitting in the Court of Appeal for Ontario for every day of Ontario's challenge of the carbon tax.

00:03:40.960 And one of the things that the lawyers and the judges said very candidly was that we are not here to legislate over climate science.

00:03:49.480 We are not here to talk about the policy implications, whether this is reducing emissions.

00:03:54.320 We're here to talk squarely about the question of does the federal government have the jurisdiction to do this when it is not spelled out in the Constitution that they can.

00:04:05.560 And that was the whole point of this.

00:04:06.980 And some of the arguments that were brought forward by interveners like the David Suzuki Foundation and other groups were that the government should be able to do whatever it wants because this is an emergency.

00:04:17.540 So they were actually kind of advocating for a War Measures Act style of approach to climate change in that, well, it's an emergency.

00:04:25.540 So the federal government can suspend the Constitution and do what it wants.

00:04:28.880 And I'm glad the court didn't actually go that far.

00:04:31.900 And to be fair, the government didn't make that argument.

00:04:34.540 But by proxy, some of these other radical environmental groups were.

00:04:38.840 But I do want to talk about this because the question of what are we going to do about it now shifts from the legal realm to the political realm.

00:04:47.880 Canadians are not destined to have a carbon tax now if there is political will to get rid of it.

00:04:53.620 Aaron O'Toole, for his part, the leader of the Conservatives, has said that he will scrap the Trudeau carbon tax.

00:04:59.180 Last week, we spoke about Aaron O'Toole's speech at the Conservative Convention in which he said climate change is real, the debate is over, and then also took aim at deniers and said that we are not going to allow the Conservative Party to be branded as the party of deniers.

00:05:14.060 The problem is that Justin Trudeau has kind of positioned this as being the best, if not the only remedy to climate change.

00:05:22.400 So if Aaron O'Toole comes out during the election and says, no more carbon tax, Trudeau, no matter what, is going to say, see, they don't have a plan.

00:05:30.940 See, they don't believe in climate change.

00:05:32.640 And we go back to square one with the Conservatives becoming, in the Liberals' eyes, the party of deniers, but without the benefit of actually having been standing firm and not going to the infighting,

00:05:43.680 which Aaron O'Toole did by unleashing on the Conservative base at the convention last week.

00:05:48.540 But the reason I think this is important is because Justin Trudeau did win an election when he was pushing for this carbon tax.

00:05:56.640 He won an election when he was defending the carbon tax.

00:06:00.380 And politically, a lot of people could say Canadians have made their peace with it.

00:06:04.640 Is that actually the case?

00:06:06.480 Are Canadians on board with this?

00:06:08.540 And is that the case because they believe in it or because no one's put forward another option?

00:06:13.460 I want to talk about some of these implications with Aaron Woodrick, who is the Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and joins me on the line now.

00:06:22.100 Aaron, good to talk to you again.

00:06:23.160 Thanks for coming back on the show.

00:06:24.640 Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:06:26.260 Now, the CTF was an intervener in the carbon tax case.

00:06:30.060 And I know put forward some really great arguments, not just about the implications of this from a constitutional perspective,

00:06:36.120 but even that fundamental question of is this a tax or not?

00:06:40.180 And for a lot of Canadians who have to pay it, that seems like an odd question to have to be litigated, but it did.

00:06:46.040 Yeah, it's true.

00:06:46.880 And the court, you know, they made a point of saying from a constitutional standpoint that this is not a tax.

00:06:51.620 It's a regulatory charge.

00:06:53.680 You know, we've always suggested that's a distinction without a difference.

00:06:57.360 You can call these things fees or levies or taxes or regulatory charges.

00:07:00.960 The point is it's money that you don't have to spend on what you want.

00:07:03.800 And that was relevant for our arguments because, of course, people will be familiar with the principle of no taxation without representation.

00:07:12.740 And the fact that the federal carbon tax is imposed by cabinet rather than parliament made that determination of whether or not this was a tax pretty important.

00:07:21.440 So the court said it's not a tax.

00:07:23.100 That means it's OK for a cabinet to impose it rather than parliament.

00:07:26.800 Yeah, that's an important point.

00:07:29.420 And one of the dissents in the decision actually addressed that, I think, very well, which was that all of a sudden we don't even have a parliamentary oversight to this because this legislation, which was passed in parliament, has really been supplemented by things that are just put at the direct cabinet level.

