Juno News - Convoy organizer reflects on two-year anniversary of Emergencies Act

00:00:00.000 I mentioned at the outset of this program it is Valentine's Day and nothing puts me in the mood

00:00:14.240 more than talking about constitutional law. This is the two-year anniversary of the invocation of

00:00:20.800 the Emergencies Act. Now normally this would be a bit more of a sour note but I should also point

00:00:26.660 out that it's only a few weeks back that this act and all of the things it was used to achieve were

00:00:31.860 found unconstitutional by federal court. To talk about this anniversary and its implications Tom

00:00:37.800 Marazzo is back. He is the author of the People's Emergency Act Freedom Convoy 2022. Tom always good

00:00:45.000 to talk to you. I don't know if happy anniversary is appropriate here but what is your sort of top

00:00:50.380 line reflection with all that's happened over the last two years?

00:00:56.660 Oh you're either feeling very quiet or there's an audio issue so we will try to get that sorted out

00:01:04.180 in a moment. That is yeah I don't think Tom Marazzo can hear me there so we'll get that sorted out but

00:01:09.680 the other thing that is related to this and I am going to get Tom to weigh in on this is that

00:01:13.700 CSIS has released a report through Access Information. Now this was a request from the Canadian

00:01:19.920 press. Now this is where when I read this and I haven't read the original briefing document I only

00:01:25.180 read the report on it the Canadian press published. It was a report on from CSIS on the freedom movement

00:01:32.020 and their perception and contextualization of it and it kind of made me wonder if the intelligence

00:01:37.780 community is really doing all that much of use because this is what our top secret spy agency has

00:01:44.060 determined. The freedom movement began to emerge as a protest against COVID restrictions

00:01:50.520 and now has generally morphed into a protest against government overreach. Wow good for you guys you

00:01:58.840 figured that one out. I don't want to you know rag on you know people that are doing a very difficult

00:02:03.480 job and doing it for not a lot of money and no prestige or glory but it was kind of a weird and like

00:02:10.100 well duh moment when they've identified what anyone who's been following the evolution of this movement

00:02:14.980 could have identified in the last two years which was that you know COVID restrictions were a symptom

00:02:20.960 and not the cause of government issues and I think that's probably the point that I would frame this

00:02:27.840 around is that COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates vaccine passports all of that were government

00:02:34.780 revealing its authoritarian impulse. The impulse was there. Government showed us the level of control

00:02:40.360 they want to wield the level of power they want to wield but they hadn't really been given a pretext

00:02:44.720 to wield it all before a pandemic came along and that was what happened there. I think we have

00:02:49.400 Tom Morazzo for real this time. Tom are we functioning? Are we good?

00:02:56.340 No we're not. I can't hear you now.

00:03:00.720 There we go. I heard that. Whatever you just did there. Let's see.

00:03:04.100 All right. The joys of live media. Well as I mentioned Tom two-year anniversary of the

00:03:09.180 emergencies act. What's your perspective on that now looking back?

00:03:13.700 Uh well let's I hope you can hear me now.

00:03:16.980 I can.

00:03:17.900 Yeah okay sorry. Um yeah it's a it's a much different atmosphere this time around because

00:03:22.900 of the decision that came out from Justice Mosley a few weeks ago which declared that the

00:03:28.220 emergency act use or invocation was illegal um and outside of the scope of the the law.

00:03:35.800 So that has a different feeling two years after the fact than it did even a year ago when we had

00:03:42.860 Justice Rouleau who basically sided reluctantly I don't I don't know how you want to phrase it but

00:03:50.660 sort of sided with Justin Trudeau but sort of didn't he gave himself a lot of wiggle room to get

00:03:55.780 out of it but yeah so I think the the the spring in everyone's step this year is because of the fact

00:04:02.600 that Mosley's decision just came out a few weeks ago.

00:04:06.900 Yeah and it does change the discussion a little bit.

00:04:10.040 Sorry Andrew I just keep losing audio okay.

00:04:12.160 Okay yeah well I just wasn't talking that might have been it I hadn't started yet but

00:04:15.160 I'm good I'm good.

00:04:16.240 I think it raises the an important point here because you know there was a lot of skepticism

00:04:21.380 I think from from legal scholars even people that weren't fans of the convoy when the emergencies

00:04:26.240 act came out that okay I don't like these guys with the trucks but I really don't like this

00:04:29.980 and now that the government has doubled down in the wake of that ruling I think it's reinvigorated

00:04:36.600 that has it not in the sense that the government even with this judicial ruling is still saying

00:04:40.740 no absolutely this was the right call we should have done this so there's been no contrition

00:04:44.980 from anyone in those ranks.

