Juno News - Anthony Rota's resignation doesn't end shameful Nazi scandal

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

00:01:20.440 north hello and welcome to you all this is another edition of canada's most irreverent talk show here

00:01:31.360 on true north i'm so sorry we were almost starting a few minutes late you see i was a bit delayed

00:01:36.940 uh you wouldn't believe it a bunch of these uh police and dogs just got on my plane on the way

00:01:42.500 here and they accused me of all sorts of horrific things they uh suggested i might have had cocaine

00:01:47.500 on board. But no, nothing like that happened. In fact, I've never heard of anything like that

00:01:52.640 happening anywhere in the news as of late. I am kidding. Of course, the people in the live,

00:01:58.780 I wasn't even going to mention this story, but people in the live chat apparently are demanding

00:02:02.360 like Trudeau detained in India because of cocaine stories. And I am a firm believer in giving the

00:02:08.080 people what they want. Let me just say there is zero evidence so far to support this claim that

00:02:15.060 was made on Indian TV by some former Indian diplomat that Justin Trudeau's plane didn't

00:02:20.720 have mechanical failures. It was that police from India boarded and found cocaine or something like

00:02:26.660 that. I saw this thing like swirling around on Twitter a few days ago and didn't really pay

00:02:32.640 much heed to it. I looked into it and couldn't find anything to substantiate it. And then the

00:02:36.880 Toronto Sun picked it up, not saying authoritatively that it happened, but just saying that India had

00:02:42.560 accused it of happening or some people in india and i i have heard from one reporter that was on

00:02:48.660 the trip who i i know and trust that no one boarded the plane at all and you know journalists

00:02:54.380 were on the plane so i feel like it would probably have gotten out even with how sycophantish some of

00:02:59.820 them are if like drug sniffing dogs had gotten aboard and and whatnot but it's a fun story

00:03:05.780 alas it appears to be at this point fiction so don't get too too excited just you don't here's

00:03:11.280 the thing about Justin Trudeau. He wins when the fake news stories circulate because he gives

00:03:16.360 enough real news stories to justify criticizing him. You don't need the fake news stories. But

00:03:21.480 when there are these faker stories that go around, it allows them to kind of hide behind it and say,

00:03:26.420 oh, well, it's all just fake news and misinformation and all that. And that is not what we try to do

00:03:32.140 on this show. In fact, we try to do the opposite. And I'll say I never like doing this too much,

00:03:37.560 but I've been working on a story about Chrystia Freeland that I'm going to have coming out

00:03:42.600 afterwards. I'm just waiting to, you know, get a couple of my ducks in a row. And at a certain

00:03:46.920 point, like this government has done enough that we don't need to manufacture stuff. So that is my

00:03:53.220 little PSA here. Sorry to be a buzzkill. I know you probably were so excited. I was going in one

00:03:57.400 particular direction at the beginning, but I am going to be talking a little bit more on this

00:04:02.280 program about the recognition of that Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka in the House of Commons

00:04:08.900 on Friday, a chapter that has, as we say in the media business, legs. This is a story that keeps

00:04:15.900 on going. It keeps on delivering. And it's one that the government has not been able to just

00:04:21.180 shake. They have tried to shake it. They've tried to basically claim that this was all just Anthony

00:04:26.380 wrote us doing the speaker of the house and now as of yesterday he is outgoing his role is going

00:04:32.700 to be filled by someone else on tomorrow's or in tomorrow's sitting in the house of commons but

00:04:38.300 i'll play a little bit from his resignation announcement for you

00:04:43.420 is above any of us therefore i must step down as your speaker

00:04:48.860 I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House

00:04:56.360 during the Joint Address to Parliament of President Zelensky.

00:05:00.660 That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities,

00:05:05.740 including the Jewish community in Canada and around the world,

00:05:08.820 in addition to survivors of Nazi atrocities in Poland, among other nations.

00:05:13.680 i accept full responsibility for my actions my resignation is effective at the end of the

00:05:22.280 sitting day tomorrow wednesday september 27th to allow preparations for the election of a new

00:05:28.340 speaker until that time the deputy speakers will chair the house proceedings thank you merci

00:05:36.700 we saw the deputy speaker who's actually a conservative chris d'antremont take over

00:05:44.000 yesterday during question period which is usually presided over not by one of the deputy speakers but

00:05:49.480 by the speaker of the house himself so he is outgoing and look he clearly made a grievous

00:05:55.780 error in judgment and as he was reading i don't we don't have the clip today and i don't need to

00:06:00.460 play it again but as he was reading that recognition of Yaroslav Hunka it looked at a

00:06:06.340 certain point like he was kind of just taking that moment of okay he fought against the Russians

00:06:12.780 maybe there's something there but then he kept going he called him a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian

00:06:18.480 hero and he paused for members of that chamber to stand up and give Mr. Hunka that standing ovation

00:06:26.380 which is very undeserved, and virtually every MP, if not every MP who was part of it, has said so

00:06:32.960 in the days since. This happened five days ago. Originally, it was from a couple of these corners

00:06:40.120 of the internet that are often disregarded that we're talking about this. Of course, because

00:06:45.140 Jewish people were in the throes of Shabbat at first, and then preparations for Yom Kippur,

00:06:50.260 They probably didn't tweak to it as early as they would have.

00:06:54.740 And what was interesting is that all of this effectively came down to people in independent media that noticed this and eventually sought for some accounting on this.

00:07:06.200 And the government has ever since tried to devote 100% of the blame on Anthony Rota.

