Juno News - Chrystia Freeland is going back to Davos

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:10.440 Coming up, we've got all the hot-button issues for you. The World Economic Forum, guns, assisted dying. You don't want to miss it. That's all straight ahead.

00:00:18.700 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:21.920 Hello and welcome to you all. This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North, the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:29.800 Thank you very much for tuning in to this program on Tuesday, January 10th, 2023.

00:00:37.460 It is less than a week to go until Davos, the World Economic Forum's 2023 annual meeting, which means I've got to get my skis out.

00:00:48.780 I'm kidding. I don't have skis, but I will still be there next week in Davos, Switzerland, reporting on the latest annual meeting.

00:00:57.480 I was there for the first time in 2022 last May, and they normally do it every January, but they were so tired of having to postpone them and do virtual that they just squeaked in an extra bonus one this past May.

00:01:12.460 And you may have recalled me being able to report on a number of things that were happening.

00:01:16.740 I attempted an interview with Mark Carney on the streets of Switzerland.

00:01:20.620 I focused on this guy from Alibaba, the Canadian, believe it or not, J. Michael Evans,

00:01:26.860 who was bragging about having an individual carbon footprint tracker that you can have that monitors what you eat and where you travel.

00:01:34.700 All the fun stuff happens at Davos at the World Economic Forum, and I'll have a bit more of an update for you about what you can expect in True North's coverage tomorrow.

00:01:44.800 But I did want to start out by talking about the most prominent Canadian delegate there this year,

00:01:50.340 and that is Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland,

00:01:54.820 who the World Economic Forum confirmed this morning is going to be among their honoured guests.

00:02:01.380 Now, it's not all that surprising that if any Canadian ministers are going, she's going to be on the list.

00:02:07.780 She's actually a trustee on the WEF board, and I think there are a great many questions that she needs to answer to that

00:02:15.380 and has never, to my knowledge, been asked by a journalist.

00:02:18.700 So if I run into her in the Davos cafes, I will ask her myself.

00:02:24.100 But what's interesting here is that Justin Trudeau is not going,

00:02:27.440 and I wonder if a lot of the renewed focus and attention on the WEF

00:02:33.460 and concerns that people are raising in the last few months

00:02:37.180 have caused there to be a bit more shyness, if you will, from the Canadian Liberal government.

00:02:43.880 Last time, I believe Minister Champagne was the only one there,

00:02:48.520 and this time, so far, I've not found any Canadian ministers except for Chrystia Freeland on the attendees list.

00:02:55.500 Now, I'm still trying to look through the program.

00:02:57.820 There are going to be some non-politicians from Canada there,

00:03:01.040 like Mark Carney, who's the former governor of the Bank of Canada.

00:03:04.680 Now he's this UN climate envoy.

00:03:07.600 And who else was going to be there?

00:03:08.960 Daryl White, interestingly enough.

00:03:10.880 He is the CEO of the Bank of Montreal, or BMO.

00:03:14.580 They dropped the Montreal.

00:03:16.080 I think it's just BMO now, but it stands for nothing.

00:03:18.780 But anyway, Daryl White of BMO is going to be there,

00:03:21.460 and I would love to talk to Mr. White because he was one of the ones in that meeting in February with Chrystia Freeland

00:03:29.440 before the Emergencies Act came into play.

00:03:32.520 And in that meeting, he sounded like calling for the government to declare the truckers terrorists.

00:03:39.140 So maybe we'll be able to have a couple of words with him

00:03:42.140 and have him explain exactly what BMO thinks about people that decide to take a stand for their liberties.

00:03:48.200 But these are all the fun people that you meet in Davos.

00:03:51.900 It's like that Mitch Albom novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

00:03:54.520 No, no, no.

00:03:55.300 It's the 55 people you meet in Davos.

00:03:58.940 They're all richer than you, and they don't particularly care about you,

00:04:02.320 but their decisions tend to affect your life.

00:04:06.640 Now, the thing about this, and this is why I do believe that Chrystia Freeland needs to answer for her role in this. 0.76

00:04:13.500 It's not because I believe that the WEF is this, you know, satanic cultish conspiracy

00:04:19.580 that's taking place in the mountain lair or anything like that.

00:04:23.600 Their lair isn't in the mountain.

00:04:25.300 No, it's that I don't actually believe you can be a servant to two masters.

00:04:29.880 So the idea of a politician being on a corporate board while serving as a minister of the crown

00:04:36.860 is something that I think most Canadians would find offensive, and rightfully so. 1.00

00:04:40.780 Well, the World Economic Forum is not a government.

00:04:43.840 This is not an international organization in any meaningful way that has technical authority.

00:04:50.360 It only has influence because people decide to give it influence.

00:04:54.380 It is a corporation that acts like a government, that acts like an intergovernmental group.

00:05:01.020 So why on earth is the finance minister slash deputy prime minister holding a board of trustee position with this group?

00:05:09.100 Now, the whole point of the WEF, in its own words, is to bring the public and private sector together.

00:05:16.920 And this is something that we used to find to be quite concerning when all of a sudden you've got these

00:05:22.260 billionaire CEOs and financiers that are hanging out with these politicians

00:05:26.640 in a spot that is deliberately remote, that is very difficult to get to, very expensive to get to.

