Juno News - Controlling the People Instead of the Virus

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

00:00:12.680 Coming up, a look at the three big looming battles for freedom, media freedom, religious freedom, and yes, COVID freedom.

00:00:21.360 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:24.900 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:31.700 I don't know why I said good afternoon. You could be listening to this at absolutely any point in the day or night, and that is fine with me.

00:00:39.520 In fact, I hope you listen to it whenever it is you want. Thank you very much, regardless of what time it is, wherever you are for tuning in.

00:00:46.560 This is Canada's most irreverent talk show, and we have a lot to get through today, so I will just get right into it here.

00:00:53.560 We're going to be talking about all sorts of freedom and all sorts of fighting on the front lines of freedom.

00:00:59.960 We're talking about press freedom. We're talking about mask freedom. We're talking about lockdown freedom, and we are talking about religious freedom. 0.56

00:01:08.200 I'm going to be speaking later on in the show with Pastor Henry Hildebrand, who's become very well-known, not just as a pastor in the last few months,

00:01:15.680 but also as a very outspoken voice on the matters of lockdown, especially in his part of the country, not far from me in Elmer, Ontario.

00:01:25.660 Also, later on, I want to speak a little bit about the Global Conference for Media Freedom, which took place earlier this week in Canada.

00:01:33.360 And as you might suspect from my coverage of last year's Global Conference for Media Freedom,

00:01:38.460 had a lot more of the window dressing than the freedom, but we'll talk about that very shortly.

00:01:43.200 I want to begin by speaking about COVID freedom and a lot of the different fights we're seeing around this,

00:01:50.400 not just in Canada, but abroad and all part of the same battle.

00:01:54.480 But I first want to point out the shifting goalposts moving yet again.

00:01:58.780 And I've talked about this phenomenon a number of times now, where at first it was two weeks to flatten the curve,

00:02:04.140 and then it was, hang on, we just got to get hospital capacity down.

00:02:07.740 And then it became where the line kept changing as to what the government would consider success.

00:02:13.800 And then it was, okay, well, we got to get a vaccine.

00:02:16.420 And that's been the main goal, the main target.

00:02:19.620 No, no, no.

00:02:19.920 We just have to hold things out until we get a vaccine, until we get a vaccine.

00:02:23.600 And then in the last couple of weeks, we've actually had some very good news on the vaccine front.

00:02:28.180 We had two major announcements in this area.

00:02:30.980 There was Pfizer, which announced it had a 95% effective COVID-19 vaccine.

00:02:37.480 And then another company, Moderna, which very similarly said it has a vaccine with a 94.5% success rate.

00:02:45.700 And the Ontario government and other areas of Canada have already talked about getting these things.

00:02:50.860 Ontario just notably said it is set to receive 2.4 million doses of the vaccine.

00:02:56.920 Now, obviously, that's not enough for the population, but this is going to be already a very aggressive process

00:03:02.940 for governments to shore up their vaccine supply.

00:03:06.360 So again, if all of this was just a matter of waiting until we had the vaccine in place,

00:03:11.220 and then we don't need to do masks or social distancing, we can go back to the old way of life.

00:03:16.280 Well, take a look at this section of an interview with the CEO of Moderna.

00:03:22.660 It's not a silver bullet.

00:03:24.600 What we need is we need surveillance to be stronger.

00:03:29.260 We need public health measures because you have no other way at the beginning.

00:03:33.920 This is your best weapon and you need to use it well.

00:03:36.960 And I think when you look around the world, you have some countries that have done an excellent job,

00:03:41.580 including, of course, China, controlling the virus.

00:03:44.340 And you have some countries where it's totally out of control.

00:03:46.800 And when you still go today, you know, in some places and you see people, you know,

00:03:51.640 going to crowded places with no mask or eating inside restaurants with no mask, I don't understand it.

00:03:59.480 It makes no sense to me.

00:04:00.880 It's like you're going to get infected.

00:04:02.220 The only question is when.

00:04:03.280 So the CEO of the company whose vaccine has been heralded as this transcendent arrival is saying that it's not a silver bullet and we're going to need more surveillance.

00:04:14.880 And he talks about even continued mask usage.

00:04:18.160 And this is something that people should be very concerned about.

00:04:21.600 There are two things happening here.

00:04:23.260 The first, I think, is lowering expectations.

00:04:25.960 So when a guy who's in charge of a company that has talked about having a 94.5% success rate is saying,

00:04:32.920 ah, you know, we got to watch it.

00:04:34.000 A vaccine's not a silver bullet.

00:04:35.540 I'm wondering, OK, well, 94.5% seems like a silver bullet to me.

00:04:41.300 And then calling for more surveillance, which seems to be resigned to basically the reality that the life we're living now

00:04:50.100 is going to continue even after we have a vaccine and even after we have, assuming it's successful, vaccine-driven herd immunity.

00:04:59.200 So the lowering of expectations, the calling for more surveillance, the continued reliance on masks,

00:05:05.380 these are not aligning with what we had been told all along the way.

00:05:09.700 And I don't want to say I'm surprised by that.

00:05:11.620 Every time I say something like that, I always get people in the comment section going,

00:05:16.180 oh, you know, you're just learning this now.

00:05:17.580 No, but I have to walk through this process because a lot of people are coming to this late.

00:05:22.740 A lot of people, and I've heard this from many people over the last several months,

00:05:28.440 that really tried to give the government and the public health advisors and the lawmakers

00:05:32.720 the benefit of the doubt for quite a while.

00:05:34.920 And they've reached a point, at varying points, but they've reached a point where they start to say,

00:05:40.120 OK, I think we've been had.

00:05:42.120 And when I say we've been had, I get battled by people in the comments on this.

