Juno News - September 29, 2019Andrew Lawton banned from attending Liberal campaign events
Episode Stats
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154.96661
Summary
Andrew Lawton was stopped by police and asked to leave a public event in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He asked why, and the police said they didn t know, but they did have a good idea: he wasn t credentialed to cover the Prime Minister.
Transcript
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At the halfway point in the federal election, there have already been a number of surprises
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and unusual events, not the least of which has been liberal efforts to keep my colleague
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at True North, Andrew Lawton, from covering the Prime Ministers on the campaign trail.
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But not only refusing to give him media credentials for the campaign, but getting the police to
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hinder his efforts and actually remove him from one public event.
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Quite apart from the optics of this for the liberals, I don't understand why police would
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Lawton was following the liberal bus when he got pulled over by police and kept at roadside
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That's why he was doing nothing wrong, and stopping and detaining him in that matter
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In the second instance, he had pre-registered for a public event, and after waiting in line
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for an hour, Thunder Bay police approached him and asked him if he was Andrew.
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He said he was, and was told he would have to leave.
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He asked why, and the police said they didn't know why, but they were told to ask him to leave.
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Now, I have been involved at some level in many campaigns.
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I've even been responsible for event security at liberal campaign events in the 90s and conservative
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campaign events since before Stephen Harper formed the government the first time.
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I have never seen police remove someone who was unwanted.
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The police are only there if handcuffs are needed to take someone away to a wagon.
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Why would the police not tell whoever in the liberal campaign structure that it just wasn't
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We made a big deal of it here on True North, and the liberals have since apologized to Lawton,
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He has written for a number of mainstream publications, and appears several times a week here on True North.
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How the liberals could possibly suggest he is not a bona fide journalist is anyone's guess.
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After spending $600 million to guarantee favorable media coverage, my guess is they didn't want
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to risk someone like Andrew asking hard-hitting questions that matter.
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But the weirdness of things in this campaign didn't stop there.
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There was the Green Party actually caught photoshopping a reusable cup and metal straw into the hand
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Perished to thought the champion of all things holy and green would be seen holding a single
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Then there was Time Magazine breaking a story of Trudeau in blackface purportedly at an Arabian
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Knights themed black tie event at the exclusive private school he taught at in 2001.
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As the story got picked up around the world, other instances surfaced of Trudeau in blackface,
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including a video showing him making some bizarre ape-like gestures and seemingly with something
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like a cucumber stuffed down the front of his pants.
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It's hard to imagine anything more tone-deaf and racist as that.
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Trudeau did apologize for his actions and then moved on, and the media let him.
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But what the media did was spend many hours tracking down the man who gave the original yearbook
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Seriously, outing and doxing the person that did that was more important to the Globe and
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Mail and the CBC than actually covering what the Prime Minister did.
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Then the PM arrives at a press conference by canoe to make a bizarre $2,000 allowance for
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Remember when Stockwell Day arrived for a presser by CEDU in the 2000 campaign and how the media
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Seriously, if indeed this is intended for the low end of the income scale, how does a low
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income family, perhaps solely reliant on public transit, benefit from this at all?
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Or why do this after removing the Children's Art Tax Credit, the Family Sports Credit and the
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Public Transit Tax Credit, but let's encourage families to go camping?
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But none of the media present could be bothered to ask any of the hard questions.
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Maybe if Andrew Lawton had only been credentialed.
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