Juno News - Appease and Thank You

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.760 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.780 Coming up, Canada's relentless appeasement of China, 0.98

00:00:16.120 our food delivery apps bankrupting restaurants,

00:00:18.520 and the government's vilification of law-abiding gun owners.

00:00:23.660 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:34.080 Breaking news bulletin, breaking news for you.

00:00:36.900 Dr. Teresa Tam says Canada was wrong to have not acted sooner to close the border.

00:00:44.440 You think? Oh my goodness.

00:00:46.600 This is like sky blue dog bites, man.

00:00:50.660 This is like the least newsworthy revelation ever.

00:00:54.060 Actually, I suppose it's newsworthy that the government is admitting it was wrong here.

00:00:58.440 Dr. Teresa Tam, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, said,

00:01:02.660 The specific approach that she was referring to was about the delay in barring foreign visitors from entering Canada.

00:01:17.540 This comes just, you know, the day after Canada has reached an agreement to extend the border shutdown with the United States.

00:01:25.960 And finally, a level of contrition, or at the very least, a recognition that,

00:01:30.920 Hey, we should have done this sooner from public health officials.

00:01:33.480 And this is where, whether you respect Dr. Teresa Tam's credentials or not, is irrelevant.

00:01:40.000 She's offering advice to public policy leaders, which means she needs to be given the level of scrutiny that you would give to politicians. 0.57

00:01:47.700 When politicians are deferring to the public health officer, you have to have some skepticism and scrutiny to the public health officer.

00:01:54.920 That's my position here.

00:01:56.360 And I recognize she's a smart woman, an accomplished woman.

00:01:59.480 But when she is lecturing people about racism, when she is saying that we need to avoid anti-Chinese bigotry, which, yes, I agree. 0.97

00:02:08.260 At the same time, not taking things seriously like the threat to the border, making a number of decisions, her and her team, it's not just her, that have been reversed.

00:02:17.860 Whether it's on masks, whether it's on border shutdown, whether it's on travel, human-to-human transmission, all of these things.

00:02:23.700 And then we are at the point now where everyone in Canada knew what the government is finally waking up to, which is, hmm, we probably could have done something sooner.

00:02:32.560 Now, you may say what the benefit of this is doesn't matter anymore.

00:02:37.060 But I would say it does, because for starters, we need to have a preparedness of something like this, heaven forbid, happens in the future.

00:02:44.200 But more importantly, it means that we have to stop letting Justin Trudeau get away with, oh, I was following the advice of public health officials, when he uses that as his excuse for everyone.

00:02:56.560 In fact, I'm pretty sure that Trudeau is going to be using that, like, for the next three years, or however long he's in office this term.

00:03:03.220 When someone says, oh, Prime Minister, you know, why did you decide to raise the top income tax bracket and all of this?

00:03:10.960 Well, I was following the advice of public health officials.

00:03:14.440 We'll have it on a montage, and I think he's just going to be so used to it that no matter what.

00:03:18.900 You know, why did you designate that historic lighthouse in PEI?

00:03:21.880 Well, as you know, I was following and will continue to follow the advice of public health officials.

00:03:27.200 But it's actually laughable, because when the public health officials, who I don't suggest must be infallible, they are humans, they make mistakes, things move quickly, I get all that.

00:03:39.620 But the problem is not that they are fallible, in my view.

00:03:44.240 The problem is that they pretend they are infallible and basically try to posit that they are above scrutiny.

00:03:52.580 And this is the big concern that I have here, because we know that the public health apparatchik, if you will, has been infiltrated by people that have political agendas.

00:04:02.800 And I'm not even talking just about Canada here.

00:04:04.940 You look at the World Health Organization and the unquestioning deference that the Canadian government and Canadian public officials have to the WHO,

00:04:13.140 and the unquestioning deference that the WHO then has to China.

00:04:16.680 And all of a sudden, you have the Chinese regime's talking points filtering their way, not just through the WHO,

00:04:23.740 but then through all of the countries in the world, like Canada, that decide to hold up the WHO as being the gold standard of science and health and evidence.

00:04:32.520 So when there is an admission like this, that, yeah, we could have acted sooner,

00:04:36.500 where it's, okay, well, then why are we mocking and berating people for questioning the Canadian health officials

00:04:44.260 when the Canadian health officials are able to recognize, hey, you know what, we didn't get it right here,

00:04:49.400 however muted that admission has been.

00:04:52.460 And there was a great line about this that came from Andrew Scheer.

00:04:57.100 Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said earlier in the week that Canada has been following a policy of appeasement with China.

00:05:04.920 And I've talked about in the past Canada's appeasement of China,

00:05:09.140 but that is actually the guiding principle of Canadian foreign policy,

00:05:13.500 and I'd say even Canadian domestic health policy right now.

