Juno News - Almost 250k signatures for anti-Trudeau petition, but does it matter？

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.420 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:31.000 lawton show on true north on this monday december 11th and yes i am back did you miss me i missed

00:01:38.400 you although i did enjoy the week off rest assured i was not kicking back with my feet up in a

00:01:44.020 margarita on a beach anywhere i was in fact hard at work i can't recall if i mentioned it earlier

00:01:50.940 on the program but i'm working on a book right now and it's about twice as long as my previous

00:01:57.120 book and a lot more work so i decided i needed to just like take a week of vacation time just to

00:02:03.740 like aggressively get ahead so i can finish this thing and keep my publisher happy and i haven't

00:02:09.100 finished it just yet I still have some more on that so if you've emailed me I've been very

00:02:13.860 negligent in correspondence and I apologize for that but hopefully we'll be able to get it done

00:02:18.440 and I'll be able to share lots about this project with you in due course hopefully I do course is

00:02:23.840 not time limited but due course in this case I hope is not too too far off and while I was taking

00:02:30.380 a week in quiet contemplation and working on this book I did something tremendously tremendously

00:02:37.100 suave and cool. I fell down the stairs in my own home. I didn't do like the Trudeopian tumble for 1.00

00:02:45.120 a laugh. He used to do that like as a party trick, Justin Trudeau. I was, no, I was walking

00:02:49.560 downstairs. My, my office is like deep into the basement, like seven levels before below the

00:02:54.420 surface of the earth, not actually. And I, I don't even know what happened. I like was wearing

00:02:58.540 really slippery socks and the floor was really clean. And then I just like took a foot that just

00:03:04.460 went forward and went sliding down and landed in some horrendously unpleasant way. And I've been

00:03:11.480 like gradually getting back to the point where I can walk without limping. And this was like a

00:03:16.920 week ago. So this is like my karmic retribution for taking time off the show. If I just like

00:03:22.140 stayed down in this little studio, this never would have happened. So nevertheless, I am very

00:03:26.860 much fine. Had to ice the crap out of my knee, but we're getting back into full strength broadcasting

00:03:33.260 right now. And boy, we have a lot to talk about. One of the big developments of the last week that

00:03:39.100 I missed was that Melanie Jolie, who is ostensibly Canada's foreign affairs minister, has finally

00:03:46.780 decided that rape is wrong. This is the woman who is the great purveyor of Canada's so-called 0.99

00:03:53.620 feminist foreign policy. And after two months, she's finally realized that, yeah, okay, maybe it 1.00

00:03:58.100 was bad that Hamas raped all of those Jewish girls and women in Israel back in October when 0.98

00:04:04.640 they launched their massive attack. We'll talk about that with Brian Lilly and the perils of 0.95

00:04:08.960 virtue signaling as a matter of public policy. What else do we have going on the show today?

00:04:13.920 We've got a lot to get to. Chris Sims is also going to be here. We'll talk about how the carbon

00:04:18.020 tax is going to cost you even more because the government is spending $200 million just to

00:04:24.780 administer the carbon like not even to save the planet to save the baby seals to pluck the straws

00:04:31.320 out of the turtles noses no they're just spending 200 million dollars to manage the carbon tax which

00:04:37.720 is supposedly going to save the planet so we'll talk about all that later on but i first want to

00:04:42.540 talk about this petition now i i hate being a bit of a killjoy a couple of weeks ago when this

00:04:48.380 petition was making its way around i what's the number of the petition i i should pull it up here

00:04:52.740 It's petition E4701, a petition that was initiated by a woman in Peterborough, was sponsored by

00:05:03.020 Conservative Member of Parliament, Michelle Ferreri, a petition that says Canadians have

00:05:08.260 lost confidence in Justin Trudeau and call on the House to have a vote of no confidence. Now,

00:05:14.380 I was a bit of a killjoy a couple of weeks ago when this was first going. I said, yeah, yeah,

00:05:18.760 yeah if the petition makes you happy and it makes you feel good sign it but it's not going to do

00:05:22.960 anything and last week a true north had a little bit of a zoom thing oh not a little bit it was a

00:05:29.240 zoom thing i don't know why i said it was a little bit but we had this zoom thing for some of our

00:05:33.160 insiders people that are a member of our monthly donor program and uh this someone asked about this

00:05:38.300 and i gave like my same killjoy wet blanket answer and then candace malcolm uh said i was

00:05:44.340 the in-house political scientist, which was her nice way of saying I was the killjoy because I

00:05:49.300 just went all technical and know it all. But I wanted to bring it up again because I'm still

00:05:53.780 getting so many questions and so many emails and tweets about this petition. People saying,

00:05:58.340 why are you not talking about this more? Why are you not promoting it more? And here's the reason.

