00:02:35.400Negotiations aimed at renewing the USMCA-KUSMA trade deal have made little progress so far,
00:02:42.460But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett did post this picture of himself with Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne after a meeting Friday.
00:02:51.760He says, we discussed the conflict with Iran, energy markets, and ways to build on progress made on our critical minerals collaboration.
00:03:01.620CBC News host Rosie Barton is accusing the conservatives of being in denial over the Carney government's majority government.
00:03:09.660Conservative Andrew Scheer pushed back, suggesting the opposite is true.
00:03:43.980Well, first of all, I would say no one's in denial.
00:03:46.620If anyone's in denial, it's the government that is refusing to accept the results of the last general election.
00:03:53.900So far, four Conservatives crossed the floor to join the Liberals along with one new Democrat.
00:03:58.980And CBC analysts have suggested that leader Pierre Polyev must bear responsibility.
00:04:04.240Our guest today is Jeff Evely, a Nova Scotia man, former military, who was fined almost $29,000 for walking into the woods after a sweeping provincial ban on doing so due to dry conditions and the threat of forest fire.
00:04:22.120On Friday, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court struck down the ban as unconstitutional.
00:04:30.200Thanks for having me again, Mark. Appreciate it.
00:04:31.760And congratulations, this would be a load off. I mean, I'm sure you could find better things to do with $29,000 than to give it to the provincial government, or any government for that matter.
00:04:42.260Any government, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure I can put my money to better use than these obviously inept clowns.0.99
00:04:50.840How long did it take for all of this to play out? Because you've been working with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, correct?0.98
00:04:58.740Yes, sir. So I think the date that I actually defied the ban was the 8th of August. And we just got our decision last Friday, like you said. The court proceedings themselves really only ran the course of about three days.
00:05:15.740We had two civil liberties organizations, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Justice Center for Constitution Freedoms, with two separate cases.
00:05:26.480One judicial review was submitted on the part of the CCA in the CCF in the public interest, and then one in my private interest.
00:05:35.700That was the Justice Center for Constitution Freedoms.
00:05:38.620And then on the last day, we heard the government's case.
00:05:42.740And actually, the decision came back quicker than I thought.
00:05:46.920The judge said that he was going to need some time to consider all the arguments, so I thought we'd be waiting a lot longer.
00:05:53.660Yeah, and what a precedent-setting case.
00:05:55.380I mean, assuming it's not appealed, could it be appealed further up the line, or is that it?
00:06:01.220Well, I guess there's always the possibility that they will try, just in reading the decision.
00:06:08.620My personal opinion is it doesn't really leave any room for appeal.
00:06:18.380And the really telling piece of it is the legal test that was applied in this case where our Charter-Protected Right to Liberty was engaged.
00:06:31.440And we're dealing with an administrative decision.
00:06:34.680And the first step in the test is to determine whether the decision maker actually considered our rights before issuing the proclamation.
00:06:43.600And there's absolutely no evidence that they did.
00:06:46.600In fact, in their own DNR briefing to the minister under the heading legal, the only things they considered was the possibility of being sued by industry.
00:06:56.540So they permitted industry to enter the woods and just threw the little guy under the bus.
00:07:01.800And what was the reaction by the province?
00:07:04.680You know, I haven't heard any comments from the province yet, so they're pretty quiet, I think.
00:07:10.920Well, I mean, they've got to come up with some kind of response.
00:07:14.180At least, I mean, maybe the media wants to just forget it.
00:07:17.740And I think I seem to recall that when you did that, the media targeted you, saying it was your fault that you were being selfish or something like that.
00:09:54.200You know, as far as the public reception has been going, like online, there's still a few trolls here and there.
00:10:01.560There were a lot of trolls the first couple of days, and they kind of faded away rather quickly.
00:10:08.440And now, you know, overwhelmingly, I see a lot of support.