00:05:33.860 You may recall last time when I was trying to cover it, I couldn't even find a place to stay.

00:05:39.860 And I ended up getting an Airbnb in the next town over because other Airbnbs I was booking just kept canceling on me.

00:05:46.940 And one of them said, oh, no, no, no.

00:05:48.340 Yeah, the WEF gets to decide who is in the Airbnb when they come to town.

00:05:53.260 And I guess I wasn't on the approved list that year.

00:05:55.580 This time I've got a place to stay.

00:05:57.600 I know some folks from Rebel are going as well.

00:06:01.360 And they have said if I get kicked out of mine, I could have a, you know, sleep on the couch in theirs.

00:06:05.640 But I'm hoping it won't be necessary to go that far.

00:06:09.780 We'll have more of a primer on what you can expect from True North's coverage tomorrow.

00:06:14.340 But I wanted to start in with the breaking news anyway of Chrystia Freeland's involvement in this year's conference.

00:06:21.100 I want to talk a little bit later on about the assisted dying regime in Canada.

00:06:26.520 But let me first focus in on firearms here because you may have seen the story that came out first reported in Black Locks Reporter and then the Western Standard and True North.

00:06:36.480 And haven't seen the mainstream media pick it up just yet.

00:06:39.780 But it sounds like the RCMP is doing a pilot project of its mass firearms confiscation in Prince Edward Island.

00:06:51.640 So the Liberal government and police are using basically PEI gun owners as their guinea pigs before they decide to roll it out nationally and start going after law-abiding gun owners.

00:07:04.580 And this is just actually quite shameful that they're doing this to anyone.

00:07:09.780 I feel bad that they're picking on PEI, but I guess they feel that it's like the test market for totalitarian government overreach here.

00:07:18.200 But the RCMP is, and actually has already started this in December 2022, going after prohibited firearms.

00:07:26.020 And they're going to produce a lessons learned gaps analysis risk assessment that will inform the national rollout, which is planned for spring 2023.

00:07:37.340 So this is when that amnesty the government put in place back in May of 2020 expires.

00:07:44.220 They had to extend it because they didn't have their buyback in place.

00:07:47.900 And the government will expand what they're doing in PEI to a national level.

00:07:53.300 And this is the ban that affects things like the AR-15s and the Mini-14s and some other semi-automatic rifles that the federal government decided looked scary and vetted licensed law-abiding gun owners should not be allowed to own.

00:08:08.640 So what's happening here is that the government is putting into effect something that will have no bearing on crime whatsoever.

00:08:18.640 No bearing on gun crime.

00:08:22.000 And people are buying this because if you're an urbanite that doesn't know guns, doesn't understand guns, you'll be like, oh, no one needs a machine gun.

00:08:28.960 No one needs a rocket launcher.

00:08:30.280 I didn't know people had rocket launchers.

00:08:31.900 I didn't know Sherman tanks.

00:08:33.540 But again, it's the government just plays on the fact that people don't know what the gun laws are. 0.53

00:08:40.000 And they don't know how licensed and vetted legal gun owners are.

00:08:44.640 And just interestingly enough, CBC, to its credit, had this story this morning about 3D printed ghost guns on the rise.

00:08:53.400 So you can actually, not that I'm promoting this, and I would encourage you not to do it because it's very much illegal.

00:08:59.740 But people with 3D printers can download the plans for firearms, which are available online, and you can actually 3D print yourself a gun that no one else knows exists.

00:09:12.220 It's unregistered, it has no serial number, and you can make yourself a plastic gun.

00:09:18.380 Now, I have spoken to people.

00:09:20.980 There was one firearms trainer that had actually shot one of these things in the U.S.

00:09:25.760 And he said, they're not exactly as good as regular guns, but they're getting better.

00:09:29.440 And people are doing these as a way to sell illegal, untraceable firearms.

00:09:34.120 In the U.S., sometimes they're perfectly legal, and that's why these things have become a bit more commonplace.

00:09:41.080 In Canada, police went from getting like zero or one of these a year caught up in their arrest to now finding dozens of them.

00:09:49.780 So we're not talking about as large a problem as actual guns.

00:09:53.960 And the Toronto police have still said in the CBC story that smuggling still remains the top source of illegal guns.

00:10:02.080 You hear that, Justin Trudeau?

00:10:03.640 Smuggling, not what they say are the problems, which are lawfully owned firearms.

00:10:09.460 But untraceable ghost guns are becoming more and more common.

00:10:14.660 Well, these are not going to be stopped.

00:10:16.120 They're already illegal.

00:10:16.860 So these are not going to be stopped by anything that the federal government does to go after people like me that have firearms licenses and legally owned guns.

00:10:27.940 Absolutely nothing.

00:10:29.480 Because these are already tools that people are using to circumvent the laws.

00:10:34.120 It's almost as though they don't actually want to follow the law.

00:10:37.960 And that's what's motivating their conduct.

00:10:40.680 So these things are absolutely a danger.

00:10:43.680 And people who have them should be prosecuted.

00:10:47.080 But they're not the ones that are going to turn them in just because the government asked nicely or asked not nicely.

00:10:53.500 They are not going to turn these guns in because they own them for the purposes of not having the government aware of them.

00:11:01.640 So what's going to happen is the federal government in spring 2023 is going to take the lessons it learned from PEI.