00:06:04.580 For starters, I don't really promote petitions because in general, I don't think they're

00:06:08.300 newsworthy. The exception is when a petition does particularly well, it is newsworthy. This one is

00:06:15.000 doing particularly well. It is a House of Commons petition. Can you tell me the last time there was

00:06:19.600 a House of Commons petition? No, you probably can't unless you're a freak because no one pays 0.74

00:06:24.040 attention to these things because they usually get like four signatures. And this one has, at this

00:06:29.580 point, let me refresh because it keeps going up. It's literally gone up a thousand since when I

00:06:34.500 refreshed it shortly before the show 248,244 signatures I suspect by the end of the show

00:06:43.700 and Sean don't let me get off the air without doing this it will be at 250,000 by the end of

00:06:49.520 the show now 250,000 it's a milestone it's a big number does it matter no and this is where I get

00:06:57.860 to be a bit of a killjoy now I can celebrate the momentum of it and I can say this shows there's a

00:07:02.800 lot of animus towards Justin Trudeau. But the point that I raised when I brought this up a

00:07:08.340 couple of weeks ago is that if you look at the 2021 election results, Justin Trudeau got 5.5

00:07:14.100 million votes. The Conservatives got 5.7, the Bloc got 1.3, the NDP 3 million, the Greens 400,000,

00:07:22.220 Maxime Bernier 840,000. You combine all of that together and you've got what like 11, 12 million

00:07:28.780 votes that were cast for people other than the liberals so in that context finding 250 000

00:07:36.220 people that say they're not happy with trudeau is not all that impressive now the catch there

00:07:42.060 is finding 250 000 that are willing to go out of their way to sign a parliamentary petition

00:07:47.100 because if you juxtapose this petition and what seems to be a growing fatigue and animosity

00:07:53.660 towards Justin Trudeau with the liberal poll numbers right now, you see that there is a very

00:07:59.340 real shift happening. The government that won a majority government less than a decade ago

00:08:03.260 and was re-elected twice in 2019 and 2021 is right now looking like it's going to be headed

00:08:09.480 towards, if the election were held today, a catastrophic failure that is even more embarrassing

00:08:17.520 than the Liberal Party's vote share in 2011.

00:08:23.340 2011 was when Stephen Harper won a majority government.

00:08:26.900 The Liberals with Michael Ignatieff were absolutely decimated.

00:08:31.780 And the Liberals just went, I mean, they basically could have their caucus meetings

00:08:35.700 in a booth at Applebee's because there were so few of them.

00:08:39.700 So this is where we look at time and time again, the liberal brand being in just freefall.

00:08:48.940 And the liberals are going to use the same attacks on Pierre Polyev that they used on Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole.

00:08:54.840 We're already seeing it. He's far right. He's Trumpian.

00:08:58.200 That was Mark Gerritsen's go-to. Pierre Polyev's being like Trump.

00:09:01.540 Why? How? Well, he's just like Trump. You're just supposed to not like him.

00:09:05.940 He's like Trump. Anyone they don't like is at Trump.

00:09:08.740 The server that gives you a bit of a side-eye glance at the store, at the restaurant, she's 1.00

00:09:13.720 like Trump, Pierre Polyev's like Trump, Doug Ford's like Trump, all of that.

00:09:17.220 They don't really do, it's Mad Libs.

00:09:19.020 They just keep the same words and it's the worst type of Mad Libs as a result.

00:09:23.000 So what's happening here is the liberal government is presiding over the profound collapse of

00:09:29.220 the liberal coalition and of the liberal support.

00:09:32.160 Now, conservatives have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the past.

00:09:36.680 So no one should just shrug if you want Justin Trudeau gone and say, well, the work is done, the job is done. It's still not entirely clear when the next election will be. Just this morning, the Liberals unveiled this weird dental plan for seniors and children that was meant to pacify the NDP. But if you look at it, it's not even what they initially promised.

00:09:59.340 What the NDP wanted was some massive universal socialized dental plan, and instead the liberals

00:10:05.440 have given them this program that doesn't even really apply to such a huge number of people.

00:10:12.700 And what's fascinating here is that right now the NDP, I believe, have everything to gain

00:10:20.900 by having an election right now. The NDP as a party have everything to gain. If they had an

00:10:26.840 election right this second, Justin Trudeau would be decimated. Most of that would be to the benefit

00:10:34.260 of the Conservatives, but the NDP would increase their vote share. And Jagmeet Singh might even be

00:10:39.560 the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition. He might get to live in Stornoway, which is about,

00:10:45.640 I mean, NDP loves subsidized housing. They love government housing. Jagmeet Singh and Stornoway

00:10:50.280 would be very, very poetic. But for Jagmeet Singh personally, it's all downside. It's all downside.

00:10:59.040 Sean is asking if I want to make a Jack Layton joke. Well, it's a massage parlor. It's not a

00:11:02.960 massage parlor. It's Stornoway. I don't have a good Jack Layton joke on this one. But the thing

00:11:07.900 that I will point out about the NDP and the Jagmeet Singh situation is that Jagmeet Singh has

00:11:15.940 everything to lose. The NDP as a party will gain, he will lose because he has got to be gone. His

00:11:21.160 party has to get rid of him for just being such a profound and dismal failure after the next

00:11:27.040 election. And then they're going to bring in someone else who may or may not be more radical

00:11:31.680 than Singh is. So that's the NDP advantage, as you've heard me say in the past,

00:11:36.400 to keeping the liberals going until 2025. But for Justin Trudeau, he's gone after the next

00:11:43.900 election. Singh is gone after the next election. Pierre Polyev is likely at this point going to be

00:11:50.600 prime minister after the next election. So no one really wants to pull the trigger now except for

00:11:57.700 the conservatives who can't do it. So this is where we go back to this petition. I understand

00:12:02.220 the anger. I understand people saying I want to vote in non-confidence now. But you could have

00:12:06.800 the vote now and the NDP is still going to vote the way they voted on every single confidence

00:12:12.520 motion, the way they're voting in the budget, the way they voted on the throne speech.

