Juno News - Breach from the Throne

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

00:00:06.740 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.940 Coming up, a partisan throne speech, a pandering address to the nation,

00:00:16.840 and how climate alarmists are profiting off of stoking fears of global warming.

00:00:23.100 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.620 Well, our dear leader has come down from the mountaintops and addressed his people.

00:00:34.260 Yes, Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister, made his momentous address to the nation

00:00:38.920 Wednesday night, just a couple of hours after Her Excellency Jules Payet

00:00:43.700 delivered her speech from the throne.

00:00:45.540 And you may ask, why is it that Justin Trudeau actually had to speak

00:00:49.240 and give an address to the nation, preempting television programming on all the networks?

00:00:53.920 Why would he need to do that after the throne speech?

00:00:56.760 Well, that's a great question.

00:01:00.300 Yeah, there's no answer to it.

00:01:01.600 It's just a great question.

00:01:02.740 There's no reason.

00:01:03.860 And you know, anyone who was thinking that perhaps this was going to be a transformative

00:01:07.640 moment in Canadian politics, we were going to be addressed on a matter of national urgency,

00:01:12.560 an emergency of sorts, it was absolutely nothing.

00:01:15.940 It wasn't even a sales pitch directly.

00:01:18.620 I guess indirectly it was.

00:01:19.940 No, it was just like telling us what he's been telling us at every one of his press conferences,

00:01:24.480 what Teresa Tam had told us a day earlier.

00:01:26.860 And it wasn't even all that true.

00:01:29.440 He talked about us being in as bad a situation as we were in April.

00:01:33.500 And I'm left wondering what on earth was the point of all of it?

00:01:38.120 What was the point of this?

00:01:39.320 We're on the brink of a fall that could be much worse than the spring.

00:01:43.020 I know this isn't the news that any of us wanted to hear.

00:01:47.480 And we can't change today's numbers or even tomorrow's.

00:01:50.960 Those were already decided by what we did or didn't do two weeks ago.

00:01:56.160 But what we can change is where we are in October and into the winter.

00:02:00.780 It's all too likely we won't be gathering for Thanksgiving, but we still have a shot at Christmas.

00:02:09.140 Together, we have the power to get this second wave under control.

00:02:13.500 I know we can do it because we've already done it once before.

00:02:17.500 In the spring, we all did our part by staying home.

00:02:20.940 And this fall, we have even more tools in the toolbox.

00:02:24.000 People are wearing masks.

00:02:27.000 That's critical.

00:02:28.120 So keep it up.

00:02:29.680 We've got the COVID Alert app.

00:02:32.460 Take the teacher who felt fine, but who tested positive after the app warned her she'd been exposed.

00:02:38.380 COVID Alert meant she went home instead of the classroom.

00:02:43.000 It's a powerful, free tool that's easy to use and protects your privacy.

00:02:47.700 So if you haven't already, download it off the App Store or Google Play.

00:02:51.720 It's one more way to keep ourselves and others safe.

00:02:56.980 Another is to get your flu shot this fall.

00:03:00.320 Yeah, I wonder if Trudeau had just gone the whole day and hadn't reached his platitude quota,

00:03:05.400 so he needed to just take some TV time so that he could start dropping all of these tired old cliches

00:03:10.460 that seem to govern most of the Trudeau administration's messaging.

00:03:14.460 But my goodness, the whole point of the throne speech is that the government lays out its agenda,

00:03:18.860 its plans, its priorities, and you don't need to have the Prime Minister speaking.

00:03:23.820 But he wanted to have the last word.

00:03:25.960 He wanted to be the one that gets to set the tone, and it ended up being just a big old sham.

00:03:31.460 Now, leading up to it, Global News had said that, you know,

00:03:34.740 they had demanded assurances and received assurances from the Prime Minister's office

00:03:38.680 that it wouldn't be a political speech, that they were only going to give up the network's time

00:03:42.660 if it was truly a matter of national importance.

00:03:46.340 And the Prime Minister's office, they said, agreed to that.

00:03:49.400 Well, the joke's on them.

00:03:51.540 And I don't even fault the networks on here, because ultimately they lose money

00:03:55.640 by having to air unadvertised PR programming from the PM or from any politician.

00:04:02.400 They lose out on this.

00:04:03.620 So I don't actually think, unless the goal is that, you know,

00:04:06.680 once you've tuned in for Trudeau, you'll, like, you know,

00:04:08.600 hang in for American Idol or whatever's on after.

00:04:12.020 In fact, I'd rather have, you know, watched anyone on American Idol

00:04:14.620 deliver an address to the nation.

00:04:16.180 But the whole point is that the networks actually lose out, by and large.

00:04:20.060 So they're not doing this willy-nilly.

00:04:21.700 They're doing it because they're assured that, hey, this is something that matters.

00:04:25.100 This is something important.

00:04:27.200 So Canadians tend to listen to that.

00:04:30.340 Canadians go in thinking that, all right, well, this must be important

00:04:34.480 if they're telling us we need to stop and drop and watch the television

00:04:38.600 to hear what Trudeau is saying, it must be significant.

00:04:41.320 And then it's absolutely nothing.

00:04:43.760 At one point, someone in media was calling him Prime Minister Dad,

00:04:47.200 and I don't know if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult in that way.

00:04:50.420 But he was just trying to assure Canadians that, you know,

00:04:53.540 we're going to get through this, and, you know, we're all in this together,

00:04:56.100 and we are family, and any other, you know, 80s song that tends to apply.

00:05:00.540 But it was absolutely meaningless and actually was a mockery of a great many things.

00:05:07.080 There was an address to the nation when we were attacked in 2014 by a terrorist on Parliament Hill.

00:05:13.920 There was an address to the nation in the midst of a constitutional crisis in 2008.

00:05:18.760 There have been addresses to the nation at many other pivotal and critical points in Canada's history.

00:05:23.980 I have gone a little while without delivering speech.

00:05:27.200 Not an issue of national importance, believe it or not.

