Juno News - A WE Boondoggle

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.

00:00:12.960 Coming up, Justin Trudeau's Wee scam continues to balloon.

00:00:16.960 The woke wars are making the left eat their own tails, 0.72

00:00:19.640 and a big legal fight for gun ownership and gun rights in Canada.

00:00:25.580 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:37.400 Thanks very much for tuning in.

00:00:39.460 Let me just say right out of the gate, I have not received a dime from Wee.

00:00:44.500 I have not spoken at any of their events.

00:00:47.060 I have not attended a Wee Day. 0.92

00:00:48.640 I didn't even know what Wee Day was, except for some Nintendo contest or tournament or something like that.

00:00:55.000 I've got not a dime from them, not for lack of trying.

00:00:58.100 I mean, if they are just handing out money left, right, and center, I'll take a check.

00:01:01.480 But my name's not Trudeau, so I'm not sure I'm going to be able to access that, you know,

00:01:07.200 hundreds of thousands of dollars that's been earmarked for speakers named Trudeau.

00:01:11.840 I think that's actually a line item in the Wee budget.

00:01:14.480 Speakers named Trudeau is one line in and of itself and then just regular old speakers.

00:01:18.920 Although Theo Fleury, the former Calgary Flames player, who's also been a True North guest and has shared some of our content,

00:01:26.740 he had tweeted out last week that he was never, ever offered any money.

00:01:30.720 And even when perhaps he had asked about it or maybe his agent did, he was told they don't pay speakers.

00:01:36.040 But again, they only pay speakers if their last name is Trudeau.

00:01:39.520 A lot has happened on this story in the last week.

00:01:42.400 Margaret Trudeau, the first mother of Canada, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

00:01:47.940 Justin Trudeau's brother, Alexandra, has received about $40,000.

00:01:53.000 I know there's been some discrepancies about received versus what we paid.

00:01:58.400 Not we, but like, you know, capital W, capital E, we.

00:02:02.660 By the way, just on this note, we is like the worst name at all for a charity

00:02:08.620 because Justin Trudeau likes to make everything a teachable moment.

00:02:11.820 He likes to make everything a collective sin.

00:02:15.460 So when the organization is called We, Justin Trudeau's comments are actually indistinguishable from what he normally says,

00:02:21.600 which is, well, you know, we think that, we thought that, you know, we this, we that.

00:02:26.420 And it's not clear whether he's talking about us as Canadian society or capital W, capital E, we.

00:02:33.000 And when anyone asks Justin Trudeau, do you want to spend a bunch of money and get nothing for it?

00:02:37.240 He says, we. That's a good bilingual joke for you. 1.00

00:02:39.520 Welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:02:40.960 But this whole thing is insane because, you know,

00:02:44.640 we has tried to downplay the amount that it paid by talking about the amount they received.

00:02:50.120 And this was in a CBC story as well,

00:02:52.660 because now they're like trying to reduce the 20% commission that the Trudeaus paid to their speaking agency,

00:02:58.420 which I think is kind of a pretty insignificant point.

00:03:01.520 The fact remains that hundreds of thousands of dollars went from We or the for-profit arm of We called Me to We Social Enterprise.

00:03:12.000 And that went towards the Trudeau family.

00:03:14.760 And you fast forward a little bit and Trudeau oversees the handing out of a $900 million government program to We for the purposes of paying young people to volunteer.

00:03:26.900 So there's a lot that's gone on here.

00:03:30.360 And by the way, I was against the program from the get-go.

00:03:34.220 Take away the Trudeau connection to We.

00:03:36.340 I'm thinking, why are we spending close to a billion dollars to pay people to volunteer?

00:03:42.080 And if we are doing this, why are we outsourcing administration of the bureaucracy to a charity that didn't have to bid for the contract?

00:03:50.960 It was a sole source deal.

00:03:53.300 Why are we outsourcing to any group without going through the process of, hey, show us what you can do.

00:03:59.040 Show us what you've got.

00:04:00.740 So that on its own, in and of itself, I think shows that this was a bad program, badly handled, badly doled out.

00:04:08.720 And because it was sole sourced, that's what brings up the questions,

00:04:12.420 the very logical, justifiable questions that Canadians started to ask.

00:04:17.160 Now, of course, those questions all lead to figuring out that Trudeau and We are inextricably linked,

00:04:24.720 like Trudeau and taxes, or Trudeau and SNC-Lavalin, or Trudeau and Bombardier, all of these other things.

00:04:31.760 So what happens here is we find out that Justin Trudeau's wife, I say find out, I mean, it was hidden in plain sight.

00:04:38.120 His wife hosts a podcast for We.