00:05:46.460 I'm not one of these people that says COVID-19 does not exist.

00:05:49.720 I'm simply not.

00:05:50.880 And I'm not going to change my mind on that.

00:05:52.980 I know people that have had it.

00:05:54.440 I know people that have had very serious responses to it.

00:05:57.700 And similarly, I know a couple of people who have had no response to it,

00:06:01.540 who have had it and have absolutely been fine.

00:06:03.840 But it is a real thing.

00:06:06.340 But at the same point, I'm also very much against the draconian lockdown measures

00:06:11.280 that were presented to us as a silver bullet,

00:06:14.220 that were presented as being the thing that we could all do that was going to get us through this.

00:06:20.340 And then that changed.

00:06:21.440 And then it became when there's a vaccine.

00:06:23.280 And now even the vaccine itself is, by the CEO of the vaccine company, apparently not enough.

00:06:30.400 So I don't know where the next line is.

00:06:32.160 I don't know what the next frontier is that they move it to.

00:06:35.100 I know we've heard a number of people talk about how we should just accept that wearing masks is good policy.

00:06:40.640 We should continue to wear masks.

00:06:42.260 And that's just what we should do in perpetuity.

00:06:45.000 Now, this week, of course, there was a big Danish study that put a huge challenge on that.

00:06:50.100 The Danmask 19 travel conducted in the spring with over 3,000 participants looked at this,

00:06:56.240 and they actually had a randomized controlled trial.

00:07:00.200 And they're saying that it was very rigorous scientific evidence behind this.

00:07:05.060 And they had half of the people in the trial wear disposable surgical face masks,

00:07:10.740 which they were told to change after eight hours of use.

00:07:13.680 One month later, the trial participants were tested for the PCR antibody and lateral flow tests

00:07:20.480 and compared those with trial participants in the control group who didn't wear a mask.

00:07:25.460 And they found that there was no statistically significant difference between those who wore masks

00:07:31.920 and those who did not when it came to being infected by COVID-19.

00:07:35.960 This is from an analysis in The Spectator.

00:07:39.240 1.8% of those wearing a mask caught COVID compared to 2.1% of the control group.

00:07:45.300 As a result, it seems that any effect masks have on preventing the spread of the disease in the community is small.

00:07:51.560 Now, people would say, well, the control group was actually higher.

00:07:54.460 I don't think we can extrapolate from that that masks make things worse or better.

00:07:59.900 I think what we can basically do is say that those numbers are statistically insignificant to one another.

00:08:05.940 And this is why, as I've talked about on the show,

00:08:08.860 the government has changed its advice on masks repeatedly from don't wear them to maybe wear them

00:08:14.400 to you should wear them to you have to wear them to now you have to make sure that you wear a specific type of mask.

00:08:20.400 So clearly, they're not seeing that the masking has worked.

00:08:23.460 I mean, sure, we can go to full hazmat suits if we want.

00:08:26.520 But at a certain point, you have to wonder if the cure is worse than the disease.

00:08:31.280 And once we get to hazmat suits, I think we're at that point.

00:08:34.740 So when you have this goalpost moving that keeps continuing,

00:08:39.280 it means that you have to get governments basically pushing the same stuff they've been pushing for the last eight months in perpetuity.

00:08:48.560 And this is, I fear, what the Moderna CEO, Stefan Benzel, was talking about when he said more surveillance.

00:08:54.740 And if you want an example of surveillance, just take a look at South Australia police.

00:09:00.440 Now, this is a tweet from a woman named Andrea who tags the South Australia police Twitter account.

00:09:07.120 And she says, 0.99

00:09:08.060 Hey, SA Police News, for the sake of my stupid husband, who's doing a Karen from Brighton Moe. 1.00

00:09:13.780 And I think she's calling her husband a Karen. 0.98

00:09:15.820 Can you please broadcast very specific information about walking the dog?

00:09:21.840 Hashtag lockdown.

00:09:23.020 And of course, being the good frontline police service that the South Australia police are,

00:09:29.180 the account responds,

00:09:30.260 Hi, Andrea, you cannot leave the house to walk the dog or to exercise.

00:09:34.860 And the woman who now has been told that her husband has to be shut in with her responds,

00:09:39.900 Thanks for replying.

00:09:41.180 It's what I've been trying to tell him.

00:09:43.100 Good work.

00:09:43.920 Stay safe too.

00:09:45.060 So there is a lot to unpack here.

00:09:47.500 I don't know who I hate more in this.

00:09:49.020 There's this Twitter thread or sorry, Reddit thing. 0.97

00:09:53.020 Called Am I the Asshole? 1.00

00:09:54.700 Where people tell stories and they get the community to weigh in as to whether they are the asshole 1.00

00:09:59.440 or the other person in the story is the asshole. 1.00

00:10:02.740 And in this case, I believe both the woman and the South Australia police are, in fact, the assholes. 1.00

00:10:08.900 She's bad for snitching out her husband, not only publicly on Twitter, but to the freaking police 1.00

00:10:15.600 by saying that, oh, you know, I imagine I've had disagreements with my wife. 0.87

00:10:20.020 I've never once, you know, called in the feds to mediate such a dispute, let alone ratted 1.00

00:10:25.140 her out if I think she's wrong, which let's face it, I'm married.

00:10:28.040 I'm the man.

00:10:28.560 I'm the one that's always wrong.

00:10:30.520 I'm not saying she thinks it that way.

00:10:32.540 I'm just saying that this is something that we can just accept.

00:10:35.960 And then we have the alternative to this, which is the South Australia police, who are

00:10:41.220 openly saying very nonchalantly, no, no, no, you can't do anything.

