Juno News - April 18, 2021


Big Lockdown and the Permanent Emergency


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

162.05006

Word count

2,227

Sentence count

104

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Justin Trudeau says vaccines are not enough to protect us from a pandemic. What does that mean? And what is the point of getting a vaccine if it doesn t work? Andrew Lawton takes a look at the facts and argues that we need to do more than just get vaccinated.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:10.440 The never-ending lockdown continues.
00:00:13.960 I'm in Ontario, which is basically ground zero of the never-ending lockdown.
00:00:18.340 We don't have a curfew like our friends in Quebec do just yet,
00:00:22.440 although it's something that seems to be perennially on the discussion table
00:00:26.400 among Ontario's Conservative government.
00:00:28.720 Even places like Alberta, which have in the past been saying that we're open for business,
00:00:33.140 are drifting back into lockdown mindsets and restriction mindsets.
00:00:37.780 And the carrot that the government has been dangling in front of voters
00:00:41.380 since the very beginning of this pandemic, well, not the very beginning.
00:00:45.380 At first, it was two weeks to flatten the curve, and then two weeks more,
00:00:49.100 and then, hang on, let's just get past Easter, and then it was, okay, until there's a vaccine.
00:00:53.480 Well, the vaccine's here.
00:00:54.760 And even if it is coming pretty slowly, and even if a lot of people still have questions
00:00:58.700 about when and how they'll be able to get it,
00:01:00.940 the vaccine was promised by the government as being the antidote to lockdowns and restrictions.
00:01:07.660 Well, enter Justin Trudeau.
00:01:10.160 I think it's really important that we work from facts and understanding of the science around things.
00:01:17.180 We know, for example, that the UK is ahead of just about everybody else on vaccinations,
00:01:22.680 and yet they maintain very strong restrictions and are facing a very serious third wave.
00:01:29.580 Vaccinations on their own are not enough to keep us safe.
00:01:33.000 We need to engage in the right kinds of behaviours, do things that the Conservatives aren't always good at,
00:01:37.460 like wearing masks, keeping distances, and obeying public health rules.
00:01:41.420 Now, that clip of Justin Trudeau has been summarily mocked all around the world.
00:01:45.700 Tucker Carlson did a lengthy segment on Justin Trudeau's mishandling of this,
00:01:50.660 in which he played that clip, and again, raised the obvious question of what is then the point?
00:01:56.220 What is then the point?
00:01:58.260 If you say that Canadians are doomed to a life with mask mandates and lockdowns and other restrictions,
00:02:03.620 even with being vaccinated, what is the whole point of getting a vaccine?
00:02:07.560 You're either saying that the vaccine is ineffective,
00:02:10.280 or you are saying that it doesn't matter and that you like exacting this control over the population,
00:02:16.540 which is precisely what anti-lockdown advocates have been saying since the very beginning of this.
00:02:22.300 And I do believe that the people who are open to lockdowns that aren't dogmatically in favour of them
00:02:29.920 are very much moving away from that position.
00:02:33.180 I've seen, as governments plunge people into third lockdowns,
00:02:36.560 more and more people who are not conservative or not even political start to say,
00:02:40.760 hang on, this isn't right.
00:02:42.980 I have done my part.
00:02:44.060 I've done everything you've asked of me.
00:02:45.780 I've, you know, gotten the vaccine if I'm eligible.
00:02:48.080 I've closed my business once.
00:02:49.420 I've closed it twice.
00:02:50.300 And people are saying, what gives?
00:02:51.760 So now when they hear the government,
00:02:53.720 remember that some businesses cannot exist with the restrictions.
00:02:59.020 Restaurants cannot turn a huge profit when they have to take out half the tables in them.
00:03:03.600 Church attendance is already something that is under strain.
00:03:07.000 Churches cannot make a lot of money in contributions
00:03:09.400 if people are not in the pews and actually contributing and putting into the collection plates.