00:11:08.340 And they're going to go door to door and they're going to start taking AR-15s and Mini-14s and eventually SKSs.

00:11:14.900 And they're going to eventually take handguns.

00:11:17.160 And they're going to take all these guns.

00:11:18.380 And people are going to be left with their revolutionary war muskets in a few years. 1.00

00:11:22.500 And that's basically it.

00:11:23.920 You're going to get your great-great-great-grandpa's muzzleloader.

00:11:27.360 And eventually you'll be down to the bow and arrow.

00:11:30.320 And we'll still wonder, well, why are people getting murdered in gang wars in Toronto and Surrey?

00:11:36.700 Why are there still shootings?

00:11:38.920 Why do guns still exist?

00:11:41.100 And the government will sit back and smirk because they knew.

00:11:45.640 They knew and have known and completely are aware that this action that they're taking,

00:11:52.240 this whole suite of actions, is not related to gun crime.

00:11:58.900 It's not that the government, it's not even that the government doesn't like guns.

00:12:03.280 The government doesn't like the people who own guns.

00:12:07.380 The government doesn't like the rural folks that use guns as a way of life.

00:12:11.600 The government doesn't like people that decide to take up sport shooting as a hobby

00:12:15.840 instead of taking up basket weaving or soybean planting.

00:12:20.260 The government doesn't like these people who do not vote liberal.

00:12:25.140 So they don't actually care about their property rights.

00:12:28.420 They don't care about their well-being.

00:12:29.860 They don't care about their livelihoods.

00:12:31.440 If you're someone who owns a gun store and you've had hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory

00:12:37.260 that has been shuttered in your warehouse for basically three years,

00:12:43.460 the government doesn't actually care about you.

00:12:46.700 You should have thought better about going into a business that was not Justin Trudeau approved

00:12:51.400 when you decided to hang up your shingle and start selling products.

00:12:54.920 You should have started selling electric car batteries.

00:12:57.560 That would have been the only approved career path you could have taken.

00:13:02.260 So that's what it's about.

00:13:03.540 It's a demographic assault more than it is anything to do with crime

00:13:07.340 because the government doesn't like this group of people

00:13:10.520 that are never going to vote for it anyway and whose votes do not matter.

00:13:14.560 But the suburban mom in Toronto who can be very easily manipulated by the news, 1.00

00:13:22.280 manipulated by what Marco Menichino and Bill Blair and Justin Trudeau say about guns,

00:13:26.540 this woman will vote for the liberals if the liberals can create this boogeyman 1.00

00:13:30.920 out of gun owners and say that they're doing something about the problem.

00:13:35.240 And by the time people realize it,

00:13:37.780 by the time people realize that it was all a big sham,

00:13:41.240 it won't matter because law-abiding gun owners will have been disarmed,

00:13:45.160 crime will not be affected,

00:13:46.480 but there will already be a new government in place

00:13:48.640 and it will become very difficult to turn back time.

00:13:52.400 We've got to take a quick break here.

00:13:54.540 When we come back, we'll shift to another hot button issue.

00:13:57.260 We're doing all the controversial things today.

00:13:59.600 WEF guns assisted suicide.

00:14:02.000 That's why we call it Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:14:05.640 Stay with me.

00:14:06.340 We'll be right back.

00:14:06.980 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:14:14.840 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:14:17.600 Just to bring you up to speed,

00:14:19.460 if you haven't been following this in the last few months,

00:14:22.300 in March, a law that the government passed just under two years ago

00:14:27.220 will go into effect,

00:14:28.360 which will mean that people who have only a mental illness 0.92

00:14:31.520 will be eligible for state-facilitated assisted suicide. 1.00

00:14:36.160 So the government will kill you 1.00

00:14:38.360 if you are dealing with a serious mental illness 1.00

00:14:41.160 as evidenced by the fact that you want someone to kill you. 0.99

00:14:44.900 This is something that I've talked about 0.89

00:14:47.240 as being near and dear to my heart

00:14:48.800 as a survivor of suicide,

00:14:50.640 someone who's been through mental illness.

00:14:53.180 And as this has been discussed,

00:14:54.900 we've seen more and more horror stories

00:14:57.340 of people that have called up

00:14:59.400 the Veterans Affairs Support Hotline

00:15:01.180 because they need some form of assistance

00:15:02.920 and are instead told to consider ending their lives.

00:15:06.620 People that need a mechanical chairlift

00:15:08.700 that want a mechanical chairlift

00:15:10.640 and think maybe the government can give them

00:15:12.820 some assistance in getting it

00:15:14.280 and are instead told,

00:15:15.960 perhaps you need medical assistance in dying,

00:15:19.120 to use the government's euphemism,

00:15:21.600 and so on.

00:15:22.520 This is becoming a bit of a problem in Canada,

00:15:25.480 which has a larger rate of these state-facilitated deaths

00:15:30.760 than similar jurisdictions with similar laws,

00:15:34.280 which means perhaps there is a culture of death in Canada

00:15:37.600 that the Liberal government has allowed to take hold

00:15:40.700 and that certainly a large number of Canadian doctors

00:15:43.580 are allowing to take hold,

00:15:45.760 but not all of them.