00:12:16.100 So even if the petitioners were to get what they wanted, it's not going to amount to a

00:12:21.300 hill of difference.

00:12:22.760 So the message in all of this is not to not sign the petition.

00:12:26.520 If you want to sign the petition, if it's meaningful to you, if it's valuable to you,

00:12:29.720 if it feels good to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and say, I want Justin Trudeau

00:12:35.640 gone, absolutely.

00:12:36.940 but don't do it in a manner in which you think that something more is going to come from that

00:12:42.940 than what is and michelle ferrari i just saw on twitter this morning is that she's getting

00:12:47.900 like everyone's very threatened by this petition for weird reason so they're trying to just dismiss

00:12:53.380 it and downplay it and and say the points that i've been making but to do it in a more negative

00:12:57.600 way and michelle ferrari is like yeah of course i mean anyone can sign a petition that's the point 0.99

00:13:01.380 of it is that uh these things but they are vetted you do have to be a real person uh one of my

00:13:08.760 colleagues just wants to start a poll is andrew lawton a killjoy yes andrew lawton is a killjoy

00:13:13.840 but i'm trying to make everyone smarter by being a killjoy because then we'll all be in the trenches

00:13:18.440 together so uh take from that what you will but yes this is not canada's most irreverent talk show

00:13:23.420 it's canada's most joyless talk show we've just replaced irreverence with joylessness for this

00:13:29.600 holiday season. I am a regular old Grinch here. And you know what? I will try to put on the green

00:13:35.240 face makeup, which is again, more palatable this time of year than Justin Trudeau's makeup of

00:13:40.200 choice. So nevertheless, we will move on there and talk about this. Really, I don't even want

00:13:47.280 to use this to make fun of the liberal government. Make no mistake, I will. But this is far more

00:13:54.300 serious than just the obvious headline that is at stake here, which is that the foreign affairs

00:14:01.480 minister, the chief convener of Canadian foreign policy, Melanie Jolie, has finally, after two

00:14:08.060 months, acknowledged the sexual violence, the rapes that took place against Israeli and Jewish

00:14:13.840 women and girls at the hands of Hamas. Now, this took two months. Now, you may think that's bad

00:14:21.400 enough on as it is. And if you look at the widespread anti-Semitism that is unfolding

00:14:26.300 across the country, across the West, you may not be all that surprised by it. The liberal government

00:14:31.620 in some ways has been very unequivocally in support of Israel, but in other ways they've

00:14:35.620 equivocated. And certainly the longer Israel's counter-offensive to Hamas has gone on,

00:14:40.740 the weaker Canadian government officials have been in their response. But we go back to what

00:14:47.320 Justin Trudeau has articulated as the essence of Canada's foreign policy which is that it's not a

00:14:53.260 foreign policy rooted in Canada first it is a feminist foreign policy and when else do you 1.00

00:15:00.120 need a feminist foreign policy but when sexual violence is taking place in a foreign conflict 1.00

00:15:06.300 and this is oddly where our foreign affairs minister was nowhere to be found for two months

00:15:10.820 Brian Lilly had a great piece about this in the Toronto Sun Jolie proves Trudeau's feminist foreign 0.99

00:15:16.660 policy just empty words he joins me now brian good to talk to you thanks for coming on today

00:15:21.780 uh thanks for having me andrew i i mean i don't know if you were in this boat i sort of mocked

00:15:26.660 the this idea of a feminist foreign policy when it was first announced because it just didn't seem 1.00

00:15:31.700 to be coming from anywhere and rooted in any practical manifestations of what this would be

00:15:36.900 but the government was committed to it they said we're going to apply a gender lens to everything

00:15:42.020 and they do this in their dealings in government and here we have one case where you'd think the

00:15:47.300 feminist perspective is pretty ironclad and pretty clear-cut and oddly our foreign policy was not 1.00

00:15:52.420 interested in that no they weren't but look this goes back to every issue that trudeau's dealt with

00:15:59.780 on this front um you you recall that uh when he was first elected he said he'd have a gender

00:16:05.620 balance cabinet and i'm going off memory here so if i'm off by one or two please forgive me but

00:16:12.020 uh 2015 he announces the gender balance cabinet and why because it's 2015 and then we get the

00:16:19.860 order of precedence which you know details which cabinet ministers are considered most senior which

00:16:25.060 ones would take over in the event something happens to the prime minister and it's all

00:16:29.700 old white men at the top and then we find out that five of the 15 cabinet ministers in that first

00:16:37.060 cabinet are all junior cabinet ministers. They're not even full ministers. So they make less money.