00:03:14.000 There are lots of other examples of where businesses, institutions, agencies
00:03:17.900 cannot survive under their modified reopenings.
00:03:21.400 That's if they're even allowed to be open in modified form,
00:03:25.160 which is not something that can be taken for granted in this day and age.
00:03:29.800 So when everyone is looking at the government and then Justin Trudeau gets up there and says,
00:03:33.800 ah, well, even with the vaccine doesn't really matter.
00:03:36.180 Now, I think part of that is that he's trying to deflect from the fact that
00:03:39.220 most people in this country are not fully vaccinated.
00:03:43.120 I think Canada's like, like Canada likes to look at the percentage of people that have their first dose
00:03:48.220 of a vaccine, which is in and of itself not worth writing home about.
00:03:52.380 But for fully vaccinated, Canada is sitting at, I think, like 2.2%, maybe 2.5% as of the time this comes out.
00:04:00.740 And that means that 97 plus percent of Canadians are not immune in the sense of what the government
00:04:10.840 has previously stated is its target for immunity.
00:04:14.300 And what in the United States, the CDC is saying means you can go around and walk free.
00:04:18.660 What's allowing the United Kingdom to open up?
00:04:21.680 So when Trudeau says that the UK is heading into a dangerous third wave, even with vaccines,
00:04:27.080 well, that's not what the numbers are saying.
00:04:30.340 No, just look at that chart.
00:04:32.100 And Boris Johnson has claimed that lockdowns, not vaccines, were what saved people,
00:04:36.760 which is in and of itself a load of bunk.
00:04:39.200 But the UK has people out in pubs, partying in the streets, hanging out,
00:04:43.100 and they are very safe if you look at the numbers.
00:04:46.400 So the reason I bring all of this up is because there's more and more, I think,
00:04:51.240 of a shift towards a lot of the concerns that anti-lockdown advocates who were derided as fringe
00:04:57.040 were bringing up months ago.
00:04:59.380 The End of Lockdowns Caucus, a movement of federal, provincial, and municipal current and former politicians,
00:05:06.480 I've talked about it before.
00:05:07.540 They had a press conference on Parliament Hill Thursday in which Independent MP Derek Sloan,
00:05:14.260 Independent Ontario MPP Randy Hillier, Pastor Michael Thiessen,
00:05:18.360 and former MP and now PPC leader Maxime Bernier talked about what they see as being the greatest threat
00:05:24.540 to Canadians right now.
00:05:26.020 And it wasn't just, by the way, COVID, but the lockdowns that governments have imposed
00:05:31.580 as a response to COVID.
00:05:33.580 And I asked a question that I thought yielded a very interesting response,
00:05:38.060 which was, this is something that affects everyone.
00:05:40.460 It's not just people on the right that are upset with lockdowns.
00:05:43.400 Why are we not seeing more of a shift towards embracing the End of Lockdowns Caucus
00:05:50.060 from people who aren't Conservatives?
00:05:51.960 This was the answer I got.
00:05:53.060 Good morning, gentlemen.
00:05:54.200 One thing that I'm seeing just from ordinary Canadians is that there's a lot of opposition
00:05:59.920 to lockdowns coming from people who are not partisan Conservatives
00:06:04.460 or not even particularly political, and we're seeing this across the spectrum.
00:06:08.800 But I noticed that in the End of Lockdowns Caucus, 0.71
00:06:11.420 it's not just politicians who have been identified with Conservatism
00:06:16.820 or with right-of-centre movements, but even a smaller subset of that.
00:06:21.440 So I'm wondering why you're not seeing more support for your cause from politicians
00:06:27.860 that disagree with you on other things, but may agree with you on ending lockdowns.
00:06:34.840 Thank you for that question.
00:06:36.780 You know, a lot of it has to do with party discipline.
00:06:40.080 In this country, the majority of people in our federal and provincial parliaments
00:06:44.760 belong to a specific party.
00:06:46.960 And we have a very, we have strict discipline here.
00:06:50.180 There's an understanding, either implicit or explicit, that you, you know,