00:07:12.160 They've tried to make him a black box of shame here so that nothing penetrates into their side of the aisle.

00:07:20.260 The Conservatives, as I mentioned yesterday, have been the ones trying to throw Anthony

00:07:24.440 Rhoda a bone. 0.93

00:07:25.420 This is ethics critic for the Conservatives, Michael Barrett, doing just that in the House

00:07:29.760 of Commons this week.

00:07:31.220 Time and time again, this Prime Minister and his Liberal House leaders say, I had no idea

00:07:36.440 it didn't involve me.

00:07:38.380 Time and time again, this Liberal Prime Minister fails in his duties to Canadians and has someone

00:07:45.200 else take the fall.

00:07:47.260 This week, it looks like he's going to come to you, Speaker, and ask you to leave

00:07:51.540 and to take the garbage out with you on the way out.

00:07:53.840 Is that really what this government wants to show to Canadians?

00:07:58.720 The Honourable Government House Leader.

00:08:02.060 Mr. Speaker, again, that Honourable colleague would have seen your statement yesterday,

00:08:07.780 heard your apology in the House today, where the Speaker confirmed that this was his decision

00:08:14.320 and his decision alone to invite this individual from his riding

00:08:18.860 to acknowledge him in the gallery, we were all caught off guard by this.

00:08:25.000 We all stood and applauded because we were led to believe

00:08:29.460 that this was an individual who he was not.

00:08:32.600 And that is something that hurts all of us and embarrasses all of us.

00:08:37.100 But there was no prior knowledge from the government.

00:08:39.400 we were caught off guard how could we have known now karina gould as we learned was one of the few

00:08:49.060 mps to actually have a photograph taken up close and personal with yarislav hunka she was uh standing

00:08:56.180 oh my i didn't even tell sean i was using that he just like plucked that out in like one second's

00:09:01.060 notice good job sean uh there she is with her hand clasping mr hunka's hand smiling with anthony

00:09:07.780 Rhoda smiling with, I believe, Yaroslav's son, who we're told initiated this exchange with Anthony

00:09:14.540 Rhoda that got that man invited in the first place. So Karina Gould has actually had more

00:09:19.540 interaction with this guy than anyone else in the House of Commons so far as we know. So for her to

00:09:25.220 say, I mean, what were they talking about? Like, seriously, did she just walk by in the hall, pose

00:09:30.760 for the photo and leave without speaking to him? Did she stop and ask him about his service? Did

00:09:35.260 Did she say, oh, wow, you know, he, sir, when, how, how did he fight against the Russians?

00:09:39.580 When, when did he fight against the Russians?

00:09:41.260 Anything prior to 1945 should have made even the biggest failure in the high school history class realize, well, hey, okay, but, but the Russians in, in World War II, they were on, like, and I'm not saying Karina Gould was a failure in history.

00:09:59.580 She is a very smart and intelligent woman, which is why it's all the more shameful that she, like others, is saying, well, how could we have known?

00:10:08.840 And she has decided to blame.

00:10:12.080 People have pointed to conservatives and said, well, you know, they were up there cheering, too.

00:10:17.400 Absolutely. Because at that point, you know, I don't blame individual members of parliament, individual MPs for clapping when they're being introduced to this guy.

00:10:27.340 he didn't say during World War II in his remarks that I can recall. So I can understand them just 0.95

00:10:32.800 saying, oh, well, he's up there. He's a veteran. We're being told he's a Ukrainian veteran who

00:10:36.580 fought off the Russians. Okay, great. He must be a good guy. And it's in that moment where I don't

00:10:42.320 necessarily blame people for clapping, but it's beyond that. Anyone who was speaking at any point

00:10:50.800 with this guy or with his family or with Anthony Roda that should have been part of a pregnant 0.99

00:10:55.820 pause on what this guy was. I was, for this story I have coming out at two o'clock Eastern today,

00:11:01.640 I was speaking with a Ukrainian professor who's a very pro-Ukraine guy, and he said this is

00:11:07.420 shameful. He said, Ukrainians, no Ukrainian in their right mind, he told me, would support

00:11:13.120 honoring someone in this. He said, yes, there's a complicated history, and yes, Ukrainians have

00:11:17.620 had to undergo a historical reckoning to that effect, but it's because of that that no one

00:11:22.860 would celebrate someone in this way in the right mind. Now, I should say I had one person tell me

00:11:29.420 that they were suspecting it was so, so clear and so obvious and so brazen that this must have been

00:11:35.580 a setup. Now, I don't know who they're blaming for the setup. Was it Pierre Polyev? There's been

00:11:39.820 some of the true anons on Twitter making that claim. Was it Russia that, you know, got this guy

00:11:45.800 to call up Anthony Roda and got Anthony Roda to issue the invitation? Who knows? Maybe there was

00:11:50.380 some four-dimensional chess, or maybe it was just this shameful and regrettable aberration in Canada.

