Juno News - March 01, 2022


Covid restrictions are lifting, but a lot still remain


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Length

44 minutes

Words per minute

180.81691

Word count

8,017

Sentence count

382

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of The Andrew Lawton Show, we talk about the end of the mask mandate in Ontario and how that will impact the rest of the country. We also hear from Dan Kelly of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business about the transition to the post-cocidididiot era.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you
00:00:20.800 by True North.
00:00:26.380 Hello and welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:31.060 You're tuned into Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North on, what is it,
00:00:36.100 Tuesday, March 1st, 2022.
00:00:39.060 Now, if you were tuning in from the very get-go, if you were quick on the uptake, if you were
00:00:43.720 quick on the play button, you'll have noticed we finally fixed that awful loop that was
00:00:48.920 like a second long that just by the end of it it's a wonder anyone lasted through to the show
00:00:53.700 we got a new song a new uh waiting music our own version of elevator music so uh thanks very much
00:00:59.040 i trust me i was with you because i have to listen to it on my end as well when i'm like trying to
00:01:02.820 get into the zone to go on air if you can't tell right now we are live across the country across
00:01:08.820 the planet here on true north we're going to be taking a couple of your questions and comments
00:01:13.880 later on in the show so if you want to share them along you can do so in the facebook comments
00:01:18.900 section in the YouTube comment section. If you leave a super chat on YouTube, we'll certainly
00:01:23.880 make sure we see it as it goes right to the top of the pile. So do share your thoughts as the show
00:01:28.700 progresses. I'm going to be speaking in a couple of moments time with Dan Kelly of the Canadian
00:01:34.580 Federation of Independent Business, because I want to talk about the transition to the post
00:01:39.880 COVID era, if such a thing is even possible for businesses. And this actually follows along quite
00:01:45.520 nicely with a discussion we had last week with Urban's student of the, I always get the name
00:01:51.320 wrong, I think it's the Institute for 21st Century Questions. He was talking about the work that he
00:01:56.160 and his team of scientists and policy experts have done to give the government a roadmap, just in a
00:02:01.860 box tied up with a neat little bow, to exit the pandemic. And as we're seeing, a lot of governments
00:02:06.540 don't want to do this quickly. They don't want to do it at the speed at which it should be happening
00:02:12.220 and at the speed at which most Canadians want it.
00:02:15.820 And this is exactly what we're seeing right now across the country.
00:02:19.760 We've got lots of places like Alberta and Saskatchewan,
00:02:22.820 which are effectively today restriction-free on the most intrusive restrictions.
00:02:28.600 Like the vaccine mandates, they were gone a couple of weeks ago.
00:02:32.020 Today, the mask mandates are gone.
00:02:34.180 In Ontario, as of today, this is where I live,
00:02:36.620 you have the vaccine passport for restaurants and gyms gone. 0.55
00:02:40.500 And it's easy for a lot of people to look at this and say, great, the grand reopening is upon us.
00:02:45.500 We are able to go out.
00:02:46.740 We don't have to fiddle around on our phones for the QR code or dig through our bags for the piece of paper that proves we're vaccinated that has its own QR code.
00:02:55.600 You could just go into a restaurant and sit down.
00:02:58.460 But it's not all that easy.
00:03:01.600 It's not over.
00:03:02.700 The restrictions have not ended.
00:03:04.220 Just to look at Ontario for just a moment, we still do not have an end date for the mask mandate.
00:03:11.380 Take a look at Ontario Premier Doug Ford still not giving an answer to this.
00:03:18.580 I'm still confident with the numbers that you're seeing, the decline in the case counts, the rise in vaccination rates. 0.83
00:03:25.280 Tomorrow's the end of the vax passport.
00:03:27.020 are you hopeful that by the end of this month we'll be away from mandatory
00:03:31.340 gymnastics in Ontario as we've seen in your California and other jurisdictions?
00:03:35.180 First of all, I love your tan so I wish I could get one off the weight.
00:03:38.780 From California.
00:03:39.660 No, no, it's all good.
00:03:42.300 Anyways, no, right from the get-go I'm listening to the Chief Medical Officer,
00:03:47.420 it's his advice when they're going to come off and we'll wait for his advice
00:03:52.220 and recommendations and once he gives the recommendations
00:03:56.380 We'll be able to move forward.
00:03:58.200 What I'm hearing over the next few weeks, maybe after March break,
00:04:02.420 when the kids get back, we'll see.
00:04:04.400 I don't want to set a date.
00:04:07.760 There's no secret.
00:04:08.720 There's a person I talk to who likes these masks.
00:04:11.520 No one likes them.
00:04:12.100 But I'm going to follow the advice, and they're not far away.
00:04:16.340 So let's all continue working together.
00:04:20.800 You know what?
00:04:22.180 I just want to unite this province.
00:04:24.120 It's the divide that's created is terrible.
00:04:27.240 And we just need to move forward, put this behind us, and everyone work together.
00:04:32.420 Just, you know, with the global economy and how competitive we are, we need all hands on deck.
