Juno News - Combatting political discrimination (Live from CFSN)

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show. Brought to you by True North.

00:00:17.200 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:21.380 welcome everyone to a live edition of canada's most irreverent talk show which if you are not

00:00:34.380 careful on autocorrect is remarkably similar to irrelevant which describes canada's third party

00:00:41.240 led by jagmeet singh so we try not to get too much confusion going on there if you are watching

00:00:48.340 in the room here, you are very confused

00:00:50.400 to whom I'm speaking, we are broadcasting

00:00:52.620 live on True North

00:00:54.320 and we thank you so much for tuning in

00:00:56.200 whether you're in the room here at the Canada

00:00:58.260 Strong and Free Networking Conference

00:00:59.960 or if you are tuned in from anywhere else

00:01:02.420 in the country, we thank you

00:01:04.520 so much and I just want to say

00:01:06.220 on a bit of a housekeeping note

00:01:07.820 I want to begin by thanking, these things don't

00:01:10.400 happen without a lot of support

00:01:12.200 behind the scenes and I want to just say

00:01:14.280 a big thank you to our friends at the Chinese

00:01:16.400 Embassy

00:01:16.800 what sorry someone left their liberal nomination speech here my mistake did not mean to do that

00:01:27.700 totally disregard that happened it's live so we can't edit it out we'll just pretend it never

00:01:32.180 happened like the last seven years in Canadian politics so it was actually quite interesting

00:01:36.860 did anyone get a chance to see Stephen Harper and Preston Manning yesterday yeah they talked

00:01:46.080 a lot about some of the old glory days of conservative politics of reform politics and

00:01:51.380 the one that everyone really enjoyed was the fact that they had to go without support from the

00:01:56.880 government for their fledgling political party and they had to raise money by passing it was kfc

00:02:01.300 buckets they filled up with just little bits of donations and people thought that was actually a

00:02:07.040 story of a bygone era of canadian politics but you still do political fundraising by getting money

00:02:11.440 into kfc buckets it's just the chinese yuan now and it's the liberal party that tends to do it

00:02:17.220 actually i don't even know what the single plat the single use plastic bands if you can do the

00:02:20.880 kfc buckets anymore because they used to be paper like everything else they've just ruined it

00:02:25.560 entirely uh but it is my great pleasure to be here i've had the opportunity to be at a couple

00:02:31.000 of these canada strong and free networking conferences going back years going back before

00:02:35.760 they were called the canada strong and free networking conference and even if manning is

00:02:40.600 no longer in the name, we certainly are all grateful for his legacy in Canada as a grandfather

00:02:45.340 and a godfather of the Conservative movement in this country. The theme of this show is going to

00:02:53.080 be political discrimination, which is quite an important issue. We'll talk to a few fantastic

00:02:58.840 people about this that have their own different perspectives. But I do want to give a nod to the

00:03:03.940 theme of the conference, which is often, I think, overlooked in Canadian politics. We have a Prime

00:03:08.920 minister who does not particularly think of middle-class Canadians, but it is about the

00:03:13.900 middle class. And this is something that is so difficult. And, you know, when you talk about

00:03:18.120 the middle class, one of the big challenges is that everyone identifies with it, but no one

00:03:23.420 actually defines it. So we had a minister of middle-class prosperity who didn't actually

00:03:29.380 understand meaning of middle-class or of prosperity, which strikes me as at least one of the two you

00:03:35.460 should be able to get. So they abandoned that provision in the cabinet. But it is tough for

00:03:41.800 people in the economy right now. A lot of folks here have heard about the gig economy. Things are

00:03:46.640 so bad, even liberal MPs have to moonlight for China. It's terrible. You can't just survive on

00:03:52.140 an MP salary anymore. You got to get a little bit of help there. But we are going to, I shouldn't

00:03:56.980 make jokes about a serious topic. But if you aren't laughing, you're crying. And I think we

00:04:01.680 need to remain somewhat optimistic, because we all wouldn't be here if we didn't think that a lot

00:04:06.300 of the issues about which we care were fixable and were worth fixing. So speaking of jokes, let's

00:04:11.500 talk about Jagmeet Singh for a moment, because he actually encouraged me for a few moments last week,

00:04:19.060 just a few moments, which is all it takes usually. It looked like he found a spine. He was going to

00:04:25.640 vote in favor of the conservative motion to compel Katie Telford as a witness, which,

00:04:31.040 when the government eventually said, okay, fine, Katie Telford will appear as a witness to talk

00:04:35.940 about Chinese interference, Jagmeet Singh said, okay, she's testifying, we don't need to support

00:04:40.160 the conservative motion, and we will then, as he was saying in the same breath, we'll call the

00:04:45.820 conservative party a useless party, that was his word, and I believe that he is actually an authority

00:04:50.760 on uselessness, so we should take him at his word when he makes those assessments, but it was a

00:04:55.620 of a backhanded way i think of saying okay they were right but we don't want to admit they were

00:05:00.740 right and really the loyalty lies with the liberals but the joke's on everyone because

00:05:05.300 the punishment is that we actually have to hear katie telford speak so i don't know if it's

00:05:09.700 actually a win but we will see if the liberals are in keeping with their commitment to transparency

00:05:14.340 sorry couldn't get through that line all right let's talk a little bit about political

00:05:19.780 discrimination here this is a big issue and it's one that i think conservatives oftentimes

00:05:25.060 and I use that with a small c casing, have a very deep-seated appreciation for. Because

00:05:30.980 Conservatives, despite winning the popular vote in the last two elections, which doesn't amount

00:05:35.640 to much in the Canadian political system, it means that Conservatives oftentimes can look around and

00:05:41.400 see there are a lot of people like me, but I don't see them, and I don't know where they are. And I

00:05:45.860 feel alone when I'm in my office. I feel alone when I'm in my classroom. I feel alone when I'm

00:05:50.800 in all of these other places. And one of the big reasons for that is the profound divide between

00:05:57.040 ordinary people and institutions. John O'Sullivan, a brilliant, brilliant thinker who formerly

00:06:03.040 worked for Baroness Thatcher when she was the Prime Minister in the UK, coined the term O'Sullivan's

00:06:08.880 first law. And I brought this up with him in an interview years ago, and he reminded me it was

00:06:13.120 also his only law, but it's called O'Sullivan's first law. And it's that any organization or

00:06:18.620 institution that is not explicitly right-wing will over time become left-wing. And political

00:06:25.700 parties are not immune to that. Media organizations are not immune to that. Academic institutions are

00:06:31.660 not immune to that. And if you look at the 20-odd, 25 years since he coined that law,

00:06:38.380 it's become more and more apparent that conservatives are always going to be swimming

00:06:42.560 upstream. Conservatives are always going to be, in a weirdly roundabout and counterintuitive way,

00:06:50.040 the countercultural force of our era. And we often think of counterculture as being the domain of the

00:06:56.440 pot-smoking, free-love hippies, but they're now the culture. They're now the majority.