00:11:56.640 But the thing is, when we were talking about India, which was the big story for all of five

00:12:01.860 minutes, we said, or I said on this show, that Justin Trudeau has surrendered the benefit of

00:12:08.060 the doubt. And I keep coming back to this because it's so important. His record on governing in

00:12:12.920 Canada, his record on foreign policy is such that no one can look at him and say, well, I'm sure he

00:12:18.220 meant well anymore because there has been blunder after blunder after blunder. And why that's so

00:12:24.520 important here is because when something comes up of this nature on this scale, no Canadian is buying

00:12:30.320 into the idea that the most micromanaging, centralized, powerful PMO was not involved in

00:12:38.720 many stages of the vetting process of who was up in the House of Commons in the coveted speakers

00:12:45.020 gallery. That's what's happening here. No one believes what Trudeau is saying. Now, I'm not

00:12:49.980 saying Justin Trudeau personally had knowledge of or orchestrated this guy's invitation or

00:12:54.840 recognition, but I do think it's very implausible that no one outside of Anthony Roda and a couple

00:13:01.040 of the staffers that he may have in his office was aware of this given the nature of it. And if not,

00:13:06.420 the most charitable interpretation, the most charitable response to all of this 1.00

00:13:11.300 is just how profoundly dumb people in that office are. 0.99

00:13:15.700 Like, that's how bad things are with this government, 1.00

00:13:18.120 that they have to be like, okay, okay,

00:13:20.300 the issue is not that we're evil, 1.00

00:13:21.980 the issue is that we're morons. 1.00

00:13:23.820 And that's sadly where we are here. 1.00

00:13:26.540 Peter Coleman is the head

00:13:28.160 of the National Citizens Coalition,

00:13:29.920 a group that has a long history

00:13:31.680 in this country of political advocacy.

00:13:34.800 He said in a missive that went out today

00:13:37.440 that there is really at its core here,

00:13:39.620 another example of the virtue signaling we've come to know and expect from this government.

00:13:44.480 Peter joins me now. It's good to talk to you again, sir. Thanks for coming on.

00:13:48.720 Thanks for having me on, Andrew.

00:13:50.240 Let's talk about that for a moment. I mean, virtue signaling has been, I'd say, the most consistent

00:13:54.500 thing resembling ideology that this government has been bound by. And you're saying this is

00:14:00.380 really the consequence of that on full display here yet again.

00:14:04.640 Everything they seem to do is virtual signaling. The government's incapable of apologizing to make

00:14:09.280 mistakes as you said um the pmo's office had to know what was going on with this i mean that's

00:14:14.320 as you said it's a very tightly controlled group so he doesn't get the benefit of your comments so

00:14:19.280 true andrew i mean there's been scandal after scandal after scandal the country's becoming an

00:14:23.620 international embarrassment and trudeau just doesn't get it and he doesn't care and i don't

00:14:27.900 think he andrew isn't capable of apologizing i don't think it's in his blood yeah and i was

00:14:33.600 wondering if you could extrapolate on that or elaborate on that rather a little bit more

00:14:37.720 Because that's, I'd say, been one of the very recurring themes in this government is that the level of shamelessness when they have been caught in one of the myriad scandals going back to, you know, vacationing with the Aga Khan, which seems just quaint by today's standards of scandal and even SNC-Lavalin and getting caught in blackface. 0.86

00:14:55.000 Like somehow it becomes a learning opportunity and a growth opportunity for everyone but Trudeau.

00:15:01.760 But that's just it.

00:15:02.640 I mean, the quality of people like Philippot and Raybalt and Morneau and all the people that have to leave that party because of mistakes that Trudeau make, he's incapable of taking blame. 0.92

00:15:12.800 He's just shameless.

00:15:13.740 I mean, the thing that strikes me with Trudeau is he's too cute by half. 0.71

00:15:17.200 He thinks he's the smartest person in the room.

00:15:20.140 And I would say a lot of times he's far from that to be charitable.

00:15:23.460 And every scandal that's gone on, it's always been it's a learning issue for Canadians, like the same thing with Rota having to retire a Speaker of the House.

00:15:30.760 It has nothing to do with Canadians, other than we're being embarrassed and shamed.

00:15:34.160 It's all to do with Trudeau making a mistake of a massive scale.

00:15:38.340 As you said, it's on the heels of the debacle in India.

00:15:41.580 Everything he does is through such a narrow prism of things that he thinks are important to the country.

00:15:46.440 And the country deserves better.

00:15:47.620 This isn't the way a country should be run.

00:15:49.580 He should care what Canadians feel as far as our values, and he could care less.

00:15:53.420 Well, at one point, and I'm going far afield here, so feel free to rein me back in if you need to, Peter.

00:15:58.380 But this is a government that has often not focused too much effort on the idea of promoting any sort of nationalism or nationality for Canadians.

00:16:06.900 The idea of citizenship, which used to be a very core concept in Canada, certainly under conservative governments, is no longer regarded as such by this government.

00:16:16.340 And it's odd how that sort of creeps up in weird ways.

00:16:19.500 So this Nazi veteran was being introduced as a Canadian hero.

00:16:24.180 Well, we have statues being torn down of what I would call bona fide Canadian heroes all across this country.

00:16:32.660 Yeah, it's just amazing.

00:16:34.640 You look through the prism of all these things and you wonder what's going on in Trudeau's head.

00:16:38.380 I mean, the party can't like what's going on because it goes from scandal to scandal to scandal.

00:16:42.980 But the country deserves better.

00:16:44.520 We deserve common sense.

00:16:45.740 We deserve free speech.

00:16:46.860 We deserve free enterprise to thrive.

00:16:48.480 We deserve the solid resources of the world.

00:16:50.060 and all Trudeau cares about in his narrow prism is gender equality and climate change and those

00:16:55.840 two issues while they're important are not the top issues for most Canadians are trying to get by

00:16:59.800 and they're getting screwed by carbon taxes and things that make no sense and they're driving up

00:17:04.600 food prices but he's incapable Andrew of doing anything about it because he believes in his

00:17:10.560 views nobody in the party's strong enough to stand up to the guy and say look at you're on the wrong

00:17:14.360 track they're all afraid of getting re-elected and that's a symbol of politician that days are

00:17:18.820 past. I mean, eight to 10 years in politics, people are tired of seeing your face. They're

00:17:23.000 tired of Trudeau, clearly. Well, you say that about, you know, gender equality and climate

00:17:28.400 change, and it's actually disgraceful how correct you are. Like if Hitler had committed to gender

00:17:33.780 parity in the SS leadership, Justin Trudeau would say, well, you know, you got to hand it to him.