00:15:47.040 And I'm very glad that there is some pushback here,

00:15:49.940 including, I'd say,

00:15:51.000 a growing movement of people

00:15:52.540 that are not even ideologically against assisted dying,

00:15:56.560 but don't like how the government

00:15:58.020 has opened the floodgates in the way it has.

00:16:01.620 Nicole Scheidel is the Executive Director

00:16:03.860 of Canadian Physicians for Life

00:16:05.900 and joins me now.

00:16:07.580 Nicole, it's good to talk to you.

00:16:09.180 Thanks for coming on today.

00:16:10.640 Thank you for having me, Andrew.

00:16:12.100 So obviously there's been such tremendous attention

00:16:15.380 in the last few weeks,

00:16:17.220 in the last couple of months in particular here,

00:16:19.480 but I know your group and a lot of other physicians

00:16:22.000 have really been sounding the alarm about this

00:16:24.140 for quite some time.

00:16:25.560 So why has it taken so long

00:16:27.560 for there to actually be, in your view,

00:16:30.000 some more public attention to this?

00:16:33.360 Honestly, I think it's the media

00:16:35.420 that has now been paying attention

00:16:36.860 to the stories that are out there and reporting them.

00:16:39.580 And that has come to the attention of the government

00:16:41.760 in a way that was not happening before.

00:16:44.900 They were not really listening

00:16:46.100 to the disabled community.

00:16:48.780 There was lots of groups, disability groups,

00:16:51.560 who were talking very loudly about Bill C-7

00:16:54.320 as it went through and their concerns.

00:16:56.700 And I think part of it was because of the lockdown

00:16:59.160 over COVID and the virtual parliament,

00:17:02.480 it was very hard to get the attention

00:17:04.200 of the parliamentarians.

00:17:05.780 But now that the House is back in session,

00:17:09.380 people are back in Ottawa,

00:17:11.460 the media is maybe not so focused on COVID

00:17:14.920 and looking at some of the other issues

00:17:16.500 that are happening and these kinds of stories

00:17:19.100 are now starting to come to the surface.

00:17:21.980 And I think that's what's causing the government

00:17:24.420 to have some pause in what they're doing.

00:17:26.560 I know when assisted dying laws 0.85

00:17:29.080 first came in in Canada to allow it,

00:17:32.460 there was this concern that a lot of people raised,

00:17:35.700 myself among them,

00:17:36.680 that there was going to be that slippery slope.

00:17:38.460 And we were told,

00:17:39.220 no, no, it's not going to be like that.

00:17:40.800 It's going to be very rare.

00:17:41.840 It's going to be very tightly controlled.

00:17:44.200 And we're seeing now that the slippery slope

00:17:46.600 was very real.

00:17:47.660 And I think it's actually gone even a lot further

00:17:49.900 than some of the more cynical critics of this

00:17:52.660 had argued when you have people

00:17:54.260 that are going through this process

00:17:56.240 because their issue is not even medical,

00:17:58.020 but it's related to affordable housing, for example.

00:18:01.880 Yeah, no, certainly.

00:18:02.780 And I think it's happened with such a speed in Canada

00:18:05.920 that it's pretty hard to argue

00:18:09.280 that there wasn't a slippery slope.

00:18:12.020 I think one of the other things that we're seeing

00:18:13.740 is just the impact of proposed changes in the law.

00:18:17.120 So we have psychiatrists who are now telling us

00:18:19.580 that they have patients who are refusing treatment

00:18:22.200 because they know that euthanasia will be open to them

00:18:25.680 as suffering from just simply a mental condition

00:18:29.860 as a sole issue for euthanasia.

00:18:33.060 And so now they're refusing treatment

00:18:34.520 because that's what they're aiming towards.

00:18:38.400 Explain to me, if you can,

00:18:40.720 where some of the doctors

00:18:42.480 that are more activist in nature are on this?

00:18:45.100 Because it seems like, on one hand,

00:18:47.860 you've got a lot of doctors

00:18:49.160 that are uncomfortable with this

00:18:51.380 that aren't necessarily pro-life

00:18:53.220 or particularly political on this.

00:18:55.160 But you also have a subset

00:18:56.540 that really seem to believe,

00:18:58.540 from my assessment anyway,

00:19:00.200 that assisted suicide is a right 0.97

00:19:02.260 and who has anyone else to tell you

00:19:03.860 you shouldn't be able to avail yourself of it.

00:19:06.540 Well, and I think there are some physicians

00:19:09.440 who are very enthusiastic

00:19:10.640 about euthanasia-assisted suicide

00:19:13.240 as the best way to die.

00:19:15.680 And so they are seeing that as the solution

00:19:18.760 to many of societal ills,

00:19:21.180 that the best way to relieve suffering

00:19:23.220 is to get rid of the sufferer.

00:19:25.300 Yeah, and there was this piece

00:19:27.740 in the Daily Mail,

00:19:29.440 since you bring that up,

00:19:30.680 one doctor says,

00:19:31.980 it's the most rewarding work we've ever done.

00:19:34.880 This is a physician,

00:19:36.940 well, two physicians in the article,

00:19:38.480 Ellen Wiebe and Stephanie Green

00:19:40.080 of Dying with Dignity Canada,

00:19:41.680 who say they have euthanized

00:19:43.980 more than 700 people between them.

00:19:46.020 So to them, it's almost like this tally,

00:19:47.800 the more people they've been able to do this to,

00:19:50.720 the more people they've been able to help.

00:19:52.620 Well, I think that's certainly

00:19:55.120 how they square it with their conscience,

00:19:57.280 that that is what they're doing.

00:19:59.620 The question is,

00:20:00.940 how careful have they been

00:20:03.520 in really assessing people?

00:20:05.880 You saw in that story,

00:20:07.340 there was a story of one of Ellen Wiebe's patients

00:20:10.040 who she assessed virtually,

00:20:12.900 had the man fly out to her place of work in BC

00:20:17.320 and she euthanized him out there.

00:20:19.680 And so I would think

00:20:22.040 it's pretty challenging for a physician

00:20:23.900 to do a proper assessment

00:20:25.740 on something that is as serious as this

00:20:28.660 in a virtual manner.

00:20:31.420 I guess the question that I would ask then

00:20:34.220 is where is it going from here?

00:20:36.600 Because if we're already,

00:20:37.840 you know, barreling down the slippery slope

00:20:39.900 as we were talking about earlier,

00:20:41.700 what's the next frontier?

00:20:43.240 Because I think we've seen that

00:20:44.620 it's very easy to get into a point

00:20:46.540 where you're playing catch up here.

00:20:47.880 And in the case of the mental health exemption,

00:20:49.740 we're looking at that deadline,

00:20:51.660 which unless they do go forward with the changes,

00:20:54.280 it's going to be in March.

00:20:56.020 What's the next thing that people need

00:20:57.520 to be worried about or watch out for?

00:20:59.300 Well, I think it's pretty clear

00:21:00.920 that the two other issues

00:21:03.040 that are on the table are advanced directives.

00:21:05.100 So individuals, particularly aimed towards those

00:21:08.520 with dementia, can pre-choose their death date,

00:21:11.920 and then it's pretty hard for them

00:21:13.940 to step away from it.

00:21:15.520 And then also euthanizing infants and children.

00:21:18.920 I think that's the other area

00:21:20.400 that's going to expand.

00:21:21.620 And we've already seen the College of Quebec,

00:21:24.500 for example,

00:21:25.220 the College of Physicians of Quebec

00:21:27.080 speaking about euthanizing infants.

00:21:29.520 We have seen the sick kids

00:21:34.920 has put out a policy

00:21:36.120 for how they would treat assisted dying with minors

00:21:40.740 and how they would choose that

00:21:42.300 and how they would work through that.

00:21:44.080 So I think that is something

00:21:45.480 that is already being considered

00:21:48.360 within the medical community

00:21:49.580 or within particular parts of the medical community.

00:21:53.100 Now, this goes beyond conscience rights,

00:21:55.640 does it not?

00:21:56.280 I mean, physicians are not being forced

00:21:57.840 to do this, as I understand, correct?

00:22:00.360 So in Ontario,

00:22:01.600 they are being forced to refer.

00:22:05.100 So that's a question of

00:22:07.400 conscience rights there.

00:22:11.400 I think nurses as well

00:22:13.400 are being forced to participate

00:22:15.320 when they don't want to.

00:22:16.900 I think it's becoming pretty...

00:22:19.520 The problem is that

00:22:21.780 because the focus is so much on

00:22:23.920 if a patient says they want it,

00:22:25.580 you must facilitate it,

00:22:26.960 there's no opportunity to go into the why.

00:22:30.800 And most individuals who say,

00:22:32.960 oh, I want to die,

00:22:34.260 what they really want

00:22:35.220 is they want their situation to change.

00:22:37.400 And so if a physician can't speak to them

00:22:39.420 and find out what's at the root of this

00:22:41.200 and see if they can fix it,

00:22:42.940 then there's no opportunity for the system

00:22:45.000 or even the doctors involved

00:22:46.660 or the nurses

00:22:47.320 to have a conversation

00:22:49.100 with the patient

00:22:50.180 in a way that tries to resolve their issues

00:22:53.100 rather than just putting them

00:22:55.300 on the euthanasia train

00:22:56.420 and reaching out to the maid team

00:22:59.080 and having euthanasia provided pretty quickly.

00:23:02.440 I know when medicinal marijuana

00:23:04.700 was becoming a bit more of a thing

00:23:07.060 and we didn't have legalized cannabis in Canada,

00:23:09.300 there was this little whisper campaign

00:23:12.360 that was sort of going on

00:23:13.580 where people that wanted a prescription

00:23:15.040 knew where to go.

00:23:16.080 And there were certain doctors

00:23:17.220 that were a little bit more liberal

00:23:19.100 with writing these prescriptions than others

00:23:21.120 and in many cases,

00:23:22.580 more liberal than the legislation.

00:23:24.400 And the sense that I've gotten anecdotally

00:23:26.860 is that the same thing has been true

00:23:28.500 in assisted dying

00:23:29.680 is that you have the regulations

00:23:31.620 and the standards

00:23:32.500 that are supposed to be there,

00:23:33.900 but there are certain places that people go

00:23:36.420 that might be a bit more lax with it.

00:23:38.180 And even between provinces,

00:23:39.740 I mean, I've understood

00:23:40.760 and I've known personally

00:23:42.180 people that have been eligible

00:23:43.800 in British Columbia

00:23:44.820 that never would have been eligible

00:23:46.840 in another province.

00:23:48.880 Yeah, no, it's certainly,

00:23:49.880 I mean, even though it is a federal system

00:23:52.280 or a framework,

00:23:54.680 there are different

00:23:56.260 or varying interpretations of it

00:23:58.360 in different areas of the country,

00:23:59.900 but certainly it comes down

00:24:01.760 to what one doctor believes is acceptable.

00:24:07.080 And you'll even see in the reports

00:24:09.240 of Ellen Weave,

00:24:12.460 and she has said,

00:24:13.340 like, if I believe that it's right,

00:24:15.720 then I will do it.

00:24:17.160 And so I think what you're seeing

00:24:19.400 is doctor shopping happening.

00:24:21.560 And even in the training

00:24:24.040 that they do in CAM app,

00:24:26.520 so the Canadian Association

00:24:28.300 of Maid Professionals,

00:24:31.080 that they have talked about,

00:24:33.020 if you get a no,

00:24:33.940 you can keep looking.

00:24:34.920 So there's no kind of suggestion

00:24:38.680 that if doctors say

00:24:40.480 that you are not eligible,

00:24:42.180 that that is the end of the story.

00:24:43.860 You can keep doctor shopping,

00:24:46.000 you can keep looking for a doctor

00:24:47.360 who's going to agree

00:24:48.260 with your assessment.

00:24:50.500 We wouldn't accept that in medicine

00:24:52.580 with someone that wanted

00:24:53.760 a prescription for opioids,

00:24:55.360 would we?

00:24:56.600 No.

00:24:57.620 I mean, I think that's pretty clear.

00:24:59.260 Even with other procedures,

00:25:02.360 if a doctor determines

00:25:04.660 that you're not eligible

00:25:05.840 or it's not appropriate treatment,

00:25:08.060 generally, that's where it stops.

00:25:10.220 I mean, you can ask

00:25:10.960 for a second opinion in some cases,

00:25:12.640 but you don't get third, fourth,

00:25:14.680 fifth, sixth, seventh,

00:25:15.640 eighth, ninth, tenth opinions.

00:25:18.480 It's baffling to me

00:25:20.240 that so many people

00:25:22.360 have been basically cowed

00:25:24.000 into silence on some of these things.

00:25:26.040 And again, we talked about this

00:25:27.640 at the beginning.

00:25:28.260 There's a little bit

00:25:29.080 of a turning point here

00:25:30.420 in that more people

00:25:31.760 are paying attention to this now

00:25:33.100 than were before.

00:25:34.860 Let me ask about

00:25:36.180 the middle ground, if you will,

00:25:38.060 because obviously your group

00:25:39.420 represents doctors

00:25:40.320 who are tremendously passionate

00:25:42.380 about life issues,

00:25:43.340 and I'm so grateful we have them.

00:25:45.840 And I think, though,

00:25:46.860 there are other doctors

00:25:47.900 that would probably not identify

00:25:49.520 as pro-life.

00:25:50.380 They wouldn't identify

00:25:51.060 as conservative,

00:25:52.240 but they are very uncomfortable

00:25:54.360 with where this is going.

00:25:55.660 And I'm curious

00:25:56.300 how large or small a group

00:25:58.060 that is in your view.

00:25:59.820 I would think that

00:26:01.380 it's the majority of doctors

00:26:02.880 who are concerned

00:26:03.800 that it's gone too far.

00:26:07.540 I think also, honestly,

00:26:09.560 many physicians

00:26:10.460 were not paying attention to this.

00:26:12.140 Many Canadians

00:26:12.740 were not paying attention to this.

00:26:14.660 Bill C-7 kind of slipped

00:26:16.040 under the radar during COVID.

00:26:18.000 And all of a sudden,

00:26:19.800 doctors are finding

00:26:21.020 that their patients

00:26:22.300 can request euthanasia

00:26:25.160 even if they have something,

00:26:27.200 a treatable symptom.

00:26:28.320 I mean, you saw that whole story

00:26:29.820 that blew up around

00:26:30.800 the young man

00:26:31.840 who had diabetes

00:26:33.380 and was then,

00:26:35.160 he was able to get

00:26:38.300 an assisted death date.

00:26:40.940 And his mother found out

00:26:42.100 and took it to the media

00:26:43.880 and made a big

00:26:44.740 to-do about it.

00:26:47.620 And then the doctor

00:26:48.640 pulled out, right?

00:26:49.600 And since then,

00:26:51.000 if you listen to other stories

00:26:52.560 and followed him,

00:26:53.560 since then,

00:26:54.100 he went on a date,

00:26:55.800 had a,

00:26:56.380 got a girlfriend,

00:26:57.180 his life changed,

00:26:58.080 he didn't want to die anymore.

00:26:59.880 And so you really start

00:27:01.360 to question whether

00:27:02.300 people who are

00:27:03.520 in these situations,

00:27:04.460 what we really need to do

00:27:05.400 is change their circumstances

00:27:06.820 and then assisted death

00:27:09.760 is not on the table for them.

00:27:12.580 So just as a matter

00:27:13.920 of logistics here,

00:27:15.620 I know that we have

00:27:16.560 this deadline

00:27:17.300 that's supposed to kick in

00:27:18.560 in March.

00:27:19.080 The government has talked

00:27:19.920 about postponing it.

00:27:21.440 Where are things now?

00:27:23.260 Well, so March 17th

00:27:24.880 is the sunset clause.

00:27:26.160 So the law already exists.

00:27:27.620 It just means it will go

00:27:28.560 into effect March 17th.

00:27:30.440 They would have to bring

00:27:31.600 forward legislation.

00:27:33.280 The House does not sit now

00:27:34.700 till the end of January.

00:27:36.160 So I'd be surprised

00:27:38.440 if they could bring forward

00:27:39.800 legislation fast enough

00:27:41.720 and move it through the process

00:27:43.100 before the sunset clause happens.

00:27:46.160 I'm happy to be surprised,

00:27:49.300 but, you know,

00:27:50.720 they have to,

00:27:51.480 I think it would have to move

00:27:52.580 through the House

00:27:53.140 and the Senate

00:27:53.700 with unanimous consent.

00:27:55.960 And that aspect of the law

00:27:58.180 was put into place

00:27:59.220 by the Senate.

00:28:00.880 They wanted to allow

00:28:03.260 euthanasia for individuals

00:28:06.380 whose sole condition

00:28:07.260 was mental illness.

00:28:08.440 So I'd be surprised

00:28:09.940 if there was any change

00:28:11.720 to the law.

00:28:12.340 Yeah, and again,

00:28:14.760 the whole basis of this

00:28:16.400 was just trust us

00:28:17.560 to figure it out,

00:28:18.580 which I didn't particularly

00:28:20.720 trust them two years ago

00:28:22.180 when they made that comment.

00:28:23.400 And I really don't

00:28:24.640 now that we're heading towards it.

00:28:26.700 And I think that

00:28:27.760 the challenge here

00:28:28.620 is that there are

00:28:29.700 so many situations where,

00:28:31.640 and this is what comes up

00:28:33.020 whenever abortion is raised 0.70

00:28:34.220 as an issue, for example,

00:28:35.620 as most people listening

00:28:36.620 to this show

00:28:37.180 will probably know,

00:28:38.380 and many Canadians

00:28:39.080 don't likely know,

00:28:40.360 is that Canada

00:28:40.900 has no law on abortion

00:28:42.360 and abortion is legal in Canada

00:28:44.440 up until seconds

00:28:45.680 before delivery.

00:28:47.260 And whenever this issue

00:28:48.240 is raised,

00:28:48.920 people say,

00:28:49.360 well, you know,

00:28:49.880 we just trust doctors

00:28:51.160 to make the right call.

00:28:52.420 We trust doctors

00:28:53.680 to not be irresponsible

00:28:54.780 with this.

00:28:55.320 But the problem is

00:28:56.720 that as we've talked about,

00:28:57.780 there's a wild variation

00:28:59.080 in what doctors

00:28:59.940 in this country

00:29:00.560 view as being acceptable.

00:29:03.640 Certainly.

00:29:04.360 And there's also,

00:29:05.340 I would say,

00:29:06.720 particularly with euthanasia,

00:29:08.080 there's no oversight.

00:29:09.120 So there's no group

00:29:11.880 or body that goes through

00:29:13.200 and makes sure

00:29:13.920 things were done properly.

00:29:15.780 And so it's very problematic

00:29:17.380 because the euthanasia providers

00:29:19.740 are saying,

00:29:20.260 oh, there's never been any,

00:29:22.740 nothing has ever gone wrong, right?

00:29:25.100 There's been no reported cases

00:29:27.260 of anything that's ever gone amiss.

00:29:30.020 And that's just not true,

00:29:32.120 first of all.

00:29:32.840 And secondly,

00:29:33.580 you don't have the reporting mechanisms

00:29:37.500 to ensure that that's the case.

00:29:39.620 And so I think it's naive

00:29:42.380 to suggest that the body

00:29:44.280 that's providing euthanasia

00:29:46.940 should be the one

00:29:47.560 that's doing the oversight

00:29:48.620 and the reporting on it.

00:29:50.620 But that's how it's been set up

00:29:51.940 in Canada.

00:29:52.940 And the government

00:29:53.740 is certainly funding

00:29:55.180 the group that does euthanasia.

00:29:57.920 They just gave them

00:29:59.060 another three million plus dollars.

00:30:01.040 So I think it's a concern

00:30:03.500 when the government's

00:30:04.280 putting a lot of resources

00:30:05.660 into providing assisted suicide,

00:30:08.000 but not a similar amount

00:30:10.440 of resources into palliative care

00:30:12.220 or into social supports

00:30:13.820 or into other things

00:30:15.620 that help people live well.

00:30:18.720 Yeah.

00:30:19.720 This is an important topic.

00:30:21.980 We'll continue to follow it.

00:30:23.560 Nicole Scheidel

00:30:24.140 is the executive director

00:30:25.420 of Canadian Physicians for Life.

00:30:27.780 Just on a,

00:30:29.320 well, I don't want to say

00:30:30.560 an unrelated note,

00:30:31.360 but on a slightly

00:30:32.780 sidestepping note here,

00:30:35.120 this is not a religious issue.

00:30:37.140 I know when a lot of people

00:30:38.080 hear life and pro-life,

00:30:39.680 they associate it

00:30:40.340 with religious arguments.

00:30:41.300 And certainly there are

00:30:42.320 a lot of religious people

00:30:43.720 in the pro-life movement,

00:30:44.980 but Canadian Physicians for Life

00:30:46.700 is secular.

00:30:47.380 And there are a lot of people

00:30:48.520 that have a very scientific approach

00:30:50.840 to these problems.

00:30:51.720 Do they not?

00:30:52.660 Yeah, that's absolutely correct.

00:30:53.980 So our members are,

00:30:55.900 focused on practicing medicine

00:31:00.660 in the Hippocratic tradition.

00:31:01.840 So doing no harm.

00:31:03.320 And I would say

00:31:03.960 one of the most compelling arguments

00:31:06.720 that I've heard

00:31:07.420 against euthanasia

00:31:08.580 was given by one of the doctors

00:31:10.440 at our conference.

00:31:11.180 And he said,

00:31:11.680 if you can show me

00:31:12.680 how euthanasia helps my patients,

00:31:14.740 I'd be happy to provide it.

00:31:17.700 But because it doesn't

00:31:18.980 make their lives better,

00:31:20.320 it doesn't heal them.

00:31:21.220 It doesn't,

00:31:22.260 it's not part of the healing profession.

00:31:25.900 I'm really not prepared

00:31:27.080 to do it at this point.

00:31:29.780 Yeah, very important.

00:31:31.020 And I appreciate you sharing that.

00:31:32.780 Nicole, thank you so much

00:31:33.680 for your work on this.

00:31:34.400 We'll have to touch base

00:31:35.520 in the future,

00:31:36.260 but like I said,

00:31:37.360 I would love to find

00:31:38.460 some optimism in this,

00:31:39.580 but it's hard to

00:31:40.260 in the current circumstances.

00:31:42.260 Well, I think that

00:31:43.360 sometimes when it becomes so bad,

00:31:46.160 it wakes people up

00:31:47.820 and then they have to say,

00:31:48.920 like, we need to change.

00:31:49.980 And if you compare us

00:31:50.740 to California,

00:31:51.400 which is similar in size,

00:31:53.580 we've had 10,000 deaths,

00:31:55.880 they've had like 400.

00:31:57.660 And so you have to ask,

00:31:58.700 what's the difference?

00:31:59.820 What's going on here?

00:32:02.080 Terrible stuff.

00:32:03.140 Nicole, thank you very much.

00:32:04.200 Happy New Year to you.

00:32:05.260 You too.

00:32:05.720 Bye.

00:32:06.300 Nicole Scheidel

00:32:07.040 of Canadian Physicians for Life.

00:32:10.200 Again, it's a difficult,

00:32:12.120 difficult topic

00:32:13.100 and one that I think

00:32:14.280 Canadians do need to be 1.00

00:32:15.300 not just annoyed with,

00:32:16.880 but outraged about.

00:32:17.840 This is a government

00:32:18.840 that is completely

00:32:20.400 abandoning the idea of hope.

00:32:24.140 It's completely abandoning

00:32:25.380 the idea of helping patients.

00:32:26.720 When you have patients

00:32:27.640 that are seeking assisted death

00:32:29.520 who don't actually want to die,

00:32:31.520 it's not even about people

00:32:32.720 that are just dedicated.

00:32:34.560 They really want to go.

00:32:35.500 They really don't like this world.

00:32:36.720 They want out.

00:32:37.540 We're talking about people

00:32:38.600 that want a chairlift. 0.98

00:32:40.200 We're talking about people

00:32:41.100 that want veteran support.

00:32:42.720 We're talking about people

00:32:43.860 that want treatment for diabetes.

00:32:45.340 We're talking about people

00:32:46.460 who want life.

00:32:48.640 They want life.

00:32:49.640 They want to live

00:32:50.680 and the government

00:32:51.620 is allowing them 0.93

00:32:52.800 to be prescribed death. 0.73

00:32:54.780 This is ghoulish. 0.98

00:32:56.100 It's despicable.

00:32:57.200 It is evil

00:32:57.960 and there will come a time

00:32:59.420 where there is a reckoning

00:33:00.620 on this issue

00:33:01.820 and I would not be surprised

00:33:03.800 to see people behind bars

00:33:05.900 at some point

00:33:06.940 when we have a chance

00:33:08.320 to have sanity prevail

00:33:09.580 and have a true

00:33:11.040 and honest assessment

00:33:11.940 of everything that's happened

00:33:12.960 in this shameful chapter.

00:33:15.340 in Canada's history.

00:33:17.100 We've got to end things there.

00:33:18.600 When we return tomorrow,

00:33:20.200 we'll have a bit more

00:33:21.160 of a primer

00:33:22.080 on what you can expect

00:33:23.460 next week

00:33:23.980 from True North's coverage

00:33:25.480 in Davos.

00:33:26.740 But in the meantime,

00:33:27.740 I bid you adieu.

00:33:28.820 This is Canada's

00:33:29.580 most irreverent talk show.

00:33:31.080 Thank you.

00:33:31.580 God bless

00:33:32.080 and good day to you all.

00:33:33.640 Thanks for listening

00:33:34.380 to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:35.920 Support the program

00:33:36.740 by donating to True North

00:33:37.980 at www.tnc.news.

00:33:41.400 The Andrew Lawton Show

Juno News - January 10, 2023

Chrystia Freeland is going back to Davos

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