Juno News - Canada's new assisted death rules are giving up on the vulnerable

00:00:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true north

00:00:08.680 hello everyone and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show here on

00:00:19.500 true north tuesday november 15th just after 4 0 4 p.m eastern time if you are keeping track

00:00:26.840 i thank you very much for tuning in today i'm going to be talking a little bit later on about

00:00:32.400 the latest in the public order emergency commission hearings some pretty big evidence coming out this

00:00:38.240 week notably the confirmation that the rcmp commissioner brenda lucky did not in fact ask

00:00:44.720 for the emergencies act and even a day before the federal government invoked it advised the federal

00:00:50.640 government she didn't need it and the big one is the declaration by the cesus director david vigneault

00:00:58.500 that cesus did not see a threat to the security of canada and you may say well what's the big deal

00:01:04.520 it's cesus you know why what do they have to do with it well the cesus act is what defines the

00:01:10.400 emergencies act when it comes to setting out what a threat to the security of canada is so if the

00:01:16.260 cesus folks are saying there's no threat that seems like a pretty big issue we'll talk about

00:01:21.600 that a little bit later on with mark joseph who was supposed to be on the show last week and we had

00:01:27.400 some technical difficulties but we'll be sure to get john mark on this time we have like double triple

00:01:32.760 quadruple checked it so that'll be coming up very shortly i want to start though on a topic that is

00:01:39.620 a fair bit more personal to me but at the same time still a significant topic and one that i hope

00:01:46.240 you'll indulge in because this is a

00:01:49.020 this is bigger than partisanship and it's one of these things that i hope people on the left

00:02:00.100 on the right people that don't even care about politics will pay attention to back in march of

00:02:07.120 2021 the liberal government passed bill c7 now c7 contained a very radical set of reforms

00:02:15.260 to canada's assisted dying laws now assisted suicide has been legal in canada since 2016

00:02:21.540 it was legalized after a supreme court of canada ruling and the threshold set out in those initial

00:02:28.220 laws involved that someone had to have a grievous and irremediable medical condition they had to be

00:02:35.060 in profound suffering and they had to be facing a natural death that was reasonably foreseeable

00:02:41.640 which is to say the assisted suicide regime in canada was meant to be for people that

00:02:47.060 had a terminal condition that was killing them they knew the direction it was going to go and the

00:02:52.420 person was suffering you fast forward to 2021 bill c7 expands it dramatically by taking out that section

00:03:03.160 that says a death must be reasonably foreseeable in other words someone who is facing a condition that is

00:03:10.520 causing suffering but is not killing them will now be eligible for an assisted suicide and you may think

00:03:18.400 that is an insignificant change until you consider that it also involves expanding eligibility to include

00:03:24.080 people with mental illnesses this is for me incredibly personal some of you may know this some of you may

00:03:32.940 not i've written about it in the past but it doesn't come up every day in 2010 i nearly succeeded

00:03:38.300 at killing myself i had been battling depression for years very serious i had been in the system so to

00:03:45.460 speak i had been trying to get better i had been seeing a psychiatrist until not long before the

00:03:51.180 suicide attempt which as i said in a column i wrote yesterday was hardly a ringing endorsement of him

00:03:56.140 i had been on antidepressants i had seen therapists i was convinced that there was no hope i was convinced

00:04:04.020 that life could not get better and i was convinced that i'd be better off dead i was suffering to use

00:04:10.660 the language of bill c7 or canada's assisted suicide laws i felt what i was going through was grievous and

00:04:17.420 irremediable i didn't have a reasonably foreseeable natural death but that part doesn't matter thanks

00:04:23.180 to bill c7 now i sounded the alarm about this as did other mental health advocates and organizations

00:04:29.320 in 2021 and the government said just trust us they put in a little two-year sunset clause where

00:04:35.900 they determined that well we'll just pass the bill as it is and we'll give it two years for people to

00:04:42.300 come up with regulations alternatives we'll do a review and of course there's been a little bit of a

