00:02:29.140Some of our old friends, the cast of characters you see on the show, like Chris Sims and Aaron Woodrick, will be dropping by in person.
00:02:36.180We'll also hopefully find some current, former, and perhaps future politicians.
00:02:40.120and then we'll just basically grab anyone who looks interesting who happens to be walking by
00:02:44.900the studio. I say studio, by our booth. If they seem interesting, we'll grab them on. So if you
00:02:50.800are uninteresting and you walk back and forth like seven or eight times and we don't pull you in,
00:02:54.560I'm sorry, you just didn't make the cut. But do keep an eye out for that coverage from True North
00:02:59.420over the next few days. One thing I will also bring up here is that I know many of you were
00:03:04.540observing the great eclipse yesterday. Like I said, I'm in Ottawa, so we weren't in the
00:03:08.900path of totality, but I was still like panicking not to look up just accidentally. I felt, so I
00:03:14.780was really tired yesterday. I didn't get a lot of sleep two nights ago. By the end of the day
00:03:18.140yesterday, I was, my eyes were hurting because they had just been open for far too long. And I
00:03:23.900had that moment of panic of like, wait, did I look at the eclipse? Is this why I was getting all
00:03:28.200paranoid? Do I have the long eclipse? Someone who does not have long eclipse is our good friend,
00:03:34.020Dr. Nilly Kaplan-Mirth. She is, I'm in her city, so I have to pay tribute to her. Nilly Kaplan-Mirth
00:03:40.100is an Ottawa school trustee, and she had her Eclipse goggles ready to go yesterday.
00:03:49.960Ah, yeah, she was, as she says in the post, they're trying to troll the anti-science,
00:03:56.400what is it, the anti-sci, I can't read that word, she's trying to, the nitwits,
00:04:00.540The anti-science nitwits because she has the progress pride flag, the eclipse glasses, and the N95 mask while she is outside.
00:04:08.940Now, the joke is on her because I suspect she'll be wearing those eclipse glasses basically for the next 10 years anytime she is stepping outside.
00:04:17.840So that's something that we should definitely keep an eye out, no pun intended, for there.
00:04:22.980Let me just bring up first and foremost here why I think we are missing the boat on a lot of what government's doing.
00:04:29.380So the big climate change file is one that, according to some activists, the federal government is not spending enough money on.
00:04:38.280Yeah, this was a story that True North has kept an eye on.
00:04:56.280I hadn't heard of it before they came out with this report saying that the Liberal government has spent, well, I think it was about $39 billion on climate change stuff in the last nine years.
00:05:09.360$39 billion fighting against climate change.
00:05:11.600And you may think, oh, wow, that sounds like a lot of money.
00:05:14.140I'm glad they're calling the government out on that.
00:05:17.480They're saying that is just a drop in the bucket.
00:05:20.500The government should have been spending more, and the government has only spent about 70% of what it said it was going to spend.
00:05:27.560So their issue is that the federal government has spent not enough, that they've only spent this money on climate change, and they're actually short by about $14 billion.
00:05:39.000So they need to throw more money at the weather, more money on this file, so that they will be able to do what exactly?
00:06:07.480Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau have not committed to there being no new taxes.
00:06:11.980They say there won't be new taxes for the middle class,
00:06:14.880but they aren't saying there won't be new taxes in general.
00:06:18.320And I think this is something that we always need to keep an eye on because definitions matter.
00:06:22.840What they define as middle class and what they define as being wealthy and subject to increased taxation may differ from what ordinary Canadians who are forced to deal with the rising cost of living have to say about these questions.
00:06:36.500So that's definitely something that we should be watching here on the upcoming budget.
00:06:41.460And I would also point out that the government is still not dealing with the very imminent and immediate relief.
00:06:48.320The people are seeking from it when it comes to the carbon tax. And again, I mean, I know this has been like the broken record subject. We've had carbon tax stories on the show most days, most weeks for the last several months because there was obviously a big lead up to this.