00:05:29.760 Overdue for a speech is not a reason for a speech.

00:05:34.060 And it proves, though, that the whole exercise right now has been pretty much an exercise in uselessness and time-wasting.

00:05:42.260 Even the actual throne speech itself was completely unnecessary.

00:05:46.120 This was a throne speech that only came about because Justin Trudeau wanted to prorogue Parliament,

00:05:51.100 not because we genuinely needed what he called a reset,

00:05:54.500 but because he genuinely needed a reset.

00:05:57.600 We didn't, he did.

00:05:59.820 He needed to shut down the We Committee.

00:06:01.980 He needed to shut down the ethics investigations.

00:06:04.620 He needed to do all of that.

00:06:06.160 The country actually didn't benefit from this.

00:06:08.880 And if you want proof of this, just look at the fact that there was not a single new policy

00:06:13.880 that was really announced in the throne speech.

00:06:15.780 There were revised policies, or revived policies, rather,

00:06:19.580 things that have been talked about previously that we kind of forgot about, like National Pharmacare.

00:06:25.060 For example, Julie Payette mentioned the Pharmacare plan.

00:06:28.520 And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot the Liberals have been promising that and have done absolutely nothing on it.

00:06:32.760 Which, by the way, I'm okay with.

00:06:34.660 And other things as well.

00:06:35.720 But it did give us a sense of which priorities the government is going to take forward.

00:06:41.160 And the one that really needs to be causing us to be very concerned is this.

00:06:48.940 Web giants are taking Canadians' money while imposing their own priorities.

00:06:55.320 Things must change, and will change.

00:06:58.140 The government will act to ensure their revenue is shared more fairly with our creators and media.

00:07:05.360 And will also require them to contribute to the creation, production, and distribution of our stories

00:07:11.900 on screen, in lyrics, in music, and in writing.

00:07:15.900 Wait, so we're in the midst of a pandemic.

00:07:19.780 We have a deficit that's going to be clearing $350 billion.

00:07:23.500 We have debt that's rising by the minute.

00:07:26.060 We have Canadians that are out of work. 0.66

00:07:27.800 We have businesses that are shuttering their doors.

00:07:30.400 You say that the pandemic is priority number one.

00:07:33.580 And your priority in a throne speech includes regulating the internet.

00:07:41.240 That's basically what it is.

00:07:42.680 When they talk about making big social media companies pay,

00:07:45.640 they're talking about regulating the internet.

00:07:47.740 They're talking about forcing these companies, behemoth that they are,

00:07:52.000 into basically paying media companies so that Justin Trudeau can continue

00:07:56.560 to buy the affection of the mainstream media.

00:07:59.640 The $600 million was just one piece of it.

00:08:02.280 Now forcing Facebook, Google, Twitter to subsidize Post Media, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail.

00:08:07.940 That's all par for the course.

00:08:09.620 And interestingly enough, the Toronto Star had written about it without mentioning that they have been lobbying

00:08:15.540 for something along these lines.

00:08:17.580 So very disingenuous.

00:08:19.280 And Jesse Brown, who I normally don't agree with on a lot of things,

00:08:22.500 but on this issue he's fairly solid, had pointed out this juxtaposition that you read this story

00:08:27.260 and you wouldn't get a sense that anyone is against this idea, that anyone is against this policy.

00:08:33.100 And it really is called into question when you learn that the star itself is specifically pushing this

00:08:38.500 on its administrative side of things.

00:08:40.740 So the fact of the matter is that media companies love this and Facebook can afford it,

00:08:45.800 Twitter can afford it, that's the rationale behind it.

00:08:48.280 But it is a way to subsidize the media,

00:08:50.740 which means that the mainstream media is once again going to have a financial reason

00:08:54.980 to be grateful for the government.

00:08:57.520 Another part of the speech, I won't play the clip because it was just a very brief mention,

00:09:01.540 but Julie Payette said that the government is going to be tackling online hate.

00:09:07.220 And this is something we've been covering on the show for months now,

00:09:10.440 because any time this idea comes up, the government does not define what it means by hate.

00:09:16.740 The government doesn't define what hate looks like.

00:09:19.500 And in many respects, they've actually promised to go after social media companies

00:09:24.740 if they don't get their house in order when it comes to so-called hate,

00:09:29.120 which again is another tool that they're using to crack down on online speech

00:09:33.700 by forcing Facebook, Twitter, and Google to do the dirty work and censor their Canadian users.

00:09:40.560 And these are not new policies, but I bring them up because we've started to see drips and drabs of this 1.00

00:09:45.560 over the last few weeks with Stephen Gilbeau and Catherine McKenna really pushing this narrative.

00:09:51.700 And it seems to have been something that we can really draw a line between it and this throne speech

00:09:57.720 in the sense that we're seeing these lawmakers really lay the groundwork for this,

00:10:02.940 that this is going to become a big priority for the Trudeau government,

00:10:06.760 going after online speech, regulating the internet.

00:10:10.800 And whatever you may think of big tech companies,

00:10:12.720 I made this point with Candace Malcolm on True North Update on Wednesday,

00:10:16.860 whatever you may think of the big tech companies,

00:10:20.180 none of the problems that exist there are going to get better

00:10:23.180 when the Trudeau government, when the liberal government is breathing down their neck

00:10:27.040 and telling them they have to behave in certain ways and conduct themselves in certain ways.

00:10:31.560 Regulation is never the answer and certainly not when the regulation is coming from a government

00:10:36.540 that does not have a respect for free speech

00:10:39.200 and actually has a fundamental disrespect for free speech.

00:10:43.620 So of all the things that made it into the throne speech, this was one of them.

00:10:49.200 These two actually, making social media companies pay and also tackling online hate.

00:10:53.880 There was also a lengthy section on tackling systemic racism.

00:10:57.440 There was a section on intersectional feminism. 0.60

00:11:01.500 And all of this really is speaking to one of the significant problems that we heard in this speech,

00:11:07.440 which was a profound disconnect between what this country actually is

00:11:12.060 and what the Trudeau government is trying to make it.