00:04:47.040 report on it some parliamentarians have gotten together but so far nothing has changed and as of march

00:04:53.640 2023 someone with severe depression someone with schizophrenia someone with some other mental

00:05:01.380 illness will be able to for reasons of their mental suffering alone get an assisted suicide

00:05:08.960 whereas it used to be the government devoted its resources and the health care system devoted its

00:05:14.000 resources to stopping suicide now they will sanction it and i did write about this yesterday

00:05:21.200 and i've been wanting to say it for a while and i was trying to find the right time i was trying to

00:05:26.580 find the right words because it is difficult it's difficult to dig back into a time of my life that

00:05:31.600 was so unrecognizable to the life i live now and i think that is part and parcel of why this is such a

00:05:38.200 problem because i got better and the life i'm living is proof that it's possible to get better

00:05:46.660 but instead the government is willing to give up on the vulnerable and willing to capitulate to a

00:05:55.080 feeling that is very much coming from a disordered place that suicide is an answer it's not it never

00:06:01.380 is not when you're talking about mental health and mental illness be it depression as it was in my

00:06:07.920 experience or something else and there's i get angry about this at just the ghoulishness of people that say

00:06:19.040 this is okay and you know me i am about as libertarian as it comes i believe people should have the right

00:06:24.720 to do what they want up until the point it infringes on the rights of others i don't support the criminalization of

00:06:30.020 suicide but there are caveats in that even the most ironclad libertarians will say that the government

00:06:37.920 has a role in protecting the vulnerable and when you're talking about people with mental illness

00:06:43.080 you're not talking people that have decided based on a complete assessment of all the options available

00:06:49.020 to them that this is what they want to do you're talking about people for whom the desire to die

00:06:54.000 is a symptom of what it is that's wrong with them and it's sickening to me when i think of the

00:07:01.920 health care workers the health care workers who slaved tirelessly who were dedicated to saving my

00:07:10.400 life in 2010 because it i very nearly was not here today i very nearly didn't make it my family was by

00:07:20.300 my side at the hospital they were praying people around the country that knew me were praying

00:07:24.720 and it was through those prayers that i was saved and i think god works through health care

00:07:32.900 practitioners so it was through the health care practitioners as well that i was saved but the

00:07:37.620 reason i tell this story is because i want you to understand the juxtaposition of those same health

00:07:43.480 care practitioners the same health care system in 2010 working to save my life

00:07:48.420 in contrast with 2023 when the health care system is facilitating people who want to end their lives

00:07:57.360 when the same health care system is there to help people so under the current rules if someone goes

00:08:05.300 to a doctor and says i'm thinking of ending my life the doctor actually has a duty to protect them

00:08:09.440 and there's a reason for that because we understand this is not a normal thing to want this is not a

00:08:16.580 rational thing to want so the government is able to intervene the government is able to keep people

00:08:23.280 in a hospital against their will again i don't support imprisoning people who have done nothing wrong

00:08:29.560 but we're talking about measures that are there to protect people who are about to commit harm to

00:08:34.620 themselves or to others in 2023 if someone in the situation i was in in 2020 2010 were to go to their

00:08:43.760 doctor and say i'm thinking of ending my life the doctor could say well let me give you a referral

00:08:48.060 dr smith does that here you go that is not health care and that is a complete rejection

00:08:56.580 of the line that was given to people when assisted suicide was first coming into canada that this was

00:09:02.200 something that was intended to provide death with dignity that was the line death with dignity

00:09:08.380 it was so that people dealing with degenerative conditions like multiple sclerosis and als who

00:09:14.960 are in excruciating pain who are declining in their capacity in their physical and mental capacity so

00:09:20.540 that these people could have death when they were still a recognizable forms of themselves we can

00:09:25.860 debate that and we can discuss that but that is very different from what c7 has brought into place

00:09:32.040 that is very different from the situation that the canadian public is now finding itself in now

00:09:37.980 where someone who's suffering is purely mental very real but not physical someone dealing with an

00:09:47.520 affliction that is not going to end their life that is not degenerative and that in many cases there

