Juno News - Contempt for Liberty

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.760 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.820 Coming up, the Liberals' shocking transparency about how they want to limit your rights and freedoms,

00:00:17.860 government signing death warrants to businesses, and the fight for religious freedom well underway.

00:00:25.080 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.860 Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show, Thursday, May 20th, 2021.

00:00:37.400 Great to have you aboard The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:41.360 Lots to get to today, but I want to begin with the latest in Bill C-10.

00:00:46.620 This is the Liberal government's sweeping internet regulation bill,

00:00:50.520 still making its way through committee as MPs debate and discuss

00:00:54.820 whether it's going to regulate this content, that content, how much it's going to do, and all that jazz.

00:01:01.540 And, you know, it sounded like for a little while there was enough pushback, enough criticism,

00:01:06.500 that this might not make it through before the summer.

00:01:10.060 And remember, if we do have an election this summer, at the end of the legislative session,

00:01:14.560 anything that hasn't been passed basically goes away.

00:01:17.320 So there was a hope that this might not make it through to the finish line before the summer recess.

00:01:23.600 It doesn't seem that is the case.

00:01:26.540 Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has said not only will the Bloc support this bill,

00:01:31.120 but they will actually work to expedite it, which means to shorten the debate on it.

00:01:35.900 So they're going to make it so MPs can't even be raising their concerns about this

00:01:39.840 in as fulsome a way as the bill requires, I think.

00:01:43.940 And they're just going to pass it through.

00:01:46.360 The Bloc Québécois, despite putting up a big, strong fight occasionally in the public,

00:01:51.180 has proven that it is once again, when push comes to shove,

00:01:54.040 going to shill for the Liberals and just pass through whatever it is that the Liberals want to do.

00:01:59.740 This is the problem.

00:02:00.720 We don't really have any real opposition to the Liberals from the left.

00:02:04.840 The NDP still cannot afford an election and doesn't want one.

00:02:08.540 The Bloc Québécois realizes it's in a pretty good situation right now

00:02:12.640 and probably stands to lose a bit of that if there is another election.

00:02:16.620 So all of them just go along with anything Justin Trudeau wants to do.

00:02:21.040 And that includes bringing the content on the internet under government regulation,

00:02:25.120 which cannot happen without government having more oversight in which content can be posted online

00:02:31.920 because government will have control over who can post content online.

00:02:37.000 But I want to talk about this because Bill C-10,

00:02:41.100 which is entirely accurately characterized when people talk about its threat to free speech,

00:02:47.000 is something that the Liberals are pretending is just no big deal.

00:02:49.920 This is just modernization.

00:02:51.420 They use modernization to really take away from the fact that they are actually doing something

00:02:56.020 that is authoritarian.

00:02:57.440 And if you think that's my word, it is.

00:03:00.460 But it's also a word that's been said by people that know the intricacies of this particular

00:03:05.420 regulatory regime all too well.

00:03:07.920 Former CRTC officials say that this is a bill that has an authoritarian streak to it.

00:03:14.600 The former commissioner of the CRTC, Timothy Denton,

00:03:17.820 former director general of telecom policy at the Department of Industry,

00:03:21.400 Leonard Saint-Aubin,

00:03:22.360 ex-CRTC chair, Conrad von Finkenstein.

00:03:26.740 These are people that know the CRTC very well.

00:03:29.640 They were part of the regulatory regime of Canada's telecom and radio communications world.

00:03:35.560 And they're saying, avoid Bill C-10.

00:03:38.080 Do not pass this into law.

00:03:40.360 These folks signed a petition that had this line.

00:03:43.640 It appears Canada is not immune to the growing trend of government intervention to curtail freedom

00:03:49.020 and seek to control parts of the internet's infrastructure in ways reminiscent of actions

00:03:54.100 taken by authoritarian governments.

00:03:56.480 We are Canadian internet policy and technical professionals writing as concerned experts

00:04:02.240 and on behalf of all those who care about the future of a free and open internet.

00:04:07.980 And I don't want to conflate two issues, but a few years back, there was this huge battle

00:04:11.760 in the U.S. over something called net neutrality.

00:04:14.920 And I don't want to, I mean, you can look it up if you're interested in it.

00:04:17.380 But the point is, all of these people on the left were standing up and thumping their chest

00:04:21.440 and saying, oh, no, no, no, we can never do anything that even comes close

00:04:24.840 to compromising what has always been the free and open internet.

00:04:29.200 And now you have the left leading the charge towards a bill that will put internet content

00:04:34.060 under government regulation, even despite Minister Stephen Guilbault's claims to the contrary.

00:04:39.740 And you know, as part of the Bloc Québécois' attempt to just move things along,

00:04:44.060 this week, the Bloc introduced a motion, the Bloc MPs on the Heritage Committee,

00:04:49.260 that would basically amend it to say that this power of the CRTC over social media content

00:04:56.540 must be exercised consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:05:01.200 This is what the Bloc motion said.

00:05:03.040 And the committee unanimously voted in favor of it.

00:05:05.620 The problem is not whether the CRTC regulates social media content in a manner consistent

00:05:11.680 with the Charter.