00:10:44.700 You can't leave the house.

00:10:45.560 You can't walk the dog.

00:10:46.540 You can't exercise.

00:10:47.820 So I think both of these are terrible.

00:10:49.580 Now, South Australia police deleted its response.

00:10:53.520 So they've walked back from this.

00:10:55.820 The woman then thanking, I think that was the icing on the cake, thanking them by saying, 0.63

00:10:59.800 you know, that's what I've been trying to tell them.

00:11:01.180 So again, literally enlisting the arm of the state to win a dispute with her husband for 0.98

00:11:06.680 the purported crime of going out for a walk.

00:11:10.540 That was the issue.

00:11:11.620 That was what he wanted to do.

00:11:12.480 He wanted to walk the dog.

00:11:13.380 He wanted to exercise.

00:11:14.820 And in South Australia, they said that was not allowed.

00:11:19.420 Now, let me talk about South Australia, though, because Australia has become one of the most

00:11:24.660 Orwellian in how it's enforced its lockdown measures.

00:11:28.560 And they've actually rolled back a little bit about this even in the last day.

00:11:33.280 The reason is because the government learned that one person lied to contact tracers.

00:11:39.460 One person lied to contact tracers, and that was all it took because someone had apparently

00:11:46.140 said that they just picked it up by picking up a by picking up a shift at a pizza shop.

00:11:51.620 And then they actually learned that the person had worked multiple shifts at the pizza shop.

00:11:55.420 And apparently this was enough to trigger a complete reversal in government policy because

00:12:00.200 they based an entire lockdown off of how many shifts one guy worked at a pizza shop.

00:12:05.220 If you're wondering if I'm explaining this accurately, I am explaining it as clearly as

00:12:10.860 I understand it, which is not very because it seems so absurd.

00:12:14.640 But this is where we are.

00:12:16.120 So now the government has determined from the great pizza recantment of 2020 that, okay,

00:12:20.440 maybe it can ease some of the lockdown measures.

00:12:23.120 Maybe that was why the South Australia police deleted its tweet.

00:12:27.000 Who knows?

00:12:28.260 But this is the sort of stuff we're dealing with.

00:12:30.460 Then in Canada, we see in Manitoba, massive, massive fines, businesses that are being fined

00:12:35.580 $5,000 for not, you know, taking a meter stick to make sure that everyone is standing six

00:12:41.120 feet apart.

00:12:41.680 Even if the business is telling people to, they have to be actively enforcing it.

00:12:46.640 You have businesses that are being $5,000 fined if they don't force people to wear masks,

00:12:52.180 even though there are human rights considerations.

00:12:54.180 Even after you see people in your business that might not be wearing a mask and take a listen

00:13:00.260 to what Brian Palliser, the premier of Manitoba said about this.

00:13:04.660 And just think if you're a business owner of the implications of what the government is

00:13:09.100 telling you here.

00:13:10.080 Remember that the right to shop is not as important as the right to life.

00:13:15.400 And we're bringing these difficult measures forward today to protect people and to save

00:13:19.340 lives.

00:13:19.800 And you have that power in your hands.

00:13:22.920 So don't rush out to the stores and take advantage during the next few hours of the opportunity

00:13:29.440 to hurt yourself and others.

00:13:32.040 Please don't do that.

00:13:33.420 And don't gather and protest without a mask on and endanger yourself and others.

00:13:39.300 Do not do these things because if you do, you will be ticketed and you will be fined.

00:13:44.420 But more importantly, you will be placing yourself and others at risk.

00:13:48.380 So I implore you, do the right thing.

00:13:50.820 Get on the team.

00:13:52.640 Manitoba's counting on you.

00:13:54.180 Your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones are counting on you too.

00:13:59.460 You know, the worst thing about that is not that he's saying you don't have a right to

00:14:05.000 sell things if you're a business owner.

00:14:06.660 It's that he's speaking in nonstop platitudes.

00:14:09.720 I mean, Brian Pallister, whenever he speaks, it sounds like he's doing some half-baked,

00:14:13.640 you know, slam poetry session.

00:14:15.600 But regardless, he says you got to get on the team and then you have to, you know, just

00:14:19.600 get on and get out of the way.

00:14:21.340 And you know what?

00:14:22.020 You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take and something like that.

00:14:25.520 But the right to shop is not as important as the right to life.

00:14:29.260 Now, what Manitoba has done is they've actually shut down all non-essential items.

00:14:35.900 Not just non-essential businesses, but non-essential items.

00:14:38.920 So what some people have done is to stay in business, they say, you know, we're going

00:14:44.100 to start selling food items to justify we can be an essential business.

00:14:47.840 And I don't blame them because as I've pointed out, any business is essential if you rely

00:14:52.820 on it to live.

00:14:54.640 If you rely on it to feed your family, that business is essential.

00:14:58.720 But what Brian Pallister has done here is that you can't sell non-essential items.

00:15:02.740 So if you're a grocery store and you've got a little section of products that you sell

00:15:07.160 that aren't essential, maybe you sell, I don't know, a snowman kit or something.

00:15:10.840 Oh, no, you got to barricade off that section.

00:15:12.900 You can't do it.

00:15:13.900 If you are a sporting goods store, you can't open.

00:15:17.020 If you are a store that has some essential products and non-essential products, you can

00:15:21.740 only sell half of them.

00:15:22.780 So it's like you've got to put everything behind the walls like you're selling cigarettes

00:15:26.580 or something because every non-essential product is now a taboo.

00:15:30.260 And the problem with this is that it's government determining what essential is and what essential

00:15:36.380 isn't.

00:15:37.120 And I don't trust government to make that distinction.