00:09:54.320 could be hope on the horizon for even if in the moment it doesn't feel like it

00:10:00.100 this troubles me greatly and it should trouble all of you and this isn't a left-right issue as i said

00:10:07.360 this isn't about liberal versus conservative it was quite shameful when the liberal government

00:10:11.860 didn't listen to a growing chorus of people from all aspects of civil society and the opposition

00:10:17.320 parties and remember if you go back to 2021 the senate of canada tried to put a bunch of reforms in

00:10:25.100 that would deal with this they tried to do a specific carve out for people with mental illness now

00:10:29.760 in my view that wouldn't have saved all the problems with the bill but it would have at least

00:10:34.060 saved the big glaring one that trips my radar and the federal government said no the federal government

00:10:41.580 wouldn't do it and the senate eventually caved the predominantly liberal senators or liberal appointed

00:10:46.840 senators eventually gave in and just said okay we'll pass the bill the way the liberal government

00:10:52.560 wants it the way justin trudeau wants it i don't often put out calls to action like the one that i'm

00:11:00.140 about to do but you need to call your members of parliament about this one if you believe in life

00:11:07.000 if you believe in human dignity if you believe that there is hope for people struggling with mental

00:11:12.500 illness you need to call your liberal members of parliament this is going to kick in in march of

00:11:18.900 2023 that gives four months until people in my situation in 2010 could just walk up to a doctor's

00:11:26.900 office and say i would like you to sign off on my assisted death there's a review period you need

00:11:31.940 multiple visits you need another doctor to sign off as well it's not like suicide is just dispensed

00:11:36.920 with no notice in the storefront like a tim hortons coffee but there are people that will do it

00:11:42.900 and one example of this a quite shameful example uh just a couple of months ago there was a man who

00:11:49.460 applied for assisted suicide because he was unable to get access to affordable housing

00:11:55.000 and he didn't want to die he didn't want an assisted death but he said well you know what it's

00:11:59.540 better than the life i'm living now there was a woman in april or may earlier this year i can't remember

00:12:06.040 the exact month but she was dealing with chemical sensitivity she was in affordable housing she wanted

00:12:12.780 to find alternative housing and she couldn't and she succeeded at getting an assisted death now her issue

00:12:20.120 was not that she wanted to die she preferred alternatives which were not available to her

00:12:26.580 so assisted suicide was treated as an expedient option not as a last resort

00:12:33.520 and that's what i fear will happen with struggling with mental illnesses to put a fine point on this

00:12:40.520 i am convinced that if the laws that will be around starting in march were there in 2010

00:12:47.380 i would be dead right now and again twitter discourse being what it is i'm i'm ready i'm

00:12:55.000 hesitant to ask the question would would the world be better off if that were the case but i i hope most

00:12:59.580 people could have the humanity to say no it wouldn't regardless of whatever things we may agree or disagree

00:13:04.160 on but that's the exact type of thing that someone in my situation would have pursued

00:13:09.140 because the message the government is sending with this the message the state is sending

00:13:14.400 is that life is not always worth living

00:13:17.340 the message they're sending is that suicide is not something should be that should be stopped

00:13:22.820 but something that should be perhaps even celebrated it's just a choice

00:13:27.920 and i know there are people out there that have struggled or are struggling with mental illness

00:13:32.740 and i know it's difficult and i know you don't always want the message of hope

00:13:36.080 i know i didn't i i sure as heck didn't if someone were to say oh it's going to get better

00:13:40.080 i would have been like oh come on screw you i've been down this road before but you know what 0.93

00:13:43.500 eventually it did you have to learn for yourself but it did for me 0.98

00:13:46.960 and i know there are people whose family members are struggling and suffering

00:13:51.880 and for those people one thing you should know about this is that if someone goes through the

00:13:58.460 process of medical assistance and dying there is no consultation with family family doesn't even

00:14:04.400 have a right to know about it let alone to intervene so someone could quietly and secretly

00:14:11.340 go through this process and you don't know about it until they're dead

