Juno News - April 20, 2026


Carney calls Canada's ties with U.S. ＂weaknesses we must correct＂


Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

163.53275

Word count

3,386

Sentence count

150

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

A Canadian man who walks into the woods to protest a forest ban is fined almost $29,000 for doing so. The Supreme Court of Canada strikes down the ban as unconstitutional. Prime Minister John Tory accuses the Prime Minister of being in denial over his majority government s election victory.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyev has accused the Prime Minister of seeking an end
00:00:09.660 to Canada's trade relationship with the United States. In a video released on the weekend,
00:00:15.360 Prime Minister Carney said Canada's reliance on the United States has become a weakness.
00:00:20.520 The world, as I said earlier, is more dangerous and divided. The U.S. has fundamentally changed
00:00:25.160 its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression.
00:00:29.660 Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses.
00:00:35.980 Weaknesses that we must correct.
00:00:38.320 Workers in our industries most affected by U.S. tariffs, in autos, in steel, in lumber, are under threat.
00:00:45.160 Businesses are holding back investments, restrained by the pall of uncertainty that's hanging over all of us.
00:00:50.620 The U.S. has changed, and we must respond.
00:00:54.180 Well, Polly Ev responded with this post.
00:00:56.320 The Prime Minister's video is another illusion.
00:01:00.520 He says he wants a permanent rupture with our biggest customer while he keeps 90% of
00:01:06.340 his personal investments in the United States.
00:01:09.820 Conservatives believe that Canada's economic problems are largely self-inflicted and want
00:01:15.560 an end to liberal taxes, deficits, and regulations that undermine economic growth.
00:01:20.880 Halyev did get a rousing welcome in Winnipeg when he attended the UFC match Saturday.
00:01:39.340 He was also spotted chatting with Dana White, CEO and President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
00:01:47.920 Meantime, a top economic advisor to President Trump says Carney's move to pivot towards China is insane.
00:01:56.240 Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says China has no interest in importing manufactured goods from Canada.
00:02:03.440 He says Prime Minister Carney's economic pivot away from America will fail.
00:02:08.720 We are a $30 trillion economy, right?
00:02:11.560 We are the consumer of the world, okay?
00:02:14.700 Carney has a problem with us.
00:02:16.340 He gets on a plane and he goes to China.
00:02:20.020 Does he think China's, the Chinese economy is going to buy his stuff?
00:02:24.680 China is entirely an export-driven economy, right?
00:02:28.540 So what did he do?
00:02:29.300 He came back and said, oh, we'll take their electric cars.
00:02:32.560 I mean, is this nuts?
00:02:35.400 Negotiations aimed at renewing the USMCA-KUSMA trade deal have made little progress so far,
00:02:42.460 But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett did post this picture of himself with Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne after a meeting Friday.
00:02:51.760 He says, we discussed the conflict with Iran, energy markets, and ways to build on progress made on our critical minerals collaboration.
00:03:01.620 CBC News host Rosie Barton is accusing the conservatives of being in denial over the Carney government's majority government.
00:03:09.660 Conservative Andrew Scheer pushed back, suggesting the opposite is true.
00:03:14.020 Let's listen.
00:03:14.860 I understand that you don't want this change to happen, but it does, and I say this with respect,
00:03:20.740 it does sound a little bit like you're in denial that the majority has happened.
00:03:24.940 And I understand you don't like the way it's happened, but this is where we are right now.
00:03:30.480 It's a slim majority, so we'll see how long it lasts.
00:03:32.980 But so what others, I mean, you were Speaker of the House of Commons.
00:03:36.980 There are other things that you can do to make sure you are able to have a check and balance on the government.
00:03:42.520 Are there not?
00:03:43.980 Well, first of all, I would say no one's in denial.
00:03:46.620 If anyone's in denial, it's the government that is refusing to accept the results of the last general election.
00:03:53.900 So far, four Conservatives crossed the floor to join the Liberals along with one new Democrat.
00:03:58.980 And CBC analysts have suggested that leader Pierre Polyev must bear responsibility.
00:04:04.240 Our 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.
00:04:22.120 On Friday, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court struck down the ban as unconstitutional.