00:04:40.340 His wife speaks at We events.

00:04:42.140 In fact, it was at We Day in London, England, that she contracted COVID-19 just a couple of months ago.

00:04:49.320 You've got, what else happened there?

00:04:51.180 His mom speaking numerous times over the years, getting hundreds of thousands of dollars, his brother.

00:04:56.640 And Trudeau himself has also been a strong We advocate and We participant.

00:05:03.180 And we see that, I mean, take advantage.

00:05:04.880 I switched from one We to the other We there.

00:05:07.080 You'll have to keep up.

00:05:08.040 Take a look at this video that re-emerged on social media a couple of days ago of a campaign-style ad for Justin Trudeau.

00:05:17.060 When I travel across this great country, I'm lucky to meet so many people working hard to build a better future.

00:05:23.940 My Canada 150 is a place where everyone has a real and fair chance to succeed.

00:05:29.500 I pledge to work hard for all Canadians and to invest in our youngest leaders, you.

00:05:38.600 What will your pledge be?

00:05:41.100 Take the pledge to live We, because together, we are Canada.

00:05:46.840 And did you take a look at who made it?

00:05:48.980 We did.

00:05:49.980 No, no, no.

00:05:50.800 We're back to capital W, capital E.

00:05:52.920 They did, not us. 0.70

00:05:54.140 We, they, I don't know.

00:05:55.400 I'm going to milk this one for a while.

00:05:56.900 So Justin Trudeau is the beneficiary of We campaign resources, apparently, even though it was not meant to be political or partisan from a so-called charity.

00:06:07.260 You've got Margaret Trudeau and Alexandra Trudeau that are cashing checks.

00:06:11.420 And now you've got a We campaign that is being published in newspapers across Canada.

00:06:17.080 A full-page spread in the Globe and Mail, for example, from We founders Mark and Craig Kielberger trying to defend their record.

00:06:25.260 And they're trying to say that they were making no money off of this contract that was awarded to them, that they were just, what, doing a public service?

00:06:33.200 I want to read a little bit of this for you and explain why this is just such a spin answer and not even particularly convincing spin, by the way.

00:06:43.600 So a couple of lines here that I want to point out.

00:06:45.760 First off, the public service has openly stated that it was their recommendation for We to receive the contract for this project.

00:06:53.520 Over the years, we have received grants from and worked with federal and provincial governments led by a diversity of political parties for our youth and school programs.

00:07:02.900 So I've not actually been able to find anywhere where the public service openly said anything of the sort or even quietly said or closedly said anything of the sort.

00:07:13.360 Yeah, I know I made up a word there.

00:07:15.140 In actuality, it was Justin Trudeau who initially said the public service made the decision, thinking that only We was capable of doing something of this magnitude.

00:07:23.540 And then that changed and it became, well, Cabinet decided.

00:07:28.580 And there still is a huge question persisting about who knew what.

00:07:33.320 And look at the Globe and Mail, for example.

00:07:35.440 Marika Walsh had tweeted this out, that the Globe asked all members of Cabinet if they knew when they made this decision that Justin Trudeau's family had been financially benefiting from We.

00:07:48.060 And what happened?

00:07:49.300 Mark Garneau said no.

00:07:50.460 A couple of other Cabinet ministers said, oh, we can't talk about it because it's Cabinet.

00:07:54.300 And most of them didn't even respond.

00:07:57.180 And it's not just Trudeau and his family, by the way.

00:07:59.680 Bill Morneau's daughter also works for We.

00:08:01.920 His other daughter has had a number of We connections.

00:08:05.080 She's been a We speaker.

00:08:06.460 And I want to make a point very clear here.

00:08:09.220 I have no issue with people speaking at We events.

00:08:12.940 I have no issue with Margaret Trudeau cashing We checks or Alexandra Trudeau or Bill Morneau's daughters.

00:08:18.560 Does not matter to me at all.

00:08:20.620 I care about it when these people are cashing checks and then We is similarly cashing checks from people related to the first people.

00:08:29.340 This is not a very difficult story to sell as being a conflict of interest, which, as we know, is not just defined by a bona fide conflict,

00:08:38.560 but also the illusion of one or the appearance of one.

00:08:42.940 And in this case, it's even clearer than SNC-Lavalin.

00:08:46.660 It's clearer than the Aga Khan's Vacation Island. 0.98

00:08:49.340 Here we have the Trudeau family with a financial interest in the success of this other organization

00:08:54.380 that now has a financial interest in Trudeau as Prime Minister.

00:08:58.280 It's a pretty simple line to draw.

00:09:01.580 And the fact that this was nowhere on the radar in the cabinet meetings.