00:06:54.820 you told the party line.
00:06:56.140 And none of the party leaders have decided to, you know,
00:07:00.060 be against the lockdowns or message on these things.
00:07:03.820 And so I think a lot of people that have issues or maybe questions
00:07:06.540 are afraid to colour outside of the lines.
00:07:10.680 You know, overall, I think by leaders and others,
00:07:14.020 it's a failure of courage, a failure of being willing to perhaps stand up
00:07:19.120 and say, hey, we made some mistakes, we've learned, we want to move on.
00:07:22.660 But it's a failure of courage.
00:07:24.720 And I think that that's what Canada needs right now is more courage.
00:07:28.020 I think what Derek gave a good encapsulation there,
00:07:33.980 I'll just maybe flesh that out a tiny bit.
00:07:37.200 The problems that we're facing in our society of the need to conform within society,
00:07:45.920 our political environment is much the same,
00:07:50.580 but in a smaller microcosm of the distortions and the perversions,
00:07:58.320 that's what's happening.
00:07:59.680 And people in elected office, especially at the federal and the provincial level,
00:08:06.680 many of them understand that their path to re-election
00:08:12.140 is only through a registered political party.
00:08:18.360 And they will not jeopardise their path to re-election,
00:08:22.400 even if it means forsaking their children's and their grandchildren's future.
00:08:30.420 They are going along, many of them,
00:08:34.200 knowingly knowing that what we're doing is wrong
00:08:37.720 and casts a significant darkness for our future.
00:08:43.960 The same thing happens,
00:08:46.080 although not quite as clearly identified at the municipal level,
00:08:49.880 but we've seen what has happened with members of the end of the lockdown caucus
00:08:54.740 at the municipal level who have joined.
00:08:58.480 Stephen Van Leeuwen was ostracised
00:09:02.720 and attempted to be and faced much scorn
00:09:06.200 for joining the end of the lockdown caucus.
00:09:09.920 He was removed from the position as deputy mayor.
00:09:13.260 We've seen others, Mayor David Blisma from West Lincoln
00:09:21.280 was removed from the COVID Health Committee
00:09:25.860 for joining the end of the lockdown caucus.
00:09:29.320 We see this everywhere.
00:09:32.580 COVID is being used to beat people into submission
00:09:38.320 and into conformity.
00:09:41.140 That you, anybody knows,
00:09:43.120 if you want to have honest, truthful,
00:09:47.900 public discussion and discourse,
00:09:51.020 you will pay a price.
00:09:54.200 I'm very thankful
00:09:55.460 that the end of lockdown caucus
00:09:58.280 are strong
00:10:00.060 men and women
00:10:02.600 across this country
00:10:04.020 who know what it is
00:10:05.200 to be Canadian
00:10:06.540 and know
00:10:07.660 that they will,
00:10:09.400 whatever the price
00:10:10.420 that we were asked to pay,
00:10:13.220 that we will pay it
00:10:14.340 because
00:10:15.880 our children
00:10:17.240 and our grandchildren,
00:10:19.520 their future
00:10:20.980 is worth it.
00:10:22.940 Thank you.
00:10:24.280 I thought that was a valid enough answer.
00:10:26.340 There is more than one way to skin a cat,
00:10:28.460 as the expression goes,
00:10:29.300 although I believe cat skinning
00:10:30.400 has been declared a non-essential service
00:10:32.480 in most provinces.
00:10:33.400 So no cat skinning today
00:10:34.460 and not until we flatten the curve
00:10:36.300 or whatever the case is.
00:10:37.680 And the problem is
00:10:38.640 that you get a lot of people
00:10:39.560 that want the debate to be had
00:10:41.340 in their area
00:10:42.800 and under their concerns specifically.
00:10:45.300 So there were a couple of Alberta MLAs
00:10:47.460 that departed the end of the lockdowns caucus
00:10:49.660 because they didn't like
00:10:50.740 that Randy Hillier
00:10:51.460 shared a comparison to the Nazis.
00:10:54.640 And then you have Roman Baber in Ontario
00:10:56.840 who's trying to do his own thing
00:10:58.160 and taking the government to court
00:10:59.380 and he doesn't want to associate
00:11:00.700 with these people.
00:11:01.600 And you've got some left-wing voices
00:11:03.320 that are speaking out against it
00:11:04.640 that don't want to be aligned