00:16:42.420 They have less seniority. They have fewer, you know, a lesser department and they were all women. 1.00

00:16:48.500 So, you know, that was pointed out and they said, oh, well, that's just a mistake. And then they

00:16:52.340 fixed it. Time and again, you can look at their feminist credentials and Trudeau fails on every 1.00

00:16:59.860 front, groping a reporter, elbowing, you know, a female MP in the breast just because things were

00:17:06.340 being delayed and he was frustrated uh time and again jody wilson raybold jane philpot caesar

00:17:13.620 savannah's um selena selena caesar chevans ccc yes um you know just look at the way that women 1.00

00:17:22.020 who have dealt with him describe how he talks to them so it's no surprise that when it comes to a

00:17:28.020 feminist foreign policy it's just about words as well empty words this government is about 1.00

00:17:34.020 the announcement it's not about governing it's not about the policy it's just about putting out a

00:17:40.420 press release yeah and i mean this is not to to broaden the discussion unnecessarily here but

00:17:46.980 we've seen a tectonic shift in the last five years the last six years in how we view sexual violence

00:17:53.460 and how we view sexual assault and uh whatever people think of the me too movement you know the

00:17:57.940 the refrain that came out of this era was believe all women and now uh the number of people i see

00:18:03.220 on social media people that are very supportive of the government being slow to respond on this

00:18:08.580 uh saying well i don't know did did the rapes actually happen and i don't know if we believe

00:18:13.860 i mean but they don't even care about this glaring gap in uh the rules they've established

00:18:20.180 over the last six years and and the rules as they pertain to hamas terrorists melanie jolie was

00:18:26.180 heritage minister when the me too movement started and she went on cbc on q and did a

00:18:30.980 an interview all about that topic um she was foreign minister when last year when the u.s 0.97

00:18:36.260 supreme court struck down roe v wade and as part of her feminist foreign policy stood there with 1.00

00:18:41.380 justin trudeau denouncing the american supreme court overturning abortion law a federal abortion

00:18:47.540 precedent and returning that issue to state legislatures she always had things to say on 0.92

00:18:53.300 that but on this issue where there was proof of israeli women jewish women being raped as a 1.00

00:18:59.060 weapon of war she was silent she just couldn't be bothered talking about it but then compare

00:19:06.100 as i did in in the column in the sun october 17th and there is the claim by hamas a terrorist

00:19:14.820 organization puts out a claim that israel has bombed the al-shifah hospital melanie jolie

00:19:21.940 doesn't wait for proof. She tweets that doing this is a war crime. That tweet is still up.

00:19:29.440 She believed Hamas with no proof. The international observers, the Israeli government,

00:19:36.400 the Israeli defense forces, images put up by Hamas themselves to brag about what they did,

00:19:42.560 all point to the proof that women were raped on October 7th, that this was a tactic they used.

00:19:49.460 the instruction manuals found on dead Hamas fighters detailed that, yes, this is part of

00:19:56.200 what you should do. And she couldn't bother denouncing it. Now, I'll give the Trudeau

00:20:01.520 government some credit. From early on, they said the right thing about the October 7th attacks.

00:20:09.100 Justin Trudeau denounced it, said that Israel has a right to defend itself. He was steadfast in that. 1.00

00:20:14.240 But as you alluded to, as the conflict's gone on, they've started to waver all over the place.

00:20:20.700 But for the foreign affairs minister of a feminist government implementing a feminist foreign policy not to come up with this, it is mind-boggling. 0.74

00:20:31.080 I was writing on another issue today, and I'm finding references to their feminist agenda on climate change.

00:20:38.620 you know i don't think a lot of uh mothers who do shopping for their kids to feed them will be happy 1.00

00:20:44.960 with what that leads to with a higher price for hamburger meat but you know this language is

00:20:51.040 peppered all through the government's talking points and its agenda it's just not present in

00:20:57.080 the actual reality of how they operate yeah i mean anyone who's ever looked at atips

00:21:03.920 uh government documents you'll see oftentimes these reports on the gender-based uh gba plus

00:21:09.520 gender-based analysis plus and it's that you have to take anything and everything and uh somehow

00:21:14.480 find a gender argument you want to talk about office chairs well let's do a gender-based

00:21:18.400 analysis to make sure that you know gender needs are being met and you know all of this stuff and

00:21:22.800 you're right it's a government that on paper claims it's doing this in every single facet

00:21:27.760 of its existence and you know they're certainly bringing in diversity trainers to that end

00:21:32.080 but when the rubber hits the road it's nowhere to be found yeah and it's one of the reasons this

00:21:38.160 government is so frustrating is that the in the policy is the communications tool the policy isn't

00:21:44.160 governing the policy isn't um saying you know what we're we're going to go to the un and we're going

00:21:51.120 to raise issue with the fact that iran is uh chairing the i forget what the exact title is

00:21:57.440 but there's a gender council within the human rights realm at the United Nations and in a ranch 1.00

00:22:04.060 chairing that? How is that feasible? And why are we not complaining loudly? I don't doubt that Bob

00:22:08.960 Ray is. You know, I disagree with Bob Ray on an awful lot of policy, but he is a fundamentally

00:22:15.600 decent man, especially on issues like this. But he speaks for the government, but he doesn't set

00:22:22.780 policy but we should be banning our shoes on the table like the old sylvia's at the u.n 0.88

00:22:29.580 demanding that something be done when you get iran who is oppressing women beating them for

00:22:35.180 not wearing their hijabs in public and they're in charge of a committee on gender rights 0.99

00:22:43.500 you you can't make it up that's the the terrible part of this okay can i tell you something quick

00:22:48.940 about these crazy bits uh because back during the harper government there was something similar

00:22:54.460 north korea as they're trying to build their bomb uh is named the head of the nuclear disarmament

00:23:01.420 committee or something in that effect and i looked at john wright who was then the foreign affairs

00:23:06.300 minister and i said how does this happen he said believe it or not they go on an alphabetical order

00:23:12.220 and they were next how these things happen so then like oman was next and then pakistan would

00:23:19.660 have also been uh you know coming up there uh that's an alphabetical order okay so uh when

00:23:26.380 you're when you're launching your new dictatorship you want to call it like ardvarkistan or something

00:23:31.100 and then you'll be like first on the order of precedence for uh for all of these things

00:23:35.740 for peace and democracy council yeah exactly let me just i want to talk about one of your climate

00:23:41.500 pieces. But before, let me just ask you about the equivocation and the wavering of this government.