00:15:39.640 And more importantly, it is completely theatrical because as we know, case transmission is not

00:15:46.040 coming from retail.

00:15:47.800 It's not coming from stores.

00:15:49.700 It's not coming from grocery or sporting goods or malls.

00:15:53.140 Case transmission is coming, the vast majority of it, from social contact or close contact among

00:16:00.120 employees of a store.

00:16:02.220 But if you're an employee of a store and you're yucking it up in the lunchroom with people

00:16:06.020 and you're in close contact, whether you're selling essential or non-essential things has

00:16:11.540 no bearing on the virus.

00:16:13.880 It's just like California putting in this 10 p.m. curfew as though the virus only comes

00:16:18.780 out at night because, you know, up until 10 p.m. you're fine.

00:16:21.340 But once 10 p.m. hits, you know the virus is just peeking around the corner.

00:16:24.880 So you have all of these policies from lawmakers that are based on the illusion of controlling

00:16:31.300 this.

00:16:32.240 But in actuality, the virus isn't what's being controlled.

00:16:35.420 The people are.

00:16:37.240 And when the people are being controlled and not in pursuit of any tangible public health

00:16:42.660 success, I can assure you, the question that anyone should be asking is why?

00:16:48.920 Is why?

00:16:49.720 And that's where we go back to, again, the shifting goalposts of this narrative.

00:16:54.640 And look at the 14-day quarantine just for a moment.

00:16:57.360 So this is when you enter Canada, 14 days that you have to go into quarantine.

00:17:01.860 And there are a couple of exceptions to it for people that are commuting.

00:17:06.040 But ultimately, most people who are coming in have to do this unless they are a part of

00:17:11.460 these exceptions that have been carved out.

00:17:13.320 And a notable example of this is truck drivers.

00:17:15.860 There was a CBC story earlier that said, you know, over 5 million people have come into

00:17:20.220 Canada and not had to quarantine.

00:17:21.800 And there was a lot of outrage to that.

00:17:23.680 But you look into it and see that basically half of them are truck drivers.

00:17:28.340 And you don't want to know what's going to happen to your grocery store shelves if you

00:17:31.920 force truck drivers to do a 14-day quarantine whenever they cross the border into Canada.

00:17:37.740 And again, the whole point is transmission is not coming from truck drivers that come across

00:17:42.980 alone, maybe stop to get some food, sleep in their car, in their trucks a lot of the time.

00:17:48.140 They are not the problem here.

00:17:49.740 But they are, in fact, necessary for our supply chains.

00:17:54.280 But the 14-day quarantine is not necessary with testing.

00:17:58.620 And there's a pilot project in Alberta going on to this effect.

00:18:02.140 And there's now a study that has come out from McMaster Health Labs and Air Canada that

00:18:07.800 has looked at this and they say that 70% of COVID-19 cases can be detected when someone

00:18:13.820 lands at the airport and gets a test.

00:18:16.020 And they say their remaining cases can be detected a week later.

00:18:19.440 So they did a massive study.

00:18:21.380 They've been running it for several months now.

00:18:23.140 And they've released the interim findings.

00:18:25.180 And they find that the 14-day quarantine, which is part of what's devastating the travel

00:18:29.840 industry right now.

00:18:30.800 No one's traveling because they can't afford to take a week off for vacation and then two

00:18:35.540 weeks off for quarantine, they're finding that they could actually catch all of these

00:18:40.180 cases that would happen, that people are picking up without someone having to go into lockdown

00:18:45.380 for two weeks.

00:18:47.140 And is the government going to respond?

00:18:48.440 We don't know.

00:18:49.300 It seemed like it was like pulling teeth to get them to do this small Calgary project.

00:18:53.960 Whether they would expand it to Toronto, I don't know.

00:18:56.920 But the results of this study show again this gap between the science and the policy.

00:19:02.340 And when the whole thing we're promised back to January is a science-based approach to

00:19:07.620 this, I don't think they've lived up to that.

00:19:10.380 We've got to take a break.

00:19:11.560 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:19:15.680 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:19:19.480 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:19:21.820 So speaking of people trying to get away from the theatrics of lockdown, I have to point

00:19:27.860 out these two gents from Australia that I feel deserve somewhat of a medal. 0.99

00:19:32.940 I mentioned in the first segment the South Australia approach to COVID-19.

00:19:37.360 One exception if you want to have a gathering is you're allowed to have people for an outdoor

00:19:42.340 wedding.

00:19:43.040 You can't have an outdoor party, but you can have an outdoor wedding.

00:19:46.360 So two young mates, both male and both straight, they weren't in love.

00:19:51.020 They aren't a couple in any way, decided they would have a wedding so that they could have

00:19:55.920 150 of their friends over to celebrate when in fact 150 friends were coming over just to

00:20:01.600 have a wee bit of a party.

00:20:03.080 And you can see the guys there with their certificate of commitment.

00:20:06.520 I'm not sure who officiated over it, but it was a silly teenage idea, according to the

00:20:11.860 father of one of the boys.

00:20:13.400 Not a legally binding wedding, but they decided they would do this.

00:20:16.980 They have now pledged their commitment to each other.

00:20:19.400 So there's no COVID.

00:20:20.260 You can have 150 people outside and it sounds like their friend had a blast until a mom

00:20:25.360 showed up and put this to bed.

00:20:29.400 But it was very beautiful.

00:20:30.480 You can see the happy couple holding hands there.

00:20:32.440 It's very good.

00:20:33.100 I give them the Andrew Lawton Show Lockdown Evasion Award, which isn't actually a real

00:20:37.020 thing, but we'll maybe make it one now because I thought this idea was pretty great.

00:20:41.840 Let me just talk very briefly about this Global Conference for Media Freedom that took place.