00:17:38.120 You know, it's actually not that big of a joke if you think about it, given how the government

00:17:43.260 talks about china which is you know one of the big villains in the global geopolitics today but 1.00

00:17:50.060 they say oh well you know they're partners in climate at least yeah but they're not china's

00:17:54.740 not doing it but if we want to solve like we're 1.5 of the world's greenhouse gases if we want

00:17:59.380 to solve that problem we'd ship natural gas to china we're never going to go to zero and it's

00:18:03.720 a mug's game to think we're going to do that and until china and india get on board we we can't

00:18:08.200 get there and if we want our country to thrive oil and gas has to thrive too because it creates a lot

00:18:12.760 of high paying jobs, pays a lot of taxes. And this 2030 nonsense as far as being net zero is

00:18:18.100 absolute nonsense. Anybody with a brain knows that's not possible. Yes, we should do our piece 0.73

00:18:23.560 to try and reduce our emissions. And we are probably the cleanest developer of natural

00:18:28.000 resources in the world. Why don't we start doing what's right as far as climate change instead of

00:18:32.500 gerrymandering just nonsensical agreements and deadlines that just don't make any sense and will

00:18:36.500 not work. One of your predecessors at the National Citizens Coalition is a man that some people may

00:18:42.680 know, by the name of Stephen Harper, who did a great deal of work in the NCC role and then

00:18:48.280 eventually in government in Canada. And, you know, there were obviously negative news stories about

00:18:53.300 Stephen Harper. No government is immune from scandal. No governments were ever able to get

00:18:59.300 through without some criticism. I mean, Stephen Harper had the Mike Duffy scandal as being a

00:19:03.660 notable one, which I thought was blown way out of proportion. But that's a story for another day.

00:19:08.920 The thing about it, though, is that there seems to be a relentlessness in the Trudeau government, who's been in power now for two years fewer than Stephen Harper was.

00:19:20.720 And the number of big scandals that have rocked this government has vastly expanded that of Stephen Harper's time.

00:19:28.480 But, of course, with the media's approach to that, there's a bit of a double standard.

00:19:32.420 It's true. I was talking with Stephen Harper in the summer. I said, where do you think we are on the international stage?

00:19:38.560 He said, he said, the worst thing is our allies don't respect us anymore.

00:19:43.180 And there's problems with that, too.

00:19:44.460 And the only good thing is there's groups like True North that actually do hold the feet to the fire of politicians,

00:19:50.480 because the mainstream media has been bought and paid for by Trudeau for so long.

00:19:55.020 They seem unable to deal with the real issues and know the real problems are.

00:19:58.100 But fortunately, the crack seems to be showing a bit, Andrew, where even the mainstream media can't cover for this guy anymore.

00:20:03.880 And I hope that that continues.

00:20:05.020 But you look at Harper's record and compare it to Trudeau's, people could dislike Harper for all kinds of reasons, I guess.

00:20:11.900 I was never one of them, but his record is clear.

00:20:15.900 Responsible, accountable.

00:20:16.960 He took care of the Canadian people.

00:20:18.280 He cared about them. 0.63

00:20:19.640 Trudeau doesn't give a damn about Canada. 0.65

00:20:21.740 These days, I think he hates the country, the way he treats us.

00:20:25.500 Let's go back to basics here.

00:20:27.180 You're a grassroots organization, the National Citizens Coalition here.

00:20:31.000 Do you think stories like this actually make a difference on the ground?

00:20:36.360 Because there is a bubble mentality in a lot of news where you get a story that to people

00:20:40.300 that, you know, like you and I, that are freaks who just, you know, spend our lives immersed

00:20:43.800 in politics, they matter to us, but, you know, they're not a thing that's discussed around

00:20:48.200 the kitchen table.

00:20:49.020 I know this story is being discussed around the tables of a lot of Jewish families in

00:20:53.740 Canada.

00:20:54.000 So I can say first and foremost that it's got legs there.

00:20:57.420 But do you think this is the type of thing that actually matters to real Canadians beyond the Jewish community?

00:21:03.760 Yeah, I think it does, because people are offended by one of their most holiest of holidays.

00:21:08.040 This thing pops up and just an incredible embarrassment to their community and what happened to their people in World War II and other times.

00:21:15.260 And I do think it does, because if I was a liberal MP right now, Andrew, that won my riding by 5% last time, I'd be looking for a new job.

00:21:23.120 The media tried to vilify Paulio for the longest time, and he's got some growing to do too,

00:21:28.160 but I like the way he's headed. He's talking about common sense issues that people care about.

00:21:32.880 And I do think that people are saying, he's been around for eight years, I can't really

00:21:37.520 count on what he's going to do going forward. But I do know his past means he's not going to

00:21:41.040 do much proper for Canada going forward. So I'm prepared to look at the alternatives. And I think

00:21:46.160 Paulio is doing a good job of that with his platform and what he's saying.