00:11:15.640 And I was actually quite, I don't want to say the word offended

00:11:18.660 because that's like a hop's giving a jump away from triggered,

00:11:21.560 but I was quite perturbed by the way that this government defines Canadian values.

00:11:28.840 There was one section on Canadian values that I want to share with you

00:11:32.780 because I feel like there is not a single thing mentioned in here

00:11:36.160 that would actually be to the majority of Canadians

00:11:38.500 a defining characteristic of this country and its values.

00:11:42.920 Canada must continue to stand up for the values that define this country,

00:11:47.420 whether that's welcoming newcomers, celebrating with pride the contributions of LGBTQ communities,

00:11:54.520 or embracing two official languages.

00:11:57.160 There is still work to be done, including on the road of reconciliation

00:12:00.500 and in addressing systemic racism.

00:12:03.980 So just for those keeping score at home, welcoming newcomers,

00:12:08.080 celebrating with pride the contributions of LGBTQ2 communities,

00:12:12.300 embracing two official languages,

00:12:14.080 and then a nod to reconciliation and systemic racism.

00:12:18.320 Now, welcoming is something that comes about because of Canadian values,

00:12:23.060 rights for minority communities, including the LGBT community.

00:12:26.640 That's again, part of the Canadian value.

00:12:29.260 But those are all underneath a more significant set of values,

00:12:34.020 which are laid out in the Constitution,

00:12:36.220 the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to security.

00:12:39.780 I mean, we don't list everything that comes under that.

00:12:42.120 We don't say, well, you know, Canadians have as a value the ability of putting milk in their coffee

00:12:46.480 because that's just something you can do as a free citizen.

00:12:49.180 But there wasn't actually a mention of freedom.

00:12:51.760 There wasn't a mention of liberty, of life, of freedom of speech, of freedom of the press.

00:12:56.320 There wasn't a mention of any of the cornerstone values that actually define this country.

00:13:02.220 Values that, by the way, the Conservative government previously was pilloried

00:13:06.060 and maligned for even suggesting existed.

00:13:10.280 So the Liberals have now gone from actually mocking anyone who says that Canadian values exist

00:13:15.600 to laying out their own revisionist values that don't really cut to the core of what Canada is

00:13:21.280 and of what it means to be Canadian.

00:13:23.340 And this revisionism is very dangerous

00:13:26.620 because Justin Trudeau is trying to remake the country in his image

00:13:29.840 and in many respects, it looks as though he's succeeding at that.

00:13:34.100 Now, the throne speech may or may not pass.

00:13:36.880 We've heard the NDP may or may not support it.

00:13:40.620 Jagmeet Singh says he's not impressed by it and it's empty words.

00:13:43.940 But we also know that the NDP can be bought.

00:13:46.700 And it's not the end of this.

00:13:48.140 When the speech ended, the work is beginning on haggling and negotiating over it.

00:13:51.760 But the Conservatives are voting against it.

00:13:54.520 It sounds like the Bloc Québécois will not be on board.

00:13:57.140 But all Trudeau needs is one party.

00:13:59.380 He just needs one party to go along with it.

00:14:01.580 And then he's off to the races, has another mandate, at least for the time being.

00:14:07.220 Remember, the NDP doesn't have any money.

00:14:09.480 Although the Conservatives have a leader with COVID who's in quarantine.

00:14:14.240 The Bloc Québécois has a leader in COVID quarantine as well.

00:14:18.100 So it would actually be a pretty great time for Justin Trudeau to go to the polls because

00:14:22.180 his opponents are sidelined by either disease or no money.

00:14:26.760 Or both, I guess.

00:14:27.900 So that's going to be something that we keep an eye on.

00:14:30.140 But as of this point, I don't think we're heading to an election.

00:14:32.900 I think it's a possibility.

00:14:34.600 But I wouldn't put a lot of money.

00:14:36.720 I'd still put the odds against there being an election right now.

00:14:40.440 But I look at this and I see that there is no regard in the Trudeau vision of Canada

00:14:45.300 for liberty, for the rule of law.

00:14:47.500 This is a great one.

00:14:48.300 I mean, the throne speech I said earlier came about because of a desire to shirk the rule

00:14:54.500 of law, to shirk the scrutiny that comes from actually having justice on a matter of unethical

00:15:01.340 behavior from the government.

00:15:03.400 So where do we go from here?

00:15:04.980 I was more astonished by the things that weren't in the speech than the things that were.

00:15:11.800 Because the things that were were actually pretty meaningless.

00:15:14.080 I said earlier, reannouncing previous policies, saying the same things we've heard time and

00:15:18.740 time again, the platitudes of, you know, the middle class and those seeking to join it

00:15:22.840 and all that nonsense.

00:15:24.160 But what wasn't in it was any call for national unity.

00:15:27.440 There was no nod to the West.

00:15:29.160 There was no acknowledgement of the particular struggles and trials that right now are facing

00:15:33.720 people in Alberta and Saskatchewan particularly.

00:15:37.060 There was no desire to bolster the Canadian energy sector.

00:15:40.280 In fact, many people would say it was the opposite.

00:15:42.620 When we hear buzzwords like build back better or something like that.

00:15:46.480 So that's where we are now.

00:15:48.840 No support for the West, which again, may not be all that surprising, but at least it 1.00

00:15:53.860 would show that he was wanting to go through the motions.

00:15:56.580 Actually, I don't know now.

00:15:57.660 I don't know if it's better to have someone who's like pretending they care about the West

00:16:00.400 or just someone who's owning the fact that they do not care.

00:16:03.600 Couldn't even point to the West on a map, let alone identify any of the key issues facing

00:16:08.240 the West.

00:16:09.760 I guess probably the second one is a bit better because at least it's a bit more authentic.

00:16:13.240 But it reminds us that we're in a place right now where there isn't really a desire to keep

00:16:18.060 the country together.