00:20:46.480 This is an event I covered last year in London that was brought back for a virtual conference

00:20:52.380 this year.

00:20:53.540 And if you want to get my reports from it, I filed a couple of videos earlier in the week.

00:20:57.820 I won't rehash those except to say that the Global Conference for Media Freedom was not

00:21:03.600 actually about media freedom.

00:21:05.720 For starters, the first session was closed to the media.

00:21:09.080 So it was where lawmakers were getting together to talk about all the things they're going

00:21:12.960 to do for media freedom in their countries.

00:21:15.140 And by this point, still almost a week later, I haven't been able to figure out what was

00:21:20.120 said in that meeting because it was closed off.

00:21:22.700 You also had this relentless focus on everywhere else in the world, including Justin Trudeau,

00:21:30.260 who spoke and didn't really talk about press freedom in Canada.

00:21:33.460 He talked about the need to stand up for it globally, but not the things that are happening

00:21:37.400 in his own country.

00:21:38.740 And one of the most notable examples of this is the ongoing fight between Rebel True North

00:21:44.640 and yours truly against the Leaders Debates Commission, a government agency that literally

00:21:49.680 denied us the right to cover government-sanctioned election debates.

00:21:54.720 We got our injunction in federal court, but the overall case is still ongoing.

00:21:59.660 The government is still fighting us on this.

00:22:02.160 So again, for a government that's co-hosting a media freedom conference to be actively fighting,

00:22:07.480 I was thinking, great, does this mean they're going to drop their defense?

00:22:10.000 But I checked with our lawyer and apparently, no, the case is still very much ongoing because

00:22:15.820 the government wants to decide who a journalist is and who a journalist isn't.

00:22:20.440 And that decision in and of itself is a violation of press freedom.

00:22:25.800 And it's an important point because if you are to believe truly in press freedom, you have

00:22:31.280 to understand that there are different types of press.

00:22:34.240 There are different types of media and that they can all be separate, but equal or not

00:22:39.620 even equal, but they can all be different, but all still journalists.

00:22:42.820 And this is something that the Trudeau government and the Trudeau apparatus, the liberals have

00:22:48.180 not quite accepted.

00:22:49.380 I was banned from covering the liberal campaign in the last election because they said I was

00:22:54.340 not a journalist.

00:22:55.600 And I said, well, by whose standard?

00:22:57.400 They said, well, you're, I mean, you're not accredited.

00:22:59.420 I said, well, yes, I am.

00:23:00.720 Here's my letter of accreditation from my editor.

00:23:02.760 Here are all the other events I've covered.

00:23:04.820 And the irony is it was the Canadian government that accredited me to cover the Global Conference

00:23:10.320 for Media Freedom.

00:23:12.240 Now, did they do that because they believe I'm a journalist or because it was an online

00:23:15.900 event?

00:23:16.360 So the stakes were pretty low to just say, OK, yeah, we'll we'll flip him the Zoom link

00:23:20.100 or whatever it was.

00:23:21.200 But this is important.

00:23:22.200 And I actually asked Francois-Philippe Champagne, the foreign affairs minister, about this.

00:23:26.760 I was, to his credit, to the government's credit, permitted to attend and to ask a question

00:23:32.300 at a press conference of his at the end of the Media Freedom Conference.

00:23:36.280 And I said, we have varying degrees of media.

00:23:39.000 We have traditional media, alternative media.

00:23:42.100 With all of this, who is entitled to press freedom?

00:23:45.420 Who is it that actually has these media freedom rights that you've been speaking about?

00:23:49.540 And he gave what I thought was a great answer.

00:23:52.260 Well, that's a very good question.

00:23:53.620 And thank you for it.

00:23:54.500 I don't think it is for any government to define who is a journalist, actually.

00:23:58.920 I would leave it to journalists to define that themselves.

00:24:02.200 I think our role is to make sure that, as we said today, we have seen a number.

00:24:07.300 There's a number of trend against media freedom around the world.

00:24:11.700 We heard from our colleagues in Belarus today who have been harassed, who have been facing

00:24:16.780 violence, and I've been seeing more and more restrictions on media freedom.

00:24:22.100 One other aspect, which is of concern to me, and I mentioned that before, it's the kind

00:24:26.380 of emerging technologies which are spreading misinformation and disinformation.

00:24:33.200 So I would think that we need more than ever journalists around the world to speak up,

00:24:40.360 to stand up, and to report information accurately so that citizens around the world can be properly

00:24:46.160 informed, and that's the bedrock of our democracy.

00:24:48.820 I couldn't agree more.

00:24:50.380 He says it's not for the government to decide who a journalist is.

00:24:53.480 It is the responsibility of journalists to decide for themselves.

00:24:57.080 So I say to the government officially on this day, November 20th, 2020, I, Andrew Lawton,

00:25:03.340 am a journalist, and I expect to be invited to the next Trudeau press conference whenever

00:25:08.700 it is, wherever it is.

00:25:09.960 And I will submit, when they ask for accreditation, that little clip of Minister Francois-Philippe

00:25:15.620 Champagne.

00:25:16.640 Thank you very much to the minister for that.

00:25:18.880 And again, there's also proof here that I'm not as terrifying as the Trudeau comms team

00:25:23.620 thinks I am.

00:25:24.420 Because this was one of the arguments I made last October.

00:25:27.040 What do you think is going to happen?

00:25:29.180 What do you think is going to happen if you let me in?

00:25:31.320 I'm far more of an annoyance outside when I've been banned and I'm forced to just come

00:25:35.680 up with something to say in the parking lot than if you let me cover the actual content.

00:25:39.480 You might not agree with the content, but it will always be fair.