00:07:01.660 It's people that want to stand up for individualism, and people who want to stand up for liberty,

00:07:05.440 and people who want to stand up for family, that are increasingly the ones that have to be carving

00:07:11.080 out a space in an environment that is so hostile to them. It used to be that conservatives were

00:07:16.900 accused of being in bed with corporations. Conservatives longed for the days when corporations

00:07:22.000 could be reliably conservative, I'm sure, because right now, wokeness is permeating through

00:07:26.980 institutions as well. And when I was speaking at the Canada Strong and Free regional conference

00:07:32.640 in Red Deer, we spoke a little bit about this idea of institutional wokeness. And we were talking

00:07:38.060 about some of the bigger picture aspects then. And I want to follow up with it in the discussion

00:07:43.360 we're going to have in this show today that talks about some very real and very concrete ways in

00:07:48.660 which political discrimination is not just pervasive throughout institutions, but also how

00:07:54.280 it is targeting people who are on the right. And it's oftentimes called cancel culture. And I think

00:08:00.800 the two are very similar, but very distinct phenomena. Cancel culture is the overarching

00:08:07.420 culture political discrimination is the the tactical manifestation of cancel

00:08:12.480 culture and it's interesting because no one I shouldn't say no one few people

00:08:16.540 will openly defend cancel culture people will say well I'm I'm against it but 0.97

00:08:20.620 they support institutions that are increasingly closed off to people of

00:08:26.320 viewpoints and when we talked about the drift word or the leftward drift that

00:08:33.100 exists the one important aspect that people need to realize here is that it

00:08:37.220 means neutrality is increasingly liberal. So the idea of being agnostic in politics is to be

00:08:45.640 liberal. And I was reminded a few years ago, CBC does these vote compass things in elections where

00:08:51.960 you answer all these questions and it tells you how to vote. And CBC telling you how to vote should

00:08:57.220 be terrifying in and of itself. But CBC, after a 10-question quiz, I don't think is any better

00:09:02.200 suited to tell you how to vote. And years ago, I believe it might have been on Sun News Network,

00:09:07.540 Ezra Levant did the quiz on air, and he answered don't know to every question. And at the end of

00:09:14.520 it, it said liberal, which was in a strange way, probably honest, because if you don't know anything

00:09:20.260 about anything, you probably are a suitable liberal voter. But the implication, oh, don't

00:09:24.220 give me that. Oh, it's seven years. It's not too soon. And what was fascinating, though, is that

00:09:31.080 the implicit bias in this system that they had designed, this quiz they had designed,

00:09:36.640 is that neutrality is liberal, that the center is liberal. And the liberals have oftentimes

00:09:44.900 relished this idea that they are a centrist party or a moderate party, just because they have

00:09:49.800 the NDP to the left, the conservatives to the right, therefore they're the voice of reason in

00:09:53.800 the middle. But it doesn't work that way. Just because they may exist, you know, slightly three

00:09:58.780 shades to the right of the ostentatious socialist does not mean they get a pass for their own

00:10:04.440 socialism. And this is something that conservatives need to be very aware of. And we can talk about

00:10:10.580 politics and we can talk about campaigns, and those are very important things. My friend Mark

00:10:14.620 Stein has often said that when liberals win, they're in power, and when conservatives win,

00:10:19.720 they're in office. And there's a lot of wisdom in that, because if you win an election, but every

00:10:24.740 other institution is against you, whether it's the bureaucracy, the academic institutions, the media,

00:10:30.060 you're going to be very limited in what you can do. And if you look at 10 years of Stephen Harper,

00:10:34.280 what you do can be unraveled very quickly when you have a liberal government that comes in,

00:10:39.580 and more importantly, a liberal government that has the backing of all of these other facets of

00:10:44.720 society. So we're going to break it down for you on an individual level and talk about what the

00:10:49.120 stakes are. And we'll do this with a great group of guests. And I want to start with two of the

00:10:53.560 young faces you'll have seen coming around here through the Canada Strong and Free Network's

00:10:58.680 Conservative Values Tomorrow program. And please give a warm welcome to Noah Jarvis and Liam Dunn.

00:11:12.500 Welcome.

00:11:13.140 him. So I used to, when I was on stage doing events, wear a cowboy hat myself. And then I

00:11:24.420 started guest hosting in Calgary, living in Ontario. And I thought, well, they're going to

00:11:28.480 think I'm making fun of them. So I had to retire the cowboy hat. But I'm glad it's been channeled

00:11:32.600 in your attire today, Liam. And Noah, it's good to have you here as well. I actually work with

00:11:36.820 Noah at True North. So we can work in his performance review at the end of this if he

00:11:41.520 does particularly well. Young people in particular bear the brunt of a lot of this because you don't

00:11:48.000 have a lot of power when you're sitting in the classroom and you're being told what to think

00:11:52.100 and you're being told all of these crazy things that we see in the news from time to time.

00:11:56.500 Both of you are in university, one in Ontario, one in Alberta. Let's start off with this question.

00:12:02.140 Is it as bad as everyone thinks? I think it's just as bad if not worse than everyone thinks.

00:12:08.300 You know, the thing is, in Canada, we value free speech, you know, and this is a principle that we've held for decades through, you know, the Canadian Bill of Rights from John Diefenbaker or the 1982 Charter.

00:12:20.760 But it seems as if campuses, it seems as if universities don't have the same respect for free speech as the everyday Canadian does.

00:12:31.020 Instead, they feel as if it is incumbent on them to shake the minds of young people in the way in which they see fit.

00:12:39.780 This is done through the classrooms, and this is done through clubs.