00:04:27.140 Jeff joins us today. Welcome, sir.
00:04:30.200 Thanks for having me again, Mark. Appreciate it.
00:04:31.760 And 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.
00:04:42.260 Any government, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure I can put my money to better use than these obviously inept clowns. 0.99
00:04:50.840 How 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
00:04:58.740 Yes, 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.
00:05:15.740 We had two civil liberties organizations, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Justice Center for Constitution Freedoms, with two separate cases.
00:05:26.480 One judicial review was submitted on the part of the CCA in the CCF in the public interest, and then one in my private interest.
00:05:35.700 That was the Justice Center for Constitution Freedoms.
00:05:38.620 And then on the last day, we heard the government's case.
00:05:42.740 And actually, the decision came back quicker than I thought.
00:05:46.920 The 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.
00:05:53.660 Yeah, and what a precedent-setting case.
00:05:55.380 I mean, assuming it's not appealed, could it be appealed further up the line, or is that it?
00:06:01.220 Well, I guess there's always the possibility that they will try, just in reading the decision.
00:06:08.620 My personal opinion is it doesn't really leave any room for appeal.
00:06:13.180 It's a rather succinct decision.
00:06:15.600 It's only 17 pages long.
00:06:18.380 And 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.
00:06:31.440 And we're dealing with an administrative decision.
00:06:33.600 It's called the Dore test.
00:06:34.680 And the first step in the test is to determine whether the decision maker actually considered our rights before issuing the proclamation.
00:06:43.600 And there's absolutely no evidence that they did.
00:06:46.600 In 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.
00:06:56.540 So they permitted industry to enter the woods and just threw the little guy under the bus.
00:07:01.800 And what was the reaction by the province?
00:07:04.680 You know, I haven't heard any comments from the province yet, so they're pretty quiet, I think.
00:07:10.920 Well, I mean, they've got to come up with some kind of response.
00:07:14.180 At least, I mean, maybe the media wants to just forget it.
00:07:17.740 And 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.
00:07:26.880 Do you remember it that way?
00:07:28.940 There was quite a bit of that.
00:07:30.920 scott reed went on ctv and said that i was make maple mega selfish guy uh yeah i mean i only spent
00:07:39.260 my entire life uh you know serving canada and in the canadian air forces uh i'm not sure what scott
00:07:45.740 reed ever did for this country i'm thinking nothing um and so so there was some of that uh ctv like
00:07:52.800 you know i was interviewed by judy trend and they uh they did everything they could to well you know
00:07:57.760 they weren't as bad as globalist news globalist news were really the worst offenders um they
00:08:02.440 called me a right-wing politician and went to uh great lengths to make sure that my veteran status
00:08:08.080 was omitted from the uh from the the report that they did even though like i had this background
00:08:14.060 and i was wearing a tank top and wearing my camo hat i was doing everything i could to look veteran
00:08:18.640 af um but they still managed to whitewash that component of it so there it was a bit of a mixed
00:08:25.020 response. But, you know, I think over time, people have kind of come around a little bit
00:08:32.040 and some scales have fallen from ice. And I hope that the reception this time around is going to
00:08:36.340 be a little better now that we have a favorable decision. Did the media go down the middle this
00:08:41.800 time or did they subtly or unsubtly criticize the judge's decision? So far, so good. I've only seen
00:08:52.680 a few articles written on it and they're not too bad um and i did an interview with ctv atlantic
00:09:00.920 jesse thomas this morning he reported on the court proceedings um actually really fairly i would i
00:09:09.160 kept uh posting about it and just saying like wow this is this is what we need to see more of
00:09:13.320 in canadian uh media is is this kind of like just straight down the line balanced reporting
00:09:19.640 um so i was happy to speak to jesse again this morning i'm going to be going into the cbc radio
00:09:26.280 studio here in sydney tomorrow morning for an interview with them um and you know i i have
00:09:32.280 had i think better luck with some of the local boys so um you know i'm optimistic i'm cautiously
00:09:38.280 optimistic when i'm dealing with the mainstream press and what about your friends and neighbors