00:07:46.540 And I think that's particularly important given in the last year we've already seen increases in the carbon tax.

00:07:51.660 Yeah, you know, it's remarkable to see three dissents in a decision.

00:07:55.800 Of course, there were six in the majority, but three separate dissents was unusual.

00:07:59.100 And Justice Cote really focused on the process argument.

00:08:02.480 She was essentially I she agreed that the federal government could legislate and sort of govern and impose things related to greenhouse gas emissions.

00:08:11.300 But she had a problem with exactly the thing that we had raised, which was it wasn't parliament deciding this.

00:08:17.140 It was cabinet doing.

00:08:18.000 I know that one of the arguments put forward, certainly in the Ontario case, it may have been put forward in the other ones.

00:08:25.220 I don't know, was that if the government is able to claim this as an issue of national concern, which did in which the court has found it would, in some respects, open the floodgates to other things that contribute to these sort of emissions.

00:08:38.140 And I distinctly remember one of the examples, and it may have actually been one of the Ontario judges that put this forward, was something like if the government wanted to ban wood stoves, would not that now be permissible?

00:08:49.200 And I know CBC has a story saying that legal experts are saying this won't open the floodgates, but you're a lawyer as well.

00:08:55.280 You're an advocate for taxpayers.

00:08:56.860 Do you think that this has now set a standard that would make it very easy for the government to go after anything else that is connected to emissions?

00:09:04.380 Well, you don't even have to go down to a regular lawyer like me, Andrew, you can go with two of the dissenting justices at the Supreme Court, you know, Justice Russell Brown and Justice Rowe, both made essentially this argument, which is that it's a really slippery slope and that the door has been thrown wide open.

00:09:19.080 I think that's actually, interestingly, it might actually someday overshadow this case in terms of importance.

00:09:26.520 Right now, it's about the carbon tax, it's a polarizing issue, but the balance of power between the federal government and the provincial government, I mean, Canada is a fine balance.

00:09:36.660 It only works if you have that sort of that calibration right.

00:09:40.540 And those justices have warned that, you know, this could open the door to tipping the scales in Ottawa's favour.

00:09:45.800 So let me ask you, Aaron, when we're talking about the political implications of this, it's important to note the court didn't say this is working, it didn't say this is good policy, it didn't say that everyone should embrace the carbon tax, it just ruled on the constitutionality.

00:10:00.780 But on the political argument, Canadians have elected and re-elected Justin Trudeau knowing that this was something he wanted to do.

00:10:07.380 Are you finding that there is in general in Canada an appetite for this?

00:10:11.360 Well, let's remember when Justin Trudeau was asked before the last election and his minister were asked if they would increase the carbon tax, they said they wouldn't, they said they had no plans to.

00:10:20.800 And then after the election, they decided to do it.

00:10:23.500 So, you know, some people will like that and some people won't, but it's certainly not brave or honest to do things that way.

00:10:29.500 So I think it's really misleading to claim that people love it.

00:10:32.820 Look, Andrew, I think most people, if you ask them, they say, should we do something about climate change?

00:10:37.100 Almost everyone says yes. Why not? It sounds like a great thing.

00:10:40.700 I think when you start to present people with the facts about how much it will cost them and their families personally, you start to see some pretty steep drop off in terms of support.

00:10:49.880 And that's where I think people have it wrong about carbon taxes.

00:10:53.420 I think a lot of people think they're great in theory.

00:10:55.640 I think when they see how much it's going to cost them, just to give one example, at the pump, when they fill up their car with gas,

00:11:01.000 a lot of them are going to start having second thoughts about their willingness to go ahead with it.

00:11:05.580 Well, and one of the arguments as well that I would put forward is that we were not seeing the scenario that the Liberal government pretended it was going after,

00:11:15.200 which was provinces that were just doing nothing.

00:11:17.420 All provinces had some plan that they were working on in this effect.

00:11:21.440 And also provinces were seeing declines in emissions.

00:11:24.300 So the idea that this was only something that the federal government could do, and if left to their own devices, provinces wouldn't, just is fundamentally not true.

00:11:32.660 Well, yes. And, you know, advocates for carbon tax twist themselves into pretzels.

00:11:36.520 They rely on, oh, it's a Nobel Prize winning idea.