00:16:18.900 There isn't really a desire or a goal to keep all of the different disparate factions of the

00:16:23.840 country that are growing further and further apart to keep them aligned and keep them on the

00:16:29.560 same team, so to speak.

00:16:31.260 So we also see in this a misguided set of priorities where it's more interesting to the

00:16:39.560 liberals to go after the airy fairy pie in the sky pipe dreams than it is to deal with

00:16:45.140 the real nitty gritty issues that are facing Canada and Canadians.

00:16:49.560 And if he wants to make the pandemic job one fine, but he's not even doing that.

00:16:54.700 He says he's going to, but he's not doing it.

00:16:56.660 He's instead reminding everyone about the two billion trees, which I remind you, not a

00:17:00.460 single one has been planted.

00:17:02.320 He's revising all of these Canadian values.

00:17:05.480 And China, the greatest geopolitical threat facing Canada right now as far as economic

00:17:11.640 dominance, security dominance, as far as the origins of the coronavirus, and not a single

00:17:16.840 reference to the word China.

00:17:19.120 He did mention the two Michaels, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, but that was a passing

00:17:24.640 mention and again, has not been accompanied as we've seen by any real action, not a single

00:17:29.340 mention of China.

00:17:30.620 And this was a notoriously long speech, incidentally, 17 pages and not a single mention, despite

00:17:36.940 being longer than most prior throne speeches of a lot of the issues.

00:17:40.680 And the whole thing is, if you're going to go with a long speech, you at least better be

00:17:43.340 covering things that people care about.

00:17:45.340 And I didn't hear a lot of that.

00:17:46.740 So we have Trudeau that has the throne speech, then plus has his own speech on top of that

00:17:52.360 in prime time.

00:17:54.320 And still the questions that Canadians are asking have not been answered, which is how

00:17:59.080 are we going to get through this?

00:18:02.540 And when we talk about the West, I was actually very interested in hearing the response to this

00:18:08.420 from Jason Kenney.

00:18:09.380 And Jason Kenney actually did this morning a responding press conference.

00:18:13.800 And here's what he had to say on the subject of whether the throne speech was really doing

00:18:19.200 anything for the West.

00:18:21.200 Good morning, Premier.

00:18:22.220 You mentioned earlier on that your disagreements with this throne speech aren't just political,

00:18:27.500 that you think there's been an assault on federalism and a number of unconstitutional

00:18:31.460 policies that have been championed.

00:18:33.760 My question is, if the prime minister and the government proceed as announced in the throne

00:18:38.220 speech yesterday, are there future lawsuits against them that you can anticipate based on the

00:18:43.180 policies that they've proposed that you think are not constitutional?

00:18:46.140 Absolutely, undoubtedly.

00:18:48.440 We'll be at the Alberta appeal court next month for oral arguments on our constitutional challenge

00:18:56.520 of the federal No More Pipelines Law Bill C-69.

00:18:59.600 We are being supported in that by a number of other provinces, including Quebec.

00:19:02.840 We are right now, of course, as you know, carbon tax reference at the Supreme Court, where

00:19:08.240 we are supported by Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec.

00:19:13.020 And I can see if they go in the direction they articulated in yesterday's throne speech

00:19:19.400 that we will go to the wall to defend the Canadian Constitution.

00:19:25.780 And this is something I've tried to articulate to people in central Canada.

00:19:33.860 Albertans were not the caricature of kind of inward-looking provincialists.

00:19:43.960 We are big Canadians.

00:19:45.560 We believe in the promise of the economic union.

00:19:50.240 Our province has done more than any other to advance the cause of free trade, of knocking

00:19:54.680 down barriers to trade and mobility within Canada.

00:20:00.820 We are proud to have contributed over $600 billion net to the rest of the country when times

00:20:07.820 were good here and bad elsewhere.

00:20:09.220 We are proud to have helped to bring the country through the global financial crisis of a decade

00:20:17.460 ago relatively unscathed.

00:20:19.860 We are proud to have welcomed hundreds of thousands of Canadians who went from poverty

00:20:24.860 in their home provinces to opportunity in Alberta.

00:20:27.780 We are big Canadians, but that means a federation where the federal government respects how the

00:20:38.800 constitution was originally designed.

00:20:42.200 And yesterday was a complete inversion of the original vision of the federation with the federal government.

00:20:48.440 And I think compared to the administration of Pierre Trudeau, for example, in the 1970s, that in terms of respecting provincial jurisdiction,

00:21:02.080 the first Trudeau government in the 1970s was like a walk in the park compared to the gross interference in the exclusive jurisdiction of provinces.

00:21:17.040 And I know, by the way, Andrew, I know a lot of this just sounds like political science gobbledygook and legal disputes, federal provincial wrangling is probably how a lot of people see it.

00:21:28.760 But this, I'm going to go back to Michael's email that I started with.

00:21:35.700 This affects real people's real lives, jobs.

00:21:40.060 We've got three minds in Alberta right now, the future of which is potentially jeopardized because the government of Canada is using Bill C-69 to interfere in our constitutional jurisdiction over environmental assessment of projects of that nature.

00:21:56.320 And so the life of those communities is jeopardized.

00:22:02.660 Thousands of workers and their families, their ability to put food on the table.

00:22:05.780 So this is not just some academic dispute.

00:22:08.520 This is about our ability to ensure a future for families in this province.

00:22:15.040 And I should say, it isn't just about the speech itself.

00:22:18.920 I mean, mentioning or not mentioning something in a speech doesn't really matter.

00:22:22.140 It's that this speech is meant to be the official template.

00:22:25.420 It is, in fact, the official template for the Liberal government's priorities in the next weeks, months, or potentially even years.

00:22:32.640 That's what it is.

00:22:33.340 This is not just a speech that's delivered.

00:22:34.900 It's actually tabled, and you see that at the end of it, where the Governor General hands over the speech she's been given to a House of Commons staffer, and that becomes a part of the parliamentary record.

00:22:46.320 So these aren't just words on a page, even if that's, I guess, the sense of how it is or how it feels.

00:22:52.220 These are actually words that carry a lot more weight and a lot more meaning.