00:05:16.940 It is a policy of appeasement, appeasing the WHO, appeasing the Chinese Politburo,

00:05:22.400 whether it's Patti Hajdu saying that there's no reason to distrust China,

00:05:26.440 or Justin Trudeau saying that any questions about China are not questions for today,

00:05:30.780 but questions for yesterday or tomorrow, and then when tomorrow comes, oh, no, you missed it.

00:05:34.660 They were yesterday's questions.

00:05:36.520 No matter when you asked Trudeau, it was always another day that you were supposed to have asked that question.

00:05:42.080 So all of this is going to get a heck of a lot worse as China ramps up its propaganda efforts.

00:05:48.840 And the context of this, of this comment by Andrew Scheer,

00:05:52.920 was that Trudeau has waited until now, after weeks of bucking anything about China,

00:06:00.760 to even remotely go tough on China or even give the illusion of going tough on China.

00:06:06.880 So one example of this is supporting Taiwan's bid to have observer status at the WHO.

00:06:12.460 Well, up until now, Canada has been completely ignorant that there is this brewing controversy.

00:06:18.400 And, you know, at one point, the foreign minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, wouldn't even say Taiwan.

00:06:25.040 Whereas I'm like, let's do beetles.

00:06:26.400 I'm like, we should beetlejuice Taiwan. 1.00

00:06:28.680 Just Taiwan, Taiwan, Taiwan.

00:06:30.260 We should just say it three times and hope that all the Chinese bureaucrats vanish into dust when we do. 1.00

00:06:34.860 I mean, this is a country, and I'm going to say country, that we should be hitching ourselves to as much as possible,

00:06:42.000 not just because Taiwan has an incredible track record when it comes to coronavirus and pandemic containment,

00:06:48.860 but because as the lone democracy, that tiny little democracy in this part of the world that so desperately needs it,

00:06:57.340 we should be strengthening 10 times over our relationship with that country.

00:07:02.900 But this is indicative of a Canada that is waiting and waiting and waiting,

00:07:08.320 and then eventually when they do something that is close to the right thing,

00:07:11.220 it's so delayed and has come after so much equivocation that you can't even really give them any credit for it.

00:07:17.720 And the point that Scheer said is that Trudeau's government must have done some polling,

00:07:21.680 and that's when they started to change the message on Taiwan.

00:07:25.280 This is what he said.

00:07:26.040 I have to say that on this matter, you know, it was only recently that the Trudeau Liberals in any way changed their tune on this.

00:07:34.900 And don't be fooled by Mr. Trudeau's phony statements about China right now.

00:07:39.980 We have been raising the alarm about this government's failure to stand up for Canada,

00:07:44.400 its policy of appeasement to the regime and the PRC,

00:07:47.460 and it's only now after they see some polling data that they've started to change their message on that.

00:07:52.200 We have been calling for the government to pull out of the Asian Infrastructure Bank

00:07:55.580 to step up inspections of Chinese exports into Canada

00:07:58.620 and show the PRC that there are consequences for illegally detaining two Canadians and pushing Canada around.

00:08:05.760 Justin Trudeau has refused to do that.

00:08:07.380 He refused to do it in the last parliament.

00:08:09.440 He refused to say anything about that during the last campaign,

00:08:12.500 and it's only in the last couple of weeks that he's changed his message at all.

00:08:15.380 And I don't know if there are any people listening or watching to this show

00:08:18.180 who think that I'm being a bit too tough on China,

00:08:20.380 But lest you think for a moment that Canada is doing anything other than focusing on

00:08:27.080 the relentless appeasement of China, 0.96

00:08:29.660 take a look at this line from Karina Gould.

00:08:33.780 Now, Karina Gould is the International Development Minister in Canada.

00:08:39.060 She was asked about the WHO, which has promised an independent review,

00:08:43.820 and I'll talk about that in a moment, of its reaction of the global response.

00:08:47.460 And she was asked whether there should be some skepticism of China from the WHO.

00:08:53.600 And this is what she said.

00:08:55.480 The question was whether the WHO should be more skeptical of China,

00:08:58.440 given the behavior of that government.

00:09:04.160 Well, I mean, I'm not sure that that's the place for the WHO,

00:09:07.420 because the WHO is a product of its member states.

00:09:11.240 And I think that each member state can push for openness and for transparency.

00:09:16.720 So the whole point here is that, oh, well, the WHO, they're just like a jukebox.

00:09:32.120 You know, China pushes a button and gets a song,

00:09:34.400 and Canada pushes a button and gets a song.

00:09:36.260 Whereas she's saying it's not for the WHO.

00:09:39.100 So she says they're supposed to be a neutral body that is just the gestalt,

00:09:43.680 you know, the sum of its parts, I guess greater than the sum of its parts in that case.

00:09:47.540 But ultimately, they shouldn't be the ones to have any skepticism of China.

00:09:52.160 And I'm like, well, if not the body that is aggregating and collating and filtering this data,

00:09:58.400 then who else?

00:10:00.000 Who else is supposed to, if not the WHO?