00:21:49.520 yeah and i i would actually extend expand on that a little bit because one of the big challenges

00:21:56.540 we're seeing here in in this country is that the government very much talks down to canadians

00:22:02.300 and it goes back to that pattern i was talking about with scandals whenever the government is

00:22:06.520 immersed in them is that it's a learning opportunity for everyone else they kind of

00:22:10.320 believe they occupy this moral high ground well it's astounding i mean you saw these

00:22:15.780 rabbis in the past week with the muslim groups being supported by mennonites and marching to say

00:22:20.340 we want to protect our children and save our children and that group was vilified as a far

00:22:24.720 right-wing group i wouldn't think that's the case whatsoever and it's just everything he does

00:22:28.640 you're right if he doesn't agree with you is sort of turned back in their face and vilified but

00:22:33.260 he is incapable as a leader of listening to what people's points of view are that don't agree with

00:22:37.980 him and it's very clear that's the case now and there's nobody in the party that's capable it

00:22:42.220 seems to sing Justin this needs to stop it just goes on and on and on and Canada deserves better

00:22:48.580 well we know for a fact there were I don't know if you saw this there were some tweets

00:22:53.320 uh last night of outside the uh parliamentary precinct where the liberals had some emergency

00:22:59.060 a cabinet or caucus meeting at like 9 30 p.m at night so you don't normally have meetings at 9 30

00:23:05.920 p.m at night that are not really announced with any notice unless you are in crisis and I mean

00:23:11.440 And at a certain point, I'm looking at all the liberal MPs that are in that situation you just described, that maybe they're not true believers, maybe they're softer liberals, or maybe they're in very tight ridings that are looking at these poll numbers, showing the conservatives at well over 40 percent, saying, OK, we can't just keep lecturing people in the way we have for the last eight years.

00:23:30.500 We've got to offer something new. And, you know, to be honest, I'm actually amazed it's taken so long for the liberal caucus to grow a little bit of a spine and start asking some questions of its leadership right now.

00:23:41.440 Yeah, well, we've got tens of thousands of members across the country,

00:23:44.400 and you hear all the time as far as when are we getting back to normal basic values?

00:23:48.620 But what strikes me, Andrew, as an issue is when John Kretchen was prime minister,

00:23:53.260 like we're a fiscally conservative organization that believes in free speech

00:23:56.240 and a strong military and responsible spending.

00:23:59.380 Well, Kretchen had guys like Manly and Martin and McKenna that were capable people.

00:24:02.840 So even a conservative person like me would say they're doing a decent job

00:24:06.760 because at the end of the day as a Canadian, you want the country to succeed

00:24:09.380 whether the guy in power is who you support or not there's just no sense there's anybody around

00:24:14.860 them that can do what's right uh on issues or values or international relationships and

00:24:19.780 i don't know where it ends for for trudeau but it's not going to end up well that's for sure

00:24:23.900 because elections two years away i'm shocked that singh is still propping him up but um

00:24:29.040 as it goes on and on and on gets further i don't see how true it can get out of this

00:24:33.060 it's just it's just who he is yeah i mean dragnit singh found his spine when he was standing up to

00:24:39.360 give that ovation on Friday, but he hasn't found a spine at any other point in the last two years

00:24:43.300 of Canadian politics. Peter Coleman is with us from the National Citizens Coalition. Good to

00:24:48.900 talk to you, Peter. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you, Andrew. Take care of yourself. All

00:24:52.500 right. Thank you, sir. Yourself as well. We've had a few questions in the comments. One of them

00:24:58.060 in particular I found interesting, and I've seen this asked a lot in various forms. Roger says

00:25:03.360 deportation from Canada of every Nazi and their family member should be considered

00:25:07.720 as a corrective action of this disgraceful event

00:25:11.260 enabled by the current leading minister's actions.

00:25:14.800 Your thoughts?

00:25:15.960 It's a complicated question

00:25:17.740 and I don't consider myself an expert

00:25:19.400 in every aspect of this.

00:25:21.500 I've certainly become more familiar with it

00:25:23.100 in the last five days as I've looked into this,

00:25:25.980 but I do know that there has been a difference

00:25:27.620 in the way that certainly German soldiers have been treated

00:25:30.920 who are generally not regarded as Nazis or criminals

00:25:33.560 versus members of the SS

00:25:35.760 who do not have the ability to hide behind. I was just a frontline soldier, nothing to do with the

00:25:40.780 Holocaust, nothing to do with war crimes. And the challenge here is that the Ukrainian unit in 0.89

00:25:48.020 question, the 1st Galician Division, has been treated a little bit differently. There was a

00:25:53.180 report in 1986, which was done by the Deshane Commission, as it was called, that looked into

00:25:58.420 this and found they couldn't just en masse call anyone who was a part of this a war criminal. Now,

00:26:04.580 there were two parts to this report. One of them was public and people can see it now. And it's

00:26:10.040 where the commissioner made the finding that this division was not itself complicit in war crimes

00:26:15.920 that you could say applied to everyone or was not a criminal organization. And the other side of it,

00:26:21.800 part two, actually had a very detailed accounting of every identified Nazi in Canada. This has to

00:26:30.000 this day in the last 37 years, never been published. Jewish groups have called for it to be

00:26:36.920 published, but it has not happened. Christopher Freeland was actually asked about this, whether

00:26:41.400 it was time to reopen the report. I've been a breath to reopen a report by the Duchesne Commission

00:26:48.360 so that Canadians can know how many veterans who fought with the Nazis are here in our country.

00:26:54.280 Will the government do so? And what is your response to that?

00:27:00.000 I think, you know, let me just start by reiterating, and I don't think it can be said

00:27:12.660 too many times, how hurtful for so many people in Canada and around the world

00:27:24.180 what happened

00:27:27.440 was and has been and continues to be.