00:04:46.940 No and I've said this before too they're they're going into an election cycle so what choice do

00:04:52.860 they have other than they have to fight this in in this isn't really for them about the law or

00:04:59.860 abiding by the law or accepting the decision this is a political decision on the part of the liberals

00:05:04.400 to launch the appeal.

00:05:07.760 In actuality the proper moral ethical thing to do would be to say yes we we violated the law and

00:05:15.240 we're going to accept the court's decision but they can't do that going into an election

00:05:19.000 because they know that everybody's going to make them wear this around their neck like

00:05:23.620 a thousand pound yoke so they don't really have a choice they have to fight this from

00:05:29.100 a political perspective only.

00:05:31.440 I wanted to get your sense on this I don't know if you've read I haven't read the actual

00:05:37.080 document as I mentioned but this report I saw from the Canadian press on the evolution

00:05:41.720 of the freedom movement I mean this was kind of plain as day apparent to anyone who had been

00:05:45.600 watching even I mean the summer of 2022 I remember you had all of these like little mini convoys

00:05:51.080 popping up that were not even protests they were just summer festivals of people that had

00:05:55.360 found camaraderie in folks they met during the freedom convoy online in Ottawa elsewhere in the

00:06:01.740 country and I do think there was something you know accurate about that that it has created

00:06:06.260 a movement that really didn't exist in Canada before January February of 2022 do you think that's

00:06:12.600 a fair characterization of what's happened I think to go back the best way to answer that

00:06:20.260 question is to go back to the briefing note that CSIS wrote to the the cabinet in the IRG

00:06:27.260 prior to invoking the emergencies act CSIS disagreed with the idea of invoking the emergencies act

00:06:35.660 for the simple reason is that they believed that it would set the conditions for an IMVE like atmosphere

00:06:46.120 within you know the hearts and minds of Canadians and so the spy agency themselves that are cited in

00:06:53.120 this article and I find it hysterical and typical of the mainstream media that they would cite Barbara

00:06:59.540 Perry of all people as a source or an expert in this subject Barbara Perry of course is you know

00:07:06.440 connected to the anti-hate network she makes a ridiculous amount of money teaching her theories 1.00

00:07:13.140 that can't be backed up by evidence and she's nothing more than a hate baiter and if you want to know 1.00

00:07:17.620 more talk to Cosman one of your own excellent writers yeah and just if I can give the context on

00:07:24.380 there Tom so so Barbara Perry had said in a report however many years ago that there are 300 I forget

00:07:30.160 if it was hate groups or far-right groups or far-right hate groups with some variation of that

00:07:33.920 and and I was like oh wow that's terrible but she will not provide the list so for all I know

00:07:38.300 uh you know the Andrew Lawton show is listed as you know one of the 300 because she won't give it and

00:07:42.440 Cosman has been in a fight with the uh freedom of information commissioner in Ontario for however long

00:07:49.260 now trying to get access to that list which she won't provide so I I had to provide that little

00:07:54.040 uh footnote there I apologize for cutting you off no that's fine that's fine because it's good

00:07:58.160 background good context and I think people should know um you know that the type of stuff that's

00:08:03.400 happening in a Canadian university right now Barbara Perry is on the sunshine list she makes over 200

00:08:08.140 000 a year uh for peddling in hate baiting uh she can't back up any of her claims with any evidence but

00:08:16.000 yet this sort of group within the Canadian anti-hate network they go in constant circles and they just

00:08:22.360 you know it's a self-licking ice cream cone with that particular group of people but yet the legacy

00:08:27.380 media likes to reference them as somehow being a bunch of experts and they're not um so to go you

00:08:34.620 know back to your original question you know ceases ceases said if you invoke the emergencies act

00:08:41.360 given the the state of Canada right now the level of anxiety you are going to not provoke I don't want to

00:08:50.820 use the the word provoke but you're going to disenfranchise Canadians even further I mean 0.93

00:08:57.080 remember millions of Canadians supported the Freedom Convoy going to Ottawa and they donated millions and

00:09:03.380 millions of dollars and so when you've got that many Canadians supporting a movement which by the way

00:09:10.800 is a manifestation of the tyrannical behavior that every level of government provoked in the Canadian

00:09:19.700 population so as a reaction the convoy came into existence to go back to or to go to Ottawa to

00:09:27.300 fight for their own freedoms now when you invoke the emergencies act they doubled down on the the very

00:09:33.860 tyrannical behavior that the convoy went to Ottawa to fight against so of course ceases was correct in their

00:09:41.620 assumption that it was going to disenfranchise more Canadians but to say that it's producing an imve I think is 1.00

00:09:48.980 fundamentally flawed and a little bit ridiculous and it feeds into the the liberal media's narratives