00:10:03.080 So it's funny that now Canada is playing both sides of this.

00:10:06.520 Because on one hand, we're saying, oh, no, no, we're listening to the WHO.

00:10:09.700 And it's not our job to question China.

00:10:11.720 The WHO is the global body.

00:10:13.980 They're synthesizing all of these data and these figures.

00:10:16.580 And now when WHO is in the spotlight here and getting a bit of a questioning that is desperately needed,

00:10:25.080 the Canadian government is saying, well, you know, they're just like,

00:10:28.220 you know, they're just a reflection of their member states.

00:10:30.960 It's not their job to do anything.

00:10:33.160 So I'm like, so again, whose job is it?

00:10:35.540 Whose job is it to criticize China?

00:10:37.520 It sure as heck isn't the WHO's in the Canadian government's books.

00:10:40.880 It sure as heck isn't the Canadian government's job to criticize China.

00:10:44.320 The Canadian government wants to play nice guy to everyone.

00:10:48.720 Well, the heavy lifting on NATO, on the UN, on the WHO is done by the United States.

00:10:53.900 And what do we do?

00:10:54.800 We stab the U.S. in the back every chance we get.

00:10:59.060 China desperately needs to be taken down a peg or two or 17, not just because they're wrong on this 0.97

00:11:06.100 and because they have had a reckless disregard for human life in their own country and around the world.

00:11:11.340 But morally, it's the right thing to do.

00:11:13.700 If you believe in moral leadership for a country, which I realize is a questionable area for a lot of people,

00:11:19.420 but Trudeau is the one that says Canada needs to be a leader morally.

00:11:22.960 Well, why is he only devoting himself to trying to attack and snipe at the U.S.

00:11:28.720 instead of the real moral enemies of freedom and the real economic enemies of free countries like China?

00:11:35.160 So we have a complete deference from Canada to the WHO, a deference from Canada to China,

00:11:42.200 and now a belief from Canada that the WHO is supposed to be deferential to China.

00:11:46.860 And again, I'm at the point here of if this is all an elaborate game of 3D chess and Trudeau's trying to play nice

00:11:52.380 so that he can rescue the two Michaels that have been imprisoned there for over a year now,

00:11:57.160 then where are the results?

00:11:59.420 If this is all just some elaborate negotiation strategy like Justin Trudeau's defenders and pretenders

00:12:05.760 try to make it out to be, where are the results?

00:12:09.380 If there is not a first-class flight from Beijing to Toronto with those two Canadians on it, 0.94

00:12:14.700 I'm sorry, it's hard to say that there is no, it's hard to say there is any credibility

00:12:18.880 for the Canadian position with China being anything other than appeasing.

00:12:23.340 It's not a strategy, it's not negotiation, it is appeasement.

00:12:27.020 And we don't just have an appeasement of China, but an appeasement of all of the bodies that China 1.00

00:12:32.560 itself is being appeased by as well.

00:12:35.340 It's appeasement all over the place, it's an appeasement palooza.

00:12:38.240 That's what Canada is doing with China, with the WHO, with the UN, and it's got to stop.

00:12:43.980 And by the way, the World Health Organization, I think, is only doing this independent review,

00:12:49.760 and independent, give me a break, but this supposedly independent supposed review,

00:12:54.880 because they are terrified of the U.S. funding cut.

00:12:58.680 Because remember, the U.S. has put its funding to the WHO,

00:13:02.580 which basically props up the entire bureaucracy there under the microscope,

00:13:07.980 and the WHO needs to do something to save that.

00:13:12.520 And I think that this is going to probably be a charade.

00:13:16.660 I mean, maybe, just maybe, if they can appoint Mike Pence to lead the task force or something,

00:13:21.960 there might be some benefit to it.

00:13:23.980 If they appoint Patty Hajdu or Theresa Tam to lead the task force,

00:13:26.980 I don't anticipate us getting too much out of it.

00:13:30.000 But there needs to be, at the very least, more transparency there.

00:13:33.780 And I would look at the WHO being embroiled in this,

00:13:38.660 I'll say scandal seems like too minor a word, but embroiled in this cloud of doubt.

00:13:43.460 And here's what the U.N. is focused on right now.

00:13:46.680 A tweet on May 18th, so that is Monday, from the United Nations.

00:13:51.260 What you say matters.

00:13:53.420 Help create a more equal world by using gender-neutral language

00:13:56.700 if you're unsure about someone's gender or are referring to a group.

00:14:01.100 Policeman's now a police officer.

00:14:03.140 Landlord is owner.

00:14:04.440 Boyfriend, girlfriend's partner.

00:14:05.900 So if you bring a new boyfriend home to meet mom and dad,

00:14:09.420 you've actually committed a U.N. hate crime.

00:14:11.320 It's your partner, which, as a 16-year-old, you don't have a partner.

00:14:14.740 You have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

00:14:16.100 Anyway, a salesman has to be a salesperson, manpower, workforce, maiden name, family name, and so on.