00:22:57.240 So it is paramount, then, that anything the government says aligns with its conduct moving forward.

00:23:07.900 And normally, the throne speech has a bunch of things that, you know, you know are never going to happen.

00:23:12.100 I think the big fear for Canadians is that these things do happen.

00:23:15.880 The big fear for Canadians is that this speech actually is the legitimate roadmap for Canada moving forward,

00:23:22.780 which is why the Conservatives, I think, were so steadfast opposed to it.

00:23:27.520 And I'm glad that Aaron O'Toole actually speaks.

00:23:29.340 I feel like there was a missed opportunity from the Conservatives in not laying out expectations earlier on.

00:23:35.300 Because remember, the Conservatives didn't actually say until very late into the day, relatively, that O'Toole would be speaking.

00:23:42.000 And maybe it was illness. I don't know.

00:23:43.780 He seemed to be in good health.

00:23:45.300 Here's a snippet of O'Toole's response to Justin Trudeau's primetime address.

00:23:49.540 After four years of Mr. Trudeau, our country is more divided, less prosperous, and less respected on the world stage.

00:23:58.880 Across this country, millions of Canadians have lost their jobs.

00:24:03.240 Many fear losing their homes.

00:24:05.520 And too many have lost hope.

00:24:08.280 Mr. Trudeau says we're all in this together, but Canada has never been more divided.

00:24:12.800 Today, Mr. Trudeau told millions of Canadians that building back better doesn't include their family.

00:24:20.460 I believe we need to build back stronger as a country.

00:24:24.220 We must be more resilient and self-reliant for the future.

00:24:27.960 The pandemic showed we can only count on ourselves in a crisis.

00:24:31.640 We need to be more nimble and community-focused.

00:24:34.680 We need to be working together to support one another and protect the vulnerable.

00:24:38.800 Now, he was, of course, criticized by all the liberal partisans on Twitter for being, you know, too partisan and all that and too political.

00:24:46.220 But I guess the best defense is that, you know, he assumed that Trudeau was going to be political, which I guess he kind of was.

00:24:52.700 And also, he never promised he wouldn't be.

00:24:55.260 I mean, he's speaking as the leader of the official opposition.

00:24:57.640 His job in that context is to oppose Trudeau.

00:25:00.960 But at least he didn't pretend that it was going to be this apolitical, nationally unifying message like Justin Trudeau did.

00:25:07.500 So that was a big one, I think, for him.

00:25:09.880 And that was really his coming out party to the country in many cases.

00:25:13.460 For those who didn't see him when he took office after winning the leadership that night, this was his introduction to Canadians with more eyes on him than he's probably ever had in his political career.

00:25:24.600 So it's tough to say what the public perception of him is going to be.

00:25:28.300 But I thought it was a very good opportunity for him.

00:25:31.180 And he did rise to the moment.

00:25:33.240 Like I said, I wish that he had have said earlier on, committed, yes, I'm going to be speaking instead of leaving people in the lurch as to wondering.

00:25:39.900 But, I mean, like I said, there may have been medical reasons for that.

00:25:42.600 And Aaron O'Toole and his wife now have COVID-19.

00:25:46.140 Their kids, it sounds like, have still tested negative, although all of them eventually got their test.

00:25:50.880 They had to, like, you know, drive around Ottawa for a bit, but they eventually got their test.

00:25:54.400 And, yeah, I mean, it's good timing.

00:25:55.800 I hear all the conspiracy theorists or see them on Twitter saying, oh, you know, it's funny that Aaron O'Toole and Yves-Francois Blanchet have COVID the week of the throne speech.

00:26:04.140 I don't know what that conspiracy is actually about.

00:26:07.180 Because it certainly doesn't help Aaron O'Toole to be sidelined at a pretty good moment for him.

00:26:13.380 Same as Yves-Francois Blanchet.

00:26:14.860 So unless, I don't know if the conspiracy is that they're pretending to have COVID or that Justin Trudeau gave them COVID, which I don't want to know how it happened.

00:26:22.040 In any case, we've got to take a break.

00:26:25.040 When we come back, my interview with actor Kevin Sorbo starring in Climate Hustle 2 premiering tonight.

00:26:31.920 That's all coming up next on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:26:34.020 Stay tuned.

00:26:38.500 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:26:45.220 Are they trying to control the climate or are they trying to control you?

00:26:49.520 That's one of the questions put forth by Climate Hustle 2, a movie coming out on Thursday looking at the rise of the climate monarchy.

00:26:58.280 The host of the film is Hercules himself, actor, director, and certainly Hollywood renegade Kevin Sorbo, who joins me on the line now.

00:27:06.580 Kevin, good to talk to you.

00:27:07.440 Thanks very much for coming on today.

00:27:09.440 Hollywood renegade, but not by choice.

00:27:11.400 Yeah, it's good to be here.

00:27:12.760 Thanks for having me on.

00:27:13.740 So this must be for you, like if there was ever a chance of you getting back in the good graces of a lot of your former colleagues in Hollywood, that's gone with this movie, right?

00:27:22.900 Yeah.

00:27:23.440 I mean, these guys called me up.

00:27:25.080 I ended up being on camera with it and I narrated, but I was brought on after all of it was put together.

00:27:31.380 And I certainly knew about Climate Hustle 1.

00:27:33.320 So they approached me.

00:27:34.340 I said, yeah, you just want to endear me more to Hollywood, don't you?

00:27:37.300 So, but, you know, I'm a guy that I always look at both sides of the story and I don't understand why we're so one-sided with the whole thing with the climate change, global warming thing.

00:27:47.400 I learned a lot by watching this thing, you know, because I watched it before I narrated it.

00:27:51.540 And, you know, it didn't shock me.

00:27:54.240 I've heard enough arguments from the other side as well.

00:27:57.080 But, you know, the mainstream media in America, you know, they plug just the one thing all the time and there's no room.

00:28:03.680 They scream for tolerance, but they have none.

00:28:05.460 It's a one-way street, you know.