00:09:05.880 Now, just so you all know, my family's done this.

00:09:08.560 We can all set this aside, right?

00:09:10.540 Morneau didn't recuse himself.

00:09:12.440 Trudeau didn't recuse himself.

00:09:14.180 And were it not for the pushback from people on this,

00:09:17.540 this nearly a billion dollar program would still be under the thumb of We.

00:09:23.320 Which brings us to the next bit of spin from We's newspaper letter.

00:09:28.400 The contract reimbursed the charity for its expenses to deliver the Canadian Student Service Grant Program.

00:09:34.400 To be clear, it did not provide the charity with a profit.

00:09:38.200 The funds were used for the program or returned to the government.

00:09:41.960 All was subject to government audit.

00:09:44.540 Now, this is very significant for one key reason.

00:09:48.640 Charities are not turning a profit.

00:09:50.920 They spend the money that they bring in.

00:09:52.680 But they can still spend it on things.

00:09:55.680 Which means that, yes, they are still cashing out from it.

00:09:58.680 Reimbursing for the cost.

00:10:00.200 Well, the cost is labor.

00:10:01.740 So you can hire people.

00:10:02.920 You can give salary bumps.

00:10:04.280 You can buy new equipment.

00:10:05.600 You can do all of that.

00:10:07.040 So just because they're saying, oh, we didn't make a profit.

00:10:09.840 Doesn't mean they weren't making money here.

00:10:11.960 And I think there's going to be a lot that we learn from this.

00:10:14.800 Once records are filed and documents are filed.

00:10:17.640 And those start to become accessible to people under access to information.

00:10:21.300 I know I'm going to be sending some requests into there.

00:10:24.100 But they say that when they ended the contract, they didn't accept any reimbursement.

00:10:28.360 We has not profited from this contract in any way.

00:10:32.000 Well, that's because this whole thing got stopped.

00:10:35.020 The reason they didn't quote unquote profit from the contract is because people caught them.

00:10:40.360 And they had to end it, they would be cashing checks still were this to not have happened.

00:10:46.280 And I think that's an important distinction here, which is why I don't buy into this idea

00:10:50.780 that they were just, you know, doing this whole thing as a public service.

00:10:55.060 That they themselves were the volunteers because that is not the case at all.

00:10:59.420 You don't take on something like this if it is not in your financial interest to do so.

00:11:04.540 So all of this is to say that this whole thing is rotten from top to bottom, left to right,

00:11:11.540 all sides, over, under.

00:11:13.340 And this indignance from the liberals of how dare anyone question this.

00:11:18.820 I mean, when you look at the list of scandals, and just specifically ethics scandals,

00:11:23.280 this is the third personal ethics investigation for Justin Trudeau.

00:11:27.600 I think that Canadians should probably start getting a bulk discount on ethics investigations.

00:11:31.940 He was found guilty of the first two, he now is going to be the one who is probably going

00:11:38.020 to be found guilty a third time, which is, you know, not quite the legacy you want.

00:11:42.300 I mean, if there's like a Mount Rushmore of ethics investigations, it'll just be three

00:11:46.280 Justin Trudeau heads, and that's it, nothing more.

00:11:49.080 And the whole point of this is that Canadians are the ones on the hook for this.

00:11:53.120 We're on the hook for the money, we're on the hook for the lack of integrity that is in

00:11:57.280 our leadership right now that is running our country, or supposedly running our country

00:12:02.880 anyway.

00:12:04.220 And the liberals don't think they've done anything wrong here.

00:12:08.300 You know, if you look at the statement from the prime minister's office that I read last

00:12:11.660 week, they're just saying, oh, listen, I mean, this is important.

00:12:14.220 It's all about just youth and volunteerism and not who benefited from what, where, and how.

00:12:18.840 And, you know, there's something particularly insidious about this climate, because when

00:12:25.220 I look at what the liberals have done here, and what the liberals have said here, and it's

00:12:30.200 all about volunteerism, it's the same as the SNC-Lavalin thing.

00:12:34.060 Oh, well, we all have to stand up for jobs.

00:12:36.760 The fact is, we has laid off a great many people now.

00:12:40.520 They had to lay off people that were hired specifically to execute this contract.

00:12:45.580 And they've said it had to lay off 400 and, I forget the exact number, but 400 and some

00:12:51.780 odd people that it had hired right out of the gate to do this.

00:12:54.920 So they're already trying to lay the groundwork that, oh, those evil, mean conservatives are

00:12:58.740 responsible for a bunch of people losing their jobs.