00:04:37.880 We need everyone working jointly together.
00:04:41.820 We're going to do fairly well and confident on the economy.
00:04:47.000 So, again, not giving an answer.
00:04:49.220 he's being folksy and then has the goal to say his goal is to unite people not divide people well
00:04:56.020 sure you've united everyone now in frustration with the never-ending mandates the never-ending
00:05:01.020 restrictions and this is what's happening so Ontario right now you can go to a restaurant
00:05:05.400 you can go to a gym you don't need your vaccine passport but there are two things that are still
00:05:10.880 at work that I want to talk about on this show number one is the voluntary dimension of this
00:05:15.900 businesses can still choose to ask for your vaccine paperwork. They can choose to make
00:05:21.300 vaccination status a requirement of you being a customer. And we're already seeing some businesses
00:05:27.280 are doing this. And then there is also another layer of restriction that exists, irrespective
00:05:33.040 of mask mandates and vaccine passports. And this level of restriction, this layer of restriction,
00:05:38.100 I think is an important one. And just Ontario is a great example of this. The Toronto Zoo,
00:05:43.840 which is a fantastic zoo I've been there they've got all sorts of great animals it's mostly like a
00:05:49.680 zoo outdoors so I was actually there at one particular lockdown just walking around and
00:05:56.520 you didn't even need to wear a mask at the time unless you were in an indoor area there wasn't a
00:06:00.240 vaccine passport you could just go around and see the animal you could see the cheetahs and the
00:06:05.200 lions and the penguins and all of that and I was looking at their Facebook page earlier because
00:06:11.160 someone send this to me and I want to read what the Toronto Zoo has said. Your Toronto Zoo will
00:06:17.460 continue with all of our current health and safety protocols, including proof of vaccination and
00:06:23.040 masking. We understand that high community vaccination rates continue to reduce the risk
00:06:28.440 of serious illness in humans. Over the course of the pandemic, we have implemented a variety of
00:06:32.960 health and safety measures, yada, yada, yada. Your Toronto Zoo's animals remain vulnerable to the
00:06:38.020 risks of COVID-19 infection. And as such, we will continue to employ all measures that ensure their
00:06:43.840 continued protection and well-being. Your zoo is working towards vaccinating our COVID-19 0.92
00:06:49.620 susceptible species because they believe that vaccination will provide a greater degree of
00:06:55.380 protection and or reduce risks of serious illness. So we went from two weeks to flatten the curve
00:07:01.860 to just a couple of weeks longer, to when there's a vaccine, to when 70% of the population is
00:07:08.280 vaccinated, to when 100% of the population is vaccinated, to now when these zoo animals are
00:07:14.400 vaccinated. That's when you get to go back to normal now, when the zoo animals are vaccinated.
00:07:19.960 So the cheetah has to be triple vaxxed. The penguin has to have their vaccine passport.
00:07:25.200 They've got to put like a QR code under the penguin's wings now if the penguin wants to go
00:07:29.600 to the indoor enclosure. I can only imagine, because when I was at the zoo last, I had just
00:07:34.480 arrived. This was not Toronto. This was the Chicago zoo. As I walked in, they had some trainers that
00:07:41.400 were feeding seals and they were reaching into a bucket and they were throwing whatever it is
00:07:45.180 the seals eat. I don't know the name of it. I'm assuming some kind of fish. And I'm only
00:07:49.200 imagining now the seal, if they want to go to eat at the zoo takeout counter, the seal has to have
00:07:55.840 the vaccine passport. So, so this is what the Toronto zoo has done that all of the animals
00:08:00.200 have to be vaccinated before humans can go to the zoo without being vaccinated. And I've read
00:08:05.840 stories of animals contracting COVID-19. So I know it is a real thing, but there's an absurdity to
00:08:12.800 this that the goalposts have moved yet again, Ontario removes the vaccine passport, but the
00:08:18.160 zoo says, nope, not until all our animals are vaccinated. So the zoo animals now are going to
00:08:23.780 be doing the double dose, triple dose, getting the boosters. You're going to have the lions
00:08:28.620 looking down on the cheetahs because the cheetahs got AstraZeneca. And then you're going to get,
00:08:33.140 you know, some of the animals in the Africa exhibit that are still waiting to get their
00:08:36.440 first doses. Well, all the animals in the North American exhibit have already gotten their triple
00:08:41.100 and quadruple doses. So it's a great parallel for the world we're seeing now where the Western
00:08:46.260 world is getting booster after booster after booster, where some people are struggling to
00:08:50.660 even get their main doses. Now, again, I'm mocking this, but I also think the Toronto Zoo should have
00:08:55.800 the right to do this. The Toronto Zoo, if they believe this is what they want to do for whatever
00:09:00.660 reason, for animal welfare or just because they don't want the unvaccinated mingling in the outdoor 0.95
00:09:06.780 space where already you can't get particularly close to the zoo animals, that's the whole point
00:09:12.260 of it. If they want to do it, have at it. And I do want to talk about this voluntary component here.