00:28:06.600 Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because one of the great things from a narrative perspective,

00:28:11.460 and if you're going to explore this subject in a film about the global warming divide,

00:28:15.740 is that it isn't just a scientific discussion anymore.

00:28:19.380 I'd say arguably we'd all be better off if it were, but now it's become something about financial corruption,

00:28:25.080 about media bias, about Hollywood hypocrisy, about all of these other things.

00:28:29.140 And I understand that all of those are to some extent explored in Climate Hustle 2.

00:28:34.480 They are.

00:28:35.040 They did a great job with it.

00:28:36.080 You know, and you get a lot of guys that are very knowledgeable, a lot more smarter than I am,

00:28:40.300 and scientists.

00:28:41.740 Here's the thing.

00:28:42.400 I've known this ever since I've been talking about it.

00:28:44.080 I mean, global warming, I've heard about this even in the 90s.

00:28:46.200 They were saying by the year 2000, the coastlines of, you know, Florida and California would be gone.

00:28:51.440 Well, here we are 20 years later.

00:28:53.580 It's, you know, it ain't going to happen.

00:28:55.760 But I just, I look at this and I said, why don't we just take a look at the other side just for one time, guys.

00:29:03.100 I mean, talk about the ice caps.

00:29:04.800 The ice caps are doing great.

00:29:05.940 The polar bears are doing fine.

00:29:07.000 But it comes down to the issue now where it's like the abortion issue.

00:29:10.360 It doesn't really necessarily have to do with anything other than anger and hate now.

00:29:14.080 And it's just so divisive.

00:29:16.060 And I know you guys have seen America in our cities down here right now with these Antifa thugs running around destroying public property,

00:29:23.820 private property, hurting people, killing people.

00:29:25.500 I mean, it's just gotten absolutely crazy down here.

00:29:29.180 Yeah, it has.

00:29:30.040 And, you know, this issue is one that, and I'm glad you mentioned earlier on about having a debate and hearing both sides,

00:29:35.880 because this issue is one where people don't even want to engage in a dialogue about it.

00:29:40.960 I know there have been a number of issues where films that have tackled the subject to some extent before can't even find a theater that will let them play,

00:29:48.920 even with a private booking, because people are so terrified of having a debate.

00:29:52.960 So how do you break through that?

00:29:54.420 And how do you say, hey, listen, we're all about free speech here.

00:29:57.000 We want to have the discussion.

00:29:58.380 And then at the end of it, make up your mind at what you think.

00:30:01.660 Well, I think you just said it.

00:30:03.300 I mean, why can't, the way you worded it was perfectly, because that's what we need to do.

00:30:06.800 But unless you do a movie that deals with the end of the world and how bad conservatives are

00:30:12.220 and how bad anybody has an opposing view to climate change is, how do you get past that?

00:30:17.560 I have no idea, because Climate Hustle, the first one, has already been taken off Amazon.

00:30:22.440 That would stay there for a long time, but now that's even been taken away.

00:30:26.300 I'm totally shadow banned on Facebook and Twitter.

00:30:29.900 I'm not getting near the following I had before.

00:30:32.980 I mean, it shows how many people I have, but it's not out there anymore, because,

00:30:35.800 and they've told me, they've banned me a number of times.

00:30:37.920 When I post things like, hey, what do you think about this article I found?

00:30:42.200 And then it's just an article saying, well, here's some interesting stories to look at

00:30:46.300 and interesting facts, so-called, from the other side.

00:30:49.640 And I get blocked.

00:30:52.000 I mean, it's weird what's going on right now, but it's pretty blatant.

00:30:55.120 And the hypocrisy, as I'm trying to say, hypocrisy is pretty blatant.

00:30:59.900 Oh, yeah, we've seen this time and time again.

00:31:01.560 Leo DiCaprio takes his private jet to a place to get off to give a speech about how we all

00:31:06.180 need to do with less.

00:31:07.420 Joaquin Phoenix, a few months ago, took a first-class plane ticket to D.C., gets off and says,

00:31:12.740 you know, we should all give up meat because of the climate.

00:31:15.100 And I have to wonder, do these people just not care about their hypocrisy, or do they

00:31:19.760 genuinely not realize it?

00:31:23.580 I think they realize it, but I also think they realize if they want to keep working in Hollywood,

00:31:28.460 they better abide by the quid pro quo out there right now.

00:31:32.420 You better say this, or you're going to hurt your career.

00:31:35.520 I certainly hurt my career.

00:31:36.660 Ten years ago, I got tired of the hypocrisy, and I started, you know, being more vocal about

00:31:40.660 it.

00:31:40.740 My wife warned me, and she was right. 1.00

00:31:42.400 I mean, my agent of many years, I made a lot of money off Hercules and Andromeda off

00:31:45.800 of me and other things, said goodbye.

00:31:47.900 Can't book you anymore.

00:31:49.320 So if it wasn't for independent movies, I wouldn't have a career anymore.

00:31:52.140 But I just got tired of it.

00:31:53.180 It's just like, this is absolutely ridiculous that these people get away with what they get

00:31:56.880 away with.

00:31:57.780 But it's just strange.

00:32:00.380 I just think there's so, like I said, there's so much hate.

00:32:02.700 There's so much anger out there right now.

00:32:04.800 How do you, how do you, how do you lighten that load?

00:32:08.120 How do you make that stuff go away?

00:32:09.580 I have no idea, but I'm not going to stop.

00:32:11.740 They're not going to silence me.

00:32:13.300 I'm not, I don't think I'm being ridiculous.

00:32:15.320 I think I post a lot of facts out there, but the facts and the truth are something that

00:32:19.860 is kryptonite to these people.

00:32:21.640 When you mention that they all think this is their meal ticket to stay in Hollywood,

00:32:26.040 are you saying that a lot of them you don't think are actually true believers or even concerned

00:32:30.260 with the issue?

00:32:30.880 They just realize this is where I have to be to continue to work in this industry now?

00:32:35.500 Yeah, I know some.