00:07:03.080the conservatives decided to make this their hill to die on there was that glimmer of hope when
00:07:07.160everyone took to the streets on april 1st across the country and in alberta as my colleague rachel
00:07:12.460emmanuel has been reporting they are still protesting about a week and a half on this
00:07:16.940increase to the carbon tax they're out there all over the province and it's been going on for
00:07:21.560several well for over a week now but all of that is to say the government has been unflinching on
00:07:28.360this. They have decided to make the carbon tax their hill to stand on. It was a weird one for
00:07:33.600the Liberal government to have some little bit of round of principles on, but they've decided to
00:07:38.480stick firm on this and continue defending that carbon tax. Now, what's been interesting to see
00:07:45.140is the erosion of federalism here. Now, provincial premiers are supposed to have, in theory, a co-equal
00:07:53.520political relationship with the federal government. It's not that the federal government
00:07:57.280is overseeing provinces. It's that the federal government has its area of jurisdiction. The
00:08:02.780provincial governments have their area of jurisdiction. And the prime minister is really
00:08:06.980supposed to be the first among equals in a lot of ways, where they will have first minister's
00:08:11.920meetings. First minister's meetings means that the premiers and the prime minister... So I should
00:08:17.440actually point out here, in French, premier and prime minister are the same. It's premier ministre.
00:08:23.340So Premier and Prime Minister are actually the same role.
00:08:26.760You could call Justin Trudeau the Premier of Canada.
00:08:29.420You could call Doug Ford the Prime Minister of Ontario.
00:08:32.100We don't, but those terms actually used to be more interchangeable, certainly more than
00:08:47.440When he wants to impose a carbon tax, he looks to the provinces and says, you guys have to
00:08:52.640fall in line on this. And I think that's incredibly dangerous because right now you
00:08:57.700have six premiers that are saying, we want a first ministers meeting. We want all the first
00:09:02.760ministers of this country to come together, all 14, 10 provinces, three territories, one federal
00:09:07.460government. We want them all to come together and have it out over this carbon tax. Let's have an
00:09:12.240emergency meeting. And Justin Trudeau's answer to this is, well, you know, we kind of, we already
00:09:19.640did this didn't we we we did when did we do it oh uh yeah 2016. so eight years ago you had a meeting
00:09:27.160discussed the carbon tax and by the way changes of government have been mounting since then
00:09:32.520alberta has gone through two premiers since then every province has had one in some cases two
00:09:37.720elections since then and we're supposed to just be happy that oh well yeah we already talked about
00:09:42.120that it's a fait accompli it's done yeah it's done no point in discussing it further well
00:09:47.240that's not cutting it for many of the provincial governments in this country and you know the
00:09:53.160reason that this has been such an interesting tactic from the conservatives is because the
00:09:58.360liberals are still with the ndp trying to have the discussion about anything other than what ordinary
00:10:03.640canadians are having it about so you may have seen over the weekend true north ran a story about this
00:10:08.440alex jones who is the the head of info wars decided to have some kind words to say about
00:10:14.840Pierre Polyev. Now, it was kind of reported by some people as an endorsement. It really wasn't
00:10:19.500a formal endorsement. It was a vote of confidence. It was an endorsement in the broad sense, but not
00:10:24.840like a, I hereby declare, I throw my support behind this guy. But he had put out a tweet when
00:10:30.440he said, yeah, I've been following this guy for a while. He's the real deal. And oh man,
00:10:34.560the liberal machine just like went apoplectic on this, including outgoing new Democrat MP,
00:10:40.100Charlie Angus. This government promised to ban the AR-15. That's the weapon that was used to murder
00:10:47.12026-year-old children at Sandy Hook. And yet on Thursday, the Conservative leader was tweeting
00:10:53.240that the government wasn't going after the AR-15, but hunting rifles. So little wonder he gets
00:10:58.080endorsed by Alex Jones, who's notorious for taunting families of children murdered by the
00:11:03.860AR-15. So will the minister confirm, is the government going after hunting rifles or the
00:11:08.700AR-15, or is this the Conservative leader being the quote, real deal of disinformation for the
00:11:13.520likes of Alex Jones? The Honourable Minister of Public Service, our public safety.