00:09:45.080 I mean, there might have been, from what I recall, some of them who did not approve of what you were doing at the time.
00:09:51.500 Have they come around?
00:09:54.200 You know, as far as the public reception has been going, like online, there's still a few trolls here and there.
00:10:01.560 There were a lot of trolls the first couple of days, and they kind of faded away rather quickly.
00:10:08.440 And now, you know, overwhelmingly, I see a lot of support.
00:10:11.760 and when i'm out in the community i've actually had strangers come up to shake my hand and tell
00:10:17.660 me like i really appreciate what you did um i had somebody just a couple of weeks ago pull up on the
00:10:23.260 side of the road while i was coming to the park with my dog and they were like are you jeff and
00:10:26.980 i was like yeah and they were like i loved what you did so um i think that by and large um regular
00:10:34.340 people are pretty grateful for my act of civil disobedience and pretty happy to
00:10:41.720 see the government getting put in its place for a change but if you hadn't
00:10:45.800 pushed back and there would have been no nothing really serving as a buffer
00:10:52.720 against government overreach like this I mean what does it say about the fact
00:10:58.340 that you were you stood up you used civil disobedience against what turned out to
00:11:03.880 be massive government overreach i mean this should send a message uh hopefully not only to
00:11:09.580 other people in your province but right across the country what do you think
00:11:13.620 well uh i i certainly hope that it does i i hope maybe there's some you know educational benefits
00:11:21.660 in it in terms of the civic duties that we all uh have and um you know it does
00:11:29.440 our democracy is is only healthy so long as it's not a spectator sport um so yeah it does take
00:11:38.120 citizens getting engaged we're always one generation away from letting it all slip away
00:11:43.320 so um i i think that uh this kind of civic engagement is the kind of thing that um is
00:11:49.860 expected of citizens has always been expected of citizens and um in terms of what i would expect
00:11:55.940 from public officials and politicians. I hope that they take the lesson from this and that it is not
00:12:00.700 that they need to double down harder next time and build a legal fortress to make sure that they can
00:12:05.760 get away with more in the future. I hope they do the honorable thing and start leading instead of
00:12:13.260 all of this demagoguery and tyranny all the time. And I hope that citizens in Nova Scotia,
00:12:19.440 especially those whose livelihoods were impacted, particularly in the tourist industry last summer,
00:12:25.940 I hope that they sue the government for damages.
00:12:28.900 There need to be some consequences for this.
00:12:30.900 I think that we should have consequences for politicians who violate our rights.
00:12:37.300 That should involve jail time in Canada.
00:12:39.560 If you're going to violate the highest law on the land, then I think you should pay the consequences.
00:12:44.880 And in the military, the expectations are higher.
00:12:47.640 The higher up the chain you go, and we tend to impose stiffer penalties on higher ranks.
00:12:53.020 So, 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.
00:13:05.300 I think you should see jail time.
00:13:07.460 So you think Premier Houston or maybe the cabinet minister should be charged over this and face potentially a criminal prosecution?
00:13:18.320 Well, 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.
00:13:42.100 I 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.
00:13:56.660 Who should face criminal prosecution as a result of what happened here?
00:14:01.560 I mean, the law is structured as it is right now.
00:14:05.060 It's nobody will.
00:14:07.280 Like there won't be any criminal prosecutions.
00:14:09.320 But 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.
00:14:24.440 Okay, 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?
00:14:41.200 No, 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.
00:15:01.720 So people whose livelihoods were impacted, they're going to be paid by the taxpayer if they win a settlement.
00:15:09.860 And the people who did this to us won't face any consequences.
00:15:12.900 So I think they should be unshielded from liability and personally liable for damages.
00:15:18.500 Fair 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.
00:15:26.440 The government would almost certainly have used it again.
00:15:29.420 I mean, it's one step away from climate lockdowns.
00:15:33.860 This could have been a disaster if you had not done what you did.
00:15:37.440 Bear?
00:15:39.160 I think so.
00:15:40.460 And a lot of people have been making reference to the potential climate lockdowns.
00:15:45.300 So this is a good precedent to stand on when they try and do that.