00:09:18.140 I do want to talk about this voluntary aspect, because I think this is quite a significant
00:09:22.720 development in the course of, I think, a lot of the political discourse here.
00:09:27.320 Should businesses have the right to decide for themselves to keep vaccine passports in
00:09:32.560 place?
00:09:32.940 Because there are a lot of people right now across the country who are uncomfortable with
00:09:37.600 a world of no restrictions, people that have derived great meaning and great purpose from
00:09:42.600 there being COVID restrictions, people that, I mean, I just know from looking at my Twitter
00:09:46.580 earlier. People that are quite annoyed, quite annoyed by the fact that these vaccine passports 1.00
00:09:52.700 are lifted because they like feeling special. They like being in the in crowd. They like
00:09:56.460 having access to the space that all these people they don't like don't have access to.
00:10:01.700 And again, when I've talked about this issue, I'm always very transparent. I am vaccinated,
00:10:06.840 but I am vehemently opposed to the vaccine passports. I believe this is something that 1.00
00:10:11.200 needs to be for everyone a personal choice, not something that is coerced by state mandate.
00:10:16.580 which is exactly what the vaccine passport system does.
00:10:20.340 And it was originally presented as being about exposure.
00:10:24.300 Remember, that was the goal.
00:10:25.500 It's, oh, well, restaurants are high-risk environments.
00:10:27.760 Gyms are high-risk environments. 0.97
00:10:29.200 You have to make sure that only the vaccinated are allowed in these spaces
00:10:32.260 because of transmission.
00:10:34.400 And then once that changed, and especially in the Omicron wave,
00:10:38.280 that was when there was a big transition there.
00:10:40.320 And we started to see that, well, for the most part,
00:10:42.460 anyone could transmit the virus.
00:10:44.200 then all of a sudden it became, well, the vaccine passport was used to incentivize
00:10:48.960 getting vaccinated. So there was a goalpost move, one of many that took place there.
00:10:54.420 And now governments have basically put this right back in the hands of business to make the decisions
00:11:00.280 for themselves. They haven't prohibited or outlawed vaccine passports. They've just said
00:11:04.620 they're no longer required. And this is true in Alberta. This is true in Ontario. And I think
00:11:09.860 it's pretty much true in any province that has lifted these. I want to bring into the discussion
00:11:14.480 now, Dan Kelly, who is the president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business,
00:11:20.240 because ultimately businesses have been through a huge ordeal in the last couple of years and are
00:11:25.680 continuing to. So Dan, tell me here, generally speaking, how are businesses reacting in Ontario
00:11:31.740 and elsewhere where the passports have lifted to this development?
00:11:36.520 There's strong majority support for getting rid of the vast majority of COVID rules, including
00:11:42.280 vaccine passports. Businesses, though at earlier stages, had mixed views on them. Some saw this as
00:11:47.800 a way of ensuring that their customers felt confident to return to businesses because,
00:11:52.200 of course, we were told for two years that even looking in the direction of an unvaccinated
00:11:56.040 person would kill you. So you could understand why business owners wanted to make sure
00:12:02.440 that their customers were made as comfortable as possible. Now that public health officials
00:12:07.000 are saying that the system has no or limited value, there are still some business owners
00:12:13.080 that are worried that their customers are going to stay home because of what they've been told
00:12:17.240 for two years. But I think those are very, very few in number. My estimate is that in Ontario,
00:12:24.280 at least, as of this week, 99% of businesses will ditch the vaccine passport system altogether,
00:12:31.560 maybe 1% of those that were required to use it will hang on to it. Those are probably
00:12:36.840 institutions that have some close government connection for the most part.