00:05:12.560 The problem is whether the CRTC enforces its control over social media content in the first

00:05:19.640 place.

00:05:20.320 And I find it interesting that the government, the liberals, have been saying this whole time,

00:05:24.420 no, no, no, this isn't going to go after social media content.

00:05:26.920 But now they're admitting, by accepting this motion, admitting that they are actually doing

00:05:34.820 it.

00:05:35.100 But they're like, okay, well, we'll do it in a way that's constitutional.

00:05:37.860 No, don't do it at all.

00:05:39.440 That's the problem.

00:05:40.520 Do not regulate social media content in the least.

00:05:43.840 The problem is not how you do it.

00:05:45.880 It's that you're doing it at all.

00:05:47.160 And this is why Global News had a story, the federal government experts say, is asking

00:05:52.920 people to take a leap of faith that Bill C-10 won't hurt free speech.

00:05:57.960 A leap of faith.

00:05:59.140 Because the whole point is people are passing with this bill a regulatory framework that

00:06:04.980 basically is akin to the government saying, just trust us.

00:06:08.520 How well has that worked out for people in the past?

00:06:11.240 Just trust us.

00:06:12.140 Not words you ever want to hear from the government.

00:06:13.960 And if you do, you want to say, hell no.

00:06:17.600 David Lamedi, the justice minister, was appearing as a witness before the Heritage Committee.

00:06:22.860 And he was contorting himself into all sorts of dimensions and directions and shapes, trying

00:06:28.440 to establish why the constitutionality is not really a given.

00:06:33.460 But no, no, no, it doesn't matter.

00:06:35.320 I would like to take a moment to explain the few, a few moments to explain the content of

00:06:40.080 charter statements.

00:06:41.140 In keeping with their purpose, charter statements are drafted at a high level.

00:06:44.520 They set out, in an accessible way, potential effects that a bill may have on rights and

00:06:49.760 freedoms guaranteed by the charter.

00:06:51.980 Charter statements also explain considerations that support the constitutionality of the bill.

00:06:56.960 In our discussion of the charter, it is also important to stress that when Parliament legislates,

00:07:02.760 it may affect charter rights and freedom.

00:07:04.480 This may include limiting their enjoyment or exercise when it is in the broader public interest

00:07:10.040 to do so.

00:07:10.820 This is entirely legitimate.

00:07:12.480 The rights and freedoms guaranteed in the charter are not absolute, but rather subject

00:07:16.000 to reasonable limits, so long as those limits can be demonstrably justified in a free and

00:07:20.440 democratic society.

00:07:21.400 Now, what I should point out here about what Justice Minister Lamedi said is that he is

00:07:26.320 not technically wrong.

00:07:28.120 We all know that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the document containing the so-called

00:07:32.720 inalienable, unquestionable, unflinching rights, is subject to that number one section, that section

00:07:38.600 one that says all of these rights that we're about to tell you about, well, you know what,

00:07:42.680 they can be curbed if it's in a reasonable way, reasonable limits, which is what the charter

00:07:47.480 kind of qualifies all of these other rights with.

00:07:50.020 So what he's saying is constitutionally sound, although that's a negative reflection of Canada

00:07:55.160 more than anything else.

00:07:57.380 But, and here's the big but in this, is that he is more interested in the limits than on

00:08:05.140 the freedoms themselves.

00:08:06.860 And that's the problem with these answers.

00:08:08.720 When he talks about the fact that, oh yeah, freedoms can be suspended if it's in the public

00:08:12.360 interest, and sure, it's not a license to go after freedoms, but we can and we will

00:08:17.300 and this is all the stuff that we need to do if we're going to do that.

00:08:20.220 The issue is that I want politicians that are going to stand up and say, you know what,

00:08:24.200 we are going to protect and preserve and uphold freedoms because we believe in them.

00:08:29.660 Whereas what Bill C-10 is doing is by design trying to exploit these so-called reasonable

00:08:36.340 limits, which may not be reasonable at all, but they're certainly limits.

00:08:41.300 And we should all be very concerned because again, if he is more focused on the limits

00:08:46.780 to the freedoms than on the freedoms themselves, we cannot expect an outcome of this that is

00:08:51.200 going to respect free speech, that is going to do what that Bloc Québécois motion says

00:08:56.620 it's supposed to do, which is ensure that social media regulation is done in a manner consistent

00:09:01.440 with the Charter.

00:09:02.640 Remember, one of the big dangers of this bill is that it doesn't actually pass into law the

00:09:09.620 structure of what the government is going to do in its regulation.

00:09:13.620 It gives the CRTC the power to create regulations.

00:09:18.000 So all of a sudden what happens is the government gives this new wave of power and authority to

00:09:24.200 the CRTC.

00:09:25.100 The CRTC, which is made up of unelected bureaucrats who are appointed, they're political appointments

00:09:30.580 by the liberals, but you don't know their names.

00:09:33.260 You can look them up, but most people don't.

00:09:35.220 You can't vote them out.

00:09:36.940 They are accountable in the sense that they're appointed by ministers, but they're not public

00:09:42.020 facing individuals, generally speaking.