00:32:36.560 I'm not going to name names because it's not my place to do it.

00:32:38.680 But yeah, it's definitely that way.

00:32:41.180 There's a lot of people out there in Hollywood that will vote for Trump, but they'll never

00:32:44.920 say it.

00:32:45.420 They'll, you know, they'll vote, not even for Trump, they'll vote, they'll vote for Republican

00:32:48.680 over what's going on in the Democrats right now.

00:32:50.780 You look at all the major cities in America right now with all these riots are going on,

00:32:53.700 the BLM movement, all that.

00:32:55.340 It's all Democrat run cities.

00:32:57.820 And it blows my mind that people keep voting these people back in when they're destroying

00:33:02.120 people's lives and their businesses right now.

00:33:04.040 But my brain just went fog for a second.

00:33:06.100 I got to get climatehustle2.com.

00:33:08.660 That's where people get information, climatehustle2.com.

00:33:11.760 And I better say it or they'll get mad at me for not letting people.

00:33:14.020 Don't worry, we'll have a bar up on the screen as well.

00:33:16.780 So we won't blame you if I end up taking us off track there.

00:33:19.920 But let me actually ask you what drew you to the movie, because I know you did mention

00:33:23.760 that you like to hear all sides.

00:33:25.500 But is this an issue that you've been interested in for a while?

00:33:28.780 Or was it one that really has come about more recently?

00:33:31.940 I've been interested forever because it's always out there.

00:33:34.140 I'm a guy that watches the news.

00:33:35.200 Look, I'll watch the BBC, I'll watch CNN, I'll watch Fox.

00:33:38.320 It's interesting in the same, whatever they're talking about, if it's the same subject, how different

00:33:43.600 they view the subject.

00:33:45.160 So it's worse than, you know, the three sides of a story, yours, mine, the cold, hard truth.

00:33:50.400 I think there's multiple things.

00:33:51.760 It's like multiple news, like we have to have multiple genders now. 0.78

00:33:54.820 So it's not near and dear to my heart, but I kind of laugh at what was going on.

00:34:00.300 I remember when Valdez, that big spill we had up in-

00:34:04.440 Oh yeah, the Exxon, yeah.

00:34:05.620 Yeah, the Exxon thing.

00:34:07.220 And, you know, one of the actors down on Johnny Carson's show goes, this is going to take

00:34:10.800 a hundred years before it gets back to normal.

00:34:12.940 Well, it got back to normal a lot more than it's ever been.

00:34:17.480 I mean, Mother Nature is a much more strong leader than the rest of the world. 0.99

00:34:20.300 And I'm not against green, you know?

00:34:22.660 You want electric cars?

00:34:23.520 Yeah, why not?

00:34:24.240 I'm not opposed to that because it's created a lot of jobs too, but it's created a lot of

00:34:27.180 corruption on the other side.

00:34:28.640 So I just get tired of people using this as a weapon to take away tax dollars that could

00:34:34.860 be going to something that's far more important than worrying about one degree in the temperature

00:34:38.520 over the last year, you know, 100 years.

00:34:40.580 Yeah, and that's where it gets back to the tagline of the movie, which is the control

00:34:44.420 aspect, because there are a lot of things.

00:34:46.780 And we see this, especially in Canada, of course, where the oil sector is huge, where the free

00:34:51.060 market is doing a lot of the things to greenify on their own.

00:34:55.000 And then you get, on the other hand, people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other politicians

00:34:59.780 and some of your former colleagues in Hollywood that are saying, you know what, we need to

00:35:04.500 control this, control that.

00:35:06.160 The world's going to end in 12 years, eight years.

00:35:08.300 And I think eventually it's probably going to be before this interview ends that the

00:35:11.380 world is going to end by one prediction or another.

00:35:13.720 And it is very much about control.

00:35:16.980 Oh, they keep pushing it.

00:35:18.220 You know, everything, if it's not in 2000, it's another 10 years or 20 years from now.

00:35:22.500 Control is what's going on right now with COVID.

00:35:25.000 Right.

00:35:25.620 Fear is an amazing weapon and they're using fear and people get, you know, FDR, one of

00:35:30.740 our presidents way back in the day of the impression, what do you say?

00:35:33.180 The only thing to fear is fear itself.

00:35:34.700 Well, a lot of people are fearing it right now.

00:35:36.800 You know, I'm not a firm believer in the whole mask thing.

00:35:40.120 I think that there is that we have a virus that's out there.

00:35:42.960 I've got doctor friends.

00:35:44.160 I'm not going to name who they are, where they're from, but the big hospitals and they're

00:35:47.640 saying the masks don't stop this virus.

00:35:49.160 They don't stop it at all.

00:35:50.120 It's 75 percent smaller than the flu virus.

00:35:51.920 It goes right through any mask, but we're making people do this and people get angry

00:35:55.540 if you don't have a mask on and people are wearing masks because they're told they have

00:35:58.700 to wear them.

00:35:59.440 They're getting angry.

00:36:00.200 So this kind of just builds on it.

00:36:01.520 The same thing has happened in the climate argument.

00:36:03.960 It just builds on and builds on.

00:36:05.340 It becomes more than what the real issue is.

00:36:07.840 I mean, Al Gore is a billionaire now, OK?

00:36:10.640 He became a great wealthy guy off this.

00:36:13.120 So, you know, if I was a smart guy, I would have followed his road and invested in the

00:36:18.040 companies that he got off the ground.

00:36:20.460 Yeah, well, maybe, you know, Climate Hustle 2 can be the anti-inconvenient truth as well

00:36:24.680 and do something as significant as what that film did on the other side.

00:36:29.580 Because, you know, my big frustration, and in retrospect, I think I can be very grateful

00:36:33.800 that at least in Inconvenient Truth was very open about its agenda.

00:36:37.720 The problem now is that this narrative gets slipped into pretty much anything.

00:36:41.500 I was watching, I can't remember what movie it was.

00:36:43.260 It was some animated movie like Ice Age or Happy Feet.

