Juno News - China Lied, People Died

00:00:00.000 the andrew lawton show starts right now

00:00:05.760 hey welcome to the andrew lawton show here on true north another day another episode another

00:00:14.600 coronavirus free episode have to knock on wood there because i actually found myself at home

00:00:21.060 yesterday with out of nowhere a bit of a stuffed nose and i always have a cough but i noticed that

00:00:28.160 i was coughing a little bit more and i was very confused because i haven't actually gone anywhere

00:00:34.020 in the last two weeks except for to the grocery store and when i go to the grocery store i'm fairly

00:00:39.860 paranoid about it like even when i see the agent not agent i'm making it sound like there's some

00:00:45.580 sort of super secret operative but when i see the grocery store employee wipe down the cart handle

00:00:50.780 i still like want to grab it with my own wipe and i'm very careful very cautious and at this point

00:00:57.380 i think i'm better i think i'm fine it was just like a psychosomatic attempt at sympathy pain for

00:01:04.080 all the people that are infected with coronavirus i don't know but regardless i thank you very much

00:01:09.480 for tuning into the show today kicking off another week of the andrew lawton show my goodness so are

00:01:15.560 is anyone else getting just completely and utterly paranoid about anyone else you see in the world

00:01:20.760 this was something i noticed on the weekend i was out for a walk with my wife so we were still

00:01:25.980 appropriately social distancing from the world and we we were walking down this trail uh near our place

00:01:33.780 and there was at one point another person coming the other way and we like basically just dove into

00:01:39.380 the bushes so that we wouldn't be anywhere near the other person and then we carried on our walk and

00:01:45.360 eventually we're on a sidewalk and we're walking one way someone else is walking towards us and we

00:01:51.440 basically just like jump out into the road i mean we figured getting hit by a car was better than

00:01:55.720 getting coronavirus so in some cases it's fine because everyone's playing by the same rules

00:02:01.100 so you go they go and you all sort of realize that but some people are not doing that some people are

00:02:08.180 not doing the wide berth around you as you encounter them on the street so in that case i think

00:02:13.740 everyone needs to be playing by the same rules or you just look downright rude uh because i was last

00:02:19.640 week i this is a true story and i'll try to be as visual as i can if you're watching the video of the

00:02:25.920 show i was getting takeout from this middle eastern place that we absolutely love and we always love it

00:02:30.880 but we're trying in particular as the restaurant business is really hurting to support local businesses

00:02:36.660 and businesses that we know and and like and we were picking up a shawarma or these shawarma bowls

00:02:42.660 from this one place and it was takeout so go in get it don't touch anything get out and i realized when

00:02:50.080 i got to the place where they put the order together that i had forgotten to order a bag of pita bread to

00:02:55.980 go with it so i had said to the guy there okay can you just throw a bag of pita bread pita bread in and

00:03:01.380 i'll pay for it on the way out because i'd already paid and ordered and he said yeah that's fine so he puts it

00:03:06.440 in there i'm walking back to the cash register and the guy who was working the cash who's the

00:03:12.540 manager or owner was outside of the cash area and i'd said to him oh hey i just need to pay for a bag

00:03:18.160 of pita bread that i forgot to pay earlier and he said oh no no we appreciate you coming in just take

00:03:22.920 it and i said oh that's great and then he like walks over to me puts his hand on my shoulder and

00:03:27.580 says yeah just we really appreciate you supporting us uh you know uh you know why don't you take it and i was

00:03:32.620 like frozen because how can i be mad at a guy that's just giving me free pita bread so if i did

00:03:38.540 get sick i'm like i could have traced it back to that moment but i didn't in the days following that

00:03:44.080 incident so i think i i'm pretty much safe from that episode which was a bit of a scare but again

00:03:49.920 no offense to the guy i get home and i like quickly take off my jacket and i'm like lice all wiping it

00:03:55.240 down so this is making everyone myself included paranoid and it's weird because i i'm not even that

00:04:02.760 afraid of having coronavirus myself it's that i don't want to give it to anyone else so uh you know

00:04:10.620 because i i don't want to even have to forgo the grocery shopping which has now become like the

00:04:15.720 highlight of my week which i'm sure is true for other people because you get cooped up at a certain

00:04:20.760 point and it's like you get excited about so it's like i'm going to the grocery store on the other

00:04:24.920 side of town just because that way i get you know an extra seven minutes of real world experience by

00:04:30.880 just driving there i so and this is another thing i decided to get gas uh even though i'm not going

00:04:37.380 anywhere and i got gas on a different day from the grocery day so i had an excuse to to get out the

00:04:43.720 one day this is what our lives have become now and i don't want to make light of it in the sense that

00:04:49.060 i do realize it's serious but you also have to smile otherwise there's no way you're going to

00:04:54.140 survive this so uh in all honesty there is some stuff i want to get through today that is not

00:04:58.700 just about you know my own paranoia and my own uh shawarma close calls uh which is like the worst

00:05:04.700 kind of close call to have because you never want to put a negative spin on on a shawarma pickup trip

00:05:10.020 but on the weekend canada announced that it would be banning passengers with covid19 symptoms from

00:05:17.360 boarding domestic flights and trains now what i found most exceptional about this announcement is that

00:05:23.720 i kind of thought we were already doing that and then i realized well why the hell weren't we doing

00:05:29.500 that and this is just absolutely unconscionable so a lot of people thought this was something we were

00:05:35.700 already doing because it was something that justin trudeau talked about a week and a half ago but it

00:05:41.180 only applied to international flight so if you were getting on a plane from heathrow to toronto and you

00:05:48.140 were coughing they'd say ah you can't board if you were getting on a plane from toronto to lax

00:05:53.680 they would say oh no if you're coughing you can't board but if you were getting on a plane from

00:05:58.580 vancouver to toronto which are two hot spots of coronavirus or you were getting on a plane from

00:06:05.000 montreal to london ontario and you were hacking away coughing you were sweating profusely

00:06:10.880 theoretically prior to monday at noon they would have to say well that sucks and then let you board

00:06:17.600 so this is just a an example yet again of the government doing too little too late saying the

00:06:25.200 obvious weeks after it became obvious to everyone else and when trudeau made this announcement on the

00:06:32.580 weekend most people were like well i i thought we were already doing this i thought i thought we already

00:06:40.060 determined this was something we needed to do because again canada is a pretty huge country i

00:06:45.080 think we know this now the second largest by geography country in the world so the idea that

00:06:50.980 flying from oh i don't know from halifax to london england which i don't know if you can still do you

00:06:56.680 or you could there's a west jet flight which is a shorter distance than flying from say halifax to

00:07:02.740 vancouver but only one had these added measures and the other was just completely fair game and by

00:07:10.480 the way this is from trudeau whose government has acknowledged in the last week that restricting

00:07:16.040 inter-provincial travel is not necessarily off the tables and some provinces have done this some

00:07:22.380 provinces have implemented some form of restriction or at the very least scrutiny for people going from

00:07:28.400 one province to another so look the the idea of denying symptomatic passengers the opportunity to

00:07:36.520 get on their train or domestic flight seems pretty straightforward and you know i would also say that

00:07:43.300 public transit's the same sort of thing look i don't like the idea of the snitch culture that we

00:07:49.480 seem to see emerging here and you know i've used the term snitch lines because that's ultimately what we have

00:07:55.280 in a lot of these cities and provinces where added restrictions have been put in place there's in

00:08:01.680 my own city for example a snitch line if you suspect that someone has broken the rules about congregation

00:08:08.440 about public events businesses and individuals that aren't following the appropriate protocols or

00:08:14.760 government mandated ones and the idea that we all just follow the rules and understand that public

00:08:22.940 health is a collective concern is apparently no longer because that only works when people are

00:08:29.300 playing by the same rule book it's like i mentioned earlier with taking a walk down the street if you're

00:08:34.840 prepared to walk three feet one way and the other person is not prepared to walk three feet the other

00:08:40.240 way to give that six foot buffer only one person is playing by the rules and as a result both are jeopardized

00:08:47.540 and i don't even like the word rules because i'm talking about a social order here i don't like the

00:08:54.080 idea of state mandating this of state enforcement of this but when you're talking about critical

00:09:01.480 measures public health measures emergencies the state has to get involved if not everyone is playing

00:09:06.920 by the same rule book there was a poll that came out by innovative research group that i think is

00:09:13.560 interesting in households where someone has recently returned from abroad 75 percent have made a trip to

00:09:21.220 the grocery store 41 percent have hosted guests and you can see that breakdown on the screen here

00:09:26.420 but for those who are listening to the podcast they found that 92 percent of respondents had someone in

00:09:34.260 their household who had traveled outside of canada in the last 14 days and or sorry um 92 had not had

00:09:42.200 someone seven percent had and of those seven percent 75 percent had gone to a grocery store 60 percent had

00:09:49.940 gone to a store other than a grocery store or drug store 52 percent met up with a relative or friend

00:09:56.040 41 had company over and so on and i i think that a lot of people would look at these numbers and say

00:10:03.820 these people are selfish they're rude they're idiots whatever but i think a lot of it comes down to

00:10:09.960 really poor messaging from the government in the early days of this and i think i mentioned this

00:10:16.340 a week or so ago when that woman in quebec city was i believe the first person charged for violating

00:10:22.560 isolation orders and i had said that i'm convinced that a lot of the people that are breaking these

00:10:28.400 rules are people that don't understand the difference between social distancing self-isolation

00:10:35.060 and quarantine which are three things that have in many respects been used interchangeably

00:10:40.420 and look for starters self-isolation after traveling used to be what you had to do

00:10:47.600 and it was you get home and for 14 days you basically hole up in your house you put on netflix

00:10:53.480 you get your deliveries dropped or your groceries dropped off and that's it

00:10:56.880 social distancing is what i'm doing and what i suspect most people in canada are doing

00:11:03.640 which is where you go home you work from home you go out for a walk maybe but you don't see

00:11:09.740 anyone that you don't live with you only go to the grocery store to the drugstore maybe you go and

00:11:15.400 do a food takeout order or pick up coffee or something but then you go right back home

00:11:19.720 that is not actually isolation and i'm guilty of this too because i've been calling it isolation

00:11:25.520 colloquially and i know in my mind what i mean but other people listening might not

00:11:30.780 and the government used self-isolation and social distancing interchangeably

00:11:35.820 to such an extent that i think people that needed to self-isolate in the sense of not leaving home

00:11:42.440 even for groceries thought oh yeah it just means i have to stay isolated except for grocery shopping

00:11:48.760 and that's how you get to that 75 percent where three quarters of the people that are now by law

00:11:55.100 forced to be isolated were thinking that they weren't actually breaking the rules i don't think

00:12:00.700 a lot of these people knew they were being scofflaws when they said oh yeah i'm gonna go out and

00:12:05.340 you know hit the local safeway is safeway still around i don't know i'm gonna go and i'm gonna hit

00:12:10.360 the local grocery store or head to the depeneur for my quebec listeners or listener i don't know if

00:12:16.320 there's more than one of you or even one i don't know if you're from quebec send me a bonjour

00:12:20.040 but i don't know if a lot of these people knew that they were breaking the rules by doing that so

00:12:26.140 i think there's been a very poor messaging from the get-go about that and then you throw quarantine

00:12:32.220 into the mix and with quarantine you're talking about something else entirely which is where we

00:12:37.820 are now the state enforcement the state measure to say you are now prohibited from going to the

00:12:46.200 grocery store if you've returned home doesn't matter if you're a snowbird doesn't matter who you

00:12:51.480 are what you are as long as you have come back from can or from another country in the last 14 days

00:12:57.940 you have to be quarantined under the quarantine act enforced by a local police and healthful and public

00:13:06.140 health officials but authorized by the health minister you must be locked down for 14 days

00:13:11.880 so the messaging around that i think has been muddled and i i don't think it's about blaming

00:13:19.100 anyone but i do think the government could have and certainly should have done a better job

00:13:23.740 articulating that right from the get-go and and again justin trudeau i think has been confusing on

00:13:30.620 that too because here's a guy who is right now in social distancing mode he he's no he no longer

00:13:37.360 needs to isolate but he's staying in his home and doing his briefings from home and it sounds like

00:13:43.600 not leaving just because and there's been a lot of people talking about this in the last week and i

00:13:49.920 want to say right out of the gate that i i think the if you've seen it online i'm going to address it

00:13:54.900 once and once only if you haven't seen it uh it was a simpler time i wish i hadn't either but there

00:14:00.960 is a conspiracy theory circular i don't even want to say it because it's so stupid but a conspiracy

00:14:07.220 theory is circulating that justin trudeau is not actually in a self-isolation as a precaution

00:14:13.060 to protect against a coronavirus but that he is actually on house arrest and that if you look

00:14:19.880 really really closely when he comes out of his front door to do his daily press conferences

00:14:25.120 on his ankle he's wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet which it's okay i i'm sharing this with

00:14:35.540 you for your edification not because i i think it's worth sharing but just because i'm getting

00:14:39.760 tired of people saying why aren't you talking about this so i can say it once so that i never have to

00:14:43.880 say it again but the ankle bracelet jumps around from left to right ankle depending on the day of the

00:14:49.480 photo which i find hilarious and uh people say that justin trudeau is you know secretly on health

00:14:55.520 arrest or house arrest oh the health arrest that's what we should call uh the quarantine now you're on

00:15:01.480 health arrest but secretly on house arrest and that's why he's staying at home long term and i no

00:15:09.060 one knows for why i mean like but but here's my thing is that if we're to believe that uh justin trudeau

00:15:15.140 uh was powerful enough to be arrested charged convicted and sentenced uh around uh quarantine measures

00:15:24.020 without anyone knowing about it i'd say he's probably powerful enough that he could have just

00:15:28.720 avoided uh being arrested in the first place or avoid uh avoided wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet

00:15:34.640 but this is the conspiracy circulating about why he is still uh working from home i think the reason

00:15:41.220 he is working from home is because it looks good on him when he's telling everyone else to work from

00:15:47.460 home in canada to be doing his briefings and all of his work from his own house and look in the age of

00:15:53.800 technology i don't think there's anything that he needs to be in the office to do i mean i've

00:15:59.560 generally been a firm believer in the fact that if justin trudeau were to stay home most of the year

00:16:04.820 canada would probably be in a better place now i realize that if someone had like cut his internet

00:16:10.680 and he couldn't actually issue executive orders and orders in council and stuff that would be more

00:16:15.560 apropos but at this point i'm not upset that trudeau is at home i think that the government is

00:16:23.300 telling canadians whenever possible work from home so if the prime minister is modeling that

00:16:28.320 behavior i don't think it's the worst idea in the world but i do think that it is interesting that he

00:16:34.040 chooses to make it about something far grander and that's where he kind of loses me on this because

00:16:41.340 he said uh that he is going to continue to do it from home on the advice of doctors but that doesn't

00:16:47.480 really make a lot of sense because doctors have said just stay home for 14 days if you or someone

00:16:52.720 you've been in close contact with has been exposed to symptoms or has been diagnosed and in his case

00:16:59.720 it was his wife sophie gregoire trudeau who tested positive for covid19 after a trip from london

00:17:06.340 and when trudeau went into isolation 16 days later reporters were asking well hey why are you still in

00:17:13.640 isolation and he says that the couple took steps to remain apart but staying at home for another

00:17:20.020 two weeks is prudent because he was sharing a roof with someone who was ill he said i have to continue

00:17:25.280 in isolation in order to be sure that we're following all the protocols and recommendations

00:17:30.280 by health canada trudeau said now for sophie gregoire trudeau she's been given the all clear on her

00:17:37.660 health so we're very grateful that she is fine and healthy and has recovered from covid19 but trudeau

00:17:44.860 is making this about something like that's a grand gesture instead of just saying look i'm telling

00:17:49.840 canadians to work from home so i think it's important that i should work from home as well

00:17:53.720 if he had just said that instead of making it this convoluted and muddled thing people wouldn't be

00:17:59.800 going as crazy about it online as they are i suspect i mean you might get a little bit of it but

00:18:05.400 i think for the most part people would be a little bit more muted in their criticism of him but when

00:18:11.780 everything comes across as a theatrical performance that's what you invite that's what you invite from

00:18:17.720 people in any case i'm gonna take a quick break when we come back more of what's happening in the

00:18:22.700 world on the andrew lawton show here on true north you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:18:29.780 as that old saying goes desperate times call for desperate measures a lot of people trying to be

00:18:38.240 on the cutting edge of a cure or remedy or treatment or vaccine for covid19 many of these efforts will

00:18:46.080 hopefully lead to all of these things some of them just lead to embarrassing situations in particular

00:18:52.280 as reported in the guardian australian astrophysicist daniel reardon ended up in hospital

00:18:58.820 after inserting magnets in his nostrils well attempting to build a necklace that warns you

00:19:05.900 when you touch your face now you can see in the photo here which he supplied to the guardian that he

00:19:12.420 looks a little bit sad or embarrassed although he sent it in himself so presumably he was okay with it

00:19:18.820 now dr reardon is a research fellow at a melbourne university and he was trying to build a necklace

00:19:24.940 that sounds an alarm on facial contact and this is coming from his field of study pulsers and

00:19:31.920 gravitational waves he says it started as a remedy for boredom which means that certainly having nostrils

00:19:38.800 that are jammed packed with magnets probably is a boredom killer also a dignity killer but he decided

00:19:46.620 that he he would just uh you know play around with it and uh did the opposite so the this part's great

00:19:54.900 he said the hope was that if you brought your arm too close to your face your hand too close to your

00:20:00.660 face that it would set off an alarm although it actually did the opposite where it completed the

00:20:05.660 circuit uh which presumably means he was either electrified or just like stuck his hand to his face

00:20:11.680 which would be my luck because magnets uh repel and attract which is one of the uh few things or maybe

00:20:17.700 the only thing come to think of it that i know about physics so i would have loved it because this is

00:20:23.040 like probably the second worst place to have something stuck when you go to the hospital

00:20:29.060 yeah no it's this if you're a man it's the second worst place you can have something stuck

00:20:34.340 uh in if you're in the hospital because like this is what children do it's like they go in here and i can

00:20:38.580 just imagine he's like showing up at the er and they say yeah um you know i'm here uh because

00:20:43.360 magnets were stuck in my stuff stuck in the nose and the triage nurse says all right we'll bring in

00:20:48.120 your your little son or little daughter and he said oh no it's it's me and they say oh wow you're not

00:20:52.980 very smart are you and he said well actually no i have a phd in astrophysics and and then the nurses

00:20:57.740 all of a sudden hold more power in the world than uh wait something's something is just coming to me

00:21:04.000 why can't you just use another magnet to pull it out like why don't you just like find the opposite

00:21:08.880 magnet and then just like hold that up there and just you know save yourself the dignity i have to

00:21:13.540 assume that uh dr astrophysics tried all of these things but sometimes the simplest solution is the

00:21:19.800 hardest to come by which goes back to that whole shutting down borders and shutting down air travel

00:21:25.580 and kicking symptomatic people off of flights thing so so-called experts take a while sometimes to come

00:21:31.460 around to what normal people could realize right from the get-go here and on that note this is where

00:21:38.640 you have to look at just the sheer evil of china on this and we've talked about this since the beginning

00:21:44.420 of the covid19 crisis and pandemic china just china lied people died i mean those are the four words

00:21:52.220 that i think need to be remembered from 2020 anytime this chapter is studied in years to come china lied

00:21:59.820 people died and this is so true because china has tried to cover up coronavirus from the get-go

00:22:06.840 china has allowed it to become a global pandemic china has deliberately obfuscated to protect its own

00:22:15.420 regime's image rather than to protect human lives and china views its own lives as expendable which has

00:22:23.200 now led to circumstances where everyone else in the world has to start picking and choosing who gets to

00:22:28.660 live and who gets to die and this is just so heartbreaking i look at this story in the telegraph

00:22:36.640 from the united kingdom where if i can pull it up here the nhs which is the london or the british

00:22:43.920 hospital system has now according to the telegraph decided that intensive care is limited only to those

00:22:51.580 so ventilator treatment is only available for people that they think will be in their view reasonably certain

00:23:02.480 to survive and everyone other than that doesn't get intensive care so when things get to this crisis

00:23:08.640 level care has to be rationed you look at ontario and what's happened in ontario they've decided to cancel

00:23:15.920 cancer surgeries on people anything non-essential in their view something that is not needed imminently

00:23:21.420 in a seven-day period is getting canceled so for most people this would suggest that we are living in

00:23:28.620 pretty dark times when all of these things that are supposed to be the hallmarks of western civilization

00:23:33.700 great health care access to treatment great hospitals all of these things are now turning us into a field

00:23:40.260 hospital from the korean war when we're having to pick and choose who gets what who gets care who gets

00:23:46.640 to live and who gets treatment and and again i'm not saying that the decisions made are not the right

00:23:52.940 decisions i'm saying that it's horrific that we need to be making these decisions in wealthy free

00:24:00.180 democratic countries that have always as a point of pride been able to provide treatment everything we hear

00:24:06.660 about public health care is that everyone gets to treat everyone gets treated everyone gets care

00:24:10.920 everyone gets access and we're starting to see the cracks in that and we saw it in italy we're seeing

00:24:17.780 it in england we're going to be seeing it in canada pretty soon to a greater extent even than we are

00:24:22.840 right now and again all of this goes back to china which as its point of pride tends not to care about

00:24:31.660 human life whether it's the one child policy whether it's state executions china does not

00:24:37.920 respect human life so why should we expect china to respect human life the world over they don't

00:24:45.540 their their own regime's image has been the only thing they care about and you know anthony fury who

00:24:51.000 is my colleague here at true north a fantastic columnist with the toronto sun he wrote a column that

00:24:56.660 was just fantastic i think two weeks ago about how canada had recently given 16 tons

00:25:02.580 of medical gear to china and his question was well now that we are the epicenter in the west are they

00:25:09.360 going to return the favor and it didn't really go anywhere the globe and mail basically wrote the same

00:25:14.880 story and then did seem to at that time trigger interest and even got to the point where china

00:25:20.900 said all right we're going to send you all of this gear and what was fascinating is that the foreign

00:25:26.820 minister in canada retweeted chinese propaganda minister champagne retweeted chinese propaganda

00:25:35.300 as if to say that china was being so magnanimous and gracious by giving us all this medical equipment

00:25:41.200 forgetting the fact that china has unleashed this virus on the world by its own negligence and also that

00:25:48.200 china had been the recipient of all of this medical equipment and by the way you can't really take to

00:25:54.040 the bank any medical equipment that china gives you we've seen stories all around the world about

00:26:00.280 chinese medical equipment that simply isn't working now justin trudeau has said that canada will inspect

00:26:07.480 to make sure that all the masks provided by china meet the necessary standards for protecting canadian

00:26:13.640 health care workers but if you look up defective equipment from china i think spain in particular

00:26:19.960 had a whole bunch of it here countries are rejecting it countries are sending it back here's a story in the

00:26:26.920 bbc that thousands of testing kits have been found to be below standard or defective according to

00:26:34.920 authorities in three countries spain turkey and the netherlands netherlands recalled 600 000

00:26:43.240 face masks that came from a chinese manufacturer and had already been distributed they didn't fit the

00:26:49.000 filters didn't work and they even came with a so-called quality certificate so they've said 600 000

00:26:55.400 masks that are now completely garbage they are basically you should just use them as toilet paper

00:27:01.080 spain had very similar problems with testing kits now to outsource something as important as testing to

00:27:06.840 china i think is a recipe for disaster anyway but the spanish embassy said that the

00:27:12.920 company that china allowed to export it didn't even have an official license to sell those sorts of

00:27:19.560 products and turkey had found that testing kits from china were not accurate some of them worked

00:27:25.800 well some of them worked didn't so it's like a dollar store pregnancy test you just never know the

00:27:30.040 the test might as well be a coin and whatever it says heads you're infected tails you're not and it

00:27:35.640 sounds like that's probably just as effective as the chinese testing kits so why are we as a matter of

00:27:43.800 diplomacy thanking china for uh graciously giving us something when we give them good stuff and they send us

00:27:51.240 crap back can you think of a better metaphor for the world we're living in right now that china unleashes

00:27:58.280 this virus on the world uh we send medical gear they send crap back that even they wouldn't use and

00:28:04.360 couldn't use for themselves and we're supposed to be so grateful oh thank you china like this is just so

00:28:10.040 insane that this is the world we are in now that people are still in everything that's happening in

00:28:15.880 the last two months bending over backwards for china which would not lift a finger to help the world

00:28:22.280 unless it was in china's interest to do so and we're supposed to all just be so grateful unreal

00:28:30.120 we've got to take a break when we come back more of the andrew lawton show here on true north

00:28:35.880 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:28:40.760 so sometimes i inadvertently can predict the future evidently last week i made a joke about earth hour and

00:28:47.000 i said i didn't even know i didn't even plan to do it i was just talking and i said something about

00:28:51.160 oh earth hours coming up i guess we won't do it this year because the world's already at a standstill

00:28:56.280 little did i know justin trudeau on march 28th so that was saturday tweets you're already at home

00:29:03.080 tonight so why not unplug for earth hour at 8 30 p.m local time whatever you do tonight hashtag stay at

00:29:09.880 home and stay safe so like this is beyond parody that we are already living at a standstill we have

00:29:16.440 basically turned the lights off on the economy and justin trudeau sitting at home apparently alone

00:29:22.200 says oh well we all got to do earth hour you're at home anyway so so why not do it and look i don't

00:29:27.960 care but i think that the world has much bigger fish to fry right now or bats to fry such as the

00:29:34.600 case may be and i also don't think that anyone really cares about earth hour anymore anyway like i

00:29:41.240 think everyone kind of forgot about it uh three four years ago except justin trudeau who's now

00:29:46.280 just turning the lights off again because he has to make this grand theatrical gesture about

00:29:51.160 everything but uh yeah that a lot of people were surprised that earth hour was still on and the

00:29:56.360 carbon tax increase is going into effect on i think it's wednesday so many people will just turn the

00:30:01.400 lights off uh just to save money on their electricity bills i don't think it has anything to do with

00:30:07.000 the whole earth hour message necessarily it's just self-preservation but let's talk about the one

00:30:14.520 thing that did happen that we talked about last week which was the postponement of the conservative

00:30:20.200 leadership race i wrote a column calling for this i called for it on the show i was tweeting about it

00:30:25.560 trying to raise up a bit of attention and momentum and there was a lot of support i didn't need to work

00:30:31.160 hard because most people almost everyone except for peter mckay and leslin lewis who's also running

00:30:38.520 in the conservative leadership wanted this race postponed and the conservative party did not do it

00:30:45.400 by march 25th which was the deadline for getting on the ballot but they did it the day after so there

00:30:52.600 was no crisis no pandemic one day and then the next day it was oh yeah we got to postpone this leadership

00:30:58.440 race and figure out what the heck we're going to do and you know i tweeted out that i don't think

00:31:03.320 it's easy or even possible to give the conservative party of canada kudos or credit for making the right

00:31:09.320 decision when it comes after for two weeks uh the pandemic uh which caused everything else to be

00:31:16.120 cancelled and the conservative party in the midst of that said ah well you know we're we're going to go

00:31:20.520 on and we've got a timeline and we're aware but we're not changing anything so i can't give them

00:31:25.800 credit for doing it in the most cynical way possible which was waiting until that ballot cut

00:31:31.960 off to thin the herd which by the way essentially got rick peterson rudy husney and maryland gladew

00:31:39.160 out of the race people that you may or may not have liked you may or may not have voted for

00:31:44.840 but people that would have made formidable candidates that were campaigning doing everything right except they

00:31:51.560 refused to campaign during a pandemic to get signatures and raise money when people were

00:31:57.080 losing their jobs and we were in the midst of a global health crisis they weren't doing it so the

00:32:03.080 front runners the people that had already done it they were saying even they were saying by the way

00:32:07.480 we've got to postpone this give it more time the only one actively saying no was peter mckay

00:32:14.040 leslin lewis put out a statement but peter mckay was like sending out emails every day literally every day

00:32:19.960 saying don't postpone the race we've got a job to do he had that really obnoxious ad uh that was

00:32:25.640 like an iphone ringtone which i won't play because you'll think that your phone is ringing and

00:32:30.840 you'll answer it and no one will be there and it'll make you sad and next thing you know you're

00:32:34.360 shoving magnets up your nose and going to the emergency room it's a slippery slope in these dark

00:32:38.760 times but the whole point is that the party has now done it but in doing so they have i think shown

00:32:46.760 themselves to be very much at odds again with where most people are on this because they still

00:32:53.640 aren't postponing the axiomatic part of the race which is the vote in june they're just suspending

00:33:00.760 campaigns and by suspending campaigns they are making it so that everything is right now just completely

00:33:08.600 frozen until may 1st this is from a party statement there will be a suspension of leadership fundraising

00:33:15.800 the party will not be processing directed donations and verified candidates will be asked and encouraged

00:33:22.200 to refrain from contacting party members until after a decision is taken on may 1st 2020 so the leoc

00:33:31.000 the leadership committee is going to meet again in 2020 uh in on may 1st 2020 and at this point

00:33:37.560 they'll make a decision about what's happening now but they've cancelled the june convention they've

00:33:41.240 cancelled the debates that were planned for i think april and they will not allow anyone to raise money

00:33:47.240 which had to be done through the party portal so i guess you could take checks but you couldn't put

00:33:52.280 them in your account so they have handicapped the ability for anyone to campaign except for sending

00:33:57.880 out emails which they have kindly asked you to not do i got one email from peter mckay and one email

00:34:04.520 from aaron o'toole on that day on that last day uh saying this is the last day to donate i think

00:34:10.280 derek sloan sent one out as well but i don't think there's been any email sent out since then we'll

00:34:15.880 certainly be maybe we need to do like a party email snitch line or something for people following the

00:34:21.480 conservative leadership race but the point of this is that we are looking at a race that has been frozen

00:34:29.880 but not cancelled and and it it's understandable that there has to still be a race they need to at

00:34:35.880 some point choose a leader i don't think that they need to choose a leader to serve as effective