00:09:44.420 So what happens is they now have this power to craft regulations that we just have to sit

00:09:49.560 back and hope are going to respect the free and open internet that the left used to be

00:09:54.580 prepared to go to war to defend and protect.

00:09:57.640 And now is completely uninterested in, so long as the infringements of freedom happen on their

00:10:03.420 terms and by their hand.

00:10:06.140 And like I said, no opposition to this from the left, whether it's because the left genuinely

00:10:11.740 buys into this, or perhaps the left is just too afraid of going after Justin Trudeau.

00:10:16.900 The only criticism of this from within parliament has been from Aaron O'Toole, who last week

00:10:21.980 shifted his narrative away from, we are going to fight against C-10 to, if it passes, we're 0.83

00:10:28.280 going to repeal it.

00:10:30.220 Canada's conservatives are working hard to stop it and will oppose this bill vigorously.

00:10:35.620 But let me be perfectly clear.

00:10:38.480 If this bill passes, a conservative government will repeal it.

00:10:43.020 Now, I take a bit of a, I take a very cynical view on these things, because if he's shifting

00:10:48.940 his focus from, we're going to vote against this every step of the way to, if it passes,

00:10:53.080 we'll repeal it.

00:10:54.020 This is really the conservatives admitting that, yeah, this is going to pass and there's

00:10:58.160 absolutely nothing we can do about it.

00:11:01.020 You know, a lot of the time, and I am going into the political discussion right now, we

00:11:04.960 hear from the conservatives about how great it was that they reduced the liberals to a

00:11:09.540 minority, that they won the popular vote, that was the big coup de grace from Andrew

00:11:14.300 Scheer, he thought.

00:11:15.260 But the reality is that if you are in a four-party system where three of those four parties are

00:11:21.700 leftist, you are not really doing all that much as the official opposition in a minority

00:11:27.400 situation.

00:11:29.120 And it's really four of five, because you've got not just the liberals, but the Greens,

00:11:33.660 the NDP, the Bloc.

00:11:34.860 You've got four left-wing parties.

00:11:36.940 Sure, varying degrees of leftism, Quebec has that, Quebec National is bent to it, but when

00:11:41.920 push comes to shove, you've got four parties that will all vote in lockstep with one another

00:11:46.260 and one conservative party, which in and of itself is not always the most conservative

00:11:51.620 party.

00:11:52.100 That's something we've covered on this show a number of times.

00:11:54.920 But the reality is that a liberal minority means nothing if the majority of all of the

00:11:59.640 left-wingers in Parliament are prepared to go along with it.

00:12:02.800 And the NDP will talk a big game in committee on some issues, but everything the liberals

00:12:08.200 want ends up passing.

00:12:09.880 Whether it was C7, which allows the mentally ill state permission and assistance in killing 0.99

00:12:14.440 themselves.

00:12:15.120 Whether it's C10, which again is now going to be passed into law because of an unholy alliance

00:12:20.340 between the liberals and the Bloc Québécois.

00:12:22.320 Nothing Justin Trudeau has wanted to do since he was re-elected in 2019 has been stopped.

00:12:30.600 So the minority means nothing. 0.53

00:12:33.480 And it also means that if the Conservatives hope to defeat Justin Trudeau, unless they

00:12:37.420 win a majority, they're not going to be able to do anything.

00:12:42.080 And I have to bring up this tweet.

00:12:44.060 So Mark Gerritsen, who is one of the most insufferable MPs on Twitter.

00:12:47.700 And by the way, that is a highly competitive category, insufferable MPs on Twitter.

00:12:52.480 But I digress.

00:12:53.240 He's near the top.

00:12:54.380 Mark Gerritsen didn't like Aaron O'Toole's pledge to repeal Bill C-10.

00:12:59.080 So he tweeted a screenshot of Aaron O'Toole's tweet.

00:13:02.460 I know it's multi-layered now.

00:13:03.860 The conspiracy thickens.

00:13:05.300 And he says, you be the judge.

00:13:06.920 Option one, four political party leaders have conspired to take away your freedom of

00:13:11.440 speech, hoping you won't notice.

00:13:13.100 Option two, Conservatives are trying to hijack an issue for political gain.

00:13:18.420 And as I said on Twitter, I said, option one, and I didn't even need to think about it.

00:13:21.980 Yeah, that seems entirely plausible that four parties are conspiring to take away your freedom

00:13:27.680 of expression.

00:13:28.940 Like at first, I'm like, well, he, I mean, that's an obvious, of course it's option one.

00:13:32.280 I didn't realize he was joking it because I saw it at first before I saw who had posted

00:13:36.060 it.

00:13:36.300 So I was like, yeah, that's, no, that's an easy one.

00:13:38.940 Give me a hard question, Mark Gerritsen.

00:13:40.700 Yep.

00:13:40.880 Option one, slam dunk. 0.60

00:13:42.160 Next.

00:13:42.880 Anyway, the problem with Bill C-10.

00:13:45.680 Many problems with it.

00:13:47.780 But one in particular here that I want to focus on is that it extends the power of the

00:13:53.080 bureaucracy.