00:11:21.700Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question and salute his long service
00:11:26.740in this House on behalf of the people of Mayor of Ontario. Mr. Speaker, I share...
00:11:33.400I've never had that much applause, Mr. Speaker, in the House before.
00:11:40.240Mr. Speaker, I share our colleagues' concern about the Conservative policy with respect to gun control.
00:11:46.500We have said from the beginning, law-abiding hunters and sportspersons are not the subject of these regulations.
00:11:53.580Mr. Speaker, what we're doing is taking away guns that were designed to kill people on the battlefield,
00:11:59.660field. And we're also prepared to compensate the people that bought those guns lawfully.
00:12:04.280It's something the Conservative Party will undo and we're committed to keeping Canadians safe.
00:12:09.720It's something the Conservative Party will undo. The Conservatives all should have said
00:12:13.240here, here when he said that. He was just setting them up for it. It's a weird thing because the
00:12:19.200Liberals love talking about this issue. The NDP and them are great partners on this. They can talk
00:12:23.400about, ooh, assault rifles, ooh, assault guns. One of my colleagues points out the usage of the
00:12:28.960words sports persons. You can't say sportsman anymore. It's sports persons, sports people kind
00:12:34.360and all of that. But the reality is it's hilarious when Dominic LeBlanc, the public safety minister
00:12:40.120there says this is not going after people who are law abiding gun owners. And then,
00:12:45.140oh, we're compensating people who bought these guns lawfully.
00:12:49.360Wait, so you're admitting that people who bought these guns lawfully are being targeted by the
00:12:55.660so-called gun buyback because it's only the people that bought them lawfully that have to turn those
00:12:59.620guns into the government so it's a weird inconsistency and just to contrast it with
00:13:05.340yesterday's show when i spoke to the new cfo the new chief firearms officer of saskatchewan as well
00:13:11.160as the firearms commissioner that is murray cowan and robert freeberg respectively and they were
00:13:17.100talking about how their province has decided to put the law-abiding gun owners that community in
00:13:21.500Saskatchewan front and center with their approach. You contrast that with the federal government where
00:13:25.780everything is about the way to antagonize lawful gun owners and also gun businesses. And this has
00:13:32.080been something I've been harping on for quite some time. You may have seen, I did a documentary
00:13:36.000a couple of years back called Assaulted, Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners. And in that one
00:13:41.680episode was devoted to gun businesses, people that set up shop, they did everything right,
00:13:47.220They play by the rules and they were saddled with, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory, which still, after four years, they have been unable to do anything with because of this gun reclassification and the inability for the government to put its so-called buyback into force.
00:14:05.600Now, one of the techniques that the government was going to do was working with firearms industry members, working with firearms stores, and find a way to get these businesses to be able to offload their inventory legally.
00:14:20.300Now, this was something that they'd worked out a deal with the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, and actually the CSAAA got a fair bit of pushback from some members of the gun community for agreeing to be a part of this.
00:14:32.260And I want to get to that in this interview here, but the president of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, Wes Winkle, has said it's clear the government is in over its head here.
00:14:42.160They bit off more than it could chew. Take your cliche, put it there. It fits.
00:14:46.300The government just is floundering and doesn't know what to do to make up for this ambitious goal it set out now, again, almost four years ago to the day.
00:14:55.360Wes Winkle joins us again. Good to talk to you again, Wes. Thanks for coming on today.