00:23:47.600 Do you think it is a government that is letting its inner desires come out, like they were only

00:23:53.500 able to hold up the veneer for so long? Or do you think they're responsive to a change in the

00:23:59.080 climate that they're seeing? And it's a bit more cynical in that sense. I think that there are real

00:24:05.480 divides within the Liberal Party. And I think there's real divides on the issue of what stands

00:24:10.640 take on the Hamas launched against Israel within Canadian society at large. You know, I've taken

00:24:18.280 what I believe to be the only correct moral stand, and that is that Israel has a right to defend

00:24:23.060 itself and the true oppressors of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Well, that's Hamas, 0.95

00:24:27.980 and Hamas must be eradicated. I'm glad to see Bernie Sanders in the United States saying that

00:24:33.340 while we've got aggressive politicians up here saying, calling for ceasefire, Bernie Sanders

00:24:37.940 is on TV explaining why that can't happen. We need more of that. I think Trudeau was trying

00:24:47.120 to please all people, and in the end, he's pleased none. The Jewish community is livid with Justin 1.00

00:24:53.240 Trudeau. For the most part, the Jewish community have been reliable liberal voters. Some did move

00:24:58.580 over to the conservatives during the Harper years, but for the most part, most have still been

00:25:03.080 reliably liberal. But the Muslim community, which has been courted by Trudeau, well,

00:25:09.520 you saw the story the other day, 400 Muslim professionals who have been donors to the

00:25:15.320 Laurier Club signed a letter saying they're leaving. And then on the weekend, it was a

00:25:19.700 pro-Palestinian demonstration in Ottawa that marched to Langevin Block, where Trudeau's

00:25:25.500 office is, and were denouncing him as a terrorist, claiming he had blood on his hands for refusing

00:25:31.640 to call for a ceasefire now. And so he's lost both sides by trying to make everybody happy.

00:25:38.040 He's made nobody happy. And I think it's going to have a real lead to a real shift in Canadian

00:25:44.840 politics. Exactly how I think we're still seeing that, you know, shake out. Yeah, very well said.

00:25:50.720 Just before I let you go, Brian, I have to ask about this piece you had this morning in the

00:25:54.700 Toronto Sun. Trudeau targets cow burps and your ability to afford beef. What is going on?

00:26:03.340 Okay, let me just switch my browser window here to this is the government of Canada announces

00:26:08.940 new economic incentive to reduce methane emissions from beef cattle. It is the protocol called

00:26:15.100 reducing enteric methane emissions from beef cattle. Cows burp a lot and they want that to

00:26:23.620 change they don't want as many cow burps they want better handling of manure on farms look

00:26:29.140 this is these are all good things and farmers are some of the most environmentally conscious

00:26:33.860 actually environmentally conscious people you will ever meet because it's their livelihood

00:26:39.860 but what the trudeau government wants to do is try and get farmers to use more expensive feeds

00:26:45.620 right now most cattle in this country they are raised on a from calf to to stock they're

00:26:51.620 raised on a diet of grass or hay, and they might be finished with corn at the end, but they're

00:26:58.560 going to be raised on mostly on that. They're going to be out in the pasture in the winter.

00:27:02.360 They're going to eat from those big round bales of hay that we see going by on trucks all the time.

00:27:07.760 Going to a corn-based island, corn silage, or adding red seaweed apparently can help produce

00:27:13.960 the methane, or adding chemicals. This has potential to change the composition of the beef,

00:27:18.420 But also, it's going to be more expensive.

00:27:22.340 It's going to be more expensive.

00:27:23.740 Now, they say, well, we're going to be able to allow farmers to sell offsets, and that'll make them more money.

00:27:29.800 Well, just like the carbon tax, though, it's going to drive up prices.

00:27:32.660 And so you and I are going to have to pay more.

00:27:34.720 We're all going to be like Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon saying, I don't know how to call it hamburger helper.

00:27:39.580 Tastes just fine on its own because we won't be able to afford the hamburger.

00:27:43.600 Now, here's the other funny part is for years, you've had consumers who can afford it moving towards grass fed beef and you see grass fed milk.

00:27:53.900 Why? It's supposed to be healthier, less saturated fats, more omega three fatty acids, more nutrients.

00:27:59.300 Well, guess what? You're going to have less of that.

00:28:01.280 Follow the government's plan because, you know, the beef will be better for the planet, but not as good for you.