00:13:54.520 I shudder to use the word deep state because it has conspiratorial implications to some

00:13:59.600 people.

00:13:59.960 But it's very much the case that there is an aspect of the Canadian government that's

00:14:03.480 just there permanently.

00:14:04.420 They're there no matter who's in power.

00:14:06.240 They're there no matter who's in office.

00:14:07.700 And they just stay there.

00:14:08.840 And these people have a lot of clout.

00:14:10.720 The CRTC is one such example.

00:14:13.240 It is an institution that is bigger than the liberals, bigger than the conservatives, bigger

00:14:18.000 than whoever is in power at any given moment.

00:14:22.340 Bill C-10 entrusts the CRTC with the power to regulate the internet in perpetuity.

00:14:28.940 That is the whole point of it.

00:14:30.660 You notice how these institutions' power never goes away.

00:14:34.360 Hey, I think Stephen Harper did a lot of good.

00:14:38.120 I think Stephen Harper has a legacy people should be proud of, both what he did in the

00:14:41.560 conservative movement and what he did in the country.

00:14:44.020 However, he had a majority government from 2011 to 2015.

00:14:49.680 He had a government from 2006 to 2015.

00:14:53.960 Yet all of these institutions that he got to stack the deck on, the Senate, CBC, CRTC,

00:15:00.520 Canadian Human Rights Commission, these institutions have actually done nothing conservative when

00:15:07.300 Stephen Harper was there, when he got to stack the boards, and since, when for a little bit

00:15:12.720 of time, the people on these boards were there because of Stephen Harper's appointments.

00:15:18.560 The reason I bring that up is the same reason that everyone in the United States focuses so

00:15:23.480 much on the Supreme Court and Supreme Court appointments, because that is your legacy.

00:15:28.280 But in the U.S., when Republican presidents appoint Supreme Court justices, they tend to

00:15:33.920 make decisions that uphold freedom.

00:15:36.440 In Canada, we have conservative prime ministers who appoint board members for CBC, board members

00:15:42.120 for CRTC, Supreme Court justices, lower court justices, and yet all of these institutions

00:15:47.640 become consumed by the big government mentality that's always fueled them.

00:15:52.380 Now, I will say, I spoke at one point to someone who handled appointments for Stephen Harper,

00:15:59.240 and he gave a very real assessment.

00:16:02.020 He said, you know what, I've got to, when I get in here, appoint 4,000 people to various

00:16:06.280 boards, commissions, and positions.

00:16:07.660 And he was basically saying, show me 4,000 conservatives in Canada that want to take these

00:16:12.380 jobs.

00:16:13.360 And I think that's very true.

00:16:14.980 I think there's a real risk of that, of people on the right not wanting anything to do

00:16:19.380 with these institutions.

00:16:20.840 I don't see people like John Carpe of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom saying

00:16:25.340 he wants to be chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

00:16:28.960 Although, I should email John.

00:16:30.100 Maybe we should draft John Carpe for chief human rights commissioner.

00:16:34.320 To be honest, I think it would actually be a step in the right direction.

00:16:37.720 But the whole point is, people on the right are not standing up and seeking these things

00:16:42.280 out.

00:16:42.700 And one of my great friends, Mark Stein, has a quote on this.

00:16:47.920 He says, in an American context, when Republicans win, they're in office, and when Democrats win,

00:16:52.920 they're in power.

00:16:53.900 And I think you can very much extend that analogy to Canadians as well.

00:16:58.000 When the conservatives are in, they're in office, and when the liberals are in, they

00:17:01.820 are in power.

00:17:03.100 Because the liberals understand the institutional advantage they have, which is why they are stacking

00:17:09.160 the deck on the institutions, like the so-called independent senators group in the Senate, like

00:17:14.520 the CRTC with C-10, and pretty much like everything else Justin Trudeau has laid his hands on in

00:17:20.500 the time he's been in power.

00:17:22.640 We've got to take a break.

00:17:23.860 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:17:26.260 Stay tuned.

00:17:29.380 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:17:39.160 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:17:41.480 We still have millions of Canadians who are out of work, people whose jobs have been put

00:17:46.520 in jeopardy because the government shut them down.

00:17:50.620 Various levels of government have put in many measures that have harmed ordinary people over

00:17:55.600 the last, coming up on what, 15, 16 months now.

00:17:58.600 But fear not, all is not lost because a grant has been given in Ottawa for $2.9 million to

00:18:06.040 build a Porsche luxury car dealership.

00:18:10.120 Yes, the city of Ottawa has given $2.9 million to build a world-class Porsche dealership.

00:18:17.360 I mean, is there any other kind, really?

00:18:19.100 And it was approved by the Finance and Economic Development Committee.

00:18:23.660 Now, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is saying that Ottawa should not be spending taxpayer

00:18:28.380 money on any kind of corporate welfare.

00:18:30.560 He says Ottawa could use this money to fix potholes or give families a bit of tax relief,

00:18:34.760 but no subsidy to a dealership selling cars that cost more than most people make in a

00:18:40.580 year.