00:13:01.300 When I'm thinking, man, they moved awfully quickly on that, which suggests that they wanted

00:13:07.020 a bit of leverage.

00:13:07.860 And I'm not saying that was their motivation.

00:13:09.700 But by moving so quickly, what they have done is, in effect, created this situation where

00:13:15.520 you can't really criticize them without supporting job losses, when those jobs never should have

00:13:20.780 existed, because this program never should have existed, and this contract never should

00:13:25.920 have existed.

00:13:27.280 We've got to take a break.

00:13:28.460 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:13:32.760 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:13:41.960 We are back.

00:13:43.080 Let's talk a little bit about the woke wars, if we can, here.

00:13:46.420 You may remember a couple of weeks ago, I broke at True North and spoke about on this

00:13:50.880 show, CBC saying that there was a transphobic bent to J.K.

00:13:57.440 Rowling in a children's show.

00:13:59.220 Let's roll a brief snippet of that segment.

00:14:02.180 I've been following this J.K.

00:14:03.600 Rowling controversy, and it all started with a tweet she made.

00:14:06.640 Actually, it started with this headline, creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people

00:14:11.980 who menstruate. 0.64

00:14:13.220 J.K. took issue with the word people being used.

00:14:16.500 Maybe she was trying to be funny, but she hinted that the publication should have stuck

00:14:20.340 with using the word women. 1.00

00:14:22.020 Some fans pointed out that there are lots of those who menstruate who don't identify as

00:14:26.340 women. 0.81

00:14:27.060 And then things got a little messy.

00:14:28.600 Lots of tweets back and forth.

00:14:30.020 And at one point, J.K. fired back with,

00:14:32.120 My life has been shaped by being female, and I don't think it's hateful to say so.

00:14:37.080 It's 2020.

00:14:38.720 Releasing these kind of statements online is not a good look.

00:14:42.080 And hasn't she been accused of transphobic stuff in the past?

00:14:46.340 Um, yeah.

00:14:47.140 Yes, that was from the CBC Kids News show Recap, where they were telling kids that J.K.

00:14:51.940 Rowling was transphobic, mocking her for the crime of believing that only women are capable

00:14:57.640 of menstruation.

00:14:58.940 Well, a little bit of an update on this.

00:15:00.960 CBC has acknowledged that that segment did not meet its standards.

00:15:05.560 Now, the real news story there might be that CBC has journalistic standards.

00:15:09.560 I know, I'll always go for the cheap joke sometime.

00:15:12.040 But in a response to a complaint filed to CBC's ombudsman by a Toronto lawyer,

00:15:17.140 Cave Charouz, a producer acknowledged the episode's shortcomings.

00:15:22.620 In the end, this segment did not achieve the balance we intended and did not live up to

00:15:27.280 the standards to which we as a public broadcaster hold ourselves, says an email from CBC Kids

00:15:33.960 producer Lisa Fender.

00:15:36.160 They did not achieve the balance of perspectives they aspire to, she said, and ultimately endeavored

00:15:42.220 to do a follow-up segment, which had an acknowledgement that, hey, there are people

00:15:47.000 out there that agree with J.K.

00:15:48.620 Rowling.

00:15:49.480 And this is, I think, an important development in the story, that there was an acknowledgement

00:15:54.020 that, yes, we screwed up.

00:15:55.260 They tried to right the wrong, but it doesn't deal with the fact that this happened in the

00:15:59.760 first place, that a news show in general, but especially a kids-focused news show, would

00:16:05.120 take the unequivocal position that it's wrong to say women menstruate and only women menstruate

00:16:11.240 as though this is, first off, something that can be simplified to a two-minute segment, but

00:16:16.740 also the idea that no perspectives except theirs are valid.

00:16:20.240 And that was the danger in this.

00:16:22.160 And for a show that's targeting children as young as six years old, this isn't me clutching

00:16:26.220 my pearls and being all indignant and doing the whole, won't somebody think of the children

00:16:30.680 thing.

00:16:31.340 But it is me acknowledging that had they not been caught, had they not been criticized,

00:16:36.260 which at the risk of thumping our chest, True North was the one that drew attention

00:16:39.680 to this.

00:16:40.440 Had that not happened, this would have gone on and all the kids that might never have even

00:16:44.620 heard of the trans fight or the woke wars or the culture battles or the canceling of

00:16:48.760 2020 would have just had in their minds this idea that, oh yeah, okay, I guess you aren't

00:16:54.100 allowed to have that position.

00:16:56.360 And that's the danger in it.

00:16:57.520 When people try to take certain ideas off the table and we're living in a climate now

00:17:03.360 and in an era where everyone's trying to be woke, companies are bending over backwards

00:17:07.620 to say that they are trying to be progressive and diverse and all of this.