00:11:38.820 Well, the economists that won the Nobel Prize for it didn't propose a carbon tax that was layered on top of this web of other regulations and rules.

00:11:46.500 That's not how it was supposed to work.

00:11:48.060 You also look at provinces like New Brunswick and PEI, which essentially introduced offsetting gas tax cuts and do not meet the federal standard.

00:11:56.460 And yet the Truro government allowed them to implement those policies instead of the federal regime.

00:12:02.060 So there's contradictions and inconsistencies all over the place.

00:12:05.460 And it's going to be really interesting to see going forward how the four provinces that fought this tax are going to, you know, handle it going forward.

00:12:14.520 Yeah. And I imagine, I know your counterpart, Franco Terrazzano, has been on the show talking about Western alienation and some of the economic situations that are facing Albertans.

00:12:25.520 But I can't imagine that the West will take too kindly to not just the Supreme Court telling them, you know, that what their court determined has now been overturned.

00:12:34.220 But also that, again, a made in Alberta version of this or a province that has a made in wherever version of this is not good enough unless the federal government deems it to be so.

00:12:44.520 And the part that I find more concerning is that someone like Doug Ford in Ontario, say, or Jason Kenney in Alberta or any other government could meet the standards that the federal government has set out.

00:12:56.000 And then a year later, those standards could change, correct?

00:12:58.620 Well, yes, I mean, it's it's a it's a rising standard and look, the whole reason that the feds and that and that's the whole reason they've imposed a backstop.

00:13:08.280 So they say rather than a, you know, one size fits all for the country is they recognize that different provinces are affected in different ways by these by by the requirements.

00:13:17.820 And so they want to give them some flexibility.

00:13:19.860 And yet, you know, it brings to mind the old saying Henry Ford said you can have any color Ford car you want as long as it's black.

00:13:26.420 And that seems to be Justin Trudeau's government's approach to the carbon tax.

00:13:30.240 You can have any regime you want as long as it's the one that that we say is OK.

00:13:33.840 Yeah, I mean, who am I to tell the Supreme Court majority they got it wrong?

00:13:37.560 But I did when I was reading through the majority decision, find that to be a little bit odd.

00:13:41.800 They were it seemed like overstating the autonomy that provinces have as the defense against the federal government regulating this.

00:13:49.180 But again, if the federal government is still forcing them to do that, autonomy within those narrow parameters isn't really that much autonomy.

00:13:57.040 Yeah, you know, the test is supposed to be in the Supreme Court laid out this test.

00:14:00.880 And what confused me with the majority is they I don't know how they managed to twist things around to see the Greenhouse Gas Emission Act meet it.

00:14:08.680 What it's supposed to say is where there's an area of national concern, if provinces together can do not have the ability or the and the willingness to do it, then the feds can step in.

00:14:20.020 In this case, it's obvious that the provinces could do it working together.

00:14:23.920 And yet the court somehow found that regardless, well, just because they could and they're not doing it the way Ottawa wants to, that gives Ottawa a hammer to bring down on them and force them to do it the way that Ottawa wants.

00:14:35.140 So now that this is in the political realm, what do you think Canadians need to know about this?

00:14:39.380 Because you're right earlier when you pointed out that a lot of people would say, yes, I want to do something about this issue.

00:14:45.060 Is it working?

00:14:45.900 Well, look, people in Canada point to British Columbia as the gold standard on the carbon tax.

00:14:52.180 And I don't know why, because one, it's not revenue neutral anymore.

00:14:56.000 They hold it up to say, oh, look, taxes don't go up.

00:14:59.100 Well, they do.

00:14:59.900 And it happened for exactly the reason we weren't about, which is the feds give it back for now.

00:15:04.300 But at some point, especially now with all the debt we're racking up during the pandemic, there's going to be a big pot of money sitting there.

00:15:10.580 And they're going to start asking themselves, do we really want to give that away when we literally already have it in our hands?

00:15:15.220 That's exactly what happened in British Columbia with theirs. 0.71

00:15:17.680 The other is emissions aren't going down in B.C.

00:15:20.560 They're rising more slowly.

00:15:22.420 So the people continue to be advocates for carbon taxes now move the yardsticks and say, oh, well, that's better than it would have been.

00:15:27.840 But that's not what they promised.