00:18:41.080 And I do think that Jay Goldberg from the CTF makes a good point when he talks about how

00:18:46.080 there shouldn't really be any corporate welfare of this kind, but certainly not corporate welfare

00:18:51.080 that is basically subsidizing Porsches.

00:18:54.380 Because if Porsche, the company, doesn't need to pay for its dealership, that means that either

00:18:59.160 it can make more profit by selling Porsches or it can offer people cheaper Porsches.

00:19:03.080 Either way, not something that I would say is passing the government infrastructure test,

00:19:08.640 even in Canada in 2021.

00:19:11.800 I go back to March when the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which did a survey of its businesses

00:19:17.440 and stakeholders, found that 51%, so half of Canadian businesses were uncertain if they

00:19:23.520 could remain open.

00:19:25.620 51%.

00:19:26.140 If you do not have small business and medium-sized businesses driving economic growth, you cease

00:19:33.160 to have an economy.

00:19:34.600 So when half of the businesses in the country are saying they don't think they can stay open,

00:19:38.760 this is before, by the way, Ontario's latest stay-at-home order, before Alberta put in more

00:19:43.820 shutdowns, before British Columbia put in more shutdowns, you cease to have an economy.

00:19:48.660 And just this week, for example, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business released

00:19:53.540 a projection that they shared with the Senate Finance Committee that says 58,000 businesses

00:19:59.840 have already closed permanently since the beginning of the pandemic, with now around 180,000 near

00:20:06.620 closure.

00:20:07.320 He says one in six businesses, I mean 51%, that was to do with confidence.

00:20:12.380 Do I think I can make it through?

00:20:13.760 These are harder numbers from the CFIB.

00:20:16.300 One in six businesses at risk of permanent closure, 180,000 businesses across Canada will

00:20:22.260 shut their doors forever before the end of the pandemic, bringing with them 2.4 million

00:20:27.620 private sector jobs.

00:20:29.340 Now, if you're the Liberals and you think everything should be a public sector job, this may not bother

00:20:33.780 you all that much.

00:20:34.540 The more people dependent on government, the more control Justin Trudeau has over the country's

00:20:39.460 economy, and by extensions, the workers in it.

00:20:42.240 But this is huge, one in six businesses.

00:20:45.260 And I'm going to keep saying that number, one in six, because this is not just about a

00:20:49.740 lack of jobs for the people owning the businesses and running them, but all of the people they

00:20:55.280 employ.

00:20:55.940 Fewer local goods for people to buy, which means they're forced to buy imported goods that

00:21:00.620 are sold at the Walmarts or from Amazon.

00:21:03.240 And I'm a big believer in a free market, which means you should make that choice.

00:21:06.960 But when government is the one telling businesses they cannot open, it's government that's signing

00:21:13.260 the death warrant for all of these businesses.

00:21:16.260 And that's why, despite being a fiscal conservative, I've always been in support of the pandemic response

00:21:22.760 measures like CERB, like SEBA, like all of these measures that have been targeted to individuals

00:21:27.880 and businesses, because government does not have the right to tell you you can't work and

00:21:32.780 not compensate.

00:21:34.100 Although my preferred outcome is that government doesn't tell people they can't work.

00:21:39.060 But this is exactly what's happening.

00:21:40.800 So 238,000 businesses could wind up permanently closed.

00:21:45.720 That's the restaurant you love that you're never going to get to go to again.

00:21:48.600 That's the sporting goods store around the corner that you like that's going to be gone

00:21:52.020 forever.

00:21:52.380 That is all of this stuff that completely fuels the economy that the federal government and

00:21:57.560 the provincial governments simply do not care about.

00:22:00.860 We've got to take a break when we come back talking about death to religious liberty in 0.64

00:22:05.520 Canada with one of the women who is fighting back against it.

00:22:08.780 That's up next here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:22:15.180 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:22:22.380 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:22:24.900 A few names for you that you should certainly know by now.

00:22:28.060 Arthur Pawlowski, James Coates, Tim Stevens, three Alberta pastors who, due to a myriad of

00:22:34.840 COVID regulations, have found themselves behind bars in Canada, a country that we think values

00:22:40.680 freedom of religion.

00:22:42.020 And even in Ontario, we are not immune from these issues.

00:22:44.980 Two churches in particular, Trinity Bible Chapel and Church of God, have had their doors locked

00:22:51.240 by order of the court at the request of the Ontario government to prevent the assembly of

00:22:57.620 worshippers, prevent congregations from gathering and worshipping as Christians again in Canada

00:23:02.800 in 2021.

00:23:04.620 I want to talk about the state of these specific cases, the church lockouts in particular, but

00:23:10.340 also the broader implications of this.

00:23:12.440 We've seen more of these circumstances than we can count.

00:23:15.780 I know it's been a big challenge for the lawyers who are taking up these cases.

00:23:20.100 The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, if I understand correctly, had to actually hire

00:23:25.020 several lawyers because there was such a volume of cases that were needing to be fought in

00:23:30.340 court to stand up for people's liberty.

00:23:33.220 Lisa Bildy is a staff lawyer with the Justice Centre of Constitutional Freedoms, and a tremendous

00:23:37.940 one at that.

00:23:38.540 I should put in a plug.