00:12:41.580 Yeah. And I think there's a lot of this going on now where, I mean, I just mentioned before you
00:12:46.340 came on, the Toronto Zoo has decided for reasons of animal welfare, that it's going to keep the
00:12:51.120 vaccine requirement in place in the short term, not necessarily indefinitely. I've heard of a
00:12:55.920 couple of anecdotally private gyms that have decided they want to keep it in place. But for
00:13:00.080 the most part, everyone wants to get rid of this. I remember I went to a restaurant to pick up
00:13:05.080 takeout. This is a few months back. And I was asked for my vaccine passport to go in and get
00:13:11.060 takeout because the hostess just didn't understand the rules properly. And the manager ended up
00:13:16.440 intervening. And I mean, for me, I just I had just popped out from home and I am vaccinated,
00:13:20.580 but I just was kind of confused at why takeout was this thing. So businesses have been forced
00:13:25.780 into this situation of being enforcers, not just of masks, but of this thing. And I imagine it's
00:13:30.820 not for many of them a fight they really wanted. The ones that I did see that welcomed it, they
00:13:36.060 just only really liked it because they saw it as the only way out of lockdowns. You're absolutely
00:13:42.440 right. Look, at the beginning of this, remember when we were in lockdown, a vaccine passport 1.00
00:13:48.120 system was seen by many businesses as a better alternative than to serve zero customers. Being
00:13:53.240 able to serve at the time 50% of your customers, then later 80, then perhaps up to 90% of your
00:14:00.840 customers rather than zero is an easy choice for a business. But now that we're at these high rates,
00:14:09.800 now that we've gone through the Omicron wave, even public health officials are saying that the
00:14:13.960 systems have limited value. The main purpose, of course, as we all knew, was to try to push more
00:14:19.080 people to become vaccinated more than it was separating the vaccinated from the unvaccinated
00:14:24.360 that unfortunately i think became a bit confused in the in the in the promotion of this that that
00:14:30.360 but and and of course because we were told that for so long some people have begun to believe that
00:14:36.840 that that it is just super dangerous and that they're dramatically more likely to catch covid
00:14:41.640 in the room with an unvaccinated person. Look, as we know, Omicron, with estimates being that
00:14:49.440 perhaps a quarter of the country has had Omicron in the last number of months,
00:14:54.280 the vast majority of those people caught it from a fully vaccinated person, caught it from another
00:14:58.220 fully vaccinated person. So it didn't seem to make sense any longer. I'm pleased that public
00:15:03.740 health officials are moving in that direction. The challenge, though, for those businesses that
00:15:08.920 do wish to maintain it because their customers may be demanding it or they personally feel in that
00:15:13.580 in that direction is that now they are on the hook themselves to put this in without the legal
00:15:19.900 authority to say that I'm just doing this because government forced me to. Those businesses now are
00:15:25.080 making the choice to do this and if they promote that they run the risk of having you know a whole
00:15:29.740 bunch of people at their door protesting the fact that they are choosing to keep the system in place
00:15:34.000 And at this point, I think, look, businesses have been through so much.
00:15:38.260 I think we should respect their rights to choose whatever wish that whatever direction they want on this.
00:15:43.300 And I do believe that the vast majority of them will will ditch it.
00:15:46.320 And as a result, unvaccinated Canadians will have loads and loads of choices of where to spend their dollars. 0.92
00:15:52.400 Yeah, I mean, I take the libertarian position on this entirely, that if a business wants to, for whatever reason,
00:15:58.080 whether it's a philosophical reason or maybe it's just a personal comfort level,
00:16:01.400 because again, business owners are people that have their own health challenges as well. If they
00:16:05.660 feel more comfortable, I don't think any business should be forced to open its doors for a population
00:16:10.620 that is not comfortable serving in the sense of vaccination. So I guess the point that I would
00:16:16.320 bring up here for a lot of people is that businesses in many cases did not survive the
00:16:21.620 first lockdown. Maybe they made it through the first and not the second and so on. And we heard
00:16:26.420 some incredibly, incredibly stark predictions from the CFIB, I recall, early on in the pandemic
00:16:32.960 about the businesses that couldn't survive this. Where are we now on this? Do we have any accurate
00:16:38.960 numbers of how many businesses just have not been able to get to this point? There were numbers for
00:16:44.060 2020 that about 60,000 businesses shut their doors as a result of damage that they took on during
00:16:49.760 covid the numbers are not final for 2021 our estimate at cfib is that the pandemic itself
00:16:56.320 the impact of the restrictions that came along with it will have taken out 180 000 small and
00:17:02.880 medium-sized companies that's one in six small businesses gone forever as a result of the damage
00:17:08.640 that they've taken on over the two years of of covid uh much of that has not yet happened though
00:17:14.160 that the challenge is that as we move into this recovery phase even if these restrictions are
00:17:19.200 permanently behind us, and I hope that they are, many businesses are going to at this stage say,
00:17:25.520 you know, I've kept my business together with tape and glue or it's been frozen in time and
00:17:29.360 now it's thawing out, but I don't see a pathway back to profitability now. Customers are not
00:17:34.000 flooding back. They're trickling back. I can't outrun my debt any longer. And as a result,
00:17:38.880 I got to pack it in. That's I think what we're going to be seeing big time in the months ahead.