00:25:42.580 And that's what I'm all about.

00:25:43.920 So again, I go to the Global Conference for Media Freedom, cover it for what it is, ask

00:25:48.000 a fair question, get a reasonable answer.

00:25:50.580 That's journalism.

00:25:51.500 That's the process at work.

00:25:52.720 So thanks to those of you who tuned in to my conference coverage online and in the videos

00:25:58.080 after.

00:25:58.580 And I will just say Global Conference for Media Freedom is an event that I'm going to continue

00:26:03.340 to cover because press freedom is so important.

00:26:06.300 And I know we'll put in a fundraising plug at the end, but I will say if you can support

00:26:10.220 our efforts to, as an independent media outlet, continue to stand up for free speech and cover

00:26:15.940 these stories in a way the mainstream media isn't, please do.

00:26:18.980 You can head on over to tnc.news slash donate, and it's very much appreciated.

00:26:23.720 We'll be back in a moment with Pastor Henry Hildebrandt here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:26:27.820 Stay tuned.

00:26:28.300 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.

00:26:43.680 We've talked on the show in the past about how Elmer, Ontario, the small town in southwestern

00:26:49.100 Ontario has become this hotbed in the fight for freedom where overzealous bureaucrats, public

00:26:56.340 health officials, municipal officers, are butting up against an increasingly large group

00:27:00.880 of protesters that are criticizing masks, criticizing lockdown, and the government has

00:27:07.180 had a very precarious relationship with respecting free speech in this regard.

00:27:11.560 And a lot of it has come down to one very notable example early in the lockdown, back in April,

00:27:18.440 when a drive-in church service became the target of the Elmer police, who eventually backed

00:27:24.520 off, and it actually led to the whole episode, the government specifically saying drive-in

00:27:29.080 services are fine.

00:27:30.500 But the church in question was the Church of God in Elmer, led by Pastor Henry Hildebrandt,

00:27:35.620 who's become very vocal on religious freedom and also resisting lockdown.

00:27:41.200 And most notably this past week, Pastor Hildebrandt received a letter from Southwestern Public Health,

00:27:47.740 which is the local public health unit, requesting that he shut down the church for 28 days on

00:27:53.920 a voluntary basis.

00:27:56.260 Now, as you might be able to expect, his answer has been no, but I still want to talk about

00:28:00.540 this letter.

00:28:01.100 Pastor Hildebrandt joins me on the line now.

00:28:03.640 Pastor, good to talk to you again.

00:28:04.840 Thanks for coming on today.

00:28:06.180 Andrew, good to have me again.

00:28:07.800 You've been talking for months now about these issues, and I know a lot of people are very

00:28:12.660 grateful.

00:28:13.060 I know you've had quite an international following buildup around your commentary on this.

00:28:18.500 Tell me what your feeling was when you got this letter from the Southwestern Public Health.

00:28:25.340 I was quite surprised.

00:28:27.940 It arrived in my email inbox on the 17th, and then I looked at the letter, and it said this

00:28:35.280 is effective as of the 17th, which seemed rather strange that you get the letter and it's

00:28:41.540 effective right away.

00:28:43.440 I assumed at that point, I assumed that every pastor in our area received it.

00:28:50.300 Of course, it was addressed to me, but I figured that everyone else would have gotten a similar

00:28:54.760 letter, only to find out later on to this point, all I can find out is I'm the only one

00:29:00.620 that received it.

00:29:01.780 So I was surprised.

00:29:03.680 It seemed rather strange.

00:29:05.860 I just want to read a section of this letter to those tuning in.

00:29:11.020 Southwestern Public Health is recommending that your church, along with others where we are

00:29:15.460 seeing an increased risk in exposure to COVID-19, voluntarily cease in-person church services

00:29:21.740 and all in-person gatherings for 28 days, beginning, as you note, November 17th.

00:29:27.500 It says later on, the purpose of this closure is to prevent the gathering of your church

00:29:31.960 members with people outside their own household, to protect them from being exposed to COVID-19.

00:29:37.820 This will help to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 within the broader community and

00:29:42.700 help protect those who are the most vulnerable to severe illness.

00:29:46.120 Has there ever been, to your knowledge, a case of COVID-19 within your church?

00:29:51.100 Because when they say communities where there's a high risk, they're saying that your church

00:29:55.120 is a high risk for COVID-19?

00:29:57.460 There has been none.

00:29:58.780 None at all, Andrew.

00:30:01.360 So what is the justification that you think they're using?

00:30:08.220 It's a really tough one.

00:30:09.720 I just do not know because we have, so there's been five deaths altogether in Elgin, Oxford,

00:30:17.660 all year, five deaths.

00:30:19.020 And of course, every death is tragic, but there's been five deaths.

00:30:22.360 Like we were just saying, there's no cases of an Elmer or Malahide connected to our church.

00:30:30.080 I just do not know what the justification is.

00:30:33.020 I read the letter again and again.

00:30:35.540 I do not know.

00:30:36.320 And of course, there's no facts attached to the letter.

00:30:40.120 The word pandemic is not in there in the letter.

00:30:42.680 I don't know what the, what was the urge or what was, what's behind the letter.

00:30:47.900 I reached out to the public health agency and they said that several churches, they didn't

00:30:54.640 give a list, but they said several churches received this.

00:30:57.340 And they said that attending church where there may be singing, talking, and long periods of

00:31:01.280 sitting or standing in close proximity are higher risk situations for the spread of COVID-19.

00:31:06.840 The issue that I have with this is that we have now had eight months to adapt practices

00:31:12.720 to make things a bit safer, not just in church, but in grocery stores and in all institutions.