00:17:11.820 And the thing that I find amusing is when the snake starts eating its own tail here.

00:17:17.480 And we saw this a couple of weeks ago with Lady Antebellum saying that they realized that

00:17:22.200 Antebellum has had very unpleasant connotations with the South.

00:17:26.280 So they were changing their name to Lady A.

00:17:28.660 And then they found out that, as we all did, there's a blues singer who is herself a black

00:17:34.320 woman or a person of color, as we say now, named Lady A, who's been performing under

00:17:39.700 that name for 20 years.

00:17:41.120 Well, now Lady Antebellum is suing Lady A. 1.00

00:17:45.380 Yes, the band that so woke they had to drop the Antebellum from their name is now suing

00:17:50.760 the black singer that's had that name for 20 years, trying to get established by a court

00:17:56.420 that they can use Lady A and it doesn't infringe on her copyright and that she can't stop them

00:18:01.920 from taking her name.

00:18:04.300 The singer's name is Anita White, but her stage name has been used for decades now.

00:18:09.200 And she's now calling them out saying, well, hang on, to say that you can erase my legacy,

00:18:15.020 erase my past and just take my name like that is white privilege.

00:18:19.720 Now, I'm inclined to agree with her that it's wrong.

00:18:22.620 Maybe it's not white privilege, but it certainly is some woke hypocrisy here from people that

00:18:28.220 are claiming that they're so woke that they are going to do what they can to drop the problematic

00:18:33.520 tendencies of their name while actually harming a real black woman in the process. 0.69

00:18:39.000 And they're saying that this is progress.

00:18:40.880 They're saying that this is their commitment to combating racism.

00:18:44.160 So it's hypocrisy and it's wokeness that extends just so far as to not cause an inconvenience

00:18:50.440 to the person claiming that we all need to do better.

00:18:53.460 And this is, I think, a case where I hope Anita White, who I'd never heard of,

00:18:57.660 but I listened to some of her music and she's actually quite talented.

00:19:00.680 I also like Lady Antebellum historically.

00:19:03.480 I've liked their music, but I'm on team Lady A, not Lady Antebellum that wants to be

00:19:08.900 Lady A on this one because she's just been doing her own thing. 1.00

00:19:12.580 And now these people that try to claim they're the anti-racist are going after her because

00:19:16.940 they decided they needed to look woke.

00:19:19.000 And it wasn't enough to just say, hey, we're not racist and we're not going to be racist.

00:19:23.460 And our band name is our band name.

00:19:25.620 They had to take it, take someone else's and expect them to just move out of the way for

00:19:30.340 them, which is a great metaphor for the culture crusading left in 2020.

00:19:34.600 We have to take another break.

00:19:36.720 We'll be back with Jay Cameron from the Justice Center about a constitutional fight for firearms

00:19:41.800 rights.

00:19:42.440 Stay tuned.

00:19:42.880 That's up next.

00:19:46.540 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:19:53.460 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:19:59.780 We talked about this a couple of months ago, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights

00:20:04.280 putting a legal challenge forward against the Trudeau government's sweeping ban on a number

00:20:10.420 of types of firearms, not just the AR-15, which is I think the model that the media tended

00:20:15.220 to focus on or the models rather, but a number of guns that are used regularly for a great

00:20:20.480 many purposes from hunting to sport shooting and with the stroke of a pen banned.

00:20:25.400 Now, we don't yet know what the legal challenge is going to bring.

00:20:29.160 It's certainly an uphill battle.

00:20:30.700 I think the CCFR even realizes that.

00:20:33.700 But there's a new intervener in the case, or rather a group applying to be an intervener,

00:20:38.020 and that is the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:20:41.180 Now, in the interest of disclosure, the JCCF is also representing True North and myself in a

00:20:47.000 completely unrelated case against the Leaders Debates Commission, but I make no secret of

00:20:51.480 the fact that I've been a long supporter of what it is that they stand up for.

00:20:55.520 Joining me on the line now about this is Jay Cameron, who is taking up this case for the

00:21:00.760 JCCF.

00:21:02.000 Jay, good to talk to you.

00:21:02.840 Thanks for coming on.

00:21:03.900 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:21:05.580 So let's first off start off with the obvious here.

00:21:08.500 I've not known the Justice Center for being involved on firearms issues before.

00:21:12.960 Why is this the one that you want to get involved in?

00:21:15.260 We're concerned about the way that this has occurred.

00:21:19.400 The only reason that Justin Trudeau has any political authority, any national authority

00:21:25.080 at all, is because of the democratic system which put him into power.