00:12:43.980 This is done through the campus programs.

00:12:46.180 Every single institution within the university is working against conservatives and is working to push a progressive message.

00:12:55.020 An example of this would be the York Federation of Students.

00:12:59.240 I don't want to go into too much specifics, but the gist of it is that the York Federation of Students is responsible for ratifying campus clubs.

00:13:10.200 and it takes about three to four weeks

00:13:13.400 for your normal campus club to get ratified

00:13:15.520 but I can tell you that the campus conservative club

00:13:19.500 that I'm a part of, it took about three to four months

00:13:22.300 for them to get ratified and that's not because

00:13:24.360 they were understaffed or anything like that

00:13:26.940 other clubs were getting ratified

00:13:29.380 just as

00:13:32.320 they were getting ratified quickly

00:13:36.120 but only the campus conservative club took months on months

00:13:39.220 on end to get ratified and that's because you know the yfs does inherently have an anti-conservative

00:13:45.660 bias this is not just the federation of students it is also the university administration from

00:13:50.780 professors teacher administrators and tas you know when you go into a tutorial or a lecture

00:13:58.840 it is the ta who is generally orchestrating the conversation and they have a lot of power in

00:14:06.500 in highlighting or suppressing certain views.

00:14:10.600 For example, if a leftist student wanted to talk about

00:14:14.300 how terrible Canada is, just a racist, vile country,

00:14:19.480 they'll get applauded and they'll be praised

00:14:22.200 and they'd be encouraged to expand on their point.

00:14:25.000 Whereas maybe someone like me would come from the perspective

00:14:27.800 that Canada is a great country that has afforded me

00:14:30.400 and many other people and every single Canadian

00:14:32.760 the opportunity to succeed.

00:14:34.520 And that sort of message is not really accepted.

00:14:38.660 It's not really tolerated.

00:14:40.700 There's a lot of pushback.

00:14:42.300 They encouraged me to sort of think about the historical injustices that has happened.

00:14:47.780 And while there is definitely a good reason to address historical injustices,

00:14:54.400 you know, they try to, it's very manipulative because they appeal to the historical injustices

00:15:03.940 in order to push their own agenda, their left-wing progressive agenda, instead of recognizing

00:15:09.240 the injustices of the past and, you know, moving forward in a positive direction, they

00:15:16.260 instead want to recognize the injustices of the past and linger on them and sort of, you

00:15:21.900 know say that the injustices of the past is reflective on the character of Canada today

00:15:29.580 that's just that's just one example but it just systematically the university does everything

00:15:35.440 they can to elevate progressive viewpoints and you know suppress conservative ones yeah I remember

00:15:42.140 years ago there was a bit of a contrast I was involved in in 2010 in a speaking tour to bring

00:15:47.360 Ann Coulter, which was at the time before the university cancel culture had gotten as bad as

00:15:51.800 it's gotten since then. And we had a relatively good showing in the University of Western Ontario

00:15:57.480 in London, which was where I went. We went to the University of Ottawa and had the angry mob

00:16:01.780 shut the event down. And the University of Calgary, which was the third and final stop,

00:16:06.720 said, hey, do you guys need a bigger room? I don't think that would have happened today.

00:16:11.860 But let me ask you, Liam, you're at the University of Calgary. Is your experience similar to Noah's

00:16:16.460 or is it a little bit better in the conservative heartland?

00:16:19.780 It all depends on which professor you have, I guess.

00:16:22.280 But one word I want to lead off on is unaccountability.

00:16:25.340 We have so many people in positions of power,

00:16:28.200 and the university turns a blind eye to them.

00:16:30.720 It's, you know, these professors, they're older,

00:16:33.020 they don't want to mark papers,

00:16:34.520 so they get their TAs or master's students

00:16:37.260 to mark their papers for them.

00:16:38.760 And a lot of the times, these are the progressive ilk

00:16:40.780 that don't want to go into the workforce

00:16:42.820 and like to stay in a room writing a thesis.

00:16:46.120 So they have a lot of control.

00:16:47.860 I know a friend of mine, Emil, back in Calgary, he submitted a paper, and in his review, in the comments, why he got the mark he did, the professor wrote down,

00:17:00.280 your conservative viewpoints are untrue, based on an opinion.

00:17:06.020 I myself have been marked harder because I used what I thought was a pretty good news source, the post-millennial.

00:17:12.620 apparently they don't view that as scholarly or an accurate news source which was news to me when

00:17:18.920 i received that big c minus on the page don't cite rebel or you get expelled i think you put that in

00:17:24.760 a paper but well is there a temptation i mean because i remember i was always a little bit of

00:17:29.700 i won't use the word but a disturber of fecal matter and i never minded it too much and i was

00:17:36.340 okay pushing back against but but is there an incentive for you to just go along with it to

00:17:41.360 write the paper that Canada is evil and Canadians are terrible

00:17:45.860 and the Canadian flag is a hate crime and the Freedom Convoy are terrorists

00:17:48.660 because you know it's going to give you a 95.

00:17:50.880 Is that a legitimate temptation that you have?

00:17:53.580 Of course it is.

00:17:55.840 Nobody wants to go into university and fail.

00:17:58.280 Everyone wants to go into university and have some success

00:18:02.060 and achieve something.

00:18:04.340 And the TAs who just hate conservatism, who are anti-conservative,

00:18:10.200 They're, you know, suppressing, you know, these views and are giving, you know, conservatives worse grades because of, you know, they're expressing their opinions.

00:18:19.400 You know, you go to university in order to develop your opinion, in order to, you know, become more informed and to challenge yourself.

00:18:27.340 And, you know, if you know that your TA is going to mark you poorly for expressing, you know, a certain kind of perspective, it really inhibits your ability to challenge yourself.

00:18:37.040 And, you know, it really diminishes the value of what you get from a university.

00:18:41.580 And also, not only that, but when you graduate from university, you sort of develop, you have already developed these habits of suppressing your views.

00:18:49.840 So when you leave and you enter the workforce or whatnot, you know, you're sort of used to that.

00:18:55.300 You're used to, you know, suppressing yourself and holding your tongue.

00:18:58.600 So not only does universities create leftists, but it also creates weak conservatives.

00:19:04.840 Unwilling Stockholm Syndrome.