00:14:16.760 so absolutely i'm mad about this and absolutely i think this is a shameful rejection of what health

00:14:25.080 care is supposed to be of what compassion is supposed to be and just take the politics out of it

00:14:29.360 of what human dignity is supposed to be and i don't want anyone to think this is about me trying

00:14:37.140 to impose my values or views on others it's not about that i'm not even arguing that we roll back

00:14:44.160 the protections that exist for medical assistance and dying from 2016 i'm talking about people who do

00:14:51.740 not have the capacity to consent to their own death if anyone does people with serious mental illnesses

00:14:58.700 because their desire to end their life is a symptom so since when do you appease that symptom by giving

00:15:06.840 them what they want and ending their life call your members of parliament that's all i can tell you to

00:15:16.640 do right now they're the ones that made this mess they are the ones who have to fix it i promise i i

00:15:22.080 always this is the problem i normally i have such a cheery disposition and i could have just done i

00:15:27.060 guess like five minutes of suicide jokes knowing that i have lived experience so i'm allowed to but

00:15:31.480 i didn't come up with any good ones so uh we're uh we're gonna just to get all the lighter stuff into

00:15:35.980 the second end of the show here because i do want to talk about what's been happening in the public

00:15:40.840 order emergency commission it's been a bit of a bigger week this week and i want to talk about this

00:15:46.260 in two particular contexts here because there was the cesus memo that came about yesterday and there

00:15:52.700 was also rcmp commissioner brenda lucky's testimony today but before we get into it i want to play a

00:15:58.440 clip for you here in which rob stewart who is formerly the deputy public safety minister

00:16:05.000 acknowledged that cesus found there was no threat to the security of canada in law take a look

00:16:11.280 well david vigno he stated that at no point of the service being cesus assessed the protests in ottawa or

00:16:18.540 elsewhere those referred to as the freedom convoy and related protests and blockades in january and

00:16:23.440 february 2022 constituted a threat to the security of canada as defined in section 2 of the cesus act

00:16:29.280 and that cesus cannot investigate activities constituting lawful protests and i take it uh you were

00:16:36.400 advised of this correct correct all right and can we scroll down then to uh page seven

00:16:43.020 and go to the heading foreign interference

00:16:50.580 so director vigno explained that the use of the term foreign influence under section 2 of the cesus act

00:16:58.980 refers to a foreign state interference as the term is used within the national security community just

00:17:04.080 slow down right uh cesus assessed there was no indication of foreign state interference occurring in

00:17:10.820 the course of the protest cesus did not assess that any foreign state supported the protest through

00:17:17.140 funding that foreign states deployed covert or over disinformation techniques or that any foreign state

00:17:24.100 actors attempted to enter into canada to support the protest and i take it that you were advised of

00:17:29.780 that by cesus and director venue is that correct that is correct all right and if we can go down to page number

00:17:38.020 8 and the heading recommendation to cabinet

00:17:45.380 their director venue states that he learned that the ea referenced the threat definition set out in

00:17:51.860 section 2 of the cc at cesus act once the federal government began to seriously consider invoking the

00:17:57.940 ea between february 10th and 13th he requested that the service prepare a threat assessment on the risks

00:18:04.180 associated with the invocation of the ea he felt an obligation to clearly convey the service's

00:18:09.620 position that there did not exist a threat to the security of canada as defined by the service's legal

00:18:15.860 mandate the threat assessment prepared by the service was that the invocation of the emergencies

00:18:21.620 legislation risked further inflaming imv rhetoric and individuals holding accelerationist or anti-government

00:18:29.220 views you were told that is that correct that is correct all right that was from freedom convoy

00:18:37.620 organizers lawyer brendan miller and his cross-examination of former deputy minister of public

00:18:43.540 safety rob stewart but again i want to just contextualize this the cc act is what defines threats to the

00:18:51.220 security of canada it is that definition that is at the basis of the emergencies act when it comes to

00:18:57.620 public order emergencies so if cesus is advising you know what our intelligence is that this doesn't