00:28:07.020 So it's a bizarre situation, but climate change policy comes before everything, including you

00:28:14.940 having a healthy diet, Andrew. Yeah. So coming soon is going to be like the bovine flatulence

00:28:19.760 tax where cows just basically have to pay a levy anytime they let a bit of gas out. $1 out the

00:28:25.720 front, $2 out the back. I think that's how it's going to be calculated. Jacinda Erd-Hearn's

00:28:29.580 government in New Zealand brought in one of those. Now they've just lost power and they've brought in

00:28:33.760 conservative government who's put that on pause for now they'll probably scrap it but yeah they

00:28:38.640 brought in a cow burp tax and a sheep burp tax so you know don't give them ideas these things

00:28:45.360 are out there and we don't want to encourage them all right fair enough uh brian lily from the

00:28:51.040 toronto sun always a pleasure we should do this again sooner rather than later thank you very much

00:28:55.840 thank you all right thanks very much now the one thing here's a segue i can give you sometimes you

00:29:00.720 don't get the natural segue if the government does do the bovine flatulence tax they are going 0.93

00:29:06.880 to spend as much to administer it as the tax will collect this is a report from the canadian

00:29:13.680 taxpayers federation 200 million dollars to administer the carbon tax that is not money

00:29:19.840 that's going towards the stated aims of the carbon tax that is just money gone to manage the

00:29:26.480 bureaucracy. Chris Sims is the Alberta director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and does

00:29:32.420 not yet join us. I jumped the gun there. We'll have Chris Sims in just a moment. I got excited.

00:29:37.460 I saw Chris in like the chat, the behind the scenes waiting room, green room chat, and I

00:29:41.720 thought she was ready, but we'll have her on in just a moment. But $200 million. Now,

00:29:47.320 this is just in the last three years alone. Last year, it was $82.6 million. So we're paying this

00:29:56.460 us Canadians just for the government to manage having a carbon tax. Now we have Chris Sims here.

00:30:04.020 We, uh, you know, good things come to those who wait and no gooder thing to make up a word than

00:30:08.720 Chris Sims on the show. Uh, Chris, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:30:15.840 Oh, maybe we're still waiting. Do we still have Chris?

00:30:20.320 Oh, Chris is gone again. Oh, I was just, I was tempting fate. See what happens. I get excited.

00:30:26.020 I jumped the gun and then the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket. Maybe Chris is just like

00:30:30.420 checking the cattle out in the area in Alberta to make sure they're all ready to pay their

00:30:34.960 bovine flatulence tax. But the other thing I'll say, and I'll bring it up now while we wait here,

00:30:41.480 nearly half of Canadians think that a carbon tax is ineffective in fighting climate change.

00:30:48.760 Nearly half of Canadians. Now, the government wants you to believe that a carbon tax is just

00:30:56.360 this thing that everyone likes that's uncontroversial. The only people that don't like

00:31:00.940 the carbon tax are those like evil anti-science troglodytes in the Conservative Party. Canadians 0.92

00:31:06.040 want it. Canadians are happy to pay for it. Well, clearly this is not the case. When the government

00:31:10.420 gave a carbon tax exemption to the good people of Atlantic Canada who need home heating oil,

00:31:16.300 Everyone else in the country was saying, well, we want an exemption too.

00:31:20.340 Just this week, I believe it was yesterday or two days ago, the premier of the Northwest Territories came out and said, well, we want an exemption.

00:31:30.560 I don't know if you've ever been to the Northwest Territories.

00:31:32.840 I have not myself, but it gets a little cold up there.

00:31:36.700 So obviously they have to deal with aggressive energy consumption.

00:31:40.600 and you can understand why they are saying now that they want a bit of a break when everyone

00:31:46.340 else is getting a bit of a break. The conservatives did a massive filibuster and the point of this,

00:31:55.000 excuse me for a moment, excuse me, the point of this filibuster was to basically try to handcuff

00:32:02.440 the government into having this carbon tax be the hill it was going to die on. Now the government

00:32:09.080 didn't roll the government didn't fold and conservatives were you know voting all through

00:32:12.720 the night there was a video that Pierre Polyev posted of bringing some like order of McDonald's

00:32:17.840 in now that was very Trump Trump like Trump would have done the uh the McDonald's order

00:32:21.800 uh but of being uh very Trump like and bringing fast food I believe we have Chris Sims again now

00:32:27.140 let's give this one more try here Chris hello I won't make any sudden movements that was super

00:32:32.000 freaky um it's I love that hit you did with Brian because we did that exact story on Sun News Network

00:32:39.060 that eventually through the United Nations or WEF

00:32:42.900 or whoever other global group wants to tax the bejesus out of us 0.98

00:32:46.940 will eventually start taxing the emissions from cows.

00:32:51.220 And we were all called crazy conspiracy theorists at the time.

00:32:54.580 So nice to see that, well, I guess it's not nice to see

00:32:57.300 that it's actually coming to fruition from the sounds of it.

00:33:00.260 So when we look at this $200 million to administer,

00:33:04.280 where is that going?

00:33:06.000 It's going to bureaucrats.

00:33:07.360 So that is going to people who work either in their offices or in their pajamas on laptops in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

00:33:16.200 So people who've lived in Ottawa usually call it the national capital region.

00:33:21.120 The bubble. The Ottawa bubble.

00:33:23.120 Exactly. The Ottawa bubble.

00:33:24.560 It goes from, you know, Kent Street to Elgin Street, thereabouts.

00:33:28.300 And this is what's key here, is that not only is the carbon tax an unfair punishment on Canadians for daring to eat food

00:33:36.480 and daring to stay warm during winter, it's an administrative burden as well because they hire

00:33:42.780 new bureaucrats to do this. And $200 million, that can kind of go over people's heads because 0.98

00:33:49.740 it's an awful lot of money. If you do the math over that three-year window, we could have instead

00:33:55.180 paid 300 brand new police officers for the entire three years or 300 paramedics.