00:19:06.060 Yeah, well, that's brilliant. And well put. Yeah, please. Because censorship is egregious. And I think everyone in this room can agree. It depends on who's at the journalist table, I guess. But censorship is egregious. But self-censorship is far more insidious. 0.68

00:19:22.640 because when people self-censor, you don't even have the people pushing back to give you the sense

00:19:29.660 that this is something that other people believe. And that's, I think, the tremendously difficult

00:19:35.620 part. And I'm assuming in classroom discussions, it's very similar, is that everyone's looking

00:19:39.660 around and there may be half a dozen more people like you that are waiting for someone else to

00:19:44.500 break the ice and someone else to go in and say something really controversial like Canada's a

00:19:49.400 nice place yeah and and you know it's not it's not everyone who's you know outgoing and expressive

00:19:54.740 and is you know willing to express their opinion and you know there's uh there's people who might

00:19:58.520 be just only be moderately conservative or not really into politics and they don't they don't

00:20:02.700 think it's worth it you know turning most of the classroom at plus your ta you know against you

00:20:08.000 just to you know say an opinion that you know nobody's gonna remember like after you leave

00:20:12.540 class right um and and that's what what i'm saying that it creates weak conservatives because

00:20:18.400 These people who feel like they have to bite their tongue, they go into their business or they work for a bank or something, and their manager tells them that they have to take a CRT training class or they have to believe X or Y or expressing certain conservative political views on your off time is unacceptable, they capitulate.

00:20:45.780 You know, they don't, you know, they don't do what they should do, which is, you know, racist think about it, which is quite unfortunate.

00:20:53.380 And I think we as conservatives have to be there for the people that, you know, are getting cancelled or having their viewpoint suppressed.

00:21:02.280 Because if we don't provide that support network, then you're just going to have more, you're going to just create more weak conservatives and more leftists.

00:21:10.140 Yeah, it's not just, you know, the suppression of ideas.

00:21:14.040 I'd say it's more just outright intimidation.

00:21:17.480 I do a lot of stuff with Students for Liberty,

00:21:20.240 and I hear from my colleagues down in the United States,

00:21:23.320 they'll just do a simple tabling.

00:21:24.840 They'll set up a banner, have some free books and stickers on the table,

00:21:27.820 and they'll want to bring people into their movement.

00:21:30.480 And these leftists organize, and they pound at their tables

00:21:33.780 and make a scene and protest them. 0.90

00:21:36.560 And when the campus police come around, they punish the tablers. 0.99

00:21:41.320 You know, the people that spent their time setting up and being there and filled out 0.99

00:21:45.840 all the paperwork, and they're coming and intimidating people from expressing different

00:21:50.820 viewpoints.

00:21:51.820 I did a postering campaign recently at the University of Calgary.

00:21:54.880 We put up a bunch of Les Marks, more Mises posters, and the next day, all throughout

00:22:00.200 the University of Calgary on our posters, pinned up a picture of Karl Marx with the 0.65

00:22:05.000 sign, Mises is unserious on it, with some commie garble underneath.

00:22:09.800 But I just thought it's suppression of our ideas.

00:22:11.880 That's like a doctoral dissertation you've just taken aim at there.

00:22:16.380 All right.

00:22:16.840 Well, let's just in 15 seconds or less here,

00:22:19.860 what's the best survival tip you can give other people in your age range?

00:22:23.780 Find some people like you.

00:22:25.020 If there's a campus conservative on campus, join it.

00:22:29.520 Try and don't suppress yourself.

00:22:34.100 You know, if TA is asking you something and you want to, you know, express, you know, a centre-right, you know, a viewpoint, just do it.

00:22:41.900 You know, maybe you'll find other people like you, and you'll actually have that support network.

00:22:46.840 And just to add on that, if you get the comment that your friend did, send that paper in to True North.

00:22:52.560 We will provide some support from outside your classroom for it.

00:22:55.700 But what would your survival tip be?

00:22:57.620 Be authentic.

00:22:59.500 That is the one thing.

00:23:00.620 You will find that more people believe and agree with you than you may think.

00:23:04.700 I ran every single right-wing organization at the University of Campus at one point,

00:23:09.520 and there are a lot of people that agree with you that just don't stick up.

00:23:12.600 So be authentic.

00:23:13.540 So I ran every single right-wing organization at my campus, too.

00:23:16.460 Unfortunately, it was just one.

00:23:17.780 So it wasn't as impressive as it was in Liam's case.

00:23:20.360 Well, Liam Dunn, Noah Jarvis, you're doing tremendous work.

00:23:23.060 Thank you so much, Ford, and thanks for coming on.

00:23:24.780 Thank you for having me.

00:23:25.240 Give him a hand, everyone.

00:23:29.000 I should say, by the way, I don't think I'm all that big a deal, but I've been very grateful that

00:23:37.080 people I've met here in Ottawa have come up and said, I listened to your show. I got a little

00:23:40.920 nervous, though, because I had one woman text me and said, did you know Noah Jarvis was here?

00:23:45.580 And I said, yeah, but come on, he's outpacing me. So Noah's going to be doing this show soon enough.

00:23:50.680 Let's turn our attention to some of the policy implications of this. I want to welcome to the

00:23:55.280 stage two people that have different perspectives on this but i think very important ones one is

00:24:00.280 probably one of the most prolific employment and labor lawyers in canada now katherine marshall

00:24:05.240 and the other is conservative member of parliament garnett jenis

00:24:08.220 thank you very much thank you normally i do the show in my basement so this is a real uh

00:24:23.600 exciting development for me, but which was flooding the other day. So this is particularly

00:24:27.680 good to not have like water pouring down on the show. But let's talk about the legal context here

00:24:33.540 because we know there are people that are in some cases probably directly targeted and other cases

00:24:38.940 less directly because of their political beliefs. I know in Ontario there's in labor law or in human

00:24:45.300 rights law there's protection for creed, but that really doesn't extend to political beliefs. So

00:24:50.160 do you have any protection? Well, I mean, aside from calling me, no.