00:21:29.240 And yet, at every turn, he has sought to avoid the scrutiny of the democratically elected

00:21:34.860 representatives of Canadians.

00:21:37.640 And so instead of putting this matter to Parliament and having a debate and a study and public feedback,

00:21:45.260 essentially what happened is overnight with the stroke of the pen, like you said, without

00:21:50.100 any democratic checks and balances, all of a sudden, firearms which had been legal and

00:21:56.120 had been legal for decades are suddenly illegal just because Justin Trudeau and his cabinet

00:22:02.260 says so.

00:22:03.340 And so we're concerned about the use of executive power, which is not how the Constitution is set up.

00:22:12.900 There's checks and balances so that the democratic representatives of people get to have a say

00:22:19.300 regarding what occurs to the citizens of the country.

00:22:22.720 And this is not just an administrative challenge.

00:22:26.820 This is a charter challenge, correct?

00:22:29.220 There are charter elements to the CCFR's challenge.

00:22:33.340 They've pledged Section 15 and Section 7 of the charter.

00:22:38.560 So there is that element.

00:22:39.700 My question on this is that we don't have in Canada a constitutionally enshrined right to bear arms.

00:22:45.820 So where is the case against the government on this to say they don't have the right to make the

00:22:50.920 changes that they did?

00:22:52.680 Well, so there is a separation of powers and government between parliament and the executive

00:22:58.880 being cabinet and the judiciary.

00:23:01.320 And the reason for that is so that you don't have a government that can just run around doing

00:23:06.400 whatever it wants willy-nilly without checks and balances, without any oversight.

00:23:10.780 And so that's our main concern here.

00:23:15.060 But there are other arguments.

00:23:16.260 First of all, the firearms in question are legal or had been legal for many decades.

00:23:23.880 They haven't been used in criminal activities.

00:23:27.120 And they are capable of being used for hunting purposes and for collecting and for sport shooting

00:23:34.180 and those types of things.

00:23:35.820 And so the criminal code says that cabinet cannot redefine firearms that were previously lawful as prohibited

00:23:44.360 if they are capable of use in these areas.

00:23:48.620 And they clearly are.

00:23:50.140 And the other thing is that the firearms that were banned, the government says that these specific 1,500 firearms

00:23:59.580 are banned and variants thereof.

00:24:01.420 And that word is not defined.

00:24:02.720 And so now you have the RCMP, again, behind closed doors without any public consultation,

00:24:07.100 without any oversight, reclassifying firearms that were legal simply based on the RCMP's,

00:24:15.880 their interpretation of the word variant.

00:24:20.400 And so there's a lack of sunshine.

00:24:23.920 There's a lack of checks and balances.

00:24:27.000 This isn't how the law is supposed to work.

00:24:28.860 And on that basis, we're applying to come in.

00:24:32.420 And there was a point in a press release from the Justice Centre that I thought was an important one,

00:24:36.880 and you, I think, alluded to it there, that the RCMP does not have a legislative mandate.

00:24:41.960 But under what the government's done, they're basically able to exact an authority

00:24:47.200 to start adding new variants or so-called variants to the banned list.

00:24:51.960 That's right.

00:24:52.340 And so that's resulted in .22 rifles and shotguns and things like that that function in exactly the same way

00:25:02.120 as legal firearms, that are still legal today, being now prohibited.

00:25:07.880 And so there's little rhyme or reason or no rhyme or reason to what is occurring.

00:25:14.020 It seems to be heavy on politics, little on sense.

00:25:17.920 And those are our concerns.

00:25:19.480 Now, you're applying for intervener status, and you're not going to be party to the actual CCFR case.

00:25:27.380 Is the goal to bring an aspect of the discussion or of the legal arguments that they're not bringing,

00:25:33.300 or is it really to bring some extra weight behind what they've put forward in their initial application to the court?

00:25:38.620 The Justice Centre has developed expertise in how the Constitution works.

00:25:46.320 And the Constitution divides power between Parliament and the provincial legislatures on certain things,

00:25:52.320 but it does not apportion power to Cabinet for Cabinet to do whatever it wants.

00:25:57.180 And so the trend in Canada, both provincially and federally, of legislating through the executive

00:26:07.460 as opposed to through democratically elected representatives, that's a problem.

00:26:13.200 And you see it in a number of different areas,

00:26:18.200 including with the current reign of public health officials as opposed to legislatures.

00:26:24.020 Yeah, that's a very good point.

00:26:27.360 And I think in a lot of cases, we would ask that our elected leaders certainly take many cues from the experts

00:26:33.260 or the so-called experts, but they're still the ones that are elected to do things.