00:11:05.520 with conservatives.
00:11:06.540 And ultimately,
00:11:07.540 I would love to see
00:11:08.540 a cross-partisan array
00:11:10.180 of lawmakers
00:11:11.160 who say,
00:11:11.680 yeah,
00:11:11.760 we may disagree on taxes,
00:11:13.420 on climate change,
00:11:14.540 we may disagree on abortion.
00:11:16.420 Sure,
00:11:16.880 we may disagree on everything,
00:11:18.500 but we believe
00:11:19.480 that we need to have
00:11:20.340 an evidence-based approach
00:11:21.460 and we want to reopen.
00:11:23.620 I would love to see that.
00:11:25.040 And if the anti-lockdown movement
00:11:26.980 were not fractured
00:11:28.300 in the way that it is now,
00:11:29.600 I think there would be
00:11:30.740 a huge market
00:11:31.800 and a huge appetite
00:11:32.720 for a group like that
00:11:34.740 that no one would be able to ignore.
00:11:37.340 When you've got the call
00:11:38.560 coming from inside
00:11:40.120 all of the houses,
00:11:41.320 not just a group of people
00:11:42.480 that are maligned
00:11:43.240 or cast off by the media
00:11:44.540 and political elites as fringe,
00:11:46.240 but you've got liberals,
00:11:47.740 New Democrats,
00:11:48.480 conservatives,
00:11:49.180 Greens,
00:11:49.720 Bloc Québécois people 0.88
00:11:50.660 that are all coming together
00:11:51.600 saying,
00:11:51.980 you know what,
00:11:52.580 we think these lockdowns
00:11:53.880 are not keeping people safe.
00:11:55.860 We think they're causing
00:11:56.580 more harm than good.
00:11:57.880 How could party leaders
00:11:59.540 avoid and ignore that?
00:12:01.440 Because that's a more
00:12:02.500 authentic representation
00:12:03.660 of where Canadians are.
00:12:06.540 To Canadians,
00:12:07.540 just going back to normal life
00:12:08.940 is not a left-right position.
00:12:11.240 So the fact that we've allowed
00:12:12.640 the media to hijack that
00:12:14.180 and make that out
00:12:15.180 to be reckless and fringe
00:12:16.380 is absolutely asinine.
00:12:19.360 And I think what's pushing
00:12:20.360 more and more people
00:12:21.320 to oppose these are stories.
00:12:23.120 Just to give a couple
00:12:23.840 of examples,
00:12:24.860 in Ottawa,
00:12:25.660 the medical officer of health
00:12:26.980 is doing an end run
00:12:27.740 around the province
00:12:28.440 and trying to expect masks
00:12:31.080 at city parks.
00:12:33.100 So if you're outside,
00:12:34.440 you're in fresh air
00:12:35.120 where transmission
00:12:35.760 is virtually impossible,
00:12:37.840 you're going to need a mask.
00:12:39.160 And in Ontario,
00:12:40.340 in Toronto specifically,
00:12:41.920 they are putting up caution tape
00:12:43.940 around Trinity Bellwoods Park.
00:12:46.080 The cherry blossoms
00:12:46.940 are about to come to bloom,
00:12:48.060 but oh well,
00:12:48.740 cherry blossoms
00:12:49.260 have also been declared
00:12:50.260 non-essential
00:12:51.240 so they don't want people
00:12:52.300 enjoying themselves
00:12:53.420 outside having a picnic
00:12:55.080 at this park in Toronto
00:12:56.240 that has become
00:12:56.900 in a lot of ways
00:12:57.740 one of the most desirable
00:12:59.180 outdoor locales
00:13:00.300 in Toronto
00:13:00.940 as we saw last year
00:13:02.040 because it is so picturesque.
00:13:03.440 But no,
00:13:03.920 that is no longer allowed as well.
00:13:06.540 It's not going to be that long
00:13:08.340 until government bylaw officials
00:13:10.600 are picking off
00:13:11.520 the cherry blossoms
00:13:12.280 because that's the only way
00:13:13.980 that no one is going
00:13:14.980 to be enjoying them.
00:13:15.920 And this is what's happening
00:13:16.880 in Ontario.
00:13:18.420 And as egregious
00:13:19.420 as these stories are,
00:13:20.540 I know that every time
00:13:21.440 one of them comes out,
00:13:22.660 it pushes more and more people
00:13:24.320 into the sensible
00:13:25.400 disobedience column
00:13:27.480 about what are
00:13:28.320 quite insane restrictions
00:13:30.120 that do nothing
00:13:30.880 for public health
00:13:31.900 but only embolden
00:13:32.940 the state's control
00:13:34.300 of its citizens.
00:13:36.300 If you liked watching
00:13:37.120 this clip of
00:13:37.940 The Andrew Lawton Show,
00:13:38.940 True North has lots more
00:13:40.280 for you all over
00:13:41.420 at www.tnc.news.