00:19:02.820 exist where on earth is the government getting its vastly superior intelligence from joining me now

00:19:09.060 is mark joseph who is a litigator with the democracy fund which has been uh if you've been following the

00:19:15.140 commission hearings closely uh putting a lot of tough questions to the witnesses mark it's good to

00:19:19.860 talk to you thanks for coming on today thanks for having me on andrew now i mean let me just

00:19:25.140 ask a slightly facetious question but i think there's a serious undertone to it why did the

00:19:29.380 commission even reconvene today after that i mean when when the cc intelligence is putting evidence

00:19:34.900 forward the cc director that there was no threat that should just like end the whole thing everyone

00:19:39.620 go home yeah i mean look they got it they got to go through their mandate uh so the commission is

00:19:46.020 going to be here for i think six weeks until november 25th um and they gotta leave no stone unturned but

00:19:52.660 yeah yesterday's uh evidence was fairly damning i think for the reasons you outlined explain to me

00:20:00.020 where things are going from here because obviously we're getting more into the federal story right

00:20:04.740 now we had the federal bureaucrats yesterday today we had brenda lucky with the rcmp eventually we're 1.00

00:20:11.620 going to be hearing from federal cabinet ministers and justin trudeau like what is it that the federal

00:20:17.380 government needs to do to save its case at this point if it even can that's a great question and

00:20:23.460 i'm sure the government lawyers will be asking that uh when they caucus look i'm not i'm not sure i mean

00:20:30.100 we we heard um the national security and intelligence and pfizer uh mentioned and i to be honest i hadn't

00:20:40.580 heard of this department uh before but i assume they're something like the equivalent of the the

00:20:46.660 nsa uh for the united states um and they're going to be uh giving evidence i think in camera so you're

00:20:55.380 right there's a problem for the government because the the evidence for uh violence serious violence as

00:21:01.060 defined under section 2 the csesis act has been thin on the ground um so it's it hasn't come from rcmp

00:21:08.420 it hasn't come from opp ops windsor police um and then we've heard about the the um you know the

00:21:17.060 document that was put to the witnesses with respect to no evidence of uh national security threat so

00:21:24.500 what we have left i guess is the this nsia that may have evidence about serious violence or imves as

00:21:33.620 they're calling it it ideologically motivated violent extremists um but we don't know because

00:21:38.980 we haven't heard any of that yet um and we may not hear it if it's in camera so i just don't know

00:21:44.020 what what's left for the government that i think that's actually an important point because we we know

00:21:49.060 that the cses panel the director and deputy director are going to be testifying in camera as well

00:21:54.580 so there's going to be some evidence that's put before the commission and as i understand it because

00:22:00.500 it's in camera even the other party's lawyers are not there so there's no cross-examination do i

00:22:05.380 understand that correctly that's right we won't know about it um it's just the government of canada

00:22:12.820 the commission lawyers i believe and commissioner rouleau i think so that we're not going to hear

00:22:19.460 about it and we don't have a chance to cross-examine which is uh i i think um professor alford i believe

00:22:25.700 i had an article in the national post uh that suggested it it it will undermine the confidence

00:22:32.900 in the process i believe um if we're not allowed to test the evidence or hear it yeah and and again

00:22:40.820 and i'm not suspect i'm not accusing the commissioner or the commission itself of any wrongdoing here and

00:22:47.140 and i mean even the commissioner as i understand it doesn't know what the evidence is so so he could

00:22:51.860 make a finding after he's heard it that this is something that can be disclosed but it's very

00:22:56.500 difficult for a canadian who's already fairly skeptical of the government's approach here to

00:23:01.940 have faith and confidence because the government has up until this point i'd say not had a very

00:23:07.780 convincing case because all of these agencies from the opp ottawa police windsor police rcmp and cesis are

00:23:14.580 saying the emergencies act wasn't necessary and if the one witness that we don't get to hear from is

00:23:19.780 somehow giving the magic evidence that it is that's going to be a tough pill to swallow for a lot of