00:10:11.760and when i'm out in the community i've actually had strangers come up to shake my hand and tell
00:10:17.660me like i really appreciate what you did um i had somebody just a couple of weeks ago pull up on the
00:10:23.260side of the road while i was coming to the park with my dog and they were like are you jeff and
00:10:26.980i was like yeah and they were like i loved what you did so um i think that by and large um regular
00:10:34.340people are pretty grateful for my act of civil disobedience and pretty happy to
00:10:41.720see the government getting put in its place for a change but if you hadn't
00:10:45.800pushed back and there would have been no nothing really serving as a buffer
00:10:52.720against government overreach like this I mean what does it say about the fact
00:10:58.340that you were you stood up you used civil disobedience against what turned out to
00:11:03.880be massive government overreach i mean this should send a message uh hopefully not only to
00:11:09.580other people in your province but right across the country what do you think
00:11:13.620well uh i i certainly hope that it does i i hope maybe there's some you know educational benefits
00:11:21.660in it in terms of the civic duties that we all uh have and um you know it does
00:11:29.440our democracy is is only healthy so long as it's not a spectator sport um so yeah it does take
00:11:38.120citizens getting engaged we're always one generation away from letting it all slip away
00:11:43.320so um i i think that uh this kind of civic engagement is the kind of thing that um is
00:11:49.860expected of citizens has always been expected of citizens and um in terms of what i would expect
00:11:55.940from public officials and politicians. I hope that they take the lesson from this and that it is not
00:12:00.700that they need to double down harder next time and build a legal fortress to make sure that they can
00:12:05.760get away with more in the future. I hope they do the honorable thing and start leading instead of
00:12:13.260all of this demagoguery and tyranny all the time. And I hope that citizens in Nova Scotia,
00:12:19.440especially those whose livelihoods were impacted, particularly in the tourist industry last summer,
00:12:25.940I hope that they sue the government for damages.
00:12:28.900There need to be some consequences for this.
00:12:30.900I think that we should have consequences for politicians who violate our rights.
00:12:37.300That should involve jail time in Canada.
00:12:39.560If you're going to violate the highest law on the land, then I think you should pay the consequences.
00:12:44.880And in the military, the expectations are higher.
00:12:47.640The higher up the chain you go, and we tend to impose stiffer penalties on higher ranks.
00:12:53.020So, you know, if you're the highest rank in the country, if you're the prime minister and you're violating our rights, I think that you should suffer a more severe punishment than somebody lower down the food chain.
00:13:07.460So you think Premier Houston or maybe the cabinet minister should be charged over this and face potentially a criminal prosecution?
00:13:18.320Well, that's not the way the law is set up in Canada right now. But I think that the kind of necessary reforms that we should implement would involve something like that. Like even for these ethics violations that we see at the federal level, it's a joke. They just they slap them with a $500 fine or something like that. And they're laughing all the way to the bank.
00:13:42.100I think if we made them spend, you know, like even for an ethics violation, if you've got to spend 30 days in jail and we can make a public spectacle of it and humiliate you, then we would see a lot fewer ethics violations.
00:13:56.660Who should face criminal prosecution as a result of what happened here?
00:14:01.560I mean, the law is structured as it is right now.
00:14:07.280Like there won't be any criminal prosecutions.
00:14:09.320But I think that we would have to bring in reforms that would put these decision makers in legal jeopardy whenever they step outside the law, as they did with this proclamation banning us from the woods.
00:14:24.440Okay, so you're not suggesting that the premier or anybody else should be charged and go through that process because there are not the legal frameworks in place that would allow that to happen. Is that right?
00:14:41.200No, there aren't. And even if we wanted to do like an intermediate step to that, I think that the decision maker who stepped outside the law when issuing this abusive proclamation, I think he should be unshielded from liability because what's going to happen right now is we're going to sue ourselves.
00:15:01.720So people whose livelihoods were impacted, they're going to be paid by the taxpayer if they win a settlement.
00:15:09.860And the people who did this to us won't face any consequences.
00:15:12.900So I think they should be unshielded from liability and personally liable for damages.
00:15:18.500Fair enough. I mean, if the decision had gone the other way or, for instance, you never did what you did, it would have set a dangerous precedent, I think.
00:15:26.440The government would almost certainly have used it again.
00:15:29.420I mean, it's one step away from climate lockdowns.
00:15:33.860This could have been a disaster if you had not done what you did.