00:15:50.860 Fantastic.
00:15:51.980 So what's next for you?
00:15:53.980 I mean, you just kind of bask in the glory.
00:15:56.480 Do you write a book?
00:15:59.420 um someday but the the war is not won yet so uh the next what's what's the next fight
00:16:07.700 s jeff uh the next fight is called mayday kids in crisis it's going down on the 5th of may
00:16:14.920 uh 2026 we're going to ottawa doing a parliamentary press gallery 10 30 in the morning
00:16:20.980 1 p.m rally on the hill and 6 p.m town hall with a lineup of speakers including experts and those
00:16:30.400 with lived experience of the harms of gender ideology the goal here is to bring an end to 0.86
00:16:36.220 childhood medical transition every other like all these other countries like sweden norway
00:16:42.020 denmark the uk the netherlands the u.s they're all rolling this back imposing tighter and tighter
00:16:48.940 restrictions on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sterilizing surgeries for young
00:16:54.340 people. So we are an outlier. It's time for Canada to join the civilized world and start
00:17:01.580 protecting our children because any civilization that doesn't protect its children is not going
00:17:05.320 to be a civilization for much longer. Could there be legal action involved in that if the
00:17:11.400 government does not take your demands seriously? I think that that is is yet to come and it'll
00:17:20.120 probably be against the doctors who did this. With everything that I understand about this subject
00:17:26.300 there never was any evidence to support medically transitioning young people because they feel
00:17:34.260 uncomfortable with their gender because they have feelings of puberty basically. There never was
00:17:40.000 any good reason to do this. And we even saw one of the doctors, Kachidorian, from the Children's
00:17:46.820 Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who was one of the first in Canada to medicalize young people for
00:17:51.960 the purpose of biomedically transitioning them to the other gender. She's now coming out and saying
00:17:56.840 that this needs a full review. So that sounds something like what they did in the UK with the
00:18:02.060 CAS review. But this practice needs a full review in Canada, and she doesn't believe that most of
00:18:08.040 people they are doing this to are actually being helped by it so i think that uh yeah those doctors
00:18:13.640 hospitals the medical system anybody who was involved in this should be sued into a lifetime
00:18:18.040 of poverty um and potentially i think face uh face jail time for these egregious abuses this
00:18:24.280 is the second most evil thing to ever happen in canada and it needs to stop yeah next to made
00:18:30.120 well they're both pretty bad in my view i mean anyway that's that's the direction that canada's
00:18:37.400 gone in um has there been even one politician speak out on your behalf uh oh god no you at all
00:18:46.760 no no not that i'm aware of no politician i don't think would ever openly
00:18:51.960 would ever openly say that uh you know i i did a good thing here
00:18:57.080 or or set a good precedent by that what's that are you disappointed by that uh yeah but it's
00:19:06.120 kind of what i've gotten used to um i don't think that we really have leaders in this country um not
00:19:13.320 on the conservative side either it seems to be the case that they're watching the polls and doing
00:19:17.960 their focus groups and so it's kind of up to us the citizenry to um lead them in in the right
00:19:24.680 direction and that's what i intend in doing with this press press conference in particular would
00:19:30.440 you consider politics are you considering a run i i did in in 2025 um i i ran with the people's
00:19:38.520 party but um i i don't i i actually uh since resigned from the people's party so i i wouldn't
00:19:44.600 be running with them again um but i would definitely consider it again in the future but
00:19:49.160 right now i think that for for what i'm doing especially with this mayday event and a lot of the
00:19:54.520 the kind of civic engagement that I want to do right now.
00:19:59.620 I'm better off doing it unaffiliated,
00:20:02.200 not with any political party.
00:20:04.760 And then, I mean, we might see an election,
00:20:07.580 if we ever do again,
00:20:08.500 it won't be for about another three years federally
00:20:11.020 and probably another three years provincially.
00:20:12.820 So I could see myself maybe stepping
00:20:15.780 into either one of those arenas,
00:20:17.420 but right now I think I'm just gonna focus on my activism.
00:20:20.680 Thank you so much for coming on the show, Jeff,
00:20:22.400 and congratulations.
00:20:23.880 Thanks for having me, Mark.
00:20:24.720 Pleasure to talk to you again.
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