00:23:25.460 people yeah i agree and i i think i think most reasonable people can see that i mean justice has

00:23:30.340 to be done it has to be seen to be done uh and the lack of transparency i think will will affect the

00:23:35.300 confidence in the outcome not to say that justice commissioner relo um you know wouldn't wouldn't make a

00:23:41.620 proper finding it's just that you know we don't have a look into uh the basis for his finding with

00:23:48.900 respect to that evidence um so i think it's a bit of a problem but again we don't as you say commissioner

00:23:54.180 relo could um could you know dismiss or consider the evidence um you know as he sees fit so one interesting

00:24:03.300 aspect of this is that you have a lot of groups that have come out that are not supportive of the

00:24:09.860 emergencies act even though they're not supportive of the convoy either i mean one notable example is

00:24:14.740 the coalition of ottawa residents and businesses their their lawyer is paul champ paul champ has uh

00:24:20.580 has been critical publicly of the emergencies act his clients have not taken a position on it even

00:24:26.260 though they're not obviously friends of the convoy plus you've got civil liberties groups that like

00:24:30.580 the canadian civil liberties association not only in group by any stretch that have come forward and

00:24:35.700 their line of questioning has really been focused on i think the money and that the bank account

00:24:40.260 freezes so the democracy fund i know is a big supporter of civil liberties but but what is it

00:24:45.380 that just from your perspective you'd like to get out of this i mean what is what is the tdf's

00:24:50.820 what is a win for you as the democracy funds lawyer well look i mean we want all the evidence to be

00:24:57.780 heard i mean we're i think most of the lawyers want to be fair to the witnesses and give them a chance to give

00:25:04.820 uh to recount their experiences uh as they went through the process um but tdf is concerned that

00:25:14.820 this the emergency act wasn't properly declared and we really want to test that because it's an

00:25:21.300 important uh it's an important situation i mean you can't just arbitrarily or unreasonably declare an

00:25:29.380 emergency to overcome political opposition that's why we got rid of the uh the war measurements act

00:25:35.540 uh that preceded the emergencies act it was just too broad it was too sweeping i believe one of the

00:25:40.340 politicians said you just wanted to move a bicycle and you got a moving van that's what the the powers

00:25:46.660 gave you um and so it was the emergencies act is is not supposed to be invoked except in i would suggest

00:25:54.660 the most existential of crises um and tdf is concerned that that might not have been the case

00:26:01.060 i think the view here is that it probably wasn't um so what do we do from here i mean we're looking to

00:26:08.100 commissioner lodik to provide some policy solutions hopefully um if he agrees that it wasn't uh reasonably

00:26:15.220 invoked but we just don't know so yeah we're going to be holding the government to account that's that's

00:26:19.940 our mandate i i don't want to get too far ahead of things here because i know there is still uh

00:26:24.980 testimony remaining and there could be new witnesses even that that weren't on that initial

00:26:29.380 list that was published but i i've heard very conflicting things about what is going to be in

00:26:35.140 the commissioner's final report and as i understand it and please correct me if i'm wrong there doesn't

00:26:40.180 need to be based on the terms of reference or based on the emergencies act itself a definitive

00:26:46.580 ruling on it was justified or unjustified it could just be a series of observations a statement of

00:26:52.820 facts do am i understanding that properly yeah i believe so i mean he he is uh his mandate is to

00:27:00.020 examine the conditions that led to the declaration of the emergency so uh he doesn't have to make any

00:27:06.180 definitive uh statement either way that it was legitimate or illegitimate but you know i don't think

00:27:11.780 it's going to be a series of desultory statements about you know what happened i think it's going to

00:27:19.140 be uh purposive right it's it's going to be relevant to the mandate he was given so i expect to

00:27:26.740 see some definitive statements about some aspect of the declaration um but you're right i he's not

00:27:33.860 boxed in about you know saying yeah or nay well and to be fair i mean even if he came out with the

00:27:39.540 most scathing indictment of the emergencies act it's you know the justin trudeau could say okay