00:14:22.440 So, you know, this is like the standard thing you'd get out of any sort of liberal arts program

00:14:27.640 at any university in North America.

00:14:29.520 So there's nothing radical about this.

00:14:31.540 But it's like, does the United Nations not have bigger fish to fry right now?

00:14:36.780 Bigger fish that a fisherman or fisher person has fished out of the global geopolitical pond.

00:14:42.940 Is this really the big priority for the global political leadership right now?

00:14:47.100 Apparently it is.

00:14:48.760 Apparently it is.

00:14:49.520 So maybe the independent review at the WHO will just reveal that they've been using the wrong pronouns

00:14:54.820 for the last year.

00:14:56.400 And nothing to do with the pandemic or the coronavirus.

00:14:58.140 But they accidentally called, you know, a doctor, ma'am, or sir.

00:15:02.200 And, you know, that was what the review unearthed.

00:15:05.340 But this is why, I mean, these international bodies, you know, some of them you might say

00:15:09.480 they mean well.

00:15:10.440 And I think it used to be that of all of these, like the UN and the UN Refugee Agency and

00:15:16.140 the WHO and all of these, that the WHO was the one that I think people had more tolerance

00:15:21.000 for because, well, it's, you know, global health.

00:15:23.780 But now that they've actually been faced with a test and they've been just as political

00:15:28.820 as every other UN agency, run by a fake doctor and with just this complete and absolute deference

00:15:37.060 of China.

00:15:37.560 Like, I don't even know why they bother to have a China delegation to the WHO when the

00:15:42.700 WHO is the China delegation.

00:15:45.060 But that's neither here nor there.

00:15:46.800 So all of this is going to be a Canadian cross to bear.

00:15:51.300 However, the WHO countries have unanimously approved of this independent investigation.

00:15:57.480 And I will say that it was Australia that was pushing for it.

00:16:01.320 And eventually the UN was really forced into a corner here because the EU backed it, the

00:16:06.660 UK, a bunch of African countries.

00:16:08.760 But they don't actually mention China in it.

00:16:11.380 It's a call to action.

00:16:13.280 But they don't actually mention what I would say is probably the primary need for a review.

00:16:20.080 They've just said we need an independent investigation.

00:16:22.860 So it's not even clear.

00:16:24.180 They're investigating themselves.

00:16:26.020 I mean, this is the whole point is that I don't think anything about this is going to

00:16:29.320 be independent.

00:16:30.400 But I will read the exact text of it that the member states call on the UN to, quote,

00:16:35.960 initiate at the earliest appropriate moment and in consultation with member states, a stepwise

00:16:41.920 process of impartial, independent, and comprehensive evaluation, dot, dot, dot, to review experience

00:16:48.680 gained and lessons learned from the WHO coordinate and international health response to COVID-19.

00:16:54.200 Now, if you understand what any of that said, you are actually probably well suited for the

00:16:59.260 UN bureaucrat life.

00:17:00.680 But it's to initiate at the earliest appropriate moment, impartial, independent, and comprehensive

00:17:06.800 evaluation to review experience gained and lessons learned.

00:17:11.180 So this is not an accountability tool.

00:17:13.580 I want to make this very clear.

00:17:15.100 This is not about admitting they've done wrong.

00:17:17.800 It's to say, what did we learn?

00:17:20.280 Let's turn this thing that has killed so many people around the world that has impacted millions.

00:17:25.920 Let's turn this into a teachable moment for all so that we can all just go and put up

00:17:31.180 a chart and say, don't say policeman, say police officer, and all of that stuff.

00:17:36.220 But this is not going to be an accountability measure.

00:17:38.520 So when people say we need answers from the WHO, they aren't saying that they want a report

00:17:43.740 and a kumbaya song out of it.

00:17:45.500 They're saying that we want a recognition that they have royally screwed a lot of countries,

00:17:51.020 Canada included, and the United States included, and to do this in a way that is just so completely

00:17:58.760 and utterly devoid of recognition of their own wrongdoing makes them no better than China, 0.90

00:18:04.860 but actually worse than China because they're supposed to be the ones that are questioning

00:18:08.340 China.

00:18:08.780 So yes, Canada's appeasement of China needs to stop, but also Canada's really bad tendency

00:18:17.400 and dangerous tendency to go all in on international organizations needs to stop.

00:18:24.240 Remember, Trudeau has been devoting essentially his entire premiership to wanting to be on the

00:18:31.140 UN Security Council.

00:18:32.340 This has been like Justin Trudeau's primary goal.

00:18:35.100 If he gets nothing else out of being in power, this is what he wants.

00:18:38.120 A seat for Canada on the UN Security Council.

00:18:42.080 So all of this, and he's been like cavorting with African dictators to do it, which is great. 1.00

00:18:47.460 You know, he's standing side by side with the guy who, you know, thinks homosexuality should 1.00

00:18:51.760 be punishable by life in prison.