00:34:03.640 you know with what's going on especially in our inner cities andrew uh that might have been a

00:34:08.040 better use of our money i mean whenever we we talk about i mean either you or i or just me on

00:34:13.580 the show about debt servicing and debt maintenance charges the one thing that comes up is that every

00:34:18.960 dollar that's going towards that is a dollar that's being wasted it's just you know justin

00:34:23.020 trudeau and christia freeland just taking the money lighting it on fire because you get absolutely

00:34:27.100 nothing for it and that's effectively what's happening here i mean we make a couple of

00:34:31.020 bureaucrats and their families happy, I guess, by giving them salaries that are unnecessary. But

00:34:34.960 there is no value produced. There is nothing created or generated, no service provided for

00:34:41.620 this. And I mean, the thing that they're administering is something that in and of

00:34:45.740 itself is harmful. So even if the carbon tax had an administration cost of zero, it would still be

00:34:51.520 economically harmful. But now we're paying $200 million really for the privilege of decimating

00:34:56.800 our economy. Yes, and this is exactly why Grover Norquist, who's been a lead tax fighter in the

00:35:04.000 United States and worked under the Reagan administration, famously said, government should

00:35:09.100 be small enough to drown in the bathtub. And this is why, because if you opt for bigger government

00:35:16.520 and bigger taxes, you're going to get ever larger government, because they will always increase the

00:35:23.560 size and scope of government along with increasing their taxation of you. This is not something that

00:35:30.280 they're going to economize on. This is not something that they're just going to automatically

00:35:34.160 add on to whatever workload is currently being enacted by the bureaucrats. It always is going 0.99

00:35:40.440 to cost you more. And I can hear people right now, some folks saying, well, what about the rebates?

00:35:45.320 No, no, no, no. Listen, the parliamentary budget officer already did the math on this.

00:35:49.960 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mandatory federal carbon tax

00:35:54.060 already costs the average Canadian family up to $700 extra

00:35:59.720 just this year with the rebates factored in.

00:36:04.460 Now we've done this digging at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:36:07.680 and found that on top of that,

00:36:09.720 it's costing us $200 million over the last three years

00:36:13.140 just to push the papers around.

00:36:15.760 Just on this, I mentioned briefly that poll that was done

00:36:19.340 nearly half of Canadians, so 46% think carbon taxes are ineffective at fighting climate change.

00:36:24.780 There's nowhere near the consensus that the Liberal government claims there is on this issue. I mean,

00:36:30.740 really, if you were to take the number of people that voted Liberal and the number of people that

00:36:35.200 voted NDP, I mean, maybe there's your 46%, but I'd say it's actually of that a subset, especially in

00:36:43.100 Northern and rural and Atlantic Canada that are more skeptical of this. So the point of this is

00:36:48.400 the consensus that every canadian is okay with this is just a lie it is it's a huge lie and i

00:36:54.080 think that it's now becoming real of where people are shifting and realizing hey wait this isn't

00:36:59.360 saving the planet i think it's becoming real for three different reasons one people just can't

00:37:03.920 afford it they just flat out can't afford it in the same way in an more extreme example we'll

00:37:09.920 often hear people and analysts say things like you know what uh if you're in a developing country

00:37:15.200 and you can barely afford food or clean water for your child you're not so worried about the

00:37:20.800 environment right you're not so worried about green initiatives it's only when you reach a

00:37:25.680 certain level of affluence that you can actually pick your head up and go whoa okay maybe i want to

00:37:31.440 you know save this forest or prevent this species from going extinct those are good things i think

00:37:37.440 in a more micro version of this we're seeing a little bit of that right now in canada because

00:37:43.520 we're seeing record demand for food banks from working people, meaning people who are holding

00:37:49.540 down a job, pulling in a wage, are still having to rely on charity for jars of peanut butter and

00:37:55.980 applesauce to feed their kids. That's grim. We also have folks who are fighting to even afford

00:38:02.220 rent and mortgages here, the very basics of keeping a shelter and a roof over your head.

00:38:07.020 So when rubber hits the road, so to speak, they don't care as much about this sort of stuff.

00:38:13.520 Also, we've got math and data to back this up now, because Prime Minister Trudeau fashioned

00:38:19.340 his carbon taxes, both of them, we've got two now, after British Columbia's.

00:38:25.100 What's been happening in British Columbia?

00:38:27.200 Since 2008, British Columbia has had a carbon tax.

00:38:31.420 They now have two, and they're super expensive.

00:38:33.920 What's also been happening?

00:38:35.620 Their emissions keep going up anyway, and this is government data.

00:38:40.580 This is the government of British Columbia's data showing that as the carbon tax goes up, the emissions almost always keep on going up anyway, because people still need to eat and they still need to heat their homes.

00:38:53.400 And I think that story, Andrew, is getting out.

00:38:56.700 It's seeping out past the Rockies and people are realizing that they're getting screwed.