00:31:18.560 And it seems like we've had a fair bit of success in that.

00:31:21.980 So I don't understand when the provincial government's advice is that churches can open safely, why

00:31:27.440 a local health agency is trying to get you to shut down for a month.

00:31:31.120 That's the thing, Andrew, is there's been no, no, nothing coming from the, from the premier.

00:31:36.780 There's no law in place right now to shut down churches at all.

00:31:42.200 We, as our church here, we are very, very careful when it comes to things, not just now with the COVID-19,

00:31:49.960 but whether it was whooping cough or whatever could have come up in the past,

00:31:54.660 we have always been and are now very, very careful so as not to prevent or not to, not to spread any, anything.

00:32:04.240 So I don't understand.

00:32:07.480 And like I said, I have not heard of other churches.

00:32:10.240 We did check.

00:32:11.120 We have not yet found who else got it.

00:32:13.600 And once we find them, we will know.

00:32:15.200 But at this point, all I know is that I have the latter.

00:32:19.000 When I see a request like this, I see it as a violation of religious freedom.

00:32:23.860 Telling a church, even voluntarily, to shut down is something that you would never see done,

00:32:29.320 in my view anyway, to other religious groups.

00:32:31.980 You would never see a business told, hey, I think you don't have to, but it would be nice if you closed down for a month.

00:32:38.220 I've had people that have responded to me since I first wrote about this yesterday saying, well, it's just a request.

00:32:44.100 It's just a question.

00:32:45.620 There's no obligation.

00:32:47.200 What's your response to that?

00:32:48.460 Andrew, I, the longer I think about this, this letter, this stranger, it seems to me what happened here, because the wording, the wording is, okay, so first of all, I'll say, I would say the letter was respectfully written.

00:33:04.240 Okay, but look at the, Andrew, look at the content.

00:33:08.320 It's saying disclosure is to prevent church members.

00:33:12.560 So a pastor is asked if he would voluntarily do something to prevent the church members from gathering.

00:33:20.680 It's, it's at its best, very, very strange and very wrong.

00:33:26.940 It's just, the whole approach is, is, is not appropriate.

00:33:30.960 I, I, I find it very offensive.

00:33:34.340 And, and again, I've, I've made this point to people.

00:33:36.900 If the government is telling you to do something, even if it's, quote unquote, just a request, there, there is an inherent coercive effect to that.

00:33:44.380 The state is telling you not to worship.

00:33:46.340 The state is telling you your church should close its doors.

00:33:49.500 Right, exactly.

00:33:50.740 And, which is not the case here, not the case here.

00:33:53.860 It's a local health unit saying that based on what they feel or what they think is, and they're not referring to deaths.

00:34:03.720 They're not referring to an emergency because there is none.

00:34:07.800 What, what is, I called them yesterday, left them a message.

00:34:11.300 They haven't returned my call yet.

00:34:13.200 I, my, my only question I have is what was behind this?

00:34:18.240 Just, just tell me what, what's your burden?

00:34:20.700 What, what, what are you referring to?

00:34:22.360 Yeah, and the one, and you, you pointed this out when you spoke at your church on, I believe it was Thursday evening.

00:34:28.880 They say that you can continue to have drive-in religious gatherings, and they, quote, discourage the idling of engines, unquote.

00:34:36.760 Now, when I was attending my church in drive-in form earlier this summer, it was not too, too bad.

00:34:43.540 You could roll down the windows.

00:34:45.020 You've got people that in Elmer have horse and buggy that have no heaters.

00:34:49.540 You've got people in cars in December as the weather is getting a little bit cooler.

00:34:55.100 The idea of sitting in your car in December in southern Ontario without idling an engine is not exactly a viable alternative to worshipping.

00:35:05.060 Andrew, that's why I told them straight out, as you heard me say on Wednesday night, absolutely have your engines idling,

00:35:12.000 because I didn't want no little ones to be cold in there and, and the mothers and, and everyone else.

00:35:18.760 So, um, I just find it rather humorous that in the letter, in the, at the end of the letter, they're suggesting to me that we could have, continue having drive-in services.

00:35:29.840 I have heard of drive-in services before, you know, Andrew, uh, they did come up earlier this year.

00:35:35.420 So I am familiar with drive-in services, uh, as you know.

00:35:39.140 So I thought that's rather humorous that at the end of the letter, they have to, uh, introduce me to drive-in services and tell me how to, uh, how to have them.

00:35:48.900 We are, we are quite familiar with drive-in services.

00:35:52.340 We have done them for the past eight months and I do not need a local health unit to tell me that that is allowed.

00:35:57.800 I fought for it. We won the case. Uh, the premier changed the law in Ontario in our favor.

00:36:03.760 So I am familiar with drive-in services.

00:36:06.860 I know you said you haven't actually spoken to the health unit since getting this letter, but I have to ask you, Pastor, where do you go from here?

00:36:14.220 Because I, I know that with what you're saying about not being able to identify any other churches that have received this letter and, and with in general,

00:36:21.540 I'd say how you and your church have been treated by various, you know, levels of government going back to April.

00:36:28.080 Now, where do you go when you get something like this? What's your path forward?

00:36:32.520 So first of all, I would like to know, is this intimidation? Is this an attempt to intimidate us?

00:36:38.140 Uh, if it was, it failed. Uh, it doesn't intimidate us at all. Uh, we are going forward as we have until now.

00:36:47.060 There has been no, no, uh, nothing issued for this area that churches need to close. Uh, so it not, nothing changes.

00:36:55.500 And until they returned my call and explained to me what the issue is here, uh, nothing changes. We're going on as we have.

00:37:05.700 And that was actually an interesting point that you, you just reminded me of.