00:17:44.240 i'm hoping it doesn't happen i'm hoping our prediction is is is wrong and that there's more
00:17:49.040 that it's a more modest effect but our worry is that it could be really really significant
00:17:54.880 yeah and certainly in some context i i know in europe i i heard of travel just absolutely booming
00:18:01.600 just hotels filling up and airlines filling up and all of that i i don't know if we are seeing that
00:18:06.960 this week with restaurant reopening you're shaking your head so not not something you're seeing
00:18:11.280 immediately? No, not at all. Look, there have been many periods during COVID that we've had
00:18:14.940 lighter level of restrictions, right? I mean, in 2020, in the summer of 2020, and then the fall
00:18:19.580 of 2021, there were, you know, most of the restrictions weren't there. Passports weren't
00:18:24.120 put in place at that stage either. And even then, for the last two years, at no point have more than
00:18:31.560 40% of small firms been back to normal levels of sales, even when restrictions were at their
00:18:36.540 lightest uh so you know when we've told consumers to stay home or you're going to die for two years
00:18:43.820 it's understandable that many of these consumers are not going to be climbing out of their basements
00:18:48.060 on day one look i'm what i'm one of the groups that the the minute something opened up i'm there
00:18:52.860 i went to the gym day one i went to the i went back to to mass on day one when that was allowed
00:18:58.380 but but many many people understandably after listening to the messages of public health
00:19:03.180 officials for two years are nervous about doing that and and as a result we're not seeing signs
00:19:08.380 of a flood of customers so i guess just looking forward here i mean obviously the thing that
00:19:14.460 people can do is go out and support their local businesses support the restaurants but at the
00:19:19.340 same time if you are someone who's also been out of work or your own business has been shut down
00:19:23.180 you might not have the disposable income here are we at a point where the business community is
00:19:27.900 looking for more support from the government or is it really just let's just get all the
00:19:32.380 restrictions out of the way and see how this shakes out in the next few weeks for a period of
00:19:37.100 time i think we need to do both look my organization for 50 years has railed against business subsidy
00:19:42.860 programs we find them ridiculous that we bribe canadian businesses back with the old their own
00:19:47.820 tax dollars uh business support programs make no sense whatsoever but but during the pandemic we
00:19:54.540 supported in fact urged governments to put in place subsidy programs for businesses because these
00:19:59.180 we're not subsidizing businesses because they were bad businesses we were subsidizing them
00:20:02.780 because governments took the view that we had to shut them down in order to protect society so it
00:20:07.660 was deeply unfair to impose that cost on the poor business that was just trying to make a living
00:20:13.580 as we come out of this though i think the time when we should end these programs all together
00:20:18.940 is when public health officials can look canadians in the eye and say it's time to go back to work
00:20:23.980 you can go back please return to your offices please return to theater start to travel go to
00:20:30.540 go go to wherever you would like to go when we can talk about not just ending the restrictions
00:20:35.820 but actually pivoting to encouraging people to get back to life that's when these programs i
00:20:41.180 believe should end as it is stands right now though the most of the provincial programs are already
00:20:45.820 done those programs have have expired long ago ontario included the federal programs are based
00:20:51.340 on business losses they're only expected to be in place until may and you only get a subsidy by
00:20:57.500 as a percentage of the loss that you have incurred in real time so those subsidy programs will phase
00:21:03.500 themselves out uh in the months ahead dan kelly president and ceo of the canadian federation of
00:21:09.660 independent business dan thanks very much anytime so like you heard from dan there most businesses
00:21:16.460 he says 99%, I mean, there's probably a margin of error that works either way there, but 99%,
00:21:21.380 the vast majority of businesses have no interest in imposing vaccine passports without a legal
00:21:27.740 requirement to do so. And that's important. And I believe that's going to happen. I also agree
00:21:32.560 with Dan that businesses that want to should have the right to. And I posted on Twitter earlier,
00:21:39.120 right? I don't have the tweet handy, but I basically said that the vaccine passport is
00:21:44.160 dead in Ontario. If you're a business that wants to require vaccination, have at it, but don't
00:21:49.320 expect a dime from me. I am fundamentally opposed to vaccine passports. They should never have
00:21:55.160 existed at all. I'm not going to thank the government for getting rid of something that
00:21:59.280 it never should have put in place. I'm just going to say, okay, moving on next. But for a business,
00:22:04.040 if you choose that, I'm not talking about if government was forcing it. If you've chosen that
00:22:08.780 now. I'm just not going to give you my business. It's that simple. Not because I'm not allowed to,
00:22:16.040 but because I don't want to. I don't want to support that approach to business. And I had a
00:22:20.460 lot of pushback from people. And when this has come up in the past, I've had it as well. People
00:22:24.140 that don't like the libertarian position on that because they don't think that any vaccine
00:22:29.320 segregation is at all anything that should be allowable or legal. And again, I want to make a
00:22:35.700 point here. I do not look to government to be the moral arbiter. I don't look to government to solve
00:22:41.520 my problems. If I think something is wrong, if I think something is immoral, if I think something
00:22:46.320 is unethical, I condemn that without wanting government to be the solution. So if I think
00:22:51.860 it's wrong to segregate society based on the terms of vaccination, I'm not going to look to
00:22:56.300 the government to prohibit that. I'm going to just say it's wrong myself and I'm not going to
00:23:00.920 give my money to places or my business to places that go along with that.
00:23:05.700 And I actually think it's quite shameful that a lot of people who would not have hesitated
00:23:10.420 to stand up for the right of, let's say, a Christian baker to not bake a gay wedding cake
00:23:15.300 or a, oh, I don't know, a Muslim baker to not bake an Israel cake or something like 0.55
00:23:20.380 that, people that would not have hesitated to stand up for those rights, that when it 0.97
00:23:25.340 comes to businesses that want to impose a vaccine passport are saying, no, they shouldn't
00:23:28.900 have the right.
00:23:29.320 It should be illegal.
00:23:30.540 It violates the charter.
00:23:31.960 Well, no, it doesn't.
00:23:33.180 The charter does not have standing against private businesses.