00:23:39.820 She represented True North and I, as we fought against the federal government.

00:23:45.040 Lisa Bildy joins me now.

00:23:46.520 Good to talk to you, Lisa.

00:23:47.380 Thanks for coming on.

00:23:48.660 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:23:49.780 So the volume of this is so key here.

00:23:52.480 I mean, any one of these cases in a different parallel universe without COVID would have been,

00:23:58.840 I think, a significant thing.

00:24:00.440 And now we have numerous, numerous of these, and they continue.

00:24:05.280 Well, that's the thing, too.

00:24:06.520 And once something that crosses a threshold happens in one case, then the threshold is

00:24:13.840 new.

00:24:14.360 And now, all of a sudden, we're not as shocked by the next thing that happens.

00:24:17.220 And then, you know, suddenly now, instead of issuing warnings and tickets, they're going

00:24:21.340 straight to the enforcement measures because they know they can get away with it.

00:24:24.080 So it has been a little bit shocking that how comfortable people have been with that moving

00:24:31.560 threshold.

00:24:32.060 I was covering a couple of weeks ago the case where the provincial government was trying

00:24:37.640 to extend its lockout of Trinity Bible Chapel, which is in the Waterloo region.

00:24:43.020 And you laid out, I thought, a tremendous case.

00:24:45.080 Unfortunately, the judge didn't see it that way as these things go.

00:24:48.560 But you were talking about really a very symbolic—I mean, it's real in the sense that the church

00:24:53.400 is locked out.

00:24:54.400 But for the country itself, a symbolic turning point when government is chaining up church 0.99

00:25:00.660 doors.

00:25:01.800 Right.

00:25:02.520 And to be fair, I really was making a plea for what this means in the broader context,

00:25:08.660 but knowing full well that in these circumstances, there was very little that the judge could do

00:25:14.480 other than—I mean, I suppose they could have ordered a conditional sentence and not opted

00:25:20.600 to lock the doors.

00:25:21.400 That was possible.

00:25:22.080 But remember, the government gave itself the power in the Reopening Ontario Act to impose

00:25:27.880 these—almost on a unilateral basis—I mean, they can do it without notice—to impose

00:25:32.140 these enforcement orders.

00:25:33.740 And then when someone breaches it, it's not just getting a ticket anymore.

00:25:36.820 Now we're into the contempt of court process.

00:25:40.900 And the courts are, of course, very concerned about making sure that the integrity of the

00:25:45.920 judicial system is upheld by not letting people flout their court orders.

00:25:49.480 And so they have to send a message.

00:25:51.640 And that's unfortunately—you know, I was making those pleas to hopefully encourage the

00:25:57.280 courts to be—to remember their—the broader constitutional context, the fact that we live

00:26:02.780 in a liberal democracy and that people have fundamental rights and freedoms that we ought

00:26:07.840 not to be just discarding so readily.

00:26:09.820 But yeah, they weren't buying it.

00:26:13.120 Let's talk about the length of time we're dealing with here.

00:26:16.420 Because the nature of any charter right violation, as I understand it, being a layman, is that

00:26:21.820 it has to be as narrowly limited as possible in scope and also in longevity.

00:26:26.980 Yet we seem to be heading towards indefinite lockouts, indefinite suspension of religious

00:26:32.140 freedoms.

00:26:32.620 Well, it certainly feels like that.

00:26:34.900 And we've been saying this now for a year, that the response should be targeted.

00:26:39.920 It should be a minimal impairment.

00:26:41.400 The legislation requires that.

00:26:43.220 The Constitution requires that.

00:26:45.660 But, you know, we've—when people are afraid, it's remarkable how much you can get away with.

00:26:52.220 And the governments know that.

00:26:54.020 They are—you know, it's not just the churches that are being impacted.

00:26:57.880 Although I will say that we've certainly seen there's a lot more lenience in terms of enforcement

00:27:03.060 when the political cause is more favorable to those who are in charge.

00:27:08.100 You know, it's—we may very well, at the end of all this, say, well, that was all a

00:27:14.180 bad experience and go back to treating religious freedom the way that we have in the past. 0.67

00:27:18.120 But we have, in our minds, probably moved on and crossed that threshold, as I was saying.

00:27:24.700 To paraphrase Justice Leonard at hand from the United States, when liberty dies in the

00:27:29.700 heart of men and women, no Constitution can save it. 0.59

00:27:33.100 And we have seen how readily people are willing to give up their freedoms when they're worried

00:27:39.080 about a virus.

00:27:40.180 And I—so I think it doesn't bode well for the broader principles of fundamental freedoms.

00:27:46.440 Yeah, and I don't know—I don't want this to be taken the wrong way by people listening.

00:27:50.340 I've had less of an issue with fines, because a fine is something that you have an immediate

00:27:55.880 recourse for.

00:27:57.060 You can either pay it or you can fight it.

00:27:59.040 And as you go through that process of fighting it, you don't actually have to pay it.

00:28:02.540 So there's a little bit more of a due process there.

00:28:05.820 Whereas if your doors are locked, even if you are eventually successful, you can never get

00:28:11.240 that time back that you were locked out of your church.