00:15:02.260oh i'm not hearing you there i think you might be muted oh it's this okay i hear you now you hear
00:15:09.080me now okay so let me just start off with some of the criticism that you've got because i know
00:15:14.700there have been a number of gun activists that i believe operating good faith that
00:15:18.540when your organization agreed to work with the government on this thought that it was akin to
00:15:23.660selling out absolutely yeah we uh were aware that we were going to receive some pushback on it
00:15:29.980we're in a real catch-22 we we have businesses that have these firearms registered to their
00:15:34.380inventory uh these these firearms are not saleable they are very expensive to insure
00:15:41.340they've been stuck for a long time as unsaleable inventory and we have a lot of members that are
00:15:46.860trying to find a way to get their capital out of them and reinvest it in other parts of our
00:15:51.260industry and to try to keep their businesses going uh we of course as an association and
00:15:57.020you know as business owners want nothing more for this law to be reversed and just to be allowed to
00:16:01.260sell our inventory again but there's a reality that businesses have to deal with and right now
00:16:05.260that reality is we can't do that so we've always as an industry group have asked the federal
00:16:11.100government to consult us on any laws or policy or any change to policy and in this case when they
00:16:16.940reached out and asked us to consult it's very difficult to ask to be consulted and then to
00:16:21.100turn around and thumb your nose when you're asked so we had a vote as a board of directors and and
00:16:25.900had a unanimous agreement that we would enter into discussions and try to negotiate the best
00:16:32.380deal we could inside of a terrible situation and that's kind of where we're at we have no interest
00:16:38.860or any part of wanting to assist the government in buying back individuals guns or to get in the way
00:16:44.380of a gun confiscation program with with people that own these firearms at home and want to keep
00:16:48.780them we have nothing to do with that this is just strictly to deal with the dealer's inventory and
00:16:53.500for those that don't realize this is all registered in ledgers it's something that everyone knows what
00:16:58.780we have and it's when the amnesty expires they have to be dealt with and these businesses already
00:17:05.100we've seen so many go out of business we're just trying to help some of these businesses that are
00:17:08.540floundering with this inventory and i know there was reporting of the the value of this agreement
00:17:14.460that was not money that your organization was receiving from the government correct
00:17:18.300Correct. We, again, didn't want our businesses to have to pay for doing any of the federal government's legwork. We're liaisoning with the businesses to try to assist them in this venture. But at the same time, we didn't want them to have to pay for it through the association's donations or money.
00:17:37.020So we only agreed to do it if the government would recompensate us for all of our expenses in this project.
00:17:43.740So that's where the total contract value was posted of what could possibly the expenses get up to.
00:17:51.080But we're only getting reimbursed for our expenditures.
00:17:55.520So to bring it outside of your organization specifically and talk about the effect on businesses, how are the business owners on this?
00:18:04.880Because I know some are fire breathing activists that are saying, you know, they're kind of like the cold dead hands types that just want to fight this tooth and nail.
00:18:11.400Whereas others, I suspect, are like you just described.
00:18:14.260They're like, listen, I just want to run my business as it stands right now.
00:18:17.680I can't do anything with this inventory, so I want to offload it.
00:18:22.200Well, there is definitely a little bit of a split there.
00:18:24.980There's a faction of businesses and we knew that they existed.
00:18:29.240And, you know, it's one of those things where it's a divisive subject for us because we have to go with what the majority of businesses in our feedback wanted.
00:18:38.960And, you know, there are some that are that cold, dead hands mantra.
00:18:44.100And to be honest, I commend them on their conviction on it.
00:18:47.920But at the same point, we have businesses that have extremely large volumes of this inventory,
00:18:53.660whether they be distributors that had hundreds of thousands of dollars or manufacturers that
00:18:58.980hundreds of thousands of dollars, these inventory that just don't have the ability to say,
00:19:04.060I can't participate in this. They, they need a way to get out of this. Like I said,
00:19:09.720we've had businesses that have reported that just to ensure this inventory has cost them $20,000 a
00:19:14.800year. So obviously we have that large disclaimer where we have that problem. So yeah, we've,
00:19:22.220we've definitely um tried to get uh uh the best deal we can for those businesses involved
00:19:29.660and yeah there's some that uh we're unhappy and they want us to never have a conversation with
00:19:33.900the federal government and we understand that we're very frustrated with the amount of attack
00:19:39.420we've received from this current federal government but at the same time uh it's hard to become uh
00:19:45.900an industry representative or a lobby group if you refuse to talk to the people in charge
00:19:49.660So when I did my documentary about this a couple of years ago, there was one store owner I spoke to was in Peterborough or just outside.