00:18:54.360 And Trudeau is, Trudeau wouldn't even let, you know, someone, you know, do, like go to

00:19:00.380 a church that he didn't like in Canada.

00:19:02.840 But internationally, if he needs your vote on the UN Security Council, he'll go for it.

00:19:06.780 And so the whole point here is that we go whole hog as a country into these international

00:19:11.880 bodies and we get nothing out of them.

00:19:14.660 All we do is lose and put ourselves in situations like the one we've been in throughout the course

00:19:19.300 of the pandemic here, where we are suffering by virtue of having this inextricable and inexplicable

00:19:27.620 link with the WHO and with China.

00:19:30.920 And that's got to end.

00:19:32.000 So we got to take a break when we come back.

00:19:34.000 More of the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:19:36.280 Stay tuned.

00:19:37.840 You're tuned in to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:19:45.440 Welcome back.

00:19:46.200 One of the things that we have heard in the course of the pandemic, a lot of support for

00:19:50.460 has been the innovation that a lot of companies have brought to the table.

00:19:54.880 We mentioned last week, Canada Goose, which has started to retool.

00:19:58.200 And I don't even want to single just one.

00:19:59.700 I guess I am going to single one out.

00:20:01.120 But tons of companies around the country, around North America, around the world have

00:20:05.360 started to use their ingenuity and their ability to adapt to make things that are necessary

00:20:10.240 for the pandemic, whether it's auto manufacturers making ventilators or so on.

00:20:15.080 And, you know, new inventions are coming out.

00:20:16.940 I know people are working on vaccines and improved testing and all of this.

00:20:20.540 And then every now and then you get one that looks more like it belongs on an as seen on

00:20:25.860 TV ad rather than, you know, in a pandemic response measure.

00:20:29.660 This is an invention that is a coronavirus mask that lets you eat without taking it off.

00:20:37.680 I can't even describe it.

00:20:39.500 I will just show you the prototype promo clip.

00:20:50.540 There you go.

00:20:53.780 It's been like described by NBC, Dallas, Fort Worth as being like Pac-Man, where it just,

00:20:58.800 you know, goes across the screen.

00:21:00.140 I thought it looked like one of those really modern ventriloquist tools that they do, where

00:21:05.220 they get people to put on these, you know, like mouths that open and close and then they

00:21:08.900 control them with a little pump at the back. 0.77

00:21:10.820 I thought it looked more like that, where there was one I saw on some one of these, I think

00:21:13.940 it was like a Merit has got talent or something, a woman that was using them, you know, a mask 1.00

00:21:18.240 that you can like eat because that's the whole point.

00:21:20.180 If you want to eat when you're wearing your mask, you've got to like pull down and do

00:21:23.320 it.

00:21:23.480 Whereas this one just has a little button.

00:21:25.560 So if you're going out for dinner with your friends, you can open the button, put the

00:21:29.120 food in, release it and the mask closes, which, you know, I'm not a scientist.

00:21:34.780 I'm not an epidemiologist.

00:21:36.400 I'm not a specialist in infectious disease or a virologist.

00:21:39.800 I can load you up the wazoo with caveats galore.

00:21:43.180 Or I would say that the point of the mask is the fact that it does not open, generally

00:21:49.140 speaking.

00:21:49.620 I might be wrong.

00:21:51.360 There is nothing about this that suggests there is anything that remains a mask about

00:21:56.760 this.

00:21:57.100 So I would say that if you're going out to dinner with friends, perhaps you can just

00:21:59.900 not wear the mask.

00:22:00.940 No, but this is the kind of thing when people have nothing to do in quarantine, when they

00:22:04.000 can't get their haircuts, this is what they invent.

00:22:06.200 So anyone that thinks that, you know, they can do their best work when they have no distractions

00:22:09.560 clearly is not the inventor of the mask that becomes no longer a mask, otherwise known

00:22:14.920 as not wearing a mask.

00:22:17.080 In any case, if you want one, we'll try to get a supply with like True North branding on

00:22:21.880 it or something.

00:22:22.580 But good luck with that.

00:22:25.700 One of the stories I wanted to mention here was, and I would say that this is just an example

00:22:32.280 of government going completely overboard all the time.

00:22:36.220 You know, just as, you know, this isn't someone fine for social distancing, but it is still

00:22:40.340 a story of someone faced with the horrors of the bureaucracy here.

00:22:44.860 An Australian man who freed a whale that was caught in sea nets has been fined by authorities

00:22:50.600 for rescuing.

00:22:51.500 So he was a good Samaritan.

00:22:52.680 He saw a whale trapped off the waters of the Gold Coast in Australia, and there were calls

00:22:58.440 to officials, but no one responded.

00:23:00.420 Hours went by without a response.

00:23:01.900 So he decided that he would just take matters into his own hands and go.