00:27:44.100 so what you know just like come out and say yeah we're sorry we didn't mean to and carry on like it

00:27:48.820 doesn't take away from i think the need for there to be political accountability in it but i i think

00:27:53.780 it would obviously be a lot more helpful to have this this report in hand if you're an opposition

00:27:58.740 party if you're a canadian voter if you're uh someone in media and and so on so let me just ask it

00:28:05.300 in a similar context here if we're talking about all of the different battles that are underway right

00:28:10.820 now we've got the parliamentary report we've got the public order emergency commission we've got

00:28:16.420 charter challenges that have been filed here like where do you think the most where where do

00:28:21.300 you think kind of the weak the weak link in the chain is for the emergencies act of all of these

00:28:25.460 different challenges that's a good question um i i just i don't know i mean we've been focused

00:28:34.660 obsessively on the emergencies act so our minds are turned to the deficiencies in the evidence but

00:28:43.300 look there's been a lot of uh legal challenges to aspects um problematic aspects of the covet 19

00:28:51.700 pandemic and and the dissolution of charter rights uh that that we're focused on i mean just the

00:28:57.860 quarantine act tickets themselves um we've you know we're challenging those the the mischief charges

00:29:03.940 arising out of the protests we've you know representing 23 or so clients um in that case uh that that we

00:29:12.260 don't think should be convicted of anything um you know there's a whole bunch a bunch of of areas where

00:29:20.180 charter rights are just being tossed out of out of the window and and you know we'd like to fight

00:29:25.460 them all but we got to pick our battles i mean we're we're um you know suing western university for

00:29:30.420 or the imposition of a booster mandate uh you know should should be required to be boosted umpteen

00:29:37.380 times to go to to get an education i mean you know we're picking that battle we're fighting that fight

00:29:42.900 in the court of appeal soon uh so i don't know where to you know where to begin andrew it's just there's

00:29:48.020 so many areas that are problematic with respect to to your charter rights now when it comes to the

00:29:55.540 public order emergency commission sometimes the questions are are more illuminating than the

00:30:00.340 answers specifically who's asking what like like obviously when peter slowly's lawyer is cross

00:30:05.540 examining like you can tell that he's interested in uh basically protecting the interest of his

00:30:09.780 client and so on same as the city of ottawa ottawa police the commissioner's questions have been

00:30:14.580 interesting because he hasn't been asking a lot of them generally but when he has intervened one

00:30:19.860 theme that i've noticed that he asked a few of the protesters and a few of the police

00:30:25.940 was whether there was ever an alternative arrangement offered to them can you go and protest here

00:30:31.620 instead and the sense that i got in the answers was that that was never the case that no one was

00:30:36.500 ever actually given an alternative to have a peaceful lawful protest when the emergencies that came up

00:30:42.740 and i think that was very interesting as well because publicly the line that we got got from

00:30:47.620 justin trudeau was that your civil liberties are intact your charter rights are intact but on the

00:30:51.780 ground that did not strike me as how it came out yeah i look it's hard to read the tea leaves when

00:30:58.500 you're when you're looking at the the questions the commissioner um is asking so you know and i i

00:31:03.620 can't i can't do it um but yeah that might be the case uh he was concerned the commissioner was

00:31:10.260 concerned about alternatives to protest um we heard some interesting evidence i think from one of the

00:31:15.700 windsor uh police um authorities who said no no we gave we gave him a chance to move to the sidewalk

00:31:22.340 and then once they were on the sidewalk we left them alone then he was pressed on and he's he was

00:31:26.340 shown an arrest of a person who was on the sidewalk and he said no no well that they were still in the red

00:31:31.700 zone yeah um so it wasn't clear that they actually people actually had an opportunity to remain on the

00:31:38.740 sidewalk and protest peacefully but yeah i think there's a conflict i mean that the government said well

00:31:42.740 you still have your charter rights to peacefully protest and assemble but then you know clear out

00:31:46.980 sort of thing so that's that's i think obvious to people that they didn't you know they had to leave