00:19:58.220And I can't remember the name of the business, but the gentleman I spoke to was Jeff Toomes.
00:20:03.580And one of the things that he had shared, which I thought was incredibly concerning, was that the initial order and counsel came out in May of 2020.
00:20:13.060He immediately pivots and says, OK, we're going to buy a bunch of this other gun that's kind of similar that people will like.
00:20:18.600And then two weeks later, that one's also prohibited. So he attempts to get around the one issue that the government has created. And in the end, he's doubled his problems here. Has the government expressed any contrition for just how arbitrary this is, and how dangerous it is for business owners that actually don't know how to navigate around this when even things they do to try to adapt and mitigate end up screwing them even further?
00:20:43.720and they have not i mean this is part of the real problem with the legislation that minister
00:20:49.840blair brought forward back in the day is that uh through the order of council and the subsequent
00:20:54.820legislation you're banning a style of firearms so there's no mechanical definition for what is
00:21:00.380prohibited and therefore it's an arbitrary decision by a panel of people and it's very
00:21:06.440difficult for us to know as an industry what is and what is not going to be prohibited when you
00:21:11.480start saying stuff like of modern design and stuff like that like what does that mean and nobody
00:21:17.500really knows and we have some we have some very interesting discussion topics inside here of
00:21:26.440whether a firearm will be allowed or not and then there's times where we get notification that it's
00:21:31.320classified as non-restricted which means we can sell it and then it changes again down the road
00:21:36.200when there's more volume of this gun getting imported so it's a very difficult business
00:21:40.660environment and then what happens of course is our manufacturers that spend uh hundreds of
00:21:45.860thousands of dollars to pivot and to try to produce something for the canadian market that's
00:21:49.820viable and legal and then it gets prohibited as well they give up on trying to design guns for
00:21:54.740the canadian market and again that makes it very hard for our retailers to find product that we
00:22:00.260can sell legally to hunters and to target shooters that want to participate in the sports so uh yeah
00:22:07.200it's been extremely difficult. Canada has been a very frustrating thing for our manufacturers and
00:22:13.880a lot of them have just given up and turned their back on us as a country because they don't know
00:22:18.440how to participate in our market anymore. One thing that I wanted to ask about that
00:22:23.180as well and people that aren't gun owners may not realize this but a gun is not just a gun. I mean
00:22:27.900a gun can oftentimes be a base unit that people add a whole bunch of stuff to and modify. I mean
00:22:33.640For example, the much maligned AR-15, one of the reasons that gun is so appealing, that style of gun, it's not one model, is because it's modular and people will buy different parts for it.
00:22:44.320And when we talk about this in the context of the buyback, one of the points you raised, and I read this in a piece by Brian Passifium in the National Post, was that the government didn't even seem to realize that complexity with this and just how many thousands and thousands of parts there are that also may or may not fall under this buyback.
00:23:01.800And it's not even quite clear if they do.
00:23:03.640well for sure and and again you know with the bureaucrats involved in the system how could they
00:23:09.900have known there they weren't experts in this field and you know when the government did the
00:23:13.900knee-jerk reaction to bring this order and council forward and minister blair there was no consultation
00:23:18.540beforehand because it was a knee-jerk reaction and a very fast order and council brought forward
00:23:24.240so without consultation and understanding the topic that they're bringing legislation in on
00:23:28.900yeah, I actually feel for the bureaucrats in the system that are trying to navigate it afterwards
00:23:35.620because they get thrown a terrible file and say, clean this up. And it really isn't that easy to
00:23:43.320clean up. And now we're, as an industry and as a level of bureaucrats, everyone's trying to clean
00:23:50.600up the mess that Minister Blair made. So, I mean, we can't talk about this without addressing the
00:23:56.280political elephant in the room, which is that there could be an election theoretically at any
00:23:59.600point. They're scheduled to be an election by October of 2025. From your knowledge of this
00:24:06.360process, will this gun buyback even be in place and buying back? Again, I hate that term, but
00:24:12.760will that even be happening by October 2025? I would anticipate with the steps that have
00:24:20.860been put forward that there will be firearms purchased from businesses by that point in time.