00:24:58.420 You know, this is one of the really interesting things is that pretty much everything under the

00:25:03.680 sun these days is covered under human rights legislation, but not political protection. And

00:25:11.300 what the woke mobs have figured out, and it's pretty smart, and they do it over and over again

00:25:19.060 now because it's very effective is that a great way to silence someone and get them to go away

00:25:26.320 is by attacking their livelihood. You know, when you mess with someone's ability to put food on

00:25:32.480 the table, they are going to censor themselves, unless they're Jordan Peterson or Jamil Giovanni.

00:25:38.920 But, you know. But those ones are fewer and further between than other people. And let me

00:25:45.220 ask you about this, Garner, because I know you have a private member's bill that aims to

00:25:49.220 specifically protect political discrimination by amending the Human Rights Act, and this is where

00:25:55.540 you have protections for, as Catherine mentioned, everything else. I mean, it is actually a bit

00:26:00.080 amusing, and I'll quote Caitlyn Jenner, who said she had a harder time coming out as a Republican

00:26:03.880 than coming out as transgender, because right now you could identify as a woman but not as a

00:26:08.800 conservative if you want the protection of the Canadian Human Rights Act. So why do you think

00:26:12.340 that's the vehicle to address this. Yeah, and first of all, it's great to be on your show. It's

00:26:17.940 great to be here with all of you, and I think it's very important that as conservatives we be

00:26:21.580 people of hope, right? We don't buy into these kind of declinist narratives where everything's

00:26:25.860 getting worse, and it's just going to keep getting worse until the end of time, right?

00:26:30.240 No, there are reasons for us to be involved in politics and to be hopeful that we can make

00:26:34.840 concrete policy changes that are going to make our lives and our country better, and one of those

00:26:40.820 ways is to very simply support my private member's bill. It's C-257. There's a parallel

00:26:45.940 bill, S-257, from Senator Salma Atulajan, a conservative senator. And these bills would add

00:26:52.520 political views and activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights

00:26:58.020 Act. So right now, if you're an airline employee, a bank employee, these are our workplace in the

00:27:05.900 federal jurisdiction, and your employer says, I don't like your religion, I don't like your

00:27:10.940 marital status, whatever it is, you're fired because of it, then you could take them to a

00:27:16.280 human rights tribunal, because we would all accept that firing someone, discriminating against

00:27:20.400 someone because of their ethnic identity, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, etc.,

00:27:27.580 there's a long list, but that's unacceptable. But if your boss says, hey, I'm going to fire you

00:27:32.200 because you were advocating for lower taxes

00:27:36.080 or a pro-life position or something,

00:27:39.520 I'm going to fire you because of that political view or activity,

00:27:43.040 then you have no recourse.

00:27:45.580 And the great thing is we have this existing framework

00:27:48.380 designed to protect people from discrimination.

00:27:50.060 It just doesn't include political views.

00:27:52.540 So it's a very, I think, simple, reasonable fix.

00:27:55.240 There are certain parameters around human rights legislation.

00:27:59.180 It's legitimately balanced against other things,

00:28:01.780 and we can talk about some of those limitations and exceptions,

00:28:05.200 but it essentially fits this protection against political discrimination

00:28:08.580 within the wider jurisprudence that exists.

00:28:11.540 And I will say it's not so radical.

00:28:14.040 This protection doesn't currently exist at the federal level.

00:28:17.460 It doesn't exist in a number of the larger provinces,

00:28:20.200 such as Ontario or Alberta,

00:28:21.280 but actually a majority of Canadian provinces

00:28:23.680 have some kind of protection against political discrimination

00:28:26.460 in their human rights statute,

00:28:30.580 so not at the federal level,

00:28:31.780 not in a couple of our larger provinces, but in a majority of provinces, it's already protected.

00:28:35.600 Now, I should just say on a housekeeping note, the Canadian Human Rights Act governs federal government and federally regulated sectors.

00:28:42.440 So radio is one.

00:28:44.120 So let me ask you, Catherine, in the case of Jamil Javani, if the law that Garnet wants to see law were there on the books,

00:28:52.020 do you think that would change the Jamil case going up against a big media telecom company?

00:28:57.360 Yeah, so, you know, firstly, you know, what Jamil's doing is something that most people would never do.

00:29:04.660 Like, the idea of taking on, like, a massive corporation when you've been mistreated is something that most people, that makes them want to hide in a hole.

00:29:13.620 So it takes a lot of bravery to do that.

00:29:16.740 I, you know, I see a lot of mistreatment.

00:29:20.040 I see a lot of political discrimination.

00:29:22.520 People come to me all the time.

00:29:24.000 But most people who are willing to go forward, like I would say 1% of the people who I see.

00:29:29.020 It would make a difference.

00:29:30.540 You know, Bell is a federally, they're part of a federally regulated industry.

00:29:37.620 You know, why is there not a legislative protection for people who work there to be protected from political discrimination?

00:29:47.480 And hopefully this case will change that.

00:29:50.260 I mean, we're hoping to set a precedent.

00:29:52.040 and um you know something that's really disturbing uh that i see happen is people will get terminated

00:29:59.680 or they'll get hauled into hr meetings about maybe something they they posted on social media or

00:30:05.840 comment they made at the water cooler or you know hate comes out from you know a privacy breach that

00:30:11.860 they donated to a certain cause and they get disciplined or they get fired and that is a

00:30:17.960 traumatic experience to begin with but then the idea of like having to then launch a lawsuit and

00:30:23.780 fight your employer and have them call you a racist or call you a bad person or call you

00:30:29.600 a misogynist or whatever other horrible label they're going to give you and then be publicly

00:30:34.640 shamed but just most people don't go down that path and that's why we're not seeing enough change

00:30:41.240 in the system these companies are getting away with it the mobs are learning it's a very effective

00:30:46.440 tactic. And then they've learned that because they get the success from doing it, they do it

00:30:52.860 more and more. So I'm fighting it. I hope other lawyers will join me. And it's great to have

00:30:59.380 clients who are willing to go out there and kick some butt as well. If I can just quickly add to

00:31:05.200 that point, because I think that's really critical, that what motivates me in this is there are the

00:31:09.500 high-profile cases that folks will be aware of, the Jordan Petersons, Jamil Giovannis. These are

00:31:13.940 people who are already involved in public speaking, have a public profile, and have a

00:31:22.240 sense of how to fight and how to challenge these things. What I'm most concerned about,

00:31:27.740 what motivates me, are the everyday normal people who didn't sign up for politics or

00:31:34.040 controversy, who just want to be able to live their lives, do their jobs, and provide for

00:31:38.500 their family, people that we've never heard of, but who hold common sense opinions. Maybe who don't

00:31:44.580 hold common sense opinions, by the way, because protecting people against political discrimination

00:31:47.820 applies to everybody, and it should, right? But if somebody is simply expressing their points of

00:31:55.040 view in social media posts, around the water cooler, it's all of those cases we don't hear

00:32:01.660 about of people that are intimidated into silence, who don't have recourse, that if a bill like mine

00:32:06.000 passes, they'll have some tools available to them.

00:32:09.020 And using the Human Rights Act, it's often a much more accessible remedy.

00:32:12.680 There are some cases, crown corporations, federal government, where someone could litigate

00:32:17.980 under the charter, but that would be likely much more complicated and expensive, and they

00:32:21.860 have an easier remedy available to them if we use the remedies that exist in the Human

00:32:26.260 Rights Act.

00:32:26.680 But let me challenge the premise that human rights law is the vehicle for this, because

00:32:31.260 we were talking earlier in the show about the institutional challenges, and human rights

00:32:35.560 tribunals have not been kind to conservatives in the past, I'd say. I mean, it was the Canadian

00:32:40.660 Human Rights Tribunal that was going after conservative bloggers when Section 13 was there.

00:32:44.880 It was the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal that was going after Ezra Levant for publishing the

00:32:49.980 Danish Mohammed cartoon. So if you put political discrimination in, does that not actually expand

00:32:56.400 the power of these organizations that could be weaponized against conservative business owners,

00:33:00.700 say. Do you know what it does? Adding it to human rights legislation is at least a

00:33:08.080 significant message that this is wrong. And employers do pay attention to that.

00:33:17.780 I think that having it codified, at least it's going to have, you know, that baseline, okay,

00:33:23.340 this is wrong, you can't do this. And if you do it, if you breach this right, people are going

00:33:28.260 have some legal remedies but I hear all your concerns about the human rights tribunal systems

00:33:33.380 as someone who litigates a lot of them I've got my own frustrations but I wanted to touch on

00:33:39.460 something that you brought up earlier we were talking about you know high profile people

00:33:46.260 getting targeted of course the Jordan Peterson case is another example of something that I find

00:33:52.820 very disturbing which is these groups of people are using professional regulators and the complaint

00:33:59.060 systems to launch these bad faith complaints against people they want to silence and um i've

00:34:05.060 had a lot of conversations with like doctors and lawyers and people who'll come up you know quietly

00:34:10.100 to me and they'll say catherine i i deleted my twitter account um you know i i'm not writing

00:34:15.940 anymore i'm so terrified that if i say something that someone doesn't like i'm gonna get a complaint

00:34:22.180 i'll lose my license i'll be suspended and then i'll have no ability to put food on my table

00:34:26.740 and i that really that's very disturbing people people who have interesting things to say who are

00:34:33.780 who should be thought leaders in their professions are removing themselves from the arena and it's

00:34:40.380 becoming this thing where it's like okay are the are the only people who are going to share their

00:34:44.900 views are people who have nothing to lose um or maybe in their basements unemployed that's not a

00:34:51.120 good thing for society or democracy. No, and let me get your take on that. And I'm also curious

00:34:57.180 about the concerns with the tribunal system as well. Yeah, yeah. To your question about the

00:35:01.260 appropriateness of the vehicle, I mean, I think there's a level of pragmatism that we have to have

00:35:06.420 about the kinds of structures and institutions that exist. But I think it's also important to

00:35:11.640 say that this shifts the balance of the calculations that those bodies are going to make.

00:35:16.420 So now if you have a complaint made against somebody on the basis of discrimination on one category, they can also talk about political discrimination.

00:35:28.420 And that doesn't mean that one would necessarily trump the other, but it means that freedom of speech in the expression of a political point of view becomes explicitly part of the calculation that these bodies have to take into consideration.

00:35:45.420 And finally, look, I'll say it's true of everything we do, right?

00:35:50.020 Personnel is policy.

00:35:52.340 These tribunals are only as good as the appointments of the people that are on them.

00:35:57.780 That's inevitable.

00:35:58.780 And that's maybe another conversation, which is, you know, how do we ensure that people

00:36:03.340 who are going to apply certain principles in a way that is reasonable are given the

00:36:09.980 power to apply those principles?

00:36:12.600 But I don't think we should give up on our ability to appoint strong, reasonable people

00:36:16.360 to these kinds of bodies.

00:36:17.940 The question is just, is the framework that they're being given reasonable and balanced?

00:36:23.200 I think it's just common sense that if we are going to have these bodies that are adjudicating

00:36:30.340 complaints about religious discrimination and other forms of discrimination, then why

00:36:34.220 not include political discrimination as part of the calculation?

00:36:38.280 For all you people that want to run for office, everyone wants to be finance minister, apply

00:36:42.100 to be one of these people on the tribunals, because oftentimes when conservative governments

00:36:48.160 come in office, they have however many thousands of roles to fill, and there aren't that many

00:36:53.740 thousands of conservatives that want to sit on some government tribunal. So you end up even with

00:36:57.900 Stephen Harper in power, but all of these woke liberals on the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

00:37:02.260 So that's a place to get involved as well. Let me turn back to you on this, Catherine,

00:37:07.760 because one of the big challenges is that you may have a case where you've got some, you know,

00:37:12.440 really woke lefty employer that is discriminating against an employee. But one of the things with

00:37:17.860 cancel culture that happens is you get people that very viciously target an individual and

00:37:23.440 they want to destroy their life. And they look up their LinkedIn and say, oh, this person is a,

00:37:27.200 you know, a junior sales secretary and, you know, the department of whatever. And they go after a

00:37:33.280 company that may actually have no interest in getting into politics, but the company goes

00:37:37.580 into crisis mode and they capitulate and we've seen this happen time and time again so i do think

00:37:43.260 that putting it on the radar to say to companies this is not consequence free and you may capitulate

00:37:49.900 to get the twitter mob on side but you're going to have another fight if you do yeah that's a

00:37:55.880 really good point and i i often advise my employer clients and my corporate clients that like look

00:38:01.240 if you don't have the back of your people the people that you chose to hire that you put into

00:38:06.640 the roles that might have, you know, they might have great performance, but yeah, maybe they

00:38:10.460 did an off-color tweet or they did something stupid on social media or whatever, then you're

00:38:16.800 signaling to the world that you don't have a backbone and they can come after any of your

00:38:21.940 people. And it sets a terrible precedent. And I mean, obviously it exposes the company to a

00:38:27.000 wrongful dismissal suit, but more to the point, like what kind of a message are you sending your

00:38:31.400 own employees when you're not going to have their back because a few you know um you know

00:38:36.860 wokesters kind of you know dox your your employee and i think part of the problem is a lot of

00:38:42.960 companies they panic you know the idea of like trending and you know they they freak out they

00:38:48.560 don't know how to deal with this the first thing they do is the worst idea which is just fire the

00:38:53.740 person and they're trying to manage their own crisis and of course anyone in crisis management

00:38:58.740 can tell you, like, don't manage your own crisis. It's a really bad idea. But they've got to have

00:39:03.440 more backbone. And, you know, I'm seeing a lot of this type of political discrimination and

00:39:11.680 mistreatment happen in corporate environments that are not traditionally, like, woke. Like,

00:39:17.320 it's sort of everywhere. It's really any company where you have, you know, people who are just very

00:39:24.200 cautious they're very risk adverse and like they're firing people for saying or doing something

00:39:30.580 that has nothing to do with their service or their product and i think um it's something that

00:39:36.320 employers really have to take more of a responsibility and because this is not going to

00:39:40.220 change unless companies also change their policies yeah i remember back in i think it was well actually

00:39:46.920 i know for a fact it was 2018 there was this uh pipeline demonstration that was taking place and

00:39:52.980 someone went to Domino's and picked up some pizzas and brought them there.

00:39:56.820 And then it ended up becoming this controversy where Domino's was forced to comment for the

00:40:02.200 crime of selling pizza to someone.

00:40:04.300 And I wrote a column at the time about it, combating against sort of corporations that

00:40:08.900 were wading into politics.

00:40:10.100 And then I got fired three days later, but it was unrelated.

00:40:13.080 That was one of the other big radio companies.

00:40:15.220 But there is this...

00:40:16.540 You should have called me.

00:40:17.080 I should have, yeah.

00:40:18.360 Is this sort of the domino effect we're seeing?

00:40:20.460 Yeah.

00:40:20.800 Oh, that's good.

00:40:22.240 That's good, because that means I didn't make the worst joke of the show.

00:40:25.200 So thank you for that, Garnet.

00:40:26.880 But I won't discriminate against you for your humor or lack thereof.

00:40:31.060 I don't know.

00:40:31.380 No.

00:40:32.080 We're not proposing to add that.

00:40:33.660 You can still fire someone for telling bad jokes.

00:40:36.060 So let's be a bit more forward-looking here,

00:40:38.920 because I think that obviously legal mechanisms are very important,

00:40:42.760 but I think you were touching on this as well, Catherine,

00:40:44.680 that culture needs to change as well.

00:40:46.180 And the one thing I've often said about cancel culture in general,

00:40:49.900 not in a business context, is that people who resist what's happening need to speak up and

00:40:55.980 defend the victims because the mob is very, very loud. The mob is very loud. And when someone is

00:41:03.280 being targeted, as someone who's been through the cancel culture mill, the thing that you get a lot

00:41:08.560 of are people that say, I'm with you, but shh, don't tell anyone. And we need people that are

00:41:12.900 going to stand up. And I'd say for companies as well, they need to know that there are people

00:41:17.220 that are going to back them for doing the right thing as well. That's a really good point. I've

00:41:22.960 acted for a lot of clients who've been cancelled, and it is a horrifying experience. And you do feel

00:41:30.080 like you want to die. I have clients who've felt suicidal. I mean, there's really not that shame

00:41:35.700 of being cancelled and told that you're not worthy of being in society anymore. It's one of the most

00:41:43.220 terrible human emotions. And I get so upset when I see people being cancelled or targeted. And I

00:41:50.540 totally agree with you, Andrew. Like, we have to stand up. If we see it, as conservatives especially,

00:41:56.800 we have to go out there and defend that person and support that person. And that means the world

00:42:02.840 to that individual. But it's also a way of fighting back against that cancel culture and showing the

00:42:09.340 mob that there's going to be people who will who will defend that person and that person is not

00:42:15.140 alone um and i think that's so critically important um so yeah i mean i i mean ironically

00:42:22.180 um one of my other cases and this is also in the media is um i'm acting for a former chair of the

00:42:29.260 alberta human rights commission who was canceled i mean ironically like he you know so yeah i mean

00:42:35.940 going back to the earlier point, it would definitely make a difference, at least in our laws in this

00:42:41.480 country. I would, by the way, love for you to take the Human Rights Commission to the Human Rights

00:42:44.720 Commission. I've been waiting for that for years. Stay tuned. Yeah. I mean, on the culture, the

00:42:51.860 question I would ask people is, look, why do you want to personally punish someone for sincerely

00:42:59.100 holding a different point of view than you do? I just have a hard time understanding this mentality,

00:43:04.000 If I meet somebody who is a socialist or whatever, I'm going to disagree with them.

00:43:10.240 I'm going to maybe, if time allows, talk to them about why I disagree with them.

00:43:13.780 Hide your wallet.

00:43:14.680 But the idea that I would wish them harm, that I would want them to lose their job, not be able to provide for their family, is just absurd and so foreign to me.

00:43:26.400 I don't think conservative employers should be able to discriminate against their left-wing workers either.

00:43:31.880 I think it goes both ways.

00:43:32.720 I just don't think that's happening.

00:43:33.860 I think generally it's the other way around.

00:43:36.000 But I can't fathom this mentality of wishing someone ill for having sincerely considered a political issue and come to a different conclusion than me.

00:43:44.160 And I think we just have to ask people, aside from the merits of this person's point of view,

00:43:48.860 why can't you have a conversation with them about the particulars of the issue rather than condemning them morally and trying to harm them because of the political conclusions they've come to?

00:43:59.840 But this is what sets the right apart from the left, and why in this day and age, despite how the liberals have been in the past, the right is the only vehicle for championing free speech.

00:44:10.060 And it's funny, because if you were to put all of the victims of cancel culture in a conference room, I think, actually, maybe we did, I don't know.

00:44:17.100 But in general, if you were to put them in a conference room, you're going to find people that are on the left there.

00:44:21.260 There's a professor from Alberta named Frances Widdowson, who is a literal Marxist, but she has a lot more conservative friends than liberal friends because they support free speech.

00:44:29.740 and they support her position on speaking out on indigenous issues the way she does.

00:44:35.120 My colleague at True North, Lindsay Shepard, was never a conservative,

00:44:38.400 but she's found a home among conservative people

00:44:42.480 because they're the ones that were kind of like Garnet was saying,

00:44:45.400 come as you are, we don't care, just have your position here.

00:44:48.980 And it is cyclical, and I think that would be the one bit of advice I'd give to people on the left,

00:44:52.640 is you may think you're immune from this, but you're not.

00:44:55.380 And one of the more amusing examples, there was this guy who a few years ago

00:44:59.560 had gotten some little viral moment with Bush, the beer company, and some reporter from the

00:45:06.680 Des Moines Register found some tweet of his from, I don't know, like 1873 that was mildly off-color

00:45:13.360 when he was a teenager and then canceled him, and then someone dug into the reporter and found a

00:45:17.860 tweet of his that was off-color and then canceled the reporter, and it's like, who wins at the end

00:45:22.180 of this? So it is like a race to the bottom. Yeah, I mean, I've been listening to a lot of

00:45:27.980 Renee Brown recently, so I apologize in advance, but something that she says that I love is that

00:45:33.420 if you live in the arena, you're going to get burned. You know, you are going to fall on your

00:45:38.020 face. And if you take risks with your life and you actually go out and do something and say

00:45:42.960 something and hold opinions, yeah, you're going to have people who criticize you. And I think

00:45:47.020 this sort of scary notion that's emerged with cancel culture of, okay, I'm just going to be

00:45:52.300 super safe. I'm not going to ever say anything. I'm never going to hold any opinion. And I'm just

00:45:57.780 gonna hope that i just make it through life that's that sucks yeah that's like that's boring that's

00:46:04.380 terrible we don't want that yeah it was like the old joke was what's a liberal's favorite wine

00:46:09.140 you can't say that uh and i think that there is something to that it's like i don't want to live

00:46:13.920 the life that you know has to be so scripted and choreographed like that so we're we're winding

00:46:19.860 down our time here but let me just end with the same question to you both and we'll start with

00:46:23.400 you, Garnett. Are you an optimist or a pessimist on this? Well, I'm fundamentally optimistic about

00:46:29.400 what we can do specifically through legislation, again, through my private member's bill, C257.

00:46:36.940 I mean, I've been told you need to repeat, repeat, repeat these things. C257 could use all of your

00:46:43.280 support. If it passes, then we will have legislation at the federal level in federal

00:46:48.560 jurisdiction that will provide recourse to people who face political discrimination. And I think

00:46:53.340 we have some provincial elected officials in the room and others that are involved in that level,

00:46:58.100 so seeing these kind of parallel legislation at the provincial level as well. I think we do need

00:47:02.960 broader cultural change, and that's going to take time, just kind of pushing our friends and

00:47:07.320 neighbors saying, hey, let's have respectful disagreements but not try to punish each other

00:47:11.380 for being wrong, but I think we can legitimately use the tools that already exist for human rights

00:47:16.980 protections, and I don't think it's that likely that this legislation will make it all the way

00:47:23.100 through the process in this parliament, given the timelines and so forth. But it has the strong

00:47:29.200 support of our caucus, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to see bills stopping political

00:47:33.420 discrimination be implemented and become law, if not in this parliament, then under Prime Minister

00:47:38.880 Polliver. Optimist or pessimist? I'm definitely optimistic, especially because of the work that

00:47:45.580 Garnett's doing, and when I've got clients like Jamil Giovanni and people who are willing to go

00:47:49.580 there and be the pointy end of the spear and and fight the system i think that there is a cultural

00:47:55.420 change that's happening we just need more people to you know speak up and stand up and not be

00:48:00.460 afraid to to beat down the system and challenge the system and look i've got a lot of frustrations

00:48:06.620 with the system as someone who litigates i mean there's a lot about the court system

00:48:10.300 the human rights system that i don't like and i have issues with um but it's the only system

00:48:15.100 that we have and i always say to my clients we just you know these are the cards we've got and

00:48:18.540 and we got to play them and there's lots of creative things that we can do to get people

00:48:22.660 thinking outside of the box but the biggest thing I think we can all do in this room and it's

00:48:26.760 something that I personally really um tried to do um and it does put me in the line of fire

00:48:31.900 sometimes and I've also gotten like crazy weird complaints like from crazy people as well which

00:48:37.280 is you know if I see someone getting cancelled or doxxed or abused on social media because they

00:48:44.660 did something or they tweeted something or they donated somewhere i'll go out there like and

00:48:49.720 publicly stand up for them and i don't really care if someone comes at me and calls me terrible names

00:48:54.820 because i know what it does to those people and i the idea that someone's going to feel so

00:49:00.460 emotionally like ruined because of this makes me really upset so you know we've got to do that and

00:49:05.860 it takes some courage but it's something that conservatives i think are really good at i don't

00:49:10.400 stand up for them because it usually makes their problems worse when i'm in their corner so it's

00:49:14.340 like, see, look, they're like Andrew Lawton. But in any case, I've always said, especially in the

00:49:19.420 last year, I think the most terrifying thing you could ever see in a courtroom is Kathleen Marshall

00:49:22.660 on the other side of it. You've been doing amazing work, and I thank you for that and for being here

00:49:27.000 today. And Garnet Janis, Conservative MP, thank you as well, sir. That does it for us. We are going

00:49:34.320 to wrap things up here. There's going to be, for those of you in the room with us now, there's going

00:49:38.440 to be a brief break, and then Conservative leader Pierre Polyev will be joining us next. But for

00:49:43.440 this episode of the Andrew Lawton Show. We're signing off. Thank you. God bless and good day

00:49:47.120 to you all. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating

00:49:53.720 to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 23, 2023

Combatting political discrimination (Live from CFSN)

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