00:31:54.180 um and there there wasn't much of an alternative yeah and i mean i also think there's been a lot to

00:32:00.500 a lot of deference by the government to the fact that the emergencies act says it needs to comply with

00:32:06.100 the charter because saying it doesn't mean it actually does and and the government was using that as

00:32:10.660 like a defense of like no we're not trampling on your charter rights it says right there we have

00:32:14.340 to respect them well okay sure but that doesn't mean you're doing that right yeah i i think there's

00:32:21.620 a conflict there um they rounded people up uh i mean we heard some some testimony about snatching grabs

00:32:29.300 um you know you got you got put in a paddy wagon and then driven out um to you know the boonies and

00:32:35.700 then they let you off and then you had to make a phone call to get someone to pick you up so to

00:32:40.260 don't come back into ottawa um no i don't know how much of that happened but we heard we did hear

00:32:45.460 evidence that that happened so you know i don't know like you say i don't know how much uh practically

00:32:51.060 speaking people had their right to freedom uh freely assemble and protest after the declaration was in

00:32:58.660 place probably not um but you know it's hard it's hard to say very well said mark joseph with the

00:33:06.500 democracy fund i know you got a few weeks left to go in the marathon so uh keep up the good work and

00:33:10.500 thanks for taking some time out to join me thanks for having me andrew all right thank you let's uh do

00:33:15.780 another clip that came out today now this was of brendan miller again the lawyer for the freedom

00:33:21.140 convoy organizers in his cross-examination of the rcmp commissioner and commissioner uh confirming once again

00:33:28.420 that the rcmp was also aware that there didn't seem to be a national security threat afoot

00:33:36.180 commissioner lucky you were present for both the february 13th irg as well as the february 14th

00:33:43.060 cabinet meeting yes i think there was the cabinet meeting was on the 13th and well yeah yeah and so the

00:33:55.620 irg meeting they according to the text messages and the messages that uh we've reviewed they never

00:34:01.300 even asked you to speak um not on the definitely not at the cabinet meeting and i don't i what i did

00:34:10.900 do i don't think i spoke at either um i i thought i did because i had speaking notes but i did brief the

00:34:17.300 minister before that meeting right and the minister never asked you what your opinion was with respect to

00:34:22.420 whether or not there was a section two csis act security threat is that correct in respect to

00:34:28.420 whether or not there was a threat under section two as defined in the csis act if there was a threat to

00:34:33.700 the security of canada no he would have to ask csis right and csis you're aware told him that there

00:34:38.980 wasn't that's what i've been told so thank you those are my questions that's what you just like just

00:34:46.980 try to slip them under the wire as you're out of time but uh you know it's like the oscars the music's

00:34:51.300 playing the microphone's lowering and eventually they're about to just pull you off stage and

00:34:55.300 send john wayne in there or something but that was an obscure reference uh john never mind uh thank you

00:35:01.940 thank you to those who got it anyway but the reason i think that's important is because the government

00:35:07.380 to go back to what mark joseph and i were talking about a few moments ago had access to all of this

00:35:12.180 information and they were supposed to be bringing all these stakeholders together and if you look at

00:35:15.940 the cabinet meeting minutes that have been tabled in evidence you see on the list a bunch of non-cabinet

00:35:21.540 ministers you see oh yes csis director oh yes we have uh brenda lucky oh yes we have the deputy public

00:35:28.180 safety all of these people so how is it that all of these people were together they were all putting

00:35:35.460 their evidence forward supposedly in one place yet no one has heard the evidence that justifies

00:35:42.420 the emergencies act who presented that and in what meeting and why is it not in any of the

00:35:47.060 minutes that is the key question and the one we're going to be following in the remaining weeks of

00:35:51.700 testimony and policy analysis that does it for us for today we'll talk to you tomorrow

00:35:56.580 with more of canada's most irreverent talk show here on true north thank you god bless and good day to

00:36:01.540 you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north

00:36:06.820 at www.tnc.news

Juno News - November 17, 2022

Canada's new assisted death rules are giving up on the vulnerable

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript