Juno News - Chrystia Freeland checks her Disney privilege

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

00:00:09.240 north hello everyone and welcome to another edition of canada's most irreverent talk show

00:00:19.760 it is tuesday november 8 2022 you are tuned into another live edition of the program i'm back in

00:00:27.840 my home studio here as the Public Order Emergency Commission moves beyond Organizer Week to a week

00:00:35.220 where they're shining the spotlight on what happened in Windsor and Cootes. And we're still

00:00:40.380 going to cover it. I'm going to have an update later on in the program on some of the key takeaways

00:00:44.320 from yesterday's and today's testimony. But there's a lot of other stuff happening. And I want to be

00:00:50.600 very clear here. As we talk about what happened in Windsor, which was a very different animal from

00:00:56.300 what happened in ottawa one of the big things that the government really held to was the cost

00:01:02.240 of trade the value of trade that was moving across that border every day supposed to be moving across

00:01:08.300 the ambassador bridge which was brought to a standstill for that one weekend and i don't want

00:01:14.340 to diminish this because what happens across the border is incredibly significant i am from

00:01:20.440 southwestern ontario i've crossed the ambassador bridge many times in my life you always see trucks

00:01:25.240 They're bringing back auto parts, groceries, a number of other things, billions of dollars worth of trade, or actually, as the new unit of metric goes, millions of dollars worth of Disney Plus subscriptions.

00:01:37.480 Millions of Disney Plus subscriptions every day cross the border back and forth.

00:01:41.700 That is the new unit of measurement in the inflationary economy.

00:01:46.040 How much does it cost? $14? No, no, no. Give it to me in Disney Plus subscriptions.

00:01:50.940 This is, of course, courtesy of Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister and prime minister who's been posting deficits worth many, many Disney Plus subscriptions, talking about what Canadians can do to withstand these inflationary pressures.

00:02:07.500 This was our finance minister and deputy prime minister's advice.

00:02:10.900 I personally, as a mother and wife, look carefully at my credit card bill once a month.

00:02:18.220 And last Sunday, I said to the kids, you're older now.

00:02:21.040 You don't want to watch Disney anymore.

00:02:23.100 Let's cut that Disney Plus subscription.

00:02:26.500 So we cut it.

00:02:27.720 It's only $13.99 a month that we're saving, but every little bit helps.

00:02:33.060 And I think every mother in Canada is doing.

00:02:36.120 now christia freeland makes somewhere in the range of memory serves of like 270 000 a year

00:02:46.980 so not an insignificant sum 270 000 a year uh divided by the 13 a month for a disney plus

00:02:54.120 subscription that is 20 769 disney plus subscriptions a year that christia freeland

00:03:01.080 makes. Now she was roundly mocked for this comment online and I'd say rightfully so and to be fair

00:03:08.020 the advice itself of auditing your household expenses and cutting what you don't need is not

00:03:13.360 bad advice. The problem is that Canadians are already doing that. Canadian mothers, Canadian

00:03:19.000 fathers are already faced with it. The problem is not that they don't know what they're spending

00:03:24.520 money on. The problem is they know exactly what they're spending money on because every time they

00:03:28.200 go to the grocery store, things that they used to be able to buy without even looking at the price

00:03:32.300 are now things where they have to question, is this really something I need? And with Christmas

00:03:37.700 coming up, the issue is not going to be solved by just cutting the Disney Plus subscription.

00:03:42.980 So as I said on Twitter, Disney Plus is the new avocado toast, where it's the thing that

00:03:48.000 someone from a place of economic privilege tells you is really this superfluous, extraneous thing

00:03:55.060 that you don't really need

00:03:56.660 that doesn't actually deal with

00:03:58.700 what the source of your problems are.

00:04:00.980 Now, to Minister Freeland's credit,

00:04:03.940 she seemed to understand this.

00:04:05.720 And when you're getting attacked

00:04:06.660 by the left and the right in this country,

00:04:08.300 generally speaking, I think it's safe to say

00:04:09.920 that you are not the bastion of unity.

00:04:11.740 You are just someone who has managed

00:04:13.360 to step in it profoundly.

00:04:14.920 But she did amend her comments yesterday

00:04:17.420 by talking about, in true woke language,

00:04:20.360 how she has to recognize her privilege.

00:04:23.300 Look, I think I want to start by really recognizing that I am a very privileged person, for sure.

00:04:38.660 Like other elected federal leaders, I am paid a really significant salary, and I know that that puts me in a really, really privileged position.

00:05:03.220 And I really recognize that it is not people like me, people who have my really good fortune, who are struggling the most in Canada today.

00:05:24.220 The people who are struggling in Canada today with today's high prices aren't people like me.

00:05:33.220 They're not federally elected politicians.

00:05:35.760 They are people across the country who earn a low income,

00:05:43.200 who really do find that today's high prices mean they have to make difficult choices about what food to buy,

00:05:55.700 about whether to buy groceries or pull together the money to pay the rent.

00:06:00.260 So I 100% recognize that. And in fact, it is that recognition which shaped so much of the

00:06:12.960 fall economic statement. To be fair, I don't think there's anything wrong with what she said

00:06:20.920 right there. The fact that she has this condescending tone whenever she says anything

00:06:25.220 might just be an aspect of how she communicates and how she delivers remarks.

00:06:29.820 I think it was a much more tone-aware and self-aware comment than her comment about how,

00:06:36.980 oh yeah, we're all struggling.

00:06:38.300 You know, I could only afford 21,000 Disney Plus subscriptions,

00:06:41.140 so we decided to cancel our Disney Plus subscription last month.

00:06:45.380 And by the way, I mean, there's a difference between doing it because you think it's prudent budgeting

00:06:51.620 and doing it because you have to.

00:06:54.460 And that was why the remark was so tone deaf, because we're not talking about cases right now where people are looking at which discretionary items they want to live without to save a bit.

00:07:04.460 We're talking about people that don't even have the benefit of discretion, where they have already trimmed down their expenditures so much because they have to, not because they want to, not because they're choosing to, because they are being forced into this.

00:07:20.180 and I'm sorry but when people are going to the gas station and not able to afford to fill up

00:07:27.380 their tank because they just went grocery shopping or vice versa they you know can't afford to go

00:07:32.700 grocery shopping because they decided that they could get to the grocery store and that used up

00:07:36.880 all their gas especially in rural areas where people who want to load up on Costco runs or

00:07:41.940 whatever are driving an hour an hour and a half this is not an inexpensive thing and people are

00:07:46.820 forced to make very difficult choices and to be fair when christia freeland was asked what's your

00:07:54.420 advice to those people there isn't any because the problem is not the people's the problem has not

00:08:01.700 been brought on by these people the problem has been in part unleashed by global economic

00:08:06.340 circumstances but exacerbated by government a government that has increased the carbon tax this

00:08:12.420 year, a government that talks about tax relief and giving people their own money back, but a

00:08:17.080 government that isn't actually interested in not spending money, a government that is adding to

00:08:23.040 these pressures. So there is no answer. And that's why things are going to get, and I hate being the

00:08:28.760 bearer of bad news, so much worse before they get better, because we're not at the point where some

00:08:34.020 little nifty household budgeting tip is going to get you out of this financial hole. Government,

00:08:40.180 which has stopped you from working

00:08:42.360 if you've worked in certain sectors

00:08:43.920 for much of the last two years

00:08:45.180 government which is putting more regulatory charges

00:08:47.900 and more taxes on you

00:08:49.140 while claiming it's not

00:08:50.820 government which is still spending money

00:08:54.120 it does not have

00:08:55.580 and taking that money in the form of

00:08:58.760 just running off the cash printing machines

00:09:01.020 and also taking it from people

00:09:02.940 that are ostensibly in the government's eyes

00:09:06.200 able to withstand a little bit of an extra tax burden

00:09:08.840 but are still themselves struggling.

00:09:10.760 It's that government that has to own up to its role in this.

00:09:16.900 And it's so insulting that this minister, this finance minister,

00:09:23.440 thinks she can relate to what ordinary people are going through right now.

00:09:29.420 And she says, oh yes, it's her privilege and her understanding of how difficult it is

00:09:33.180 that has informed the fall economic statement.

00:09:36.220 Well, let's look at the fall economic statement

00:09:38.020 because Chrystia Freeland says,

00:09:39.740 oh yeah, we're on track to balancing the budget.

00:09:41.600 Don't worry about those hundreds of billions of dollars,

00:09:43.740 sorry, you know, tens of billions

00:09:46.440 of Disney Plus subscriptions of deficits

00:09:49.580 that the government has been racking up.

00:09:51.900 We're on track to balance it by 2027, 2028.

00:09:55.980 So she's convinced that in the next seven years

00:09:58.640 we'll be at balance.

00:10:01.300 Well, if you talk to the parliamentary budget officer,

00:10:03.560 which is ideally more responsible about its calculations

00:10:07.180 because it's not rooted in partisanship.

00:10:09.420 They're saying that the revenue in that budget

00:10:11.960 is going to be $11.1 billion lower

00:10:15.340 than what the government is projecting.

00:10:18.160 And interest charges are going to be $2.8 billion higher,

00:10:21.680 which means the year of balance budget in 2027-2028

00:10:26.120 that Christopher Freeland is promising

00:10:27.640 is going to be a year with a little tiny, teeny,

00:10:30.800 itsy-bitsy $10 billion deficit.

00:10:34.100 A $10 billion deficit.

00:10:35.500 Or to keep with the trend here,

00:10:37.180 That is a $83.3 million Disney Plus subscription deficit.

00:10:43.300 My mask's a little rusty there.

00:10:44.700 You'll have to bear with me.

00:10:46.420 Franco Terrazzano joins me on the line now,

00:10:49.080 the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:10:52.640 Franco, good to talk to you.

00:10:54.280 How bad was this update in your view?

00:10:57.360 Oh, it was really bad.

00:10:58.560 You know, I was expecting it to be bad,

00:11:00.260 but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad.

00:11:02.420 And before we really get into the nitty gritties,

00:11:04.180 I have to address the opening segment off the top with the finance minister's gaffe because there's also four points that all taxpayers need to remember when we hear this statement from Freeland.

00:11:18.600 Number one, Freeland as a minister, her annual salary is just under $280,000 to your earlier point, Andrew.

00:11:27.480 Number two, Freeland, like all other members of parliament, gave themselves three pay raises during the pandemic.

00:11:36.060 So are we really all in this together? I don't think so.

00:11:39.340 Point number three, Freeland's talking about the increasing cost of living.

00:11:43.740 Well, Freeland is making life more expensive in Canada with her tax hikes, carbon tax up, payroll taxes up, alcohol taxes up, and her crazy out of control deficit spending.

00:11:55.920 point number four and this ties into the fiscal update we're hearing freeland talk about finding

00:12:02.060 uh household savings in her household budget right disney plus well why can't you do that

00:12:07.340 in the federal government budget what tax yeah i want her to cancel the government of canada's

00:12:12.400 disney plus subscription i don't care what she does in her own household budget and i'm not sure

00:12:16.760 she's doing that i mean the obvious comparison is cbc which is 1.4 billion dollars a year depending

00:12:24.200 I'm at 1.2 to 1.4. So I, as a Canadian taxpayer, would happily cut my portion of the CBC subsidy

00:12:30.800 before I cut my Disney Plus or my Netflix or whatever else I'm subscribed to. Crave, maybe?

00:12:36.600 Yeah, well, absolutely. And here's the thing, right? Leading up to this fiscal update,

00:12:41.140 we heard Freeland talk about the government's fiscal restraint, how they're going to be spending

00:12:45.500 with prudence. We didn't see any of that in the fiscal update. Here's what we saw.

00:12:49.900 somehow freeland is going to spend 20 billion dollars over budget let me just read you the

00:12:56.620 numbers let me break down the numbers here in the april budget freeland said the government would

00:13:01.300 spend 452 billion dollars now in the fiscal update seven months later freeland says the government

00:13:07.960 will spend 472 billion dollars so the math is simple here freeland is spending 20 billion dollars

00:13:15.500 over her budget. Now, this was a budget that she penned seven months ago. And it's not like that

00:13:21.600 budget in April was this extreme austerity budget. No, no, no, no. The government was going to spend

00:13:28.380 $90 billion more compared to pre-pandemic and all-time highs, right? So she's overspending

00:13:35.140 her own budget just seven months ago by $20 billion, Andrew. Yeah. And I think that it's

00:13:43.060 very important to note that we haven't seen many radical or at least unpredictable changes

00:13:48.840 in the financial situation in that time. We've known where interest rates were trending. We've

00:13:53.880 known where inflation was trending. So this was, I think, entirely foreseeable.

00:13:59.940 Well, and here's another thing too. You've mentioned this, but I don't think taxpayers

00:14:04.740 should buy the spin that the government is going to balance the budget in 2027.

00:14:09.280 I mean, we'd love to see a balanced budget. But if you just look at the numbers, I don't think that is credible at all. Because as you mentioned, the parliamentary budget officer released its budget projections only a few weeks ago. And it shows that in 2027, well, Freeland's fiscal update is overestimating revenues by 11 billion, underestimating the interest charges on the government debt by just under $3 billion.

00:14:33.700 dollars. So in 2027, if you use the parliamentary budget officer's revenue and interest charge

00:14:39.420 figures, instead of balancing the budget, the government would have a 9.4 billion dollar

00:14:45.720 deficit. And of course, Andrew, the Trudeau government has not seen a budget that it couldn't

00:14:51.360 blow, right? Remember back in 2014, Trudeau said the budget will balance itself. Well,

00:14:56.100 what time is it right now? What, 4.17 p.m. November the 8th, 2022? The budget still hasn't

00:15:02.380 balanced itself. Remember when Trudeau was first running for prime minister, he said he'd run a few

00:15:07.300 modest deficits and then balance the budget in 2019. Well, he missed that by $20 billion,

00:15:13.900 even before the pandemic. Yeah, and I think that's an important caveat. And you and I have

00:15:19.460 spoken about this in the past, that the government has used the pandemic as cover for its spending

00:15:24.520 without acknowledging openly that the spending was already pretty out of control beforehand. And I

00:15:30.800 I think that there is a general tendency for the government here to not accept its own role.

00:15:36.140 And I think that point of Chrystia Freelands is an important one for us to acknowledge

00:15:39.460 because she's talking about combating inflation as though it's the kind of thing you do on an individual level by making choices.

00:15:45.240 But that is not dealing with the causes of the problem that are within the government's control on a macro level,

00:15:52.840 like, for example, the carbon tax, which is a purely discretionary tax.

00:15:57.620 This is money that the government is putting forward, not for revenue collection, according to its own definition, but because they're trying to change behavior, which means the government could live without that money because they're claiming that it's not even a tax.

00:16:11.700 Did I hear you correctly, Andrew?

00:16:13.580 Did I hear you say that spending before the pandemic was pretty out of control?

00:16:18.900 That might be the biggest understatement I've ever heard.

00:16:22.180 Before the pandemic, the Trudeau government was spending all time highs, even after including inflation and population differences.

00:16:30.160 So that means that the Trudeau government in 2018 spent more money than the feds did during any single year during World War Two.

00:16:38.200 Inflation and population adjusted before a pandemic, before any countrywide recession.

00:16:44.840 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent more money than the feds did during any single year while we were fighting the Nazis.

00:16:51.020 OK, so we were spending all time highs before the pandemic and then a pandemic comes around.

00:16:56.240 Well, I think most Canadians understand that, look, if you have a legitimate problem, if you have a leaky roof, let's say you fix the leak, the leaky roof.

00:17:05.560 But you don't go pull out the credit card and blow money that you don't have on a new flat screen, a couple of ATVs and brand new BMW.

00:17:13.240 Right. You prioritize. But we didn't see the federal government make any tough decisions.

00:17:18.360 Even the parliamentary budget officer says that of all the new spending that has been announced since COVID-19 started, $200 billion had nothing to do with COVID-19.

00:17:29.860 Now, I'm glad you brought up the carbon tax, because you know what?

00:17:33.080 I think the Trudeau government, every time they pass a gas station, they pat themselves on the back because they see the high pump prices.

00:17:40.560 Because a carbon tax, its objective is to raise the price of gasoline.

00:17:44.420 And while Ottawa has continued to raise taxes on Canadians, we identified 51 other national governments that actually did the right thing and cut taxes during the pandemic or to combat inflation.

00:17:58.500 Yeah, I think that's very, very important.

00:18:01.260 And it's funny, when you talk about these issues, the government gets very sensitive about them.

00:18:06.660 I want to play a clip from your testimony before a parliamentary committee the other day.

00:18:12.080 And I'll let you explain and contextualize it afterwards here,

00:18:15.900 because sometimes people just need to see the brazenness with their own eyes first.

00:18:20.900 The increases in premiums for EI and CPP are needed to make sure that when people lose their jobs,

00:18:26.240 in the case of EI, or when people retire, when our seniors retire,

00:18:29.660 that the funds are there to ensure that they can collect their pension,

00:18:32.720 or in the case of EI, that they can collect EI.

00:18:35.160 So the effect of not increasing those premiums with the demand for EI and CPP would mean that when people retire or when people lose their jobs, they would not have the funds needed to collect EI.

00:18:49.180 The funds wouldn't be there, certainly to keep up with demand, their needs, but also with inflation, and that would apply to CPP as well.

00:18:56.440 Are you concerned about that?

00:18:58.760 What I'm so concerned about are so many Canadians who, in the private sector, just took it on the chin for two plus years, while the people who are supposed to be their representative gave themselves pay raise after pay raise after pay raise.

00:19:14.820 And not just that, raise the carbon tax, raise payroll taxes, raise alcohol taxes, and then play word games with Canadians using magic math when the government's own independent budget watchdog shows that the cost of these tax hikes, like the carbon tax, is costing the average household hundreds of dollars this year, even after the rebates.

00:19:34.220 I'm concerned with the tax hikes. I'm concerned that all of this burden is falling on those hard-working Canadians who lost their job during the pandemic while members of Parliament gave themselves pay raises, while 300,000 bureaucrats received pay raises, while failing Crown corporations gave out bonuses and pay raises during the pandemic.

00:19:53.380 So I'm very concerned about the tax hikes.

00:19:54.500 Thank you very much. I've heard you.

00:19:55.700 So I hear that you're not concerned about the pensioners and the PEI recipients who wouldn't receive their funds.

00:20:00.120 That's what I've heard you just say.

00:20:01.060 It sounds to me like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is actually not supporting the very

00:20:05.980 taxpayers who would struggle the most in an inflationary environment, in a circumstance

00:20:11.160 where they do retire and where they do lose their jobs.

00:20:14.580 And I think that's really, really disappointing.

00:20:16.600 Well, I'm glad you brought it up.

00:20:17.660 That wasn't a question.

00:20:20.440 Ooh, stone cold.

00:20:22.000 That wasn't a question.

00:20:23.080 So just that little grenade that they throw and don't even let you respond.

00:20:26.660 When was that, by the way?

00:20:28.500 Oh, this was just, I think this was what, October the 26th, I think is when I was presenting in front of the finance committee on the CTF's budget recommendations.

00:20:38.280 And why was it that you think that's such a sore spot when you point out what the government's payroll taxes are doing to people that they're claiming to protect?

00:20:48.200 Oh, well, I know exactly why.

00:20:50.100 I was essentially there telling them they're doing a bad job, saying, hey, you're wasting way too much money and you're raising taxes at the worst possible time.

00:20:56.900 And you remember at these type of like build the budget type meetings, they hear these members of parliament here from what hundreds of individuals and groups asking for more money.

00:21:07.620 Well, I was there on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation telling them to spend less money, telling them to stop wasting money.

00:21:14.500 So I told them, hey, stop spending eighty eight hundred bucks on a sex toy show in Germany.

00:21:20.640 Yeah, that happened. Stop spending nearly $100,000 on fancy airplane food during a week long trip, right? Don't spend $6,000 a night on a hotel room. Stop giving former governors general a $200,000 expense account for life. You know, stop taking pay raise after pay raise after pay raise while the people that you're supposed to represent struggle through a pandemic.

00:21:44.880 And, you know, stop giving buckets of cash to big corporations like no more announcing two hundred ninety five million dollars for the Ford Motor Company or more than three hundred dollar or more than three hundred million dollars.

00:21:57.040 Sorry, for Bombardier. So I was essentially there saying, hey, you guys are doing a bad job.

00:22:01.620 You're wasting money like crazy and you're raising taxes, making life much more difficult for so many Canadians.

00:22:07.160 So that's why they're getting a little or trying to get a little feisty with me.

00:22:11.180 I just have to point this out.

00:22:12.960 I just got a push notification on my phone

00:22:15.100 because the markets closed, of course, half an hour ago.

00:22:18.980 And for the Wall Street Journal,

00:22:20.420 costs tied to Disney streaming service weighed on earnings,

00:22:23.280 even as theme parks brought in record revenue.

00:22:25.480 Shares fell 6% after hours.

00:22:27.700 Look at what she's tanking the Disney share price

00:22:30.360 by telling Canadians to get rid of their Disney Plus subscriptions.

00:22:34.540 Frank Ote-Terrazano,

00:22:35.660 Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:22:38.560 Always a pleasure.

00:22:39.380 hope they invite you back to Parliament soon. Hey, so do I. Thanks for having me on, Andrew.

00:22:44.100 All right. Thank you. That's actually hilarious. I'm not saying that she was responsible for it,

00:22:50.320 but I am going to say that it makes a fun tweet to blame her for it anyway. It's the epitome of

00:22:54.940 fake news, but I'm going to say satire. Elon Musk, don't take me off Twitter. I'm just joking.

00:22:59.860 This is quite fascinating to me. And when you talk about the gap between the people that are

00:23:06.640 the governed and the people who are the governors. It seems to be growing ever wider. And you know

00:23:11.180 me, I'm not fond of conspiracy theories, but to say that Chrystia Freeland is on the Board of

00:23:15.960 Governors for the World Economic Forum is a statement of fact. And I think to raise questions

00:23:20.980 about what it means that she is a minister of the crown, supposedly beholden to Canadian taxpayers

00:23:26.540 and to King Charles's government in Canada. And she's also on the board of this global organization

00:23:33.180 that has a very aggressive policy agenda that I think is at odds with people in Canada's needs.

00:23:40.160 And when you ask that question, you are lumped in with the conspiracy theorists.

00:23:45.380 And I should say, I'm heading back to the World Economic Forum in January,

00:23:50.220 continuing our coverage that we did in May, asking the questions there,

00:23:53.720 calling out these policies that are very aggressively anti-oil and gas, anti-business, pro-carbon tax,

00:24:00.200 and all of these things which are genuinely fueling this cost of living crisis that governments

00:24:06.140 claim. I mean, before they used to say transitory. Now they don't say that. Now they just say you can

00:24:10.620 get through it by canceling your Disney Plus subscription and what have you. I want to shift

00:24:15.680 gears a little bit. I am going to get in a couple of moments to the Public Order Emergency Commission

00:24:19.820 and what's been happening today. But I have to start before we go there on something of an

00:24:25.600 indulgent note. Now, I should say I don't fancy myself an elitist, but I was in Ottawa last week

00:24:32.700 covering the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings in person, and I flew to Ottawa and

00:24:38.500 flew back. And the interesting thing about this decision is that when COVID came along and

00:24:44.780 travel things were disrupted, there used to be a direct flight from London, Ontario to Ottawa

00:24:50.460 that they canceled.

00:24:52.260 It was an Air Canada flight

00:24:53.800 and you could go from London to Ottawa.

00:24:55.460 You'd be there in an hour and a half or so.

00:24:57.460 And that no longer exists.

00:24:58.740 So if you want to fly anywhere,

00:24:59.820 you have to fly from London to Toronto,

00:25:02.040 which is a 22 minute flight.

00:25:04.460 And then from Toronto to wherever you want to go.

00:25:06.960 And when you do this,

00:25:08.300 you don't actually have to pay any extra usually.

00:25:11.300 It's a loss leader for Air Canada

00:25:13.220 because they know that it's a convenient thing.

00:25:16.080 It lets people,

00:25:17.080 I think the line that the airport uses is like your gateway to the world or something schmaltzy like that.

00:25:24.040 But basically, the whole point is it's a 22-minute flight that's basically free, doesn't cost you any extra than had you just flown out of Toronto, but saves you the two-hour drive and parking at Toronto Airport and all of that.

00:25:35.340 All of this is a lengthy preamble to this story here, where when I was coming back home on Friday night, I got on the plane in Ottawa, landed in Toronto, everything fine.

00:25:45.500 and then my flight from Toronto to London gets cancelled and the reason it was cancelled was

00:25:51.160 crew restraints which is just one of these terms they use for whatever reason but then all of a

00:25:55.940 sudden I'm in Toronto I don't have a car there it's late at night it was like around uh I think

00:26:00.080 eight uh no it was uh eight or nine o'clock whatever time it was and I am not able to get

00:26:06.880 home to London as planned that night so I get the notification from Air Canada though that we've

00:26:12.580 rebooked you on a flight that leaves at 6 p.m. Well, this was Friday at like 9 p.m.

00:26:21.700 And they're rebooking me on a flight that leaves at 6 p.m. I should say 6 p.m. on Monday. So three

00:26:28.100 days later for a flight that is 22 minutes in length. And just because I was feeling a little

00:26:33.660 bit creative, I decided to look it up and I determined, as you can see here, and I pointed

00:26:38.540 it out on Twitter, I could have walked from the Toronto airport to the London airport in just over

00:26:44.900 33 hours, which is less than half of how long it would take me if I were to wait to take this flight

00:26:52.040 from Air Canada. So what ended up happening is I took a taxi and Air Canada agreed to pay for the

00:26:58.840 taxi ride. So that's all sorted out. But I shared this just because I feel it was kind of an amusing

00:27:03.880 thing. I wasn't trying to make a point. I was trying to make, I guess, a little bit of a point

00:27:07.680 about Air Canada's customer service,

00:27:09.280 but there was really like nothing to this story,

00:27:11.980 except this is an amusing thing that happened,

00:27:14.300 having to wait three days for a 22-minute flight.

00:27:18.100 And oh my goodness, did people online

00:27:20.880 absolutely lose their minds over this.

00:27:24.320 A couple of people said, oh yeah, that sucks, I understand.

00:27:27.060 Some people went absolutely bonkers about this,

00:27:30.860 and I want to read a couple of these.

00:27:33.440 This one is from Adam L., who says,

00:27:36.800 Andrew, down with those elites. Also, Andrew, can you believe they dared to cancel my 22 minute

00:27:43.520 flight? Well, I don't see how that's like an elitist thing. It's like I've paid for a service.

00:27:49.340 I've paid for this thing. And that's that. H.U. Canna writes, next time, think about carbon

00:27:55.640 footprint and take a train. Well, I got in at nine o'clock. The train does not leave from Pearson

00:28:01.100 Airport. The train leaves from downtown. And the last train also left like a couple of hours

00:28:05.440 earlier. So then I would have had to stay overnight and I might have had to emit more emissions to

00:28:10.460 go to the hotel room there. Now, one person, Crampy Grifter, I don't think that is Crampy

00:28:17.120 Grifter's legal name. Crampy Grifter says, Andrew, it's like a two and a half hour drive. I can come

00:28:22.900 pick you up if you buy me a coffee. That was a very kind offer, but I didn't need to take Mr.

00:28:27.740 Grifter up or Ms. Grifter up on it because I'd already made my way there. And my personal

00:28:34.620 favorite, a YOW anti-fascist writes, you're a climate criminal and you're just posting openly

00:28:42.560 about it as a customer service complaint. And I was thinking a climate criminal. I've been called

00:28:47.800 many things before. I don't know if that one is one I've been called recently. I should say, no,

00:28:53.080 this one is my favorite. This is from Chuka Ajecum, who is a writer with Rabble, I believe, which is

00:28:59.020 a very, I think it's actually an onomatopoeia because it's what it sounds like when you read it.

00:29:04.620 But Chuka Ajekum writes,

00:29:06.140 a flight like this makes you a willful participant

00:29:08.840 in the crime against humanity

00:29:10.620 that is global climate inequity.

00:29:13.200 One of the worst people on the planet.

00:29:16.080 So next time I take the London to Toronto flight

00:29:19.180 or the Toronto to London flight,

00:29:20.780 I am going to look around and see all these like,

00:29:23.120 you know, grandparents that are going to meet their loved ones

00:29:26.400 or families that are going off on a vacation,

00:29:28.960 kids that are going with their parents to Disneyland.

00:29:31.020 I'm going to just look around them and say,

00:29:32.320 You are all willful participants in the crime against humanity that is global climate inequity.

00:29:39.560 In fact, they should actually put that on the back of the seat in front of you.

00:29:42.400 So for the entirety of the 20 minutes, you know just how terrible a person you are.

00:29:47.840 And it's funny because if I'm self-aware, I could probably come up with like an argument

00:29:52.700 that has like 10 points of support for why I'm just an absolutely terrible person.

00:29:57.700 And one of those would not be that I have flown from the London, Ontario airport to the Toronto

00:30:03.280 airport. That like, as far as my sins go, that's not the one I put at the top of the list of my

00:30:08.940 transgressions. But apparently in the climate wars, if I fly from London to Toronto, that makes

00:30:13.700 me a climate criminal. But if I were to fly all the way across the ocean to Egypt for the Sharm

00:30:19.800 El Sheikh COP27 conference, I would be a climate hero. So I don't know if the emissions stack up

00:30:25.960 there, but I think everyone thought that I was just flying from like point A to point B, which

00:30:30.280 wouldn't be really, wouldn't make any sense. No, it's a connecting flight people. And you also have

00:30:35.460 no sense of humor. So all of that out of the way, I was like trying, I was getting so annoyed

00:30:39.920 because I'm like, I wanted to respond on Twitter, which doesn't work. And I'm like, I'm going to

00:30:43.440 take five minutes and just explain this all on my show. And hopefully the people will come on my

00:30:48.620 side. But if not, apparently I'm an Alisa's climate criminal, so it doesn't matter anyway.

00:30:53.040 let's talk about the public order emergency commission which this week is continuing

00:30:59.640 with a little bit of a focus outside of ottawa which has been where most of the attention's been

00:31:05.400 in the few weeks up to this point and windsor which was the most disruptive part of this i

00:31:11.920 think because of the volume of trade that goes across the windsor detroit border every single

00:31:16.940 day this was an area that i think changed the game a little bit it made it so that the

00:31:21.400 Conservatives were less willing to openly support the convoy. It also showed how this was really a

00:31:27.620 movement that was turning into whack-a-mole. It wasn't just Ottawa. Things were happening at

00:31:31.940 different points across the country. But even so, the Emergencies Act has not been subject to a

00:31:39.740 compelling claim for why it was necessary, because Windsor was cleared without the use of the

00:31:46.080 Emergencies Act, and we already knew this, but now we're hearing from people under oath,

00:31:51.700 just reiterating exactly how true that was. Here's a clip of Windsor Mayor Dilkens testifying

00:31:58.400 that emergency powers were, well, just listen to his words.

00:32:04.180 And just to be clear, the blockade was cleared and the bridge reopened before the Emergencies

00:32:10.460 Act was invoked. Is that right?

00:32:16.080 On the 14th. So the 13th around midnight into the 14th, I think the bridge opened

00:32:23.520 around midnight on the 14th. So the Emergencies Act was invoked sometime on the 14th. So yes,

00:32:29.580 the answer to your question is yes. Okay, great. So none of the measures

00:32:32.480 in the Emergencies Act were used to clear the blockade since it came after, correct?

00:32:37.240 Correct. Okay, thank you. Those are my questions for you.

00:32:41.240 Ooh, interesting. And that was from the commission's lawyer. That wasn't one of those

00:32:45.160 scary convoy lawyers trapping into a corner that was just a friendly cordial direct examination

00:32:50.900 in which he says yeah no we cleared it without that and it was reiterated by a representative

00:32:55.940 of the opp who was involved in that and that is uh i forget the rank of the officer but officer

00:33:02.520 crowley i'm just moving on to february 14th uh the day the there was a declaration of emergencies

00:33:10.360 by the federal government um i'm wondering if it if you had any because of the injunction was

00:33:18.760 enforced the amcpa was in was in place you had a traffic management plan um is there anything that

00:33:25.960 the emergencies act added um to to to to to the situation or helped you in any ways in preventing

00:33:34.120 further blockades i i can't say operationally that we didn't use the emergencies act after that

00:33:39.320 But I can't imagine it didn't dissuade people from coming back.

00:33:44.900 But that's just a speculation.

00:33:46.820 We did not use the Emergencies Act at all.

00:33:50.400 So you would say it may have had a dissuasive effect, but it was not used on the ground.

00:33:58.080 That's correct.

00:34:00.780 That was Windsor Police Service Interim Deputy Chief Jason Crowley.

00:34:05.860 So again, confirming on the record what was already known, because you can see the timeline, that the Emergencies Act was not used in Windsor.

00:34:12.920 Now, Mayor Dilkens explained this a little bit in another moment where he talked about how, well, it sent a signal.

00:34:21.200 It sent a signal that we had declared an emergency in Windsor.

00:34:24.260 The Ontario government declared an emergency provincially.

00:34:26.860 The federal government declared an emergency.

00:34:28.700 So it sent a message to people that might want to come back to the bridge.

00:34:32.140 Well, if you read the Emergencies Act, and I would encourage you actually do it because I don't think most people in the media or in the liberal government have read the Emergencies Act, it becomes very clear that using it as a deterrent is not one of the rationale that you could use.

00:34:50.560 Using it to send a signal is not one of the criteria for the Emergencies Act.

00:34:55.700 Using it as a strongly worded letter or a big giant finger wag is not, believe it or

00:35:01.360 not, part of this extremely, extremely powerful piece of legislation.

00:35:06.680 You can't use it just to send a message.

00:35:09.060 You have to use it when there is a national emergency caused by violence, caused by espionage,

00:35:15.020 caused by sabotage, caused by foreign intervention.

00:35:18.460 None of that was present.

00:35:20.040 and no one before this commission and we're on the back half of this we're on the back nine to

00:35:25.320 use a sports metaphor which I hope I'm using correctly because I don't understand sports

00:35:29.100 metaphors so I just have to like find one that I've heard in a vaguely similar circumstance from

00:35:33.980 someone else but we're on the back nine and we are still not hearing anyone explain where those

00:35:42.820 criteria were met and to the contrary we're hearing police and government officials at various

00:35:47.780 level saying that, yeah, the Emergencies Act simply was not necessary to do all the things

00:35:52.980 that we did. And the thing that I find fascinating about all of this, by the way, I'm being like

00:35:59.940 fact-checked in my production chat here. I know back nine is a sports analogy. I said it. That's

00:36:06.260 what I said. I did use it. See, my team gets so impressed when I use a sports analogy because

00:36:11.560 usually I just like stare blankly. This is not helping me. Andrew Lawton is not an elitist

00:36:16.140 argument. So never mind. I am a man of the people with my hockey and golf and football. I'm a fan

00:36:22.680 of all of the teams, all of the sports. In any case, the Windsor situation is going to continue

00:36:29.000 to show the story. The Coutts situation is going to be very similar. Now, the timeline on Coutts

00:36:34.120 is a little bit different. But remember, Coutts was under the control of the Alberta government,

00:36:40.360 which rejected and is rejecting the Emergencies Act and its use and is challenging the federal

00:36:47.180 government in court. And the Emergencies Act actually does require provincial buy-in if it's

00:36:51.700 being used in a situation that is solely within one province. So the but coots happened after is

00:36:58.460 not the slam dunk that the Emergencies Act offenders, who are I think fewer in number

00:37:03.600 than they were a few weeks ago, think it is. So all of this is to say that the narrative that

00:37:09.980 the government has put forward here has absolutely crumbled. And if you watched the testimony last

00:37:15.620 week of Tamara Leach, you would see a woman who even the anti-convoy lawyer Paul Champ

00:37:22.860 conceded is not a national emergency, not a national security threat, didn't run away with

00:37:29.800 the money. This has been one of the most obnoxious rumors that people have peddled online that

00:37:33.980 Tamara Leach was like cashing out in millions of dollars of convoy donations, when the whole point

00:37:39.300 is that the convoy never really had access to a substantial sum of the donations.

00:37:44.680 They actually didn't access any of the Give, Send, Go donations.

00:37:48.860 They didn't access more than like, actually, they didn't access any of the GoFundMe donations.

00:37:53.980 They had a few thousand in e-transfers.

00:37:56.720 And then later on, they had some crypto donations,

00:37:59.160 which the commission acknowledged went directly to truckers.

00:38:03.180 $800,000 worth went to truckers in envelopes.

00:38:06.400 The rest was seized by the court.

00:38:08.020 so the convoy was not a money maker for anyone other than the government that managed to seize

00:38:13.480 all of these assets and put them in an escrow account where they're still sitting pending the

00:38:18.120 result of this like 300 million dollar lawsuit that's being filed against convoy organizers

00:38:23.720 and and this is significant and by the way if you donated five dollars to the convoy

00:38:30.560 the lawyer representing the residents of ottawa paul champ is trying to include you as a defendant

00:38:37.720 He actually wants to expand his lawsuit beyond the organizers, the Tamara Leach's, the Benjamin

00:38:44.000 Dictor's, the Chris Barber's, and he wants to sue anyone who donated to this thing.

00:38:48.620 So if you spent $5 because you said, well, you know, those truckers seem like they are

00:38:53.860 in need of a sandwich or maybe a little bit of fuel, not that $5 of fuel gets you much

00:38:58.220 now, then you are culpable in that lawsuit's eyes.

00:39:02.920 And the court has to, as I understand, still accept that amendment.

00:39:06.160 but this is purely punitive purely punitive and do not forget it that this is not about

00:39:11.900 just making sure the streets were clear this is about making sure that these people who

00:39:16.240 embarrass the government pay for doing it and that's the only thing they want we've got to end

00:39:23.100 things there my thanks to all of you for tuning into the show today we'll be back tomorrow with

00:39:27.560 more of canada's most irreverent talk show if you haven't heard it yet we have a brand new show at

00:39:33.560 true north anchored by our very own anthony fury called the daily brief it is a daily podcast and

00:39:40.480 i'll be making an appearance from time to time so i do hope that doesn't discourage you from

00:39:45.060 subscribing but do subscribe you can get all the details at tnc.news where you can also if you're

00:39:50.940 so inclined donate to cover our journalism our reporting on the public order emergency commission

00:39:56.160 and much else that is at donate.tnc.news thanks very much to all of you we will talk to you

00:40:02.260 tomorrow. Have a good one. God bless and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to the Andrew

00:40:07.220 Martin Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - November 08, 2022

Chrystia Freeland checks her Disney privilege

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