00:28:14.180 Right.

00:28:14.460 That's exactly—that's exactly right.

00:28:16.120 There's no opportunity in any of that process to be able to raise those constitutional arguments.

00:28:21.820 I mean, I was trying to raise them just so that they would be on the mind of the court

00:28:25.220 to how significant all of this was.

00:28:27.120 But really, the process of getting that order, the enforcement order, and through the contempt

00:28:32.320 proceedings, that is not where the constitutional arguments are raised.

00:28:35.660 Now, the government is supposed to be weighing all of that before they act, before they implement

00:28:39.660 these kinds of things.

00:28:40.840 But they clearly haven't been.

00:28:42.020 And when they have been pushed in the past, sometimes they've walked back their overreach

00:28:46.880 to some degree, but not in every case.

00:28:50.920 And so, of course, it's much harder to get your case before the court to argue the constitutional

00:28:55.400 aspects of it.

00:28:56.560 And in the meantime, yes, all these restrictions continue, and people are locked up to their

00:29:01.200 churches.

00:29:01.460 And they won't be—they may be vindicated down the line, but they will not be able,

00:29:07.560 as you say, to recover the fines and just the lost time in their facility.

00:29:12.680 I know we have churches that, in some cases, are saying, listen, we believe we have a constitutional

00:29:17.340 right to assemble.

00:29:18.740 That's the case we're making.

00:29:20.360 Would it be different in the court's eyes, in your view, if you had a church that said,

00:29:25.480 listen, we are going to put up—you know, we're going to put six to eight feet between

00:29:30.120 seats, we're going to rigorously enforce masking, we're going to do all of these things.

00:29:34.640 And if they laid out a really comprehensive plan, or is none of that really factoring

00:29:39.400 into these decisions to lock people out of their buildings?

00:29:42.800 It really isn't.

00:29:43.940 I mean, if you remember, there was a church just before Christmas that brought an application.

00:29:47.820 It was an injunction, so they had a heavier onus on their side as to why it should be

00:29:51.700 granted.

00:29:52.100 That was the Toronto International Celebration Church.

00:29:54.580 And they, to my knowledge, were, in fact, trying to incorporate measures to celebrate

00:30:00.120 socially distance and all that sort of thing, and many other churches have as well.

00:30:03.720 And that is not—it's not taken into account.

00:30:06.680 And remember, too, that public health policy, historically, was more about education than

00:30:12.400 enforcement.

00:30:13.000 It was more about—at least, you know, that was the normal approach, that you sort of

00:30:18.840 think about things holistically.

00:30:21.040 You recognize that going to church is, in fact, important and a matter of health for a

00:30:26.560 lot of people, you know, for their mental health, for their spiritual health.

00:30:30.240 And so you don't come in with the stick right off the bat.

00:30:33.380 You try to educate and you try to encourage people.

00:30:37.060 But it seems like, in a lot of cases, they came out with the stick first.

00:30:40.280 And the Church of God in Elmer was one of those examples.

00:30:42.840 If you recall, all the way back to last spring, they had decided to try and meet with drive-in

00:30:48.240 services.

00:30:48.840 They saw that a congregation in Saskatchewan had done it, and they'd have mentioned the rules

00:30:52.240 out there and tried to do it in Ontario.

00:30:54.940 And the police initially said that was fine.

00:30:57.400 But then when somebody complained, which is another big factor in all of this, is how

00:31:00.620 much the population has taken it upon themselves to be like Stasi-like informants against churches.

00:31:07.100 But somebody complained, and the police immediately went to enforcement and showed up and started

00:31:12.840 threatening tickets and charges.

00:31:14.780 And, you know, that set the tone for that particular conflict.

00:31:18.840 And it's really unfortunate that they went that route.

00:31:21.860 So when we talk about the long-term implications of this, I think there are two issues.

00:31:26.400 Number one, these court cases and challenges are mounting to such a point where there is

00:31:31.100 a judicial backlog.

00:31:32.580 And I think the Church of God and Trinity Bible Chapel cases are set for October, if I'm

00:31:37.440 not mistaken, correct?

00:31:38.260 That's right, yes.

00:31:39.120 And we have other lockdowns, lockdown tickets for businesses, fines for individuals.

00:31:44.260 The church battle is by no means the only battle in this area.

00:31:48.080 How much of this down the road do you think will really just end up being torn apart, these

00:31:54.860 tickets and citations and fines, based on what you know about precedent and constitutional

00:31:59.580 law and all of these things?

00:32:00.980 And also judicial economy, with how many of these the courts will have to deal with in

00:32:05.400 the coming months?

00:32:06.100 Well, I think when it comes to those tickets and charges, a lot of them probably will be

00:32:10.520 disposed of by the by the prosecutor if they don't think they can get a conviction, if they

00:32:15.260 think probably, you know, it's too much effort to have to defend each of these on constitutional

00:32:19.080 grounds.

00:32:19.560 You know, I wouldn't start with the assumption if you're going out to, you know, to protest

00:32:25.920 or to to go to church against the rules, to assume that your ticket is going to get torn

00:32:30.200 up.