00:23:36.360 The charter, you cannot take a charter challenge against a business
00:23:39.080 because they don't owe you any liberty.
00:23:41.260 It's the government that owes you liberty.
00:23:43.580 It's the government that owes you freedoms, not private businesses.
00:23:47.140 So no, you don't have a charter right to go into a store and demand service.
00:23:52.620 There are human rights laws that try to assert that right,
00:23:57.260 but those human rights laws are atrocious and are incompatible with a free society.
00:24:02.440 a lot of the human rights laws we have on the books, all they do is target businesses that
00:24:06.620 want to make decisions for themselves. When we should be as a society encouraging and protecting
00:24:13.340 the right for businesses and individuals to make decisions for themselves, while also condemning
00:24:19.620 and denouncing those decisions with which we disagree. And that's the vaccine passport problem.
00:24:26.820 Now, I asked Premier Jason Kenney about this a few weeks back when Alberta was lifting its vaccine
00:24:31.600 passport. And I asked him about whether businesses would retain the right to do this in the absence
00:24:37.660 of a government mandate. This is that exchange. Good evening, Premier. For people that own
00:24:47.000 businesses that are comfortable with requiring proof of vaccination, will they still have the
00:24:52.980 right, in your view, under Alberta law, to impose a vaccine requirement for customers moving forward?
00:24:58.940 yes they'll have that right under law and i guess i would just say that's a matter of
00:25:05.740 of the free market andrew if a business chooses to have um a policy of that nature then um that
00:25:16.800 may may appeal to a certain kind of customer and it may turn away other kinds of customers
00:25:21.340 that's a commercial decision. At the end of the day, I would love if we could move away from all
00:25:29.420 of this and no longer have to produce the QR codes. That could get us past the problem you've
00:25:38.160 raised. But the paradox of the problem is that we have a lot of Albertans who, especially during
00:25:47.060 the cold winter here, love traveling, and at the end of the summertime too. And as long as there
00:25:54.520 is a federal requirement for provincially issued proof of vaccination, we have to offer that as a
00:26:00.280 service. And I got to tell you, even then, even if we weren't issuing QR codes, I suppose a vendor
00:26:07.840 could, going back to the pre-COVID days, you know, just like when you were visiting certain
00:26:16.280 countries they want to see if you've been vaccinated against the uh yellow fever and you
00:26:21.340 have to produce these uh slips that prove that prove vaccination so governments will always be
00:26:27.380 issuing some kind of proof of vaccination that's just part of our responsibility in the health
00:26:31.620 care system and how people use that as their choice now obviously alberta has since abandoned
00:26:38.520 the qr code which is something that we need to see other governments doing because that's been
00:26:42.500 really the infrastructure that allows, in some cases, businesses to do this. But as Jason Kenney
00:26:47.720 said, again, a business could say, we want to see your CDC card in the US, or a business could say,
00:26:52.880 we want to see your Ontario immunization slip that you got. And again, I support businesses
00:26:58.580 having autonomy for two reasons. One is just a philosophical reason. I demand consistency of
00:27:04.640 myself and of others here. And if I would support the right of, again, the Christian baker to not 1.00
00:27:09.880 bake the gay wedding cake or the Muslim baker to not bake the Israel cake or whatever the case is. 0.92
00:27:16.660 That is something that I have to carry here. Why would I want to let government force a business 0.98
00:27:23.500 to serve a clientele it does not want to? Again, that does not mean supporting the decision that's
00:27:30.020 made. That doesn't mean supporting that form of discrimination. It means allowing businesses to
00:27:36.040 make the decision themselves. And the second is entirely practical. It's a pragmatic concern.
00:27:40.880 If you support a one-size-fits-all government-imposed solution, that's not going to be
00:27:45.800 your position. That's not going to be my position. The one-size-fits-all position is vaccine passports
00:27:52.380 for everyone. If it's for everyone or for no one, it's going to be for everyone. So fundamentally,
00:27:58.200 we are going to be, as people that stand up for liberty, as I'm assuming a lot of you,
00:28:02.320 perhaps most of you tuning in are people who stand up for liberty are going to be on the losing end
00:28:06.860 of this if we don't allow that individual choice and more importantly choice is exactly what we
00:28:11.620 should be striving for i was down in florida a couple of months back and florida has no mask
00:28:17.060 mandate no vaccine passports uber still has a vaccine mandate so when you're getting into the
00:28:21.540 uber you need to wear your sorry not your vaccine mandate your mask so when you're getting into the
00:28:25.820 uber you need to wear your mask and you know what when i walked around in florida i probably saw
00:28:30.780 maybe 15% of the people there wearing masks. Now, for the most part, I'd say they were probably the
00:28:36.300 Canadians. There was that one Montreal Gazette columnist that went down to Florida and was
00:28:40.820 mortified that they were also free. Like he wanted to export Quebec's COVID insanity to Florida,
00:28:47.700 which is exactly where people fleeing COVID insanity tend to go. But people made the choice
00:28:53.820 for themselves. And you know what? I didn't see anyone harassed for wearing a mask. I went into
00:28:59.340 a pharmacy because I had to get a COVID test to come back home. The pharmacy had a mask mandate.