00:23:06.460 Now, I've never seen these things before, but they're there essentially to protect sharks

00:23:10.740 from getting to areas of the beach that people are swimming in.

00:23:14.160 And in this case, a whale was trapped in it.

00:23:16.620 So he went over, saw the whale, and started untangling him.

00:23:19.960 He had a knife, and he was able to unwrap the whale's fin from the nets, which is just

00:23:24.020 an app.

00:23:24.700 Like, all of this terrifies me, by the way.

00:23:26.440 Because any time you've seen an animal that's freed, they don't know you're freeing them.

00:23:31.460 They think you're trying to attack them further.

00:23:33.700 So he did it, and then he ended up getting fined.

00:23:36.940 Some reports have said the fine was for tampering with nets, even though arguably the whale was

00:23:43.340 tampering from it.

00:23:44.820 Now, on the weekend, I actually had a much less exciting animal rescue operation.

00:23:49.340 An owl had fallen out of the tree in front of my house, and one of my neighbors, and actually

00:23:53.940 pretty much all of the neighbors were descending around this thing to try to save it.

00:23:58.000 And my dad was helping with something, and he ended up being the rescuer who put the owl

00:24:02.140 back in the tree.

00:24:03.340 And then the owl, again, didn't realize he was being rescued.

00:24:05.720 So then he, like, flew out of the tree again and back on the ground.

00:24:09.100 And then the second time, he decided to stay up there.

00:24:12.040 And they were gone next time we saw the tree.

00:24:13.880 So that was the rescue.

00:24:15.220 So take that, Australia whale rescuer.

00:24:17.500 So in any case, let's talk a little bit about some of the impacts of small businesses, or

00:24:24.460 impacts to small businesses, of being shut down.

00:24:27.300 Because I saw this video go viral the other day, and it goes back to April.

00:24:32.300 But it was a restaurateur who was pointing out the problems with food delivery apps.

00:24:36.960 And he was saying that websites like, you know, Foodora, DoorDash, Skip the Dishes, whatever.

00:24:41.600 He wasn't talking about any one of them in particular, but they are making a fortune off

00:24:47.720 the backs of restaurant owners.

00:24:49.740 This is what the guy was saying, Paul Schufeld.

00:24:52.340 And he's from Edmonton.

00:24:53.880 He runs a place called the Workshop Eatery Woodshed Burgers.

00:24:56.960 I've been to Edmonton, but I've never been there.

00:24:58.880 And he talks about in this little chalkboard presentation here that if a restaurant sells

00:25:05.340 something for a dollar, they get a dollar out of it.

00:25:08.620 Now, of that, they have to put, you know, 33% into labor, 33% into COGS, cost of goods,

00:25:15.660 19% into variable costs.

00:25:17.800 So things that go up and down, like you're buying your food and supplies.

00:25:21.880 And then 10% is fixed cost, things that no matter how much business you have, you have

00:25:27.800 to pay for your rent, your heat, your insurance, all of that stuff.

00:25:30.520 So he said that a profit for an average restaurant will be 5 cents on the dollar.

00:25:34.840 So he said then when you go to the food products here, in the course of people getting stuff

00:25:43.380 delivered, it changes quite a bit.

00:25:46.520 And the numbers make sense.

00:25:48.280 So, you know, the restaurant still has to spend cost of goods, 33 cents, 20% on labor,

00:25:53.420 variable costs are the same because they're buying food, fixed costs are the same.

00:25:57.160 But then to give to a third-party 20 to 30 cents on the dollar, which is what a lot of

00:26:02.400 these apps cost, they sometimes lose.

00:26:05.560 So his point is that you may actually lose money on this by selling it through a food

00:26:10.440 delivery app.

00:26:11.500 Third-party delivery drivers, they take 20 to 30 cents on every dollar or 20 to 30% of

00:26:18.360 every single order place.

00:26:20.560 Even if you're doing everything excellent, you're doing great here, you've had to lay

00:26:24.980 off your service staff, you've laid off your support staff, and you're losing money anywhere

00:26:29.380 between 2 and 12%.

00:26:30.900 And I've seen a lot of people that I know in the restaurant business that have shared

00:26:34.980 this and say, absolutely, these things are hosing us.

00:26:37.520 I've also heard from other businesses that have said, these food delivery apps are giving

00:26:42.080 them business they otherwise wouldn't have.

00:26:45.040 So I'm actually a bit perplexed on this one because the free market libertarian in me says,

00:26:49.960 okay, if you're a restaurant and you're losing money on this thing, then you're better off

00:26:54.720 not making the sale at all.

00:26:55.940 Just don't participate in these apps.

00:26:57.920 Run your own delivery, run your own takeout.

00:27:00.100 A lot of restaurants do that as well.

00:27:01.920 I don't get what the problem is.

00:27:03.700 But then there's the other part of me that realizes, yeah, there is a predatory nature to

00:27:08.120 these things because remember, the food delivery app doesn't have a lot of overhead.