00:15:29.320 They promised that emissions would go down.

00:15:31.160 They're not going down.

00:15:32.140 They're going up.

00:15:32.720 Yes, they're going up more slowly, but that's not going to get us to the net zero that everyone keeps talking about.

00:15:38.620 So in that way, it moves further and further to that argument you raised at the beginning that this is a tax because government's collecting revenue when it goes up.

00:15:46.920 Yes, look, and I don't deny there's a rebate.

00:15:49.140 People say, oh, why don't you mention the rebate?

00:15:50.760 Yeah, it's better that they give some of the money back.

00:15:53.600 I don't deny that at all.

00:15:54.720 My point is we've already seen in British Columbia what happens is eventually governments realize that, hey,

00:16:00.280 we've got this big pot of money that we really need.

00:16:03.680 Why should we give it back?

00:16:04.620 Why don't we just quietly stop giving it back?

00:16:06.720 And that's my fear as we get up to, you know, $100, $150 a ton.

00:16:11.160 And right now people are getting rebates every year with their taxes, $500, $1,000, $2,000.

00:16:16.000 That could go away.

00:16:17.320 And then you're really, you know, up the creek because you're paying a lot more and you're getting nothing to offset.

00:16:22.080 Aaron Woodrick, Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:16:26.040 Always a pleasure, Aaron.

00:16:26.880 Thanks for your work on this.

00:16:28.740 Yeah, thanks a lot, Andrew.

00:16:30.160 I realize that tax in this context means something different legally versus practically.

00:16:35.740 And this was the argument that Aaron put forward, I think, very effectively before the court, him and his colleagues.

00:16:40.420 But at the same time, I also love the twisted pretzelness that we see from a lot of liberal apologists.

00:16:48.240 Mike Moffitt, who's an economist, actually from my neck of the woods in London, had said on Twitter,

00:16:53.200 I don't get the resistance from journalists to stop calling it a carbon tax when it's not.

00:16:57.660 It's sending a signal and not a good one.

00:16:59.860 If you can't strive for accuracy when doing so is easy, use carbon price instead.

00:17:05.060 Why would I think you'd do it when it's hard?

00:17:06.560 So his argument is that if a journalist calls it a carbon tax, they are a sellout.

00:17:12.680 It's a carbon tax.

00:17:14.000 You can say it's a price in the same way that you can say perhaps a value-added price is what HST or GST is.

00:17:20.980 But it's a tax.

00:17:21.760 If people have to pay it and government's making them pay it, it is a tax.

00:17:27.480 So I don't get the idea of accusing reporters of being biased to oppose it by calling it a tax.

00:17:32.840 It seems like they are more concerned about the semantics than anything else.

00:17:36.100 And before I wrap things up, I just saw a very funny meme from former Conservative leader and still sitting Conservative MP Andrew Scheer

00:17:43.100 playing off of the ship that is indefinitely stuck in the Suez Canal.

00:17:47.600 He writes that that little backhoe trying to get it out is Justin Trudeau's carbon tax

00:17:52.020 and the big ship are China's greenhouse gas emissions.

00:17:55.380 And it is interesting that PEI is the problem.

00:17:58.280 BC is the problem. 1.00

00:17:59.500 Ontario is the problem.

00:18:00.680 Saskatchewan is the problem.

00:18:01.680 And all of this is going to be why Canada has the justification to trample on provincial rights.

00:18:07.100 But you look at those emission charts.

00:18:08.520 You see the volume that is the responsibility of China, of India, even the United States.

00:18:13.620 Canada is a blip.

00:18:14.800 And that doesn't mean don't do anything.

00:18:16.860 If governments want to do it, do it.

00:18:18.800 But don't force other governments in your country to do it or to do it your way.

00:18:24.260 Because Justin Trudeau's way, believe it or not, not the highway.

00:18:27.520 We've got to take a break.

00:18:28.500 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:30.660 Stay with me.

00:18:32.460 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:39.100 We are back here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:41.820 And as mentioned at the top, I'm actually in Alberta right now

00:18:45.300 as part of our cross-country production tour for Assaulted.

00:18:48.840 Justin Trudeau's war on gun owners in which I talk to real gun owners, gun businesses,

00:18:53.460 sports shooters, people in rural Canada, people for whom guns are a way of life.