00:29:03.620 I needed to get the test. So I went along with it. If there was a restaurant or a store that had
00:29:09.320 required me to wear a mask in there, I probably wouldn't because I would have said, all right,
00:29:13.780 if that's the clientele they want, I'm going to go somewhere else because I support freedom.
00:29:17.800 I support life beyond this. But freedom has to go both ways. Freedom has to extend in both
00:29:25.200 directions. And again, I want to make a point here. The issues right now we see to the vaccine
00:29:30.100 mandate and mask mandate discussions are not coming from businesses that in very small numbers
00:29:37.320 might be putting these things forward voluntarily. It's all of the other restrictions elsewhere that
00:29:42.140 still remain in place imposed by governments. Just take a look at universities. Universities
00:29:49.420 in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta went along with vaccine mandates. And now in the absence of a
00:29:54.960 government directive are still upholding those. My alma mater, the University of Western Ontario
00:30:00.400 is keeping its vaccine mandate in place. Ottawa University, Carleton, other schools as well are
00:30:06.480 even without a government directive saying we are not readmitting any students that we said
00:30:11.480 couldn't come to class because of our vaccine mandate. They're keeping them in place and who
00:30:15.880 knows what they'll do come the fall term in September. So that's a big problem. And these
00:30:21.500 are government institutions. These are public universities, government institutions. You also
00:30:26.660 have employer vaccine mandates that are on the books that are not going away. And then you have
00:30:32.660 the federal mandates. And remember the trucker convoy, which carried itself across the country,
00:30:38.580 galvanized the nation, galvanized the world. We have an American trucker convoy right now that's
00:30:43.480 been inspired by the Canadian protests. They were going after the federal vaccine passport
00:30:49.800 for travel and the federal vaccine mandate for getting on an airplane, for getting on a train.
00:30:56.720 Those still remain in place. And the federal government has given zero indication of when
00:31:01.660 those are going to be dropped. Candace Bergen, the leader of the Conservatives, had an exchange
00:31:05.820 with Justin Trudeau about this in question period. And listen to the non-answer.
00:31:10.500 The Honourable Leader of the Opposition 0.99
00:31:14.480 Here's Elaine we'd like the Prime Minister to pick from
00:31:17.540 Today is March 1st
00:31:19.180 And as of today, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia
00:31:23.840 They've all lifted their vaccine mandates
00:31:26.000 Why? Because it's safe to do so
00:31:30.620 And they care about mental health and their economies
00:31:33.420 Here at the federal level we have a Liberal government
00:31:36.460 That is dragging their knuckles because they've become so backwards
00:31:39.980 and regressive in their thinking when it comes to the need for restrictions.
00:31:45.180 When will the Liberals come out of the dark ages and see that vaccine mandates are so yesterday?
00:31:51.720 When are they going to remove the government?
00:31:54.580 The Right Honourable Prime Minister.
00:31:58.220 Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we ground our decisions in science.
00:32:03.120 We continue to believe that keeping Canadians safe is extremely important,
00:32:08.320 but I will highlight that Canada has made significant movements on restrictions of the borders
00:32:14.280 to enable for more Canadians to travel safely and less onerously when they come home.
00:32:20.100 We will continue to look carefully at what more measures we can lift or move forward on
00:32:26.100 to ensure that Canadians continue to be safe while getting back to the things we love.
00:32:32.660 Canadians expect their governments to keep them safe. That's exactly what we're doing.
00:32:38.320 so science says you should reopen drop all the restrictions when are you going to reopen and
00:32:49.660 drop all restrictions answer well we're going to keep canadians safe well that's yeah but you could
00:32:55.920 keep them safe by dropping these mandates if we know that the vaccine requirements especially in
00:33:02.300 the omicron era did nothing to reduce transmission but were only just about punitive measures to
00:33:07.620 incentivize vaccination, can we not accept that we are at the saturation point in Canada?
00:33:13.760 No one who is unvaccinated is unvaccinated by anything other than choice at this point. It's
00:33:19.120 not about opportunity. Even with coercion, even with pressure, people have made their choices.
00:33:24.920 Conversely, people have made their choices to get a third shot, to get a fourth shot,
00:33:28.500 because they wanted the protection that being vaccinated afforded them. Great. Why can they
00:33:33.400 not intermingle in society. And air travel is a significant one here. The border restrictions are
00:33:41.020 significant because a lot of the time when the government talks about reopening and lifting
00:33:46.060 restrictions, it's only for that large chunk of the population that is vaccinated. The unvaccinated
00:33:52.320 sector is not getting to benefit from the spoils of reopening. They're not able to get on a plane 1.00
00:33:58.820 and go to Banff to enjoy time at a restaurant without the vaccine passport there because 0.73
00:34:04.520 they can't actually get to Alberta unless they want to drive across the country.
00:34:09.180 And again, for all the people that are saying, well, it's a choice, they have a choice.