00:27:38.340 As MPs,

00:27:40.280 in our capacity as MPs,

00:27:42.800 it's important for appropriate next steps

00:27:46.740 in the House to be taken,

00:27:48.500 and I think that is our immediate focus.

00:27:51.400 and as a government we're going to be very thoughtful about any further steps that need to

00:28:02.940 be taken i'm sorry i don't recall anything resembling an answer coming out in that it was

00:28:12.320 you know reiterating the deep regret and sympathy and embarrassment and all of that and then saying

00:28:16.440 that we're going to be very careful about those next steps we had actually tried to get someone

00:28:20.860 from B'nai B'rith on the show today.

00:28:23.660 I think we're going to move on with that tomorrow.

00:28:26.820 We weren't able to make the scheduling worked out

00:28:28.880 because they've been calling for this.

00:28:30.160 And Michael Barrett,

00:28:31.080 from whom I played that clip earlier in the show,

00:28:33.900 had introduced a motion in committee in April

00:28:36.840 calling for the release of the second part of that report.

00:28:41.480 And that motion never ended up getting voted on

00:28:44.540 so far as I'm able to tell.

00:28:45.780 And I'm not sure if that was

00:28:46.980 because it was blocked by the government

00:28:48.460 or there was some other procedural reason

00:28:50.800 why. I haven't been able to get a satisfactory answer. I emailed Michael Barrett. He never

00:28:55.120 responded to me, so I don't know. Maybe I'm on the naughty list, or maybe it's just a busy week in

00:28:59.620 Ottawa. I'm kidding. Don't worry. But nevertheless, we will follow the story, and I suspect we'll have

00:29:05.740 a bit more on this tomorrow, so I would encourage you to stay tuned on that. I wanted to turn to

00:29:12.020 local politics. I mean, all politics that matters is local in some form, but we have seen increasingly

00:29:17.780 in Canada, and we can go back to the Freedom Convoy and many years beyond that, a very strained

00:29:23.760 relationship between governments and freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the right for you

00:29:29.340 not only to have a political opinion, but to express it and even to protest. Protest is one

00:29:35.740 of the most important aspects of freedom of expression because freedom of expression is a

00:29:41.520 vehicle by which we can seek change in society. We can seek change from government and we can

00:29:46.760 seek change from other groups that are doing things we believe are protestable. But some people

00:29:51.820 don't like that. And as we've reported at True North, in the city of Calgary, there is a bylaw

00:29:58.600 that is now facing a legal challenge. It's a bylaw that establishes a so-called buffer zone

00:30:03.740 between protesters and some events. Let's be real, it's not in the bylaw, but this came about as a

00:30:10.820 direct response to protests of drag story times and it's a bylaw that restricts your ability to

00:30:18.160 protest any event that effectively the government the municipal government deems to be protected

00:30:24.380 it's not allowing you to protest with if they believe you are engaging in quote hateful

00:30:30.600 messaging we fast forward to another story out of waterloo ontario where there's a proposal

00:30:36.860 not yet a bylaw, but a proposal to ban communication that makes people, quote,

00:30:43.140 feel harassed, unquote. That's literally from the text of the report, quote, that makes them feel

00:30:49.840 harassed. There's a great story up at True North from my colleague, Cosmin Georgia, that I would

00:30:54.780 encourage you to take a look at. But to go back to the Calgary bylaw, it's being challenged by

00:30:59.540 the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Joanna Barron joins me now, the executive director over there,

00:31:05.520 And also one of the co-authors of a great new book about the COVID era policy, which I will certainly have her and her co-author, Christine Van Gein, on to talk about.

00:31:14.960 But all that aside, it's good to talk to you, Joanna. Thanks for coming on.

00:31:18.420 Great to be here with you, Andrew.

00:31:20.060 So let's talk about the reality, I mean, the subtext of this bylaw here, because they're not just going after protest in general.

00:31:26.760 You know from the context and the wording, they're going after a very particular type of protest, and they're really targeting it to a very particular type of viewpoint, I would say.

00:31:37.560 Well, yes, although it's not as narrow as you would think.

00:31:40.900 You're certainly correct that this came out as a response to protests around Drag Queen Story Hour.

00:31:46.580 However, the text of the bylaw says bans protests on issues relating to gender, national identity, a whole category that could apply to many things.

00:31:57.880 So my colleague Christine pointed out that if you wanted to have a protest about against female genital mutilation, since that is understood to be a cultural and religious practice, that would be caught under the bylaw.

00:32:11.020 And so it's actually a sort of wide swath of categories. Even, you know, protesting against climate change would be caught by the bylaw. And so it's a whole category of things. But as you say, the important part to remember is that this is sort of demarcating different types of protests that Calgary City Council are saying are permissible and not permissible, whereas the Supreme Court of Canada has been very clear that the guarantee of freedom of expression is content neutral.

00:32:40.600 The state doesn't get to say what I can demonstrate and protest about.

00:32:45.700 Well, and on that note, I would also point out here that political speech is the most protected, basically.

00:32:52.140 It's deemed the most important.

00:32:53.660 It's, you know, free speech isn't just your right to say, I prefer milk to cream in my coffee or something like that.

00:32:58.780 And that's where, you know, the things that need the most protection are the things that are the most prone to being censored or to be reined in.

00:33:07.360 Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:08.940 Absolutely. And moreover, where there's, as you mentioned, there's buffer zones that are identified in this bylaw, which tend to be, you know, areas of 500 meters close to recreation centers and libraries.