00:24:28.200The one from the individuals, the guns that are in people's houses,
00:24:32.540I believe that that is a way more convoluted process.
00:24:36.960They're so spread out in a country as rural as Canada.
00:24:40.440I don't believe that process gets going by that point in time.
00:24:43.680I think that's why you've seen the amnesty get pushed out past the election.
00:24:47.320You know, I think, you know, when you've seen the amnesty date announced,
00:24:50.360it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this will probably be an election issue.
00:24:54.380You know, I think you'll have the the liberals saying, hey, you know, if you vote blue that, you know, this big, bad firearm would be back out in society.
00:25:04.580And, you know, I'm sure that's what the plan is and, you know, vice versa for the other side.
00:25:09.420But, you know, the reality is, is that these firearms have been stayed in people's cabinets from the day that they were prohibited.
00:28:57.220So it was a great honour to be involved in that.
00:29:00.020And I was actually quite pleased that when I was emceeing him,
00:29:03.180Justin Trudeau didn't just intervene and have the swearing-in cancelled.
00:29:06.200So Jamil still gets to be a member of Parliament.
00:29:08.760But Rahim, you have taken a very controversial research question here, and I was hoping you could explain it in your own words first, what you set out to look at and then, of course, what you found.
00:29:21.080Sure. So backing up a little bit, Canada, which is historically, I think it's fair to say, had a Christian heritage.
00:29:27.320It's becoming an increasingly pluralistic country religiously.
00:29:30.700According to the last census that was taken in 2021, we're at the point where about 50% of Canadians are Christian and the other 50% either identify with no religion or another religion.
00:29:42.420So I think as Canada becomes more religiously pluralistic, it's all the more important that you have strong norms and maintain strong norms of interfaith relations and interfaith civility.
00:29:56.300So one way that's been expressed in the past, so as you mentioned, Andrew, in your own hometown of London, Ontario, you had that terrible truck attack against that Pakistani Muslim family during the Quebec City Mosque attack.
00:30:09.880It's been a custom and I think an important one for religious groups from across the spectrum,
00:30:16.500you know, be they Jewish, Hindu, Christian, whatever, to put out a press release after
00:30:21.240something like that happens that will say, you know, we stand with the Muslim community.
00:30:27.160You know, we stand against religious hatred and religious violence in all forms.
00:30:31.740So we saw that, thankfully, after the Quebec City mosque shooting.
00:30:35.660And we saw that after the London, Ontario truck attack.
00:30:38.920October the 7th has been a different story.
00:30:41.660And I think it's fair to say the circumstances are somewhat different with October the 7th.
00:30:46.140It is an attack that took place on foreign soil.
00:30:48.940And fair enough, but a number of Canadians were killed on October the 7th.
00:30:52.600And a few of these were Canadians that were actively working with Palestinian groups as
00:30:59.900Others were young Canadians in their 20s that were there for the music festival in
00:31:04.800southern israel um so the fact that we haven't seen much in the way of condemnation or much in
00:31:10.900the way of regret uh from the muslim community muslim organized muslim groups in canada um
00:31:16.900surrounding if not the attack the loss of canadian life and uh you know the the many more canadians
00:31:22.660uh who lost members of their extended families on october the 7th um i don't think that bodes well
00:31:28.300for uh for religious pluralism and where interfaith relations are in canada at present
00:31:33.700And just to put a fine point on this, you're contrasting that with the fact that overwhelmingly Jewish groups, and you list who was in your sample here, were condemning those Quebec City and London, Ontario incidents almost unanimously.