00:36:46.320 And at the end, they pivoted to like this, you know, global UN commitment to, you know,

00:36:50.720 saving the environment or something like that when you think you've just had a nice little

00:36:54.660 movie.

00:36:55.020 And that, I think, is probably the worst part of this, is that there's really no safe haven

00:36:59.940 from being subjected to this narrative.

00:37:04.240 Well, they're putting it in every movie.

00:37:06.020 It's always there.

00:37:07.100 Somewhere it always slips in.

00:37:08.820 If it's not a direct movie about the end of the world, there's always issues that they're

00:37:12.600 talking about.

00:37:13.060 I mean, they do it at the BBC, does it with the Richard Attenborough thing, you know,

00:37:16.440 about the blue ocean and all these different things.

00:37:18.600 They always throw it in and it gets all dramatic, you know.

00:37:20.900 Yeah, you can't just enjoy the cute turtle and the nice little fish anymore.

00:37:24.320 It's got to, everything's got to be political now.

00:37:26.140 It's like the Emmys and the Golden Globes and the Oscars.

00:37:28.600 Every actor gets up there now and gets political.

00:37:30.360 I still think Joe Pesci did the best job when he won a supporting actor for Raging

00:37:35.060 Bully.

00:37:35.460 He went up and said, thank you.

00:37:37.200 And he walked off stage, you know.

00:37:38.500 I love it.

00:37:39.200 Just be grateful you have a job.

00:37:40.860 It's a very competitive business.

00:37:42.380 You're entrepreneurs and you are capitalist.

00:37:44.500 You can scream socialism all you want in Hollywood.

00:37:47.340 But, you know, a lot of those A-list actors, they're rich enough to be socialists.

00:37:51.200 They don't live socialist lifestyles.

00:37:52.900 But Universal, Disney, they're all capitalist business.

00:37:56.040 They want to make money.

00:37:57.220 But it's this whole disguising of, you know, look up, we care so much more than the rest

00:38:01.580 of you.

00:38:01.840 Look at how much we care about Mother Earth.

00:38:04.440 We all care about the Earth.

00:38:05.680 Give me a break.

00:38:06.440 I mean, America, the two worst countries in the world that I've read about with all

00:38:12.740 the stuff they're spewing in the atmosphere is China and India. 1.00

00:38:16.560 America is one of the lowest ones on there. 0.55

00:38:18.260 And we throw the most money at this thing when we have too many more problems with other

00:38:21.780 things that need to be, you know, brought attention to.

00:38:24.200 Oh, yeah.

00:38:24.680 And that's even more exaggerated in Canada, which is just a, you know, a teeny tiny speck 0.82

00:38:28.840 in the world compared to a lot of other nations.

00:38:31.220 Yet our politicians say that we need to get taxed up the yin-yang to do all of these

00:38:35.920 other things.

00:38:36.580 And the math doesn't add up there.

00:38:38.580 Just let me ask you in closing here, Kevin, because you talked about the Hollywood narrative

00:38:42.740 there.

00:38:43.340 We had a couple of weeks ago the Oscars come out and say all of a sudden for Best Picture,

00:38:47.540 a film to be nominated has to check off all these diversity and inclusion boxes.

00:38:52.340 Do you think this is the death of art or has that happened long ago by this point?

00:38:56.660 What's gotten worse and worse as it goes along?

00:38:58.440 Look, I don't care who's in what movie.

00:39:02.460 I don't care what race you're in. 0.99

00:39:04.020 If it's a good movie, it should be recognized.

00:39:06.600 But to sit there now and say, well, you have to have this and to fill a diversity quota,

00:39:11.000 then my argument for that is, okay, then in the NBA and the NFL, we need more diversity.

00:39:17.300 I want to see more people from Guam, from Israel, from, you know, from, I don't know, maybe

00:39:22.080 Japan, more people like that in the NFL.

00:39:24.760 And the people would get on my case, no, you want the best people.

00:39:27.120 Well, thank you very much.

00:39:28.940 I want the best movie voted on by people saying, because it's the best movie.

00:39:34.820 If it happens to be for whatever reasons they're trying to change the Academy Awards for now,

00:39:39.160 so be it.

00:39:40.020 But don't force this way for people to vote on this just because of that.

00:39:45.180 So, you know, they just keep, it's just insanity, Bill, right now.

00:39:48.880 Yeah, very much agree.

00:39:50.540 I don't know if Climate Hustle 2 will be able to meet all the diversity criteria to get nominated

00:39:54.800 for Best Picture, but certainly deserving of it because it's speaking truth on an issue

00:39:59.160 that it is so difficult to find anyone willing to do it.

00:40:02.320 So thanks very much for your bravery in taking part in this and also for coming on today.

00:40:06.880 I greatly appreciate it.

00:40:08.060 You know, it's funny.

00:40:08.620 I don't know if you know Babylon Bee.

00:40:10.020 These guys do very funny little satire bits on the news.

00:40:13.340 And it's fake news, but they make fun of the real news.

00:40:16.240 And because of what they're doing in the Academy Awards, they put one out on me because I do

00:40:19.860 so many faith-based movies like God's Not Dead and What If and Life There'll Be Like.

00:40:23.440 So I said every faith-based movie now must be up for Academy Awards.

00:40:27.000 And it has to star Kevin Sorbo in it.

00:40:28.920 So I thought that was pretty funny that they did that.

00:40:31.660 Yeah, that would actually not be a bad idea.

00:40:33.440 So I'm glad I'll have to take a look at that.

00:40:35.660 Thanks very much for coming on.

00:40:37.040 Kevin Sorbo, really great to talk to you.

00:40:39.160 Thanks a lot.

00:40:39.700 Appreciate it.

00:40:40.140 If you enjoy the show and want to hear more of it, we need your support.

00:40:44.820 Head on over to andrewlaughtonshow.com and click Donate to support the work that we're

00:40:49.660 doing and stand up for independent media.

00:40:52.040 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:40:54.060 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - September 24, 2020

Breach from the Throne

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