00:26:37.400 They're the ones that have a mandate.

00:26:38.640 They're the ones that can be voted out.

00:26:40.220 So when you have a complete outsourcing of a lot of things to so-called experts,

00:26:44.700 whether it's, I mean, you mentioned public health or in this case, the RCMP,

00:26:47.900 it does take something and make it more undemocratic.

00:26:52.140 It does.

00:26:53.040 And it gets rid of checks and balances as well.

00:26:56.080 So you have, again, on the public health front, that's not the subject of this interview,

00:27:01.060 but what expertise does a public health official, a doctor, have in running a province?

00:27:07.900 Do they understand the constitution?

00:27:09.660 Do they understand the economy?

00:27:11.400 Do they understand the impact of trade and tourism and commerce?

00:27:15.560 They don't have training in any of these things.

00:27:17.840 And that's why you have an elected body of legislators who study bills and who have public

00:27:23.960 consultation and then have a democratic vote regarding the laws that are going to affect

00:27:30.500 the populace.

00:27:31.820 And so anytime you have the suspension of democracy, you have a lack of checks and balances.

00:27:37.140 And that takes you back to a time period of oppression that is more like government in the Middle 0.91

00:27:42.760 Ages by ministerial fiat or by the rules of kings or religious figures, then you have democracy. 0.63

00:27:51.140 It's backwards, not formal.

00:27:52.200 Is there much case law on this?

00:27:54.420 Is there much precedent that really you think helps the court establish that this move was

00:28:00.240 unconstitutional and was legally invalid?

00:28:02.740 I think that there is case law.

00:28:05.400 I think that you have to go all the way back to the War Measures Act and the internment of

00:28:10.460 Japanese prisoners before you get this sort of executive power, the use of this sort of 0.97

00:28:19.060 power by cabinet.

00:28:21.440 The parliament is available to sit and to study, but Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have sought

00:28:27.760 to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on a variety of issues, and this is one of them.

00:28:32.980 And so the argument at some point must be made and has been made in the past, that this

00:28:41.420 sort of executive action, apart from the scrutiny of democratically elected representatives, is

00:28:48.400 an unconstitutional use of power.

00:28:50.720 It's a dictatorship, ultimately.

00:28:52.080 I wanted to go back to something you indicated earlier on about the vagueness of the term

00:28:57.760 variant.

00:28:58.300 And there's also, I think, a bit of wordplay going on from the government in this, from

00:29:03.020 the cabinet, on guns that aren't used for hunting.

00:29:06.500 Because, I mean, ultimately, as it stands now, a lot of non-restricted guns are used for

00:29:11.000 hunting, but the liberals have unilaterally decided that the ones they've wanted to ban

00:29:15.420 weren't.

00:29:16.200 And we saw this narrative play out politically when Bill Blair was talking about guns that

00:29:21.220 are used for killing people and, you know, guns that are only designed for one purpose.

00:29:25.820 But just because they are saying that doesn't make that true.

00:29:30.140 And I wonder how much force there is behind a lot of those claims, because I don't think

00:29:35.160 a lot of people understood, certainly not those who aren't lawyers themselves, that they

00:29:39.720 were really laying out, it sounded like a legal argument as much as a PR argument there,

00:29:43.960 to deflect against the challenge that's going before them right now.

00:29:47.540 Right.

00:29:48.880 And the list of 1,500 firearms, which was originally cobbled together, was obviously

00:29:56.860 put together in haste.

00:29:58.880 It's not well considered.

00:30:00.900 It's almost random.

00:30:03.200 And like I said, it makes a little rhyme or reason.

00:30:06.260 And yet, but you have the talking point that this is saving lives.

00:30:09.920 Well, these are lawful property owners who have been in possession of these items for

00:30:14.760 many years, many decades, and they have relied on the rule of law to found their understanding

00:30:22.260 of their right to purchase, their right to possess, their right to store.

00:30:27.320 And that's the purpose of the law, is that so people can understand what their rights are,

00:30:32.380 and so that the government can understand the limits of its power.

00:30:35.640 And right now what you have is Justin Trudeau's government rewriting the law without parliamentary

00:30:40.820 oversight for political purposes.

00:30:44.480 And it's not a proper use of law.

00:30:48.580 More broadly, I mean, while we don't have a constitutional right to bear arms in Canada,

00:30:53.420 there is certainly a lot of precedent for people having guns and the peaceful enjoyment of their

00:30:59.640 property and all of that.

00:31:01.220 Has there been much of a legal test to firearms ownership against government overreach?