00:27:12.080 They don't have a food supply.

00:27:13.840 They don't have real liability.

00:27:15.660 All of their employees are actually contractors.

00:27:18.240 So, you know, even if right now in my city, everyone were to say on a Friday night, we're

00:27:22.600 not ordering delivery through these apps, the company itself is out very little.

00:27:26.960 It has its central office operating costs and that's it.

00:27:30.020 It's like Uber.

00:27:31.120 There are companies that really have no assets and no significant overhead because most of

00:27:36.160 their workforce is contract.

00:27:37.760 I get all that.

00:27:39.340 But at the same time, I look at this and I say, all right, so the problem with this is

00:27:43.840 that I've had terrible experiences trying to get through to restaurants now because they're

00:27:49.340 so busy on delivery right now.

00:27:51.140 And I think it's probably tapered off a little bit.

00:27:53.120 But earlier on, I mean, we had tried to like order pizza, you know, earlier on in the pandemic

00:27:56.940 and it was like a two hour wait and stuff like that because they were doing so much business.

00:28:01.000 And my wife and I try to support local whenever we can, especially with food businesses.

00:28:05.500 So we've been using these and some of them, the only way you can get delivery is by going

00:28:09.760 through Skip the Dishes or one of these other apps.

00:28:12.780 So I want if you are in this business to let me know your stories here and I'm going to

00:28:17.900 devote an episode next week, not the whole episode, but I want to read some of these

00:28:21.520 stories if you're in the food business and you've had experience one way or another on

00:28:25.580 this because the part of me is saying, listen, if you are losing money, don't do it.

00:28:30.740 And if there are enough restaurants that are losing money, why have restaurants not

00:28:34.500 themselves coalesced and said, we're going to run our own delivery operations or we're

00:28:39.040 going to pool delivery because that's what it used to be.

00:28:41.020 There were places that I knew of years ago before these food delivery websites were around

00:28:46.040 that would hire like there'd be a delivery driver that splits his time between all of

00:28:51.800 these different restaurants.

00:28:53.220 And that was fine.

00:28:54.600 And, you know, if you call up, you know, Ming's Chinese Kitchen and they don't have their

00:28:58.760 own in-house delivery guy, they call up this guy that they use that he's also the

00:29:02.580 delivery driver for Freddy's Pizza and also the delivery driver for, you know, Wang's

00:29:07.800 Chinese Kitchen on the other side of the street.

00:29:09.960 And these are actually real restaurants I know of, by the way.

00:29:13.420 I don't know if they're around now, but my knowledge is dated of these.

00:29:16.920 So I don't know why they can't just keep doing that because I'm assuming there's still a pool

00:29:22.460 of people that do this sort of delivery.

00:29:24.040 Because the one thing I don't like is places that tend to complain about things while furthering

00:29:31.660 the problem themselves.

00:29:32.700 So that's why I want to get a bit more information from your stories on this about if it's that

00:29:37.280 simple that you lose money on them, why use them all together?

00:29:40.260 Because even not using them and then not making the sale costs you zero dollars, where according

00:29:45.540 to the chart from Paul Shufelt that I played a little bit of, you'd lose two cents to 12 cents

00:29:51.360 on the dollar.

00:29:51.820 So anyway, let me know about that.

00:29:53.760 I'm going to take a break here.

00:29:54.900 When we come back, an update on the Nova Scotia shooting and why it proves even more of a

00:30:01.420 dishonest grab of firearms from the Liberal government in Canada.

00:30:04.520 That's coming up on The Andrew Lawton Show in just a moment.

00:30:07.240 Stay tuned.

00:30:09.100 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:30:14.500 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:30:16.880 It was just an absolutely awful, awful experience for the people in April in Nova Scotia who

00:30:23.540 were around and surrounded by just the horror of 22 people being killed and what we now know

00:30:30.680 as Canada's most fatal shooting, most fatal spree killing.

00:30:34.980 And, you know, I look at the stories that came out of that and I said early on I didn't want

00:30:39.760 it to be about the politics of it.

00:30:41.220 And I resented that it had to be.

00:30:43.440 I resented that Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair made this about gun control.

00:30:47.020 And the more that we've learned about this shooting, the less that narrative makes sense.

00:30:52.500 We learned that the killer didn't have a gun license, that the killer's guns were owned

00:30:56.280 illegally, that gun control, even the prohibition that the Liberals rammed through a couple of

00:31:01.700 weeks ago wouldn't have made a difference at all in stopping this, preempting it, or

00:31:07.280 even mitigating this.

00:31:09.180 And then this story came out on Monday or Tuesday, rather.

00:31:13.120 It was an interview with one of the witnesses who I would actually say is one of the heroes

00:31:18.620 of this story here.

00:31:20.440 A man by the name of Leon Jowdry who knew Gabriel Wartman, the killer, and who has been so traumatized

00:31:28.040 by what happened, that he hasn't been able to return to his home in Portapique, Nova Scotia.