00:31:47.740Sure. So even an organization like CJA, the Canadian Association of Jewish Affairs, which I would say is fairly Zionist, if you want to use that word, pro-Israel, right after Quebec City, they put out a statement right after the London, Ontario truck attack.
00:32:03.880within 24 hours, they put out a statement condemning each attack and condemning violence
00:32:10.200against Muslim Canadians. So they're able to separate violence on Muslim Canadians from the
00:32:16.360situation in the Middle East. And unfortunately, again, the detail is somewhat different. In
00:32:21.520October the 7th, it's nevertheless been somewhat underwhelming that very few organized Muslim
00:32:27.080groups have put out statements, either one condemning Hamas or at the very least expressing
00:32:35.780their condolences to those who lost family members during the October the 7th attack.
00:32:43.760No, so I agree with your core conclusion because I think there is a double standard here.
00:32:48.220I have a slight issue with the methodology in the sense that not only was October 7th
00:32:55.560foreign soil and i think your your caveat the canadians were involved is valid but there's
00:33:00.360also a much greater political context to is to hamas israel violence than i i would say there is
00:33:08.600in an attack by a lone wolf in london ontario or by one in quebec city and and maybe maybe i'm i'm
00:33:15.880you know i i'm just curious your thought about that because you must have considered it that
00:33:20.760that it's there are political stakes that are different when you're commenting on anything to
00:33:24.760do with israel that aren't there with a terrorist attack in canada so what i'd point to is the scale
00:33:31.800of october the 7th 1100 um so i believe about 3 000 american civilians were killed on september
00:33:39.640the 11th um so you're talking about uh scales you know in the thousands and um you talk about
00:33:44.920something like september 11th 2001 you know intellectually i understand the geopolitical
00:33:50.360dynamics uh that would lead to an attack on a major american target uh i think that's totally
00:33:56.920different from the 3 000 innocent civilians uh that lost their lives on september the 11th and
00:34:03.240i would say the same about um about october the 7th you know i understand the geopolitical uh
00:34:09.400dynamics at play i understand the complexities of the israel hamas conflict um that doesn't mean
00:34:15.480that um you know anything will justify the targeting civilians um and any that that doesn't
00:34:20.920in any way diminish the pain of people here in canada who've lost family members and friends
00:34:26.680on october the 7th and i think at the very least uh that grief and that suffering uh should be
00:34:32.680acknowledged um as part of interfaith relations as far as part of portality uh between uh religious
00:34:40.520communities here in canada no i think that's an incredibly well made and it's a well taken point
00:34:46.360as well and just looking outside of the event specific observations here i remember when m103
00:34:51.880came up which was the anti-islamophobia motion that was a debate i think it was about you know
00:34:56.200five or six years ago one of the things that was interesting there was a lot of jewish groups
00:35:00.440really stood shoulder to shoulder with muslim groups that are saying yes we need to combat
00:35:05.160islamophobia and then when the discussion shifted to anti-semitism a lot of that reciprocity was
00:35:10.200not there and certainly in the last six months hasn't been yeah i mean that's that's a little
00:35:14.840before my time to be honest i was in the united states so i remember tangentially uh that was
00:35:19.560going on but i didn't pay too close attention to that that whole debate fair enough and i guess i
00:35:26.280would ask what you'd think would happen if you expanded this outside of these uh you know
00:35:31.320casualty events events with casualties and looked even at smaller scale incidences like vandalism
00:35:37.480against mosques and synagogues. Because without having looked at it from a data perspective,
00:35:42.200it does seem like there's a great political imbalance in which ones attract the attention
00:35:47.160of national media, which ones attract the attention of the tweet from Justin Trudeau,
00:35:51.480for example. So is it True North that's been tracking church arson and vandalism?
00:35:58.200Yeah, my colleague Cosman Georgia has as well. And I think we're up to well over 100 now.