00:31:06.820 What I've always heard, and again, this is not based on any sort of legal analysis, is

00:31:11.900 that the government has fairly broad powers, and that the way firearms laws in Canada are

00:31:16.360 structured is that ownership is more of a privilege that could be taken away at the government's

00:31:21.180 whim.

00:31:21.740 Has that really been tested, or is this going to be a somewhat landmark case in that regard?

00:31:26.460 I think it's going to be, this case is going to make new law.

00:31:30.200 And so the idea that the government can just take anything away from you, where is the line

00:31:36.360 on that?

00:31:37.080 Can they take their life?

00:31:38.500 Right?

00:31:38.680 Is there a right to life?

00:31:39.800 Well, there is.

00:31:40.700 There's a right to life.

00:31:41.880 But if the government is interfering in your ability to defend yourself, for example, rural

00:31:46.540 property owners, you know, response times are very, very long with the police.

00:31:53.520 And you have out-of-control property crime, and you have a movement, many people crying

00:31:58.180 that there shouldn't be police at all.

00:32:00.820 Let's defund all police.

00:32:03.060 And let's have a complete lack of enforcement mechanism for the laws of the country.

00:32:10.580 And so in that context, then CCFR is raising the Section 7 issue, life, liberty, and security

00:32:16.860 of the person.

00:32:18.960 I'll leave them to make comments on that.

00:32:21.040 But I think that there are arguments to be made on that front.

00:32:23.340 That's not the arguments that the Justice Center is going to be making, but there are

00:32:26.460 arguments to be made.

00:32:28.540 So how likely is it that, obviously, I know you're hoping to be granted intervener status.

00:32:34.240 How likely is it that we have this done with everything going on in the world relatively

00:32:39.020 soon?

00:32:39.540 I know it seems like the justice system, which already does not necessarily tend towards

00:32:44.180 expediency, is further delayed with what the world's going through.

00:32:48.120 Right.

00:32:48.800 I don't know.

00:32:49.660 Of course, no dates have been set.

00:32:51.500 And I'm in communication with counsel for CCFR.

00:32:55.420 And the process will move forward as it does.

00:32:59.840 But I don't have any timeline yet.

00:33:02.300 All right.

00:33:02.600 Well, I appreciate you coming on to talk about it.

00:33:05.420 And I also appreciate you taking the initiative to take up this case.

00:33:08.240 As a gun owner myself and someone who owns one of the 1500 variants, I have a vested interest

00:33:15.020 in this.

00:33:15.480 So thanks very much, Jay.

00:33:16.500 My pleasure, Andrew.

00:33:17.560 Thank you.

00:33:18.460 Jay Cameron from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:33:21.560 We'll have more of The Andrew Lawton Show up next.

00:33:23.640 Stay tuned.

00:33:25.500 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:29.240 Welcome back.

00:33:30.100 Just as we close things out here, you know, COVID-19 has made the world a very different

00:33:34.620 place, in particular in Niagara Falls, where a strip club is set to reopen with one small

00:33:40.980 caveat.

00:33:42.460 No strippers.

00:33:43.900 Yes, this story comes from the Welland Tribune.

00:33:46.660 The sundowner, sundowner, sundowner on Lundy's Lane is reopening.

00:33:51.720 And they have a covered patio that they're able to do.

00:33:55.160 They have a stripper pole in the middle of the space. 1.00

00:33:57.420 However, no strippers, because regional health inspectors are going to be making sure that

00:34:02.380 no COVID-19 lockdown measures are being violated.

00:34:05.980 So it's opening for the scantily clad waitresses alone, according to the Welland Tribune. 1.00

00:34:12.600 It will be opening as a food service venue.

00:34:15.880 And that's that.

00:34:17.160 So you got to wait until stage three to have the strippers there. 1.00

00:34:20.440 But stage two, you can have scantily clad servers, apparently. 1.00

00:34:24.120 And you know, when I read this story, I'm thinking that like this is going to shatter

00:34:27.620 the myth that anyone may have been putting forward that they go to these places for the

00:34:31.700 food.

00:34:31.960 It's like reading Playboy for the articles, I suppose.

00:34:34.460 So if you were there and there were no strippers there, you can't demand your money back because

00:34:38.540 they gave you a fair warning.

00:34:40.040 We've got to wrap things up for today.

00:34:41.740 My thanks to all of you for coming on and also to Jay Cameron for his role in the show.

00:34:47.160 We'll be back in a couple of days with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:34:51.280 Thank you.

00:34:51.900 God bless and good day, Canada.

00:34:53.660 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:34:55.720 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:35:00.920 We'll see you next time.

00:35:03.280 We'll see you next time.

00:35:07.500 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - July 14, 2020

A WE Boondoggle

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