00:34:41.160 opposition i think andrew shear did a fantastic job last week when the parliament reconvened i think he

00:34:47.240 can do a great job as official opposition leader even if he will not be the leader heading into the

00:34:53.080 next election you don't need to be i mean look let's say that right now peter mckay were to win

00:34:59.480 the conservative leadership race let's say it happened today and he wins there is no greater

00:35:05.880 role that he could play in the house of commons because he doesn't have a seat in the house of

00:35:10.040 commons leslund lewis and peter mckay they're not in the house of commons derek sloan and erin o'toole

00:35:15.560 are so of those in 50 of outcomes if we were to give everyone an equal shot which i know is not

00:35:22.920 necessarily valid but if it still would leave us where we are today which is that you need to have

00:35:29.400 someone in the house who's not the party leader that is playing the role of leader of her majesty's

00:35:34.360 loyal opposition so the whole point of this idea that peter mckay advanced that we need to move up the

00:35:42.360 race and we can certainly campaign and you know even though kovid's a bad thing we can all make it

00:35:47.560 work it just doesn't add up and by the way there was a story that came out in the toronto star over

00:35:53.480 the weekend that peter mckay who had been campaigning from some location where he was doing his phone

00:35:59.560 calls and he was doing his campaign letters and all of this stuff and meeting with staff peter mckay has

00:36:05.800 actually been in isolation after his wife and their three kids went on vacation to mexico march 10th

00:36:13.960 and they returned march 18th so when peter mckay was campaigning actively for the conservative

00:36:21.000 leadership race to happen because you know who cares about this kovid 19 thing he was doing it

00:36:27.080 while he was literally isolated from his family because of kovid 19. so i mean this takes a special

00:36:35.800 level of dissonance for peter mckay to say on one hand oh my goodness i can't be near my family i have

00:36:42.360 to stay alone but then on the other hand saying yeah we can have all these conservative party officials

00:36:47.480 in a room counting ballots yeah we can campaign we can do fundraisers we can do all of this

00:36:52.680 well he literally couldn't be in the same room as his wife and children because they had just come

00:36:58.120 back from mexico now it sounds like they're all fine and i'm very grateful for that this is not about

00:37:03.640 wishing ill on anyone it's about saying that peter mckay in particular was living proof of why it was

00:37:10.360 imprudent to have people together well he was saying that we need to implement this leadership process

00:37:17.000 that's going to involve uh hundreds of people counting ballots that's going to involve officials

00:37:21.400 meeting scrutineers in the same room all of these people and and he of all people was at that point

00:37:27.960 at that exact time that he was doing that aware that it wasn't possible so again i don't know how

00:37:34.360 you square that circle or if you do but that's what was happening with the peter mckay campaign so

00:37:39.560 right now the race is on hold uh the hope that i have is that people will be given an adequate

00:37:46.520 opportunity to campaign whenever the race is officially back on if they still say okay we're

00:37:54.120 going to have the vote anyway after no one has been able to campaign for four months there's going

00:38:00.040 to be a huge problem and i think there's going to be an uprising at foot i mean alternatively the

00:38:04.600 party could just scrap it and say we're going to redo the whole thing and start fresh i don't think

00:38:09.160 that would work you know there was a lot of backlash from people george ann burke for example

00:38:15.320 who's a great organizer and she was maryland gladu's campaign manager i believe or she had a senior role

00:38:21.320 on maryland gladu's campaign she was calling out the conservative party on twitter when they postponed

00:38:28.200 the race last week saying you have completely disgraced our party shame on you all and i don't

00:38:34.040 think that her frustration was that they postponed it it was what i had said earlier that they had

00:38:39.080 waited until the field was thinned before doing it and in waiting it makes it look like they are

00:38:47.080 either again just so out of alignment with where normal canadians are right now or that they are on

00:38:53.240 the other side of it actually uh dedicated to a particular outcome which i hope isn't the case

00:38:58.600 there are good people on that committee but they made the wrong call and when they finally made the

00:39:03.160 right one it was so late that i don't even think you can award them any points for it we've got to

00:39:09.000 wrap things up for today's show my thanks to all of you who listened in if you have any thoughts you'd

00:39:13.720 like to share my email is andrew at andrew lawton.ca we'll talk to you in a couple of days or every day

00:39:20.040 with candace malcolm in true north update here on true north this is the andrew lawton show thank you

00:39:25.000 god bless and good day canada thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by

00:39:30.200 donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - March 30, 2020

China Lied, People Died

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