00:31:33.360 Now, Jowdry is interviewed in a CTV Atlantic story here.

00:31:37.800 He was the one who ultimately rescued the killer's girlfriend, who, remember, was confined and

00:31:45.220 threatened and then she escaped, was hiding in the woods, and then she ended up knocking

00:31:49.300 on this guy's door and he let her in. 0.98

00:31:51.600 And what happened here is that this man saw that there was flame and a SWAT vehicle and

00:31:59.760 he knew that it was that killer's house.

00:32:01.700 He said, you know, frankly, he wasn't surprised to see that here.

00:32:04.760 He said he had had run-ins with Wartman before, didn't like the denturist, knew that the guy

00:32:09.280 had old police cars, but he never saw them with police decals.

00:32:12.960 So what happened is he saw the fire, saw the police presence.

00:32:15.920 He grabbed his shotgun, went home, and he said he was going to just shelter in place

00:32:22.440 and stop there.

00:32:23.380 And he stayed there until the morning when the girlfriend or former girlfriend was pounding

00:32:28.460 on his door.

00:32:29.400 She told him what had happened.

00:32:31.340 He called 911.

00:32:32.840 They came, vehicles, six of them SWAT, all of this.

00:32:36.440 But I'm giving you the setup here to tell you this part that I think is so important.

00:32:42.400 He was asked why the shooter didn't go to his house.

00:32:45.780 And he said he suspects it's because the killer knew that he was a hunter and had guns in his

00:32:51.400 home.

00:32:51.720 He said, quote, he knew I had firearms, which are legal, of course, but he knew I was confrontational

00:32:56.120 and might interrupt his plan.

00:32:57.720 That's the only thing I can think of.

00:32:59.740 It's speculative clearly, but there's an important note here that this is a legal gun owner who

00:33:06.160 when everything is happening, SWAT teams are there, fires ablaze, emergency response,

00:33:11.940 all of that, he grabs his shotgun because he knows that's the only ability to protect

00:33:15.800 himself.

00:33:16.560 And imagine if he didn't have that and the killer had showed up.

00:33:19.880 I mean, there's a chance he would have been among the 22.

00:33:23.280 He would have been the 23rd victim.

00:33:25.560 And that is an absolutely horrific thing to think about.

00:33:29.360 But this was what he had to think about in that moment.

00:33:31.620 And when the girlfriend shows up needing shelter, knowing that Wartman's after her, he had a

00:33:37.360 shotgun, a legal shotgun to protect himself, to defend himself.

00:33:40.420 So what better contrast is there that he's a member of the community that is being vilified

00:33:45.580 by the liberal government right now when he's the only one that would have been impacted,

00:33:50.800 not the killer, by any sort of prohibitions, regulations or advanced restrictions on gun

00:33:57.840 ownership in Canada, which is what the liberals are hell bent on pushing forward.

00:34:02.340 And it's not about the what ifs, the woulda, coulda, shouldas.

00:34:04.920 It's not about all of that.

00:34:06.120 It's about the recognition that is a very simple contrast that when it comes to the two

00:34:11.480 groups, legal gun owners and illegal gun owners, only the legal gun owners are impeded

00:34:17.200 and influenced at all by gun restrictions and gun regulations.

00:34:21.380 The illegal ones aren't.

00:34:22.480 So you could take away this guy's guns and all it would mean is one more victim to a

00:34:29.480 shooter, especially in rural areas.

00:34:31.900 And by the way, one of the things he said is that, you know, guns are so ubiquitous in

00:34:35.260 this part that when he heard gunshots, he didn't really think anything of it because

00:34:38.480 that's not an uncommon occurrence.

00:34:40.820 And there is an urban-rural divide there.

00:34:43.280 I mean, if you hear, if I hear a gunshot in my city, I'm like, wait, what's going on?

00:34:46.380 But if I'm up at my friend's cottage or whatever, where we shoot in the backyard, it's like

00:34:50.040 rarely a day goes by that you wouldn't hear a gunshot of some kind.

00:34:54.420 In fact, when there isn't one, you wonder like, oh, what's wrong?

00:34:56.800 I wonder where Joe is today and all of that sort of stuff.

00:35:00.160 So for all of this, we need to be understanding who the bad guys are.

00:35:04.600 And the bad guys are not the ones that are grabbing a shotgun because they think they

00:35:08.540 might need to protect themselves against a madman on the loose.

00:35:11.940 The bad guys are the madmen.

00:35:13.960 We've got to wrap things up.

00:35:15.560 My thanks to all who tuned into the show and wrote in my email address, if you want to

00:35:19.200 touch base, andrew at andrewlaughton.ca.

00:35:22.280 We'll be back next week with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:35:26.140 Thank you.

00:35:26.600 God bless.

00:35:27.160 And good day, Canada.

00:35:28.260 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:35:30.040 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - May 20, 2020

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