00:18:57.600 All of the people whose stories are not told by the mainstream media, who are very significantly

00:19:03.220 affected.

00:19:04.240 And I don't just mean theoretically, but practically, financially, in terms of their lifestyle,

00:19:09.340 affected by bans that the Justin Trudeau liberals have put in place, like the Order and Council

00:19:14.080 last May, or like Bill C-21, which was just introduced.

00:19:17.960 And last week, I spoke about Polly Remembers, the group of survivors of the horrific attack

00:19:23.820 at L'Ecole Polytechnique, coming out against Bill C-21.

00:19:27.980 So this is the bill that would give municipalities the right to ban handguns, would cement the 0.70

00:19:33.440 framework for a future buyback of things like AR-15s or other prohibited firearms.

00:19:39.020 And the group was very, very much against it.

00:19:42.460 They said Justin Trudeau sold them out.

00:19:44.160 They said he was banned from coming to their events anymore, and they said he's not allowed

00:19:48.520 to just go there and cry on their shoulders and pretend to be one of them.

00:19:51.680 They think that he did not go far enough.

00:19:54.780 They're not going to be happy until every single gun is out of Canadians' hands. 0.98

00:19:59.460 And it's not just about the AR-15.

00:20:01.160 They want to go incrementally.

00:20:02.700 But they were angry that this would allow people to hold on to them, even if the bill

00:20:07.880 would ban them from taking them anywhere, shooting them, doing anything with them. 0.52

00:20:11.700 As Justin Trudeau says, make them next to useless, just like, well, his government sometimes. 0.90

00:20:16.700 But here's the thing.

00:20:18.080 Now they've gone even further.

00:20:20.020 Poly Remembers is actually lobbying MPs, including Liberals, to vote against this bill.

00:20:26.720 When Bill C-21 goes to second reading, Poly wants them to get rid of it.

00:20:31.640 They want the bill withdrawn.

00:20:33.320 The gun control bill is being opposed by the most vocal gun control group in Canada.

00:20:39.480 Now, I think this is great.

00:20:41.700 Usually, it's people on the right that are eating their own.

00:20:44.360 Now, it's the left cannibalizing the left. 0.90

00:20:46.800 I also want Bill C-21 withdrawn.

00:20:49.080 So I can actually link arms with Poly Remembers and say, yes, this is exactly what the Liberals 1.00

00:20:53.400 should do.

00:20:53.840 Get rid of it.

00:20:54.740 Now, the problem is they want it replaced by one that goes even further.

00:20:59.520 They want it replaced by one that does a lot more.

00:21:02.400 They want disarmament.

00:21:03.620 They want people to actually have firearms confiscated by the government.

00:21:07.680 And we're going to have in the coming days and weeks some glimpses of the footage that

00:21:12.340 I've been collecting on this documentary tour from people, again, who you wouldn't think

00:21:17.480 of and who all report something very common, which is that the government did not consult

00:21:23.280 with them, did not consult with their industries, their groups, did not talk to the people that

00:21:27.880 would have to be affected by this.

00:21:29.520 And in a lot of ways has worked against its stated objectives.

00:21:33.620 One gun business owner I spoke to had talked about how every time one of these restrictions

00:21:37.880 comes in place, sales go through the roof.

00:21:40.320 The Liberal government is actually moving more guns into circulation in the country by

00:21:45.620 its continuous anti-gun rhetoric.

00:21:48.760 So these sorts of things are very fascinating because Canada is a country of gun owners.

00:21:53.440 Firearms are a part of the Canadian experience.

00:21:56.020 And horrific attacks that take place with the worst types of human beings doing the worst

00:22:01.500 things imaginable does not take away from the utter banality of most gun ownership in

00:22:07.400 Canada.

00:22:07.780 People that have the gun, they use it on the farm, they use it at the range, they take

00:22:12.020 it out hunting, they do all of these things without harming a single person.

00:22:16.900 But it also is proof that incrementalism is always the goal here.

00:22:21.380 However, they're never going to stop at X when Y and Z are still ahead.

00:22:27.260 And this is something people need to realize when something is presented as being a reasonable

00:22:31.680 policy alternative.

00:22:32.700 And this applies to the carbon tax as well.

00:22:34.640 It's never one and done.