00:33:21.840 And first of all, it's hard if you know downtown Calgary, there isn't many areas where you wouldn't find a library or rec center somewhere within 500 meters.

00:33:29.760 And like those are the places where civil society tends to gather. So it's a terribly draconian bylaw.

00:33:37.460 I would also note that it carries a penalty of up to $10,000 or a term of imprisonment.

00:33:43.700 So actually, one of the arguments at the Canadian Constitution Foundation that we're making is that this is, in substance, a criminal law, which city councils is a matter of federal jurisdiction.

00:33:55.080 So city councils actually outside of their jurisdiction, not to mention acting unconstitutionally on freedom of expression grounds.

00:34:03.760 One of the challenges that comes up here is that when there is, as broadly as it's put, as you shared, Joanna, this bylaw in place, it effectively leaves everything up to discretion, which means it's up to bylaw enforcement to decide on a case-by-case basis whether they want to.

00:34:21.660 and it's very East Germany in the sense that they have a law that basically lets them go after

00:34:28.220 anyone and everyone and we're just to expect that, well, they'll pick and choose and they'll

00:34:32.400 really only go after the people who deserve it. Who is it that gets the authority to decide

00:34:36.880 when to apply this? Yeah, completely. The discretion will be left to the police and it

00:34:43.320 will be them that decides whether to go ahead and lay charges and we can assume that certain

00:34:49.140 politically correct demonstrations that Calgary City Council perhaps agrees with, because this is

00:34:55.440 a very clear signal. And we do know from the debates at City Council that indeed they brought

00:35:00.460 this about in response to concerns of protests about drag queen story hour. Whereas just to be

00:35:05.940 clear, this is not about us taking a position for or against drag queen story hour. I would also add

00:35:11.500 that if you were to protest drag queen story hour, and you wanted to run a counter protest in favor

00:35:17.440 of drag queen story hour guess what that's also relating to gender and sexuality so that also

00:35:24.020 would be prohibited by the bylaw now whether you would be charged we don't know i'll say i know

00:35:30.560 you have a big audience but i'll say that within the team of the ccf we talked about maybe if we

00:35:35.400 go out to calgary and do our own protest against for example female genital mutilation let's see

00:35:40.760 if we get arrested. But we elected not to, and we elected to just seek public interest

00:35:47.520 standing to challenge this bylaw. Well, let me ask you about that legal challenge. I mean,

00:35:54.400 do you need to wait for someone to be, in your view, unfairly prosecuted or charged under this?

00:36:01.000 Or can you affect, it's not a legal term, but can you challenge it on spec? Say, you know,

00:36:05.520 irrespective of how and when this is used, it's bad on its face and needs to go.

00:36:09.460 So we can say as a public interest charity, and we are a legal charity that has a long track record of fighting for the enforcement of constitutional rights in court, that no, that harm has existed, has happened since this became law.

00:36:23.900 And so we're challenging it on the basis of you should be able to look at this law facially, see that it is not content neutral, that it singles out different types of peaceful, constitutionally protected expression, as well as the guarantee for freedom of assembly.

00:36:39.960 And you should be able to determine that that is contrary to the Constitution.

00:36:44.400 So you can, you know, seek public interest, standing in challenge.

00:36:47.800 I wouldn't quite say on spec because there is an important chilling effect, right, that whether or not somebody is actually charged, isn't it disturbing that somebody would have to think, well, I'm not sure if, you know, this, I want to protest Israel or Palestine, either one, for example, but I'm not sure if the Calgary police are going to arrest me.

00:37:10.280 we would say at the CCF, you've already done the damage. You've already chilled what is legitimate

00:37:15.460 political protected expression. That's actually quite an important point. And I mean, I remember

00:37:22.300 when the COVID stuff was going along, I mean, I've never been too much of a rabble. I guess I've 1.00

00:37:26.880 roused a bit of a rabble in my day. But when there was talk of Ontario potentially doing a curfew, 0.99

00:37:32.220 I was like, I'm going to be out on the streets at 9pm every night. Like I'm in bed at like 9.30.

00:37:37.360 So, like, I would have been doing it purely to be a disturber of the fecal matter.

00:37:41.740 But some people would have done the opposite.

00:37:43.900 As you've said, say, oh, well, I don't want a ticket, especially when in COVID, as I know

00:37:47.940 you'll be writing about in your upcoming book, some of the fines were so steep.

00:37:51.360 A lot of people that, you know, just might have been tempted to do something would say,

00:37:55.120 you know, I don't want to risk the penalty.

00:37:57.100 And I can see that exact thing happening here.

00:37:59.360 Someone who says, well, you know, I'm all for protesting, but I don't want to break

00:38:02.920 the law.

00:38:03.380 I don't want to deal with that.

00:38:05.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:38:05.580 It just like, you know, people said to us that they didn't want to donate to the CCF after the Freedom Convoy, because even though they were pretty sure it was okay, who wants to risk having their bank accounts frozen? And we talk a lot more about that in Pandemic Panic, which is available for pre-order on Amazon now.

00:38:22.120 Well, definitely we'll have you and Christine back on that. Let me just ask you about the process here as best as you've been able to unearth it, because I know the federal government in particular, they'll run every bit of legislation by the Department of Justice and supposedly charter proof it or offer recommendations on how to immunize it to some extent against a charter challenge.