00:09:56.020 of course the media as you know better than I do supports the liberal government you got the anti-hate 0.99

00:10:02.260 network that is again a self-licking ice cream cone that just perpetuates the same garbage in a giant

00:10:08.340 circle and ceases who works for the federal government they're just sort of contributing in a

00:10:16.980 let's say an overt manner to this this narrative so yeah it's it's really frustrating to watch this uh

00:10:24.900 read articles like that to be perfectly honest because what I haven't seen in an article yet

00:10:30.500 to this day on two years of the anniversary of this invocation I haven't seen one article from mainstream media

00:10:37.300 come out and say why did Canadians go to Ottawa in the first place let's get to the root of that question

00:10:45.300 before everything else because I think what happened after was secondary to the reasons that the convoy even

00:10:50.740 went there was there imve no it was Canadians who had a protected charter right to do what they did in

00:10:57.700 Ottawa and that's why they use the mechanism with our own constitution to go and fight for their rights it

00:11:04.100 wasn't imve it was abiding by the principles of this country in our our most fundamental document

00:11:11.380 in terms of outlining our rights to push back against the government and that's what they did

00:11:15.940 it's not yeah and just for people not familiar with that term that stands for ideologically motivated

00:11:20.820 violent extremism and I reject that characterization but the part that I found interesting was just

00:11:26.740 ceases stating the obvious that you know this wasn't this was not just about vaccine mandates and this

00:11:32.020 was not just about covid restrictions and and the fact that it took them you know so long to to seemingly come up with

00:11:37.700 that uh position I I found quite odd and and you know to to put this in the bigger and broader context here over the

00:11:45.460 course of the last two years uh government has dug its heels in on the very things that it started doing

00:11:51.940 throughout the covid era and really did during the the convoys time in Ottawa and I think there's been a lot more I mean the reason you see more

00:11:59.620 resistance is because there's been a lot more stuff that needs to be resisted yes absolutely and you

00:12:06.580 know I read that article and I looked at the little laundry list of of things that they were really

00:12:11.460 referring to as conspiracy theories I'm sorry but they're not conspiracies I mean you've got presidential

00:12:18.980 campaigns in the United States right now talking about a lot of these issues okay they're real things

00:12:25.860 Canadians now more than ever probably in our nation's history are more politically aware and more um aware

00:12:34.500 of the actions of NGOs like the WEF the World Health Organization even the UN uh to some extent you

00:12:42.260 know the actions of the the um uh I think it's the United Nations assembly like they are deliberately doing 0.61

00:12:50.900 things and Canadians are just paying attention so how is that some sort of ridiculous right-wing

00:12:56.820 extremism that's what you call an engaged citizenship or citizenry that's what that's about and it's not

00:13:04.100 IMVE or any other thing Canadians one of them on that list by the way actions of the government

00:13:10.580 opposition to communism they list as being a problem like that I found this hilarious the line is well this

00:13:17.140 perceived tyranny is widespread across the movement other narratives are becoming increasingly common

00:13:22.020 among adherents uh the brief says citing opposition to uh drag queen story times perceived

00:13:27.940 increase in control by institutions like the UN and the World Economic Forum and communism so if you

00:13:34.260 believe that communism is a bad thing you may be an ideologically motivated violent extremist

00:13:39.540 it is absolutely bizarre to see them actually put this into print isn't it like we we brag about being

00:13:45.620 this socialist country and I think for a lot of Canadians that that had always a different

00:13:50.180 meaning it it's it's sort of a hidden meaning but the very you know essence of socialism is is really

00:13:57.300 the first step before communism and so Canadians are waking up to a very different definition of socialism

00:14:04.820 that they thought they lived under and realizing no you know we are sliding more and more into an

00:14:11.620 authoritarian type of state and again to to use you as a reference personally look at what they're doing

00:14:17.860 with the CRTC look at the steps that they're saying for our own good is to fight misinformation and

00:14:24.420 disinformation therefore we're going to regulate the internet the news that you can see independent

00:14:30.340 journalists like yourself okay that is you know that's more tyrannical that's communism that is the

00:14:37.860 control of information to your citizens under the guise of doing it for our own safety as if though

00:14:44.180 we're not smart enough or educated enough or even sophisticated enough to determine or make decisions

00:14:50.340 for ourselves based on the news or the information that we receive we can't make our own decision

00:14:56.260 apparently without the help of the communist liberal government of Canada very well said tom marazo author

00:15:03.060 of the people's emergency act always a pleasure sir thanks for coming on thanks andrew thanks for

00:15:08.100 listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - February 19, 2024

Convoy organizer reflects on two-year anniversary of Emergencies Act

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