00:22:36.200 It's never, here's the carbon tax, it's $50 a ton, and this is what we're going to do.

00:22:40.520 It's $50, then it's $75, $125, $150, $250, and so on.

00:22:46.460 With firearms, it's never just, let's ban the AR-15.

00:22:50.880 It's, well, let's ban all these $1,500, and then a few weeks later, they add $500 to the

00:22:55.100 list, and they are going to continue to keep adding those things.

00:22:58.660 With all of the lockdown restrictions, how did that work out for people when the government

00:23:02.960 said, we just need to take these nominal steps that will help and then we'll be fine?

00:23:07.160 No, they keep getting ramped up.

00:23:10.480 Incrementalism from status, incrementalism from government, is one of the biggest threats

00:23:14.760 because it means that everything they do is couched in moderation when there is a longer

00:23:19.060 term goal that would be radical on the surface.

00:23:21.260 That old saying about the frog in the pot of boiling water.

00:23:23.960 If you put the frog in the pot, it's going to jump out, but if you bring the heat up,

00:23:27.740 gradually the frog won't notice.

00:23:29.700 Whether or not it's true, I don't know, but what I do know is that in the metaphor,

00:23:32.920 we are the frogs and Justin Trudeau is standing over the cooktop.

00:23:36.140 We'll be back in a moment with more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:23:39.040 Stay with me.

00:23:41.220 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:23:44.760 I try not to get offended about things.

00:23:49.020 I really try, but I'm actually offended.

00:23:51.320 I am hurt.

00:23:52.160 I feel ignored.

00:23:53.260 I feel dejected.

00:23:54.300 I feel completely, well, completely avoided.

00:23:58.620 Unfortunately, China released a round of sanctions, including on some Canadians,

00:24:03.300 and I am sad to say I was not on the list.

00:24:06.220 I have not yet been sanctioned by the Chinese Politburo,

00:24:09.600 nor has The Andrew Lawton Show, nor has True North.

00:24:11.980 Now, give it time.

00:24:13.020 These things could come around.

00:24:14.060 Maybe I get a nice birthday surprise by the time my birthday comes,

00:24:17.160 which is not for quite a while.

00:24:18.260 So maybe we'll get something even sooner.

00:24:20.320 But I'll tell you who was included.

00:24:21.860 Michael Chong, the Conservative MP, a guy who would love to be Canada's

00:24:25.340 Foreign Affairs Minister at some point, former Conservative leadership candidate,

00:24:29.260 was included by the Chinese Foreign Affairs Division

00:24:32.460 in a list of sanctions that went after a number of politicians and public officials in the U.S. and the U.K.

00:24:39.020 They also went after a Canadian parliamentary subcommittee, which had, I think, all-party representation on it.

00:24:45.460 But Michael Chong was the one specifically named as being apparently the big bad guy in the eyes of the Chinese Communist regime.

00:24:52.800 Now, Michael Chong had a great response to this.

00:24:55.420 He tweeted out, I think, the day after,

00:24:57.400 And that's a very good attitude to have about it, to embrace this.

00:25:15.500 When the world's most brutal dictatorships are against you, you must be doing something right.

00:25:21.500 And if I were Justin Trudeau, if I were Mark Garneau, if I were any number of liberal muckety-mucks,

00:25:26.900 I would actually be quite offended to not be on the list.

00:25:30.940 As a Canadian, I'm actually a bit concerned.

00:25:33.000 Why are our Canadian lawmakers at the senior level not angering China so much that they, too, are finding themselves sanctioned?

00:25:41.300 It's not that I think these things are necessarily productive.

00:25:44.340 It's that we have been completely aware of China's endgame, of China's trampling on human rights, 0.94

00:25:49.900 of China's trampling on due process, of its abuse of the rights of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

00:25:55.980 And for years, that the Canadian government's response has not been severe enough to justify China saying,

00:26:03.180 we're sanctioning you, means that Canadians have not actually been doing enough.

00:26:08.460 And when I say Canadians, I'm not talking about ordinary people. 0.95

00:26:11.220 People like Michael Chong are standing up for freedom.

00:26:13.820 They are standing up for due process.

00:26:16.120 I'm talking about the Canadians that are supposed to be getting results.

00:26:20.100 We had a complete behind-closed-doors trial of the two Michaels.

00:26:25.980 Which, in many cases, may have been China flexing its muscle because the U.S. was about to start meeting in Alaska with officials from Beijing.

00:26:34.360 It may be for any number of reasons, or it may be because China is not a good-faith actor.

00:26:39.800 And we shouldn't expect them to become this overnight.

00:26:43.200 We have to fight fire with fire.

00:26:44.900 And to be clear, Mark Garneau did say, well, you know, I've dealt with bullies before, and you've got to stand up, and you've got to show them.

00:26:51.340 But Mark Garneau was also the guy who said this.

00:26:54.240 Mr. Speaker, I abstain on behalf of the government of Canada.

00:26:58.360 Mr. Garneau, abstention, abstention.

00:27:01.120 Yes, when it actually came to condemning China's abuse and genocide against Uyghur Muslims, he was the guy that had to stand there when all of his officials, his colleagues in cabinet, were gone and say, I abstain.

00:27:12.940 So how do you square that with, oh, yes, we're standing up to bullies.

00:27:17.020 Yeah, we're going to stand up to them.

00:27:18.820 And he was talking about Canada putting some sanctions on Chinese officials.

00:27:22.420 But the sanctions game is a lot more theatrical than anything else, which is why I don't think any Canadian politician who's sanctioned by China should really care all that much.

00:27:30.920 And that's been thus far the extent of Canada's reaction to this.

00:27:35.300 A stern warning, a bit of a finger wagging, and then some sanctions, but ultimately nothing.

00:27:40.760 And if anything, more appeasement.

00:27:43.000 Appease and thank you.

00:27:43.840 I think I titled a previous show that because that seems to be the Canadian government's response when faced with China's brutality.

00:27:51.240 We are, what, a year and three months into the circumstances that were unleashed when China allowed for COVID-19 to first become a thing.

00:28:02.400 And in that time, we've seen more and more examples of China's unwillingness to engage with the world in a way that is genuine. 0.97

00:28:10.660 It only engages in the world when it thinks it can benefit from it.

00:28:13.480 Remember, I spoke about this a couple of months back when Chairman Xi was speaking at the Davos Forum and extolling the virtues of the liberal international order and working within the rule of law and international organizations like the UN.

00:28:27.100 And China, of course, was thumping its chest and joining the Paris Agreement and all of this stuff.

00:28:31.500 But China's only interested in doing this when it benefits its reputation.

00:28:35.600 And unfortunately, there seem to be far too many Canadians that are prepared to go along with China's very positive and very glowing self-branding without actually taking aim at the real circumstances that China is responsible for.

00:28:50.460 If you need evidence that China is not wanting to be the nice guy in the international scene, just talk to the families of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

00:28:59.640 And by the way, as much as Mark Garneau wants to talk about putting sanctions forward and taking the tough line, it's important to note that this is only happening while the EU and the US and the UK are doing it.

00:29:11.740 Canada did not do anything on its own.

00:29:14.320 Canada just went along with the PAC when the PAC was doing it.

00:29:18.140 And this is incredibly important because Canada is directly affected by this more than the EU is, more than the UK is.

00:29:24.840 And these countries, not that the EU is a country, but you know what I mean,

00:29:28.020 these jurisdictions are doing more and doing it better than Canada is.

00:29:33.320 Why has Canada, I mean, the US is doing more to get the two Michaels out than Canada is. 0.98

00:29:38.600 Because the US actually understands, even under the Biden administration, that China is not a friend.

00:29:44.440 That doesn't mean you want them as a sworn enemy.

00:29:46.400 It doesn't mean you want to be battling it out in the South China Sea or in any other jurisdiction in the world.

00:29:50.960 No, no one wants a world war here, but you can't accept that they are on your side.

00:29:57.240 And the plain ice approach from Canada simply hasn't worked.

00:30:01.040 And at a certain point, you have to accept that it's not working.

00:30:03.880 And yeah, if you're getting on the sanctioned list, you're doing something right.

00:30:07.020 My question to Justin Trudeau is why are you not on the sanctions list?

00:30:11.520 We've got to wrap things up.

00:30:12.720 My thanks to all of you for tuning in to this edition on location of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:30:17.760 We'll be back in a couple of days with more here on Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:30:22.300 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:30:24.200 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:30:26.560 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 29, 2021

A Tax By Any Other Name

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