00:38:42.740 municipalities aren't as well resourced but do we think there was any legal input at all on this

00:38:49.240 that we've been able to see where a lawyer gave them the case for why this was justifiable so we

00:38:54.500 know for example in terms of process this was rammed through in a single session an extended

00:38:59.940 debate on the merits of the bill which we know certain councillors did raise concerns about the

00:39:04.660 constitutionality perhaps ones with a legal background but this was pushed through in a

00:39:09.240 single session without any extended debate. So we are inclined to think that they did not give

00:39:15.780 this extensive legal consideration. And they were quite surprised when we challenged it right out

00:39:22.240 the gate. Have you had a chance to review, I know it's not made it into a bylaw yet, but what they've

00:39:28.360 proposed in Waterloo, which strikes me as very similar and just the epitome of subjective here,

00:39:34.160 things that make you feel harassed. Like I feel harassed sometimes by an ad that I might not like,

00:39:39.900 but I don't believe it should be taken down with any force of law.

00:39:43.140 Yeah. So the report, the Waterloo report defines being harassed as feeling tormented, troubled,

00:39:48.880 worried, plagued, or badgered. And we are actually talking about this this morning on our podcast,

00:39:53.660 not reserving judgment. I mean, who doesn't feel badgered on a daily basis? I live in downtown

00:39:58.180 Toronto. It's kind of part of the game. That doesn't...

00:40:00.780 I feel badgered by charity fundraisers sometimes that you run into in downtown Toronto, but they

00:40:05.240 have a right to be there. Well, exactly. So I would say this bylaw is quite bad, but it's actually

00:40:11.360 not as bad. Calgary actually has an identical version on street harassment, very similar

00:40:17.740 language, but it actually applies everywhere in Calgary, from the sidewalks to the restaurants.

00:40:23.280 So it's actually even worse. And we've focused on the protest bylaw, but we certainly are studying

00:40:29.080 this. And just to be clear, in a recent case, early 2022 case, the Supreme Court of Canada

00:40:35.200 has said that there is no right not to be offended. This is the Mike Ward case where there

00:40:40.200 was the Quebec comedian making these edgy jokes. Supreme Court said, you know, you may find this

00:40:45.140 distasteful, but in a free society, you have no right not to be offended. That is not a thing.

00:40:51.520 And so governments should certainly not be in the business of enacting laws that punish people who

00:40:56.860 merely offend others. And my colleague was talking about this morning, how this street harassment

00:41:02.960 bill played out in Calgary is kind of funny. There was an argument at a public pool over

00:41:08.380 trans people being able to use change rooms of the sex they identify with. And so some individuals

00:41:14.340 were protesting against this policy. And then there were counter protesters protesting the

00:41:19.660 protests. And so they all ended up offending each other and harassing each other. And both sides

00:41:25.080 ended up with street harassment fines, which begs the question, why should the police have been

00:41:30.400 involved in this at all? Mutually, yeah, mutually assured destruction there is the way it tends to

00:41:35.780 come out here. I'll just make a point here and get you to weigh in as we close, Joanna, because

00:41:40.980 oftentimes whenever you talk about free speech or freedom of expression, whether you mean it in a

00:41:45.160 legal sense or just the moral sense, you'll get the very predictable response, which is, well,

00:41:49.700 that's different than hate speech. And free speech is not the same as hate speech. And, you know,

00:41:54.000 obviously there is a criminal prohibition on hate speech in Canada, but what people forget is that

00:41:58.840 that still applies without this bylaw. Like if speech is crossing that boundary where it is

00:42:04.700 meeting that very high bar to be criminalized, the law already applies. Police already have the

00:42:09.660 ability to deal with that. So necessarily a bylaw like this is trying to lower that threshold and

00:42:15.520 cover more speech. Yeah. Well, hate speech is already problematic enough because it's such a

00:42:22.240 subjective definition, but it is speech that reaches a certain threshold of encouraging

00:42:27.540 really hate and perhaps violence against certain groups. But that's already a very problematic

00:42:33.660 standard. And so, yes, if you're going to water it down further and say, well, what if you made

00:42:38.280 me feel badgered? What if you made me feel harassed? You're just like bringing in more and more

00:42:44.200 barriers to free expression, which I totally agree with what you said at the outset. This is how

00:42:49.560 free expression is how we work things out in a free society. If we can't work things out through

00:42:54.720 conversation, we have to work things out through fists. And that doesn't seem like a particularly

00:43:00.300 acceptable solution. Now, is it October 31st? Your book comes out, right? Yes. All right. Nice way to

00:43:07.540 scare yourself on Halloween by reading about the dismal state of civil liberties in Canada. It is

00:43:11.820 called Pandemic Panic. It is written by Joanna Barron and Christine Van Gein. And I believe I

00:43:17.260 am cited in it, if I'm not mistaken. So you were mentioned many times. Well, that's rarely good,

00:43:22.840 but I appreciate it very much. And I did have a chance to review an advanced copy and it's a

00:43:27.740 wonderful read. So people should definitely check that out. Joanna, thank you so much for coming on.

00:43:32.380 Thanks, Andrew. All right. Thank you. That was Joanna Barron from the Canadian Constitution

00:43:37.060 Foundation. We will end things there. My thanks to you all for tuning in. We will be back in 23

00:43:43.640 three hours and 15 minutes here on Canada's most irreverent talk show on true

00:43:48.080 North, the Andrew Lawton show. Thank you. God bless. And good day to you all.

00:43:52.480 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show.

00:43:54.880 Support the program by donating to true North at www.tnc.news.

00:44:13.640 We'll be right back.

Juno News - September 27, 2023

Anthony Rota's resignation doesn't end shameful Nazi scandal

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