00:32:30.420 But I think that that is well, that will be a likely outcome for a lot of them, particularly

00:32:34.200 if there are some precedents that are set in the Superior Court to suggest that the government

00:32:38.400 was, you know, was was acting out of line on any of these restrictions.

00:32:42.900 But that remains to be seen.

00:32:44.880 So far, I would say that most of the courts have given a fairly wide berth to the government

00:32:50.840 on on on these restrictions.

00:32:53.680 We haven't had a lot of cases on the merits yet.

00:32:55.820 There was one out in Newfoundland.

00:32:57.260 We had one out in B.C., which was a judicial review.

00:33:00.480 So a little different.

00:33:01.900 But, you know, there was one argued last week about outdoor gatherings, Roman Babers application.

00:33:09.020 There will undoubtedly be others along the way before ours is heard in October.

00:33:13.680 I don't know how they'll turn out, but I'm certainly hopeful that the courts will remember

00:33:18.960 their role is is also to be that sober second look at what the government is doing.

00:33:24.900 And, you know, they they aren't there to rubber stamp government decisions.

00:33:29.740 It's easy for us to look at the world we're in right now and think this is just a, you know,

00:33:33.820 once in a million period.

00:33:35.580 We're in a once in a lifetime at the very least situation.

00:33:39.020 And how concerned are you about future implications of these suspensions of freedom?

00:33:44.060 And what you, I think, very adequately characterized earlier is this internalization by people

00:33:49.260 that this is all OK.

00:33:51.520 Well, I view this as a continuation of what has already been going on in our society, which

00:33:56.900 is particularly in Canada, which is a collectivization in our in our views of things that people now

00:34:04.240 have to have consensus of opinion on so many things and lockdowns just fed right into that

00:34:09.380 existing political climate where, you know, anybody who thinks differently from the the

00:34:15.120 the the, you know, for want of a better term, what the what the elites say we should be believing

00:34:20.960 and thinking is a bad person.

00:34:22.820 And, you know, we actually see them saying that that people who are protesting against lockdowns

00:34:26.760 are bad people.

00:34:27.800 And so when you start with a climate that's as politically charged as ours was and throw

00:34:34.120 this into the mix, I don't the new normal that we're going to end up at at the at the end

00:34:39.940 of all of this is very it's very concerning to me.

00:34:43.480 I think that we will be in a new constitutional era where people who want to exercise their

00:34:50.980 fundamental freedoms under the Charter will face a lot of resistance from others in the

00:34:56.960 public and from, you know, the legal establishment and so on.

00:35:00.760 I hope I'm wrong, but I have to say I've been pretty disheartened over this last year.

00:35:06.120 I realize you're in Ontario, but just looking at Alberta for a moment, this is very unique

00:35:10.920 in the sense that on one on one hand, we view this as being the the most free province and

00:35:15.220 confederation historically in the political discourse.

00:35:17.860 But we all we also have had three pastors that have been arrested and put behind bars

00:35:23.740 there.

00:35:23.960 Is there a reason that Alberta has been the province to go in that direction, either in

00:35:29.460 the laws that they have on the books there?

00:35:31.360 Or is it simply a direction that they're taking that we're not seeing in other provinces?

00:35:36.020 Honestly, I don't know.

00:35:37.240 I think probably people are more shocked by what they're seeing in conservative

00:35:40.700 particularly conservative provinces.

00:35:43.580 There's certainly been a heavy handed approach, not just in Alberta, but in Ontario with the

00:35:47.520 conservative government and in Manitoba.

00:35:49.740 And you sort of wonder why that sort of traditional support of individual rights and freedoms and

00:35:57.160 self-sufficiency and people being able to make decisions for themselves, those sort of

00:36:01.580 usual conservative tenants, small government have just been disregarded and tossed out the window.

00:36:07.000 I can't explain it other than to think that perhaps the conservatives worry that if they

00:36:13.420 misstep, that they will be judged far more harshly than any liberal government would be.

00:36:18.420 Well, very well said.

00:36:19.680 I appreciate that you are on the front lines of this battle.

00:36:22.340 You and your colleagues, Lisa Bildy with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:36:26.360 Thanks very much.

00:36:27.300 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:36:28.160 Bye for now.

00:36:28.540 That was Lisa Bildy of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:36:32.960 As I said, a great lawyer and a great advocate on these issues.

00:36:36.180 It's easy to be pessimistic.

00:36:38.460 I mean, we talked earlier in the show about David Lamedi and his view that it's more important

00:36:44.300 to focus on the limits than on anything else.

00:36:47.220 But you know what?

00:36:47.920 You still have to stand for something.

00:36:49.600 And if you're ready to throw in the towel, I get it.

00:36:52.180 But doing so has much bigger implications than trying to fight it and see it through to the

00:36:57.420 very end.

00:36:58.140 We've got to end things here.

00:36:59.440 My thanks to all of you for tuning in to The Andrew Lawton Show today.

00:37:03.220 We'll be back with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show next week.

00:37:06.880 Thank you.

00:37:07.320 God bless and good day.

00:37:08.720 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:37:10.800 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - May 20, 2021

Contempt for Liberty

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