00:34:12.960 Well, it's not a choice if government has a gun to your head metaphorically or otherwise.
00:34:18.100 It's not a choice if government is forcing you to make it, if there's only one correct
00:34:23.820 choice in the state's eyes.
00:34:25.880 so for all that we talk about reopening and yeah it's good it's good that we have some of these
00:34:31.880 crumbs of liberty being handed back to us but for all that anyone talks about that it's important
00:34:36.500 to note that this is not over not by a long shot and for all the people that looked at the trucker
00:34:42.920 convoy and said why are you at why are you on parliament hill all of these things are provincial
00:34:47.500 the provinces are already reopening well here we are after most provinces have gone and said we're
00:34:53.060 dropping this, we're dropping this, we're dropping this. What do we have as being left?
00:34:58.180 Federal government mandates. Federal government mandates, which Justin Trudeau was not even
00:35:03.880 giving the false hope of, yeah, it's coming soon. Stay tuned. That clip I played earlier of Ontario
00:35:10.400 Premier Doug Ford, he said at least, yeah, yeah, we're going to have something for you shortly
00:35:14.580 about masks. Trudeau is, well, we're looking into it. I think he would be fine keeping it in place
00:35:21.180 indefinitely. I don't think Justin Trudeau cares if the vaccine mandate for air travel ever goes
00:35:26.540 away. Because I think he fundamentally has shown us what he believes about unvaccinated people.
00:35:32.640 Oh, they're racist, they're misogynist, they're neo, misogynist. I don't even know what word that 0.55
00:35:36.820 was. Misogynist. I was trying to do misogynist and misogynistic and I ended up just making up
00:35:41.940 a word. But you know what? If Justin Trudeau can do it, I can too. So all of that is because he
00:35:46.900 wants to punish these people. It's like when Emmanuel Macron in France had said his goal was
00:35:52.540 to émerder the unvaccinated, to just piss them off. That's kind of Justin Trudeau's MO as well.
00:35:59.540 So I think he would be content never letting someone who's not vaccinated against COVID get
00:36:04.560 on a plane. I think that's fine. And I think for the most part, he might actually have courts that
00:36:09.020 uphold that, just given the fecklessness of the Canadian judiciary in many cases.
00:36:14.020 so whenever anyone says we've reopened the restrictions are lifted I don't think people
00:36:21.020 should poo-poo it as though it's not happened I don't think we should say it's nothing because
00:36:25.940 it's not nothing it is something it is something that as of today an unvaccinated person can go
00:36:30.720 to a restaurant in Ontario again it may be a very low bar but it is something it is a bar
00:36:35.340 that's not at least on the ground or that in Alberta you can if you're unvaccinated go to
00:36:40.040 a restaurant, go to a gym, not wear your mask. That's a right you have now. It's a right you
00:36:44.400 never should have lost. So this is not nothing, but it is just one small subset of a much bigger
00:36:51.380 battle which is still underway. And that's the problem. We as a society tend to move on from
00:36:58.220 things very quickly. Let's talk about the trucker convoy just for a moment. Now, obviously what's
00:37:02.680 happening in Ukraine right now is quite significant. It's globally relevant. It does
00:37:06.980 affect Canada, even if Canada is not itself at war and not party to this conflict. But I bring
00:37:13.760 up the trucker convoy because most people would say that this is over. A lot of the provincial
00:37:19.140 mandates have lifted. A lot of the truckers have been able to get their trucks back from the
00:37:23.740 impound lot. Although I don't know if you saw the video, some of the windows on these trucks were
00:37:28.480 left down. So they were filled with snow. Equipment was ruined. Some of them weren't starting. So
00:37:35.420 There were some significant challenges at the impound lot.
00:37:37.760 But nevertheless, truckers went back.
00:37:40.000 They were able to pick up their trucks.
00:37:42.580 Bank accounts of people like Tom Marazzo, who we had on the show, have been unfrozen.
00:37:47.340 You may think, okay, great, it's done.
00:37:49.400 It's done.
00:37:49.940 It's over.
00:37:50.360 The Convoy won.
00:37:51.020 I wrote a column about this in my Substack the other day, which I would encourage you
00:37:55.000 to subscribe to at andrewlotton.substack.com.
00:37:58.220 And I said the Convoy won because it revealed the lengths through which the government would
00:38:02.780 go to stop those who stand up for freedom. It didn't win because it got all of its goals. It
00:38:09.860 achieved all of its goals. Not at all. It won because it sent a message that I think people
00:38:14.100 needed to see and I think people needed to hear. But the reason I bring up the convoy is I want to
00:38:18.660 share this story with you. I'm just going to, I have so many tabs open when I do this show.
00:38:22.420 A lot of the money, even without the emergency, is still frozen. This is quite significant here
00:38:29.800 because we knew that there were millions of dollars
00:38:33.380 donated to the Trucker Convoy.
00:38:34.960 There were about 10 million US dollars
00:38:37.700 donated via GiveSendGo.
00:38:39.380 There was a million dollars of GoFundMe money
00:38:42.140 that