00:36:01.960Yeah. And I've heard maybe a handful of stories about that.
00:36:06.840I remember I think it might have been Jerry Butts tweeting something to the effect of, I understand what would make someone want to burn down a church.
00:36:14.260But at the same time, you know, so yeah, I mean, I have noticed and I think it's sort of it plays into this sort of EDI framework in which we see Jewish communities and Christian communities as somewhat privileged.
00:36:30.600And, you know, by virtue of that privilege, essentially asking for acts of intimidation, acts of antagonism, acts of hatred.
00:36:39.180I do agree with you that there's been a substantial imbalance and that church arson story has been incredibly underreported.
00:36:47.320One of the few times I've actually actually remember a church arson get a substantial amount of attention in the media was when it was a Coptic Christian church of that of mostly Egyptian Christian parishioners.
00:36:59.660And what you did have that sort of minoritized follower or that minoritized parishioner.
00:37:06.460So I will say I agree with you 100 percent that I think the reportings of, you know, when you see these actions targeting mosques or synagogues or churches, it has been inconsistent.
00:37:18.680Not that any of those of those things are OK.
00:37:21.880to bring it back to your analysis from the aristotle foundation i know you're looking at
00:37:27.000the data not necessarily the the motivations behind it but but just you know taking your
00:37:31.720political mind which i think is certainly a a superb one uh anyone who's read your column
00:37:36.680could say do you think the motivation here is just a a deep ideological view that these
00:37:42.440organizations hold or do you think it's a part of their own coalition and not wanting to alienate
00:37:49.000constituencies they have that make up part of their supporters for whom this will be an issue.
00:37:53.880Yeah. And I mean, one thing I will say is you've seen a lot of migration to Canada
00:37:58.360over the past 20 or so years from the Middle East. Barbara Kay has a great article about this,
00:38:04.920about how this relates to Quebec and Quebec wanting to stay French. And due to colonial
00:38:10.760dynamics, a number of pockets of the Middle East and North Africa have sizable communities that
00:38:18.520are francophone um so i think you are looking at leaderships uh within muslim organizations
00:38:25.320um you have different i think values among the first wave of muslim immigrants uh my parents uh
00:38:31.240came over from uganda we're smiling muslim we'd be part of it um and some of the newer arrivals
00:38:35.960um from let's say 1995 to present um and i do think part of the story um are these associations
00:38:42.120which you know rely on donations rely on uh maintaining and cultivating active membership
00:38:46.840bases, attempting to keep those bases together when you have potentially a plurality of viewpoints
00:38:54.780toward, you know, do we embrace a more Western pluralistic view of values or more of a hardline
00:39:02.520approach? Yeah, years ago, I was in Israel, and I was doing a, it wasn't a formal interview,
00:39:08.820but I was doing a roundtable, and there was a Palestinian radio host, and I was a radio host
00:39:12.860in canada at the time so i was interested in in his analysis and he had at the time it was 2015
00:39:18.360there had been this spate of knives of knife attacks against against israelis and you know
00:39:24.480he had said oh yeah he did a caller show a call-in show on his radio program in which he asked is it
00:39:30.760okay to stab jews in the streets and which is like a strange question that you would never ask
00:39:34.620a canadian radio we have that is it okay to punch a white supremacist remember that yeah yeah and
00:39:38.920And he was like 17. Yeah. And he was proud to tell me he's like, oh, but most said no. I'm like, Mo, like, so there is a constituency that would call into radio and say, yeah, yeah, you know, stabbing an Israeli is fine. And that, and that has stayed with me. Because when you talk about this, it's like, even a small contingent of these, of any community can have tremendous influence on, on these things.
00:40:00.580So when it comes to, like, not condemning a horrific attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and non-Israelis, as you've pointed out, I think that's incredibly noteworthy.
00:40:10.160Well, we have a news report up about it at True North, but you can read the report for yourself over at the Aristotle Foundation.