00:39:01.440 Yeah, I mean, one thing I'll say, if you accept the premise, if you accept the premise that

00:39:07.840 emissions are inherently bad and causing climate change and all of that, which I think is dubious

00:39:13.260 at best, but even if you do, and you look at what the government stated objective is,

00:39:17.920 which is reducing emissions, you're absolutely right. And I think the government has tried to

00:39:21.700 position this issue as one in which emitting is a luxury that people choose, that people choose to

00:39:28.920 do the things that cause all these emissions. They choose to have products that need to be

00:39:33.220 shipped. They choose to get on a plane to go and see grandma. They choose to drive a vehicle that

00:39:39.780 is not a hybrid when the reality is these things are our products of demand. And it's not to say

00:39:43.480 you couldn't make a choice that perhaps has a marginal benefit over another choice, but

00:39:48.340 Canadians are not doing that because they want to. It's not like they're, you know, getting into the

00:39:53.480 Hummer and just like idling it in the parking lot for the good of their health. They're doing it

00:39:57.260 because well they're not doing that but they're they're doing the things that are driving those

00:40:00.920 emissions up because they are necessary and when you look at it through that lens it's insane that

00:40:07.360 we are dealing with all of this while the world is still producing and while other countries are

00:40:13.000 still producing while china is investing and building coal plants yes exactly i try to appeal

00:40:19.600 to the folks who truly are scared about emissions truly earnestly okay i grew up partly on vancouver

00:40:26.740 Island. Okay. I swam with the orcas. I hand sewed my baby's cloth diapers. I even rode a bike in

00:40:31.560 the Glebe in Ottawa for 13 years. I get it. Okay. Let's say that emissions are what keeps you up at

00:40:38.600 night. Mathematically speaking, global emissions, even if Canada, God forbid, ceased to exist

00:40:46.340 tomorrow. Okay. We all stopped driving. We all stopped eating. We all stopped heating our homes,

00:40:51.960 stopped existing it wouldn't make a dent in global emissions because we are a teeny teeny

00:40:59.080 teeny tiny little like you it's even off the screen andrew when we talk about global emissions

00:41:04.520 so that being understood if that's what you really want to tackle does it not make sense

00:41:10.840 to tackle the big end of that arithmetic problem let's leave china off the table for a second 0.99

00:41:15.880 because they're a communist country and it's more difficult to deal with them talk about india okay

00:41:20.840 We have a lot more in common with them. They're a democracy, right? They actually want to buy our

00:41:26.040 natural gas. India has on average between 250 and 300 million people, so 10 times our size there

00:41:35.320 abouts, burning wood and animal refuse every day for heating and eating. Folks, imagine that. Imagine

00:41:46.120 the entire population of Canada, about 10 times the size roughly, burning that stuff indoors

00:41:52.240 every day. Their emissions are off the charts for that. Not to speak of their indoor air pollution

00:41:59.000 and the burden on women and children for collecting that fuel, but guess what? They want to buy our 1.00

00:42:04.700 natural gas, which is way, way, way cleaner burning, okay? They still need to heat and they

00:42:10.100 still need to eat just like the rest of us, okay? They're human beings and they deserve to do that. 0.82

00:42:13.960 They want to use our cleaner fuel. So why don't we then use our brains instead of taxing people for driving a minivan? Why don't we use our brains and ship them our natural gas using our best environmental regulations in the whole world and really high labor standards for extracting said fuel? Like that kind of sounds like a win-win mathematically. And we don't tax people and punish them needlessly for doing the basics here in Canada.

00:42:39.740 Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation thank you as always we will talk to you next

00:42:45.440 Monday thanks Andrew all right we are doing something a little bit special on the Andrew

00:42:50.120 Lawton show this holiday season we are we always do some year in review type shows because you

00:42:56.780 don't necessarily have the ability to bank on there being breaking news content you can cover

00:43:00.960 and you know December 27th or anything like that but I thought we'd do something fun and I'm kind

00:43:05.540 of stealing this from Ezra Levan, who does some variation of this every year. But every now and

00:43:10.580 then you will email me questions and I try to answer them. But let's carve out a bit of time

00:43:16.200 on the show where I'm going to answer your questions, no matter how wacky or invasive or

00:43:21.400 intrusive they are, because I can just take out the ones that I don't like ahead of time.

00:43:25.460 But if you want to send your questions in, we'll do a special episode in the coming weeks in which

00:43:30.080 I delve into some of these. It could be anything. It could be what I think about a particular

00:43:33.860 political issue. It could be what I think about a particular person. You could fish for some story

00:43:38.600 from my past, or you could ask a technical question about how this show works, such as,

00:43:44.720 for example, Andrew, do you wear pants when you're on air? And the answer is it depends,

00:43:48.820 but I'm not tilting the camera down today. So all of that is to say, send me your questions,

00:43:53.540 andrew at truenorthcanada.com. My email is andrew at truenorthcanada.com. And we will,

00:44:00.040 I won't reply to your email because I'm going to save it and do a big mailbag episode as we wind down the show for the year.

00:44:07.720 So send your questions to Andrew Lawton.

00:44:09.880 That's me, by the way, if you didn't know.

00:44:12.100 Andrew at truenorthcanada.com.

00:44:13.780 That does it for us for today.

00:44:15.060 We will be back with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show in just 23 hours and 15 minutes here on True North.

00:44:22.460 Thank you.

00:44:23.120 God bless.

00:44:23.740 And good day to you all.

00:44:25.940 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:44:27.760 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:44:57.760 We'll be right back.

Juno News - December 12, 2023

Almost 250k signatures for anti-Trudeau petition, but does it matter？

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