00:37:09.360 The letter says that someone will follow up with you and you indicated that sure enough, you had received, I think it was a voicemail from someone from the health unit.

00:37:16.640 That's right. They had left a message at our church phone.

00:37:19.540 So then I returned that call yesterday morning from my home phone and left them my number so that they could reach me.

00:37:25.340 But I have not heard from them yet. Um, so I, until I hear from them, like I said, my main thing is I have no questions.

00:37:32.940 There's nothing that needs to be explained because there is nothing that, that is going on right now.

00:37:37.440 But what I want to know from them is please tell me what is the motive of this letter just so there is no, uh, so, so we understand what it is.

00:37:47.660 And I guess I would ask you then, what would it mean if they were to kind of provide you a list of all the other churches that received it?

00:37:54.200 If they said, well, it wasn't just you, it was all of these places. Would that change your concerns with the letter?

00:38:00.640 So if they tell me that the others got it as well, that definitely changes, then it doesn't seem like a personal attack or a personal attempt to intimidate.

00:38:11.120 That would definitely, uh, change that part of it.

00:38:13.800 Because I will say, and again, I don't have a list. The, the health agency says that several churches got it.

00:38:21.020 Now, from my perspective, that doesn't really change all that much because I feel that we have to go with the evidence on this.

00:38:28.020 And this is a point that you raised earlier. If there's a church that's causing problems, a church that's causing some sort of an outbreak, then deal with that.

00:38:35.160 But my issue here is that we already have guidelines. There are already restrictions on how churches can operate that are meant to make sure they aren't places where COVID-19 is being transmitted.

00:38:45.560 So I don't know why a shutdown is necessary.

00:38:48.800 Yes. And from that perspective, nothing would change. Even if they said other churches had gotten the letter, nothing would change that way because there is no, there's no outbreak.

00:38:58.840 There's, there's nothing happening. And I don't appreciate that, that Elmer is put into that light, uh, that it comes across as that, that what all is going on here when we're not aware of anything that's going on.

00:39:12.280 Well, that's actually very important, Pastor, because there are a lot of people across the country that had never heard of Elmer before now.

00:39:20.760 And I, I literally, I get emails from people in British Columbia and Alberta that are asking me about Elmer because they know it's not far from me in London.

00:39:27.880 And this is how they're learning about the community, going back to when police were filming your drive-in services in, I think it was April, to when we had the government going after the, the anti-lockdown protests.

00:39:38.940 And, and, and this is how your community is now being showcased to a lot of people.

00:39:43.380 And Andrew, that's the thing. If we'd go back eight months back to the spring, um, people, people accuse me and they say, well, why are you putting Elmer in the spotlight?

00:39:52.560 Let me remind everyone that it's not me doing it because we were doing our things in, in, in, in the driving service earlier this year.

00:40:01.400 And the police came by and they said, thumbs up, all looks good.

00:40:04.860 Then they rocked the boat and now we're same situation again.

00:40:09.660 So we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and I get this letter, uh, based on what, so then I have, you know, respond better and let everybody know because we have a lot, a lot of followers, not just here in Elmer.

00:40:26.580 There's thousands of people following us worldwide. So they want to know what is going on. So I have to post a letter. I don't know why the letter was written. Um, I guess they felt it was good enough just to write a letter instead of making a phone call and saying, pastor, we are singling you out or we're not just, just tell me what you're doing so that we can go on from here.

00:40:47.660 But there seems to be very, very little effort put into communicating from any level of, of people out there. Um, just taking it for granted that we will get an email and that I, as the pastor would then proceed to, uh, shut the church down and prevent the people from gathering. That's not the case.

00:41:08.220 So lest there be any doubt at all, the answer to the question of will you shut down is a resounding no.

00:41:13.040 It's a resounding, a resounding no. There's no way that a pastor would volunteer to say, I will go ahead. I was invited to do this. I will go ahead and shut the church doors so that the members cannot meet. That's, that's, that, that would be very wrong.

00:41:29.380 All right. Well, thank you very much. And God bless you, pastor Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God. Thank you.

00:41:34.420 Thank you, Andrew, for having me again.

00:41:36.480 Wow. Just insane. And he was very diplomatic, I will say, but not that I was expecting anything otherwise.

00:41:43.040 But again, when a government agency, even if it's a, you know, a local health unit does something like this, it is inherently coercive.

00:41:49.300 And I made the comparison to, in a little, uh, back and forth with a friend yesterday that it's like police carding.

00:41:55.540 My issue with police carding is that even if a police officer voluntarily asks you for information that you don't have to provide,

00:42:03.060 it is inherently coercive because of their position, because of their role.

00:42:07.040 So when in the lead up to Christmas, the government is saying, oh, we want you to shut down for 28 days.

00:42:11.520 They're following it up with a phone call.

00:42:13.400 I'm saying, okay, this is when coming from the government, something that is very heavy handed.

00:42:19.400 We will follow this.

00:42:20.560 And if you have any questions or comments on anything we covered in the show, my email address is andrew at andrewlaughton.ca.

00:42:27.160 Look forward to hearing from you.

00:42:28.440 We should do like a reader email section.

00:42:30.420 I try to respond if there's one that I feel will be too long for me to type out a response to.

00:42:35.000 I try to respond on the show, but I should do a section where I just kind of read a whole bunch of them if people are interested.

00:42:41.540 In any case, let me know what you think.

00:42:43.020 We will talk to you next week.

00:42:44.120 Thank you.

00:42:44.620 God bless.

00:42:45.260 And good day to you all.

00:42:46.660 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:48.720 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:42:53.940 www.tnc.news.com

Juno News - November 20, 2020

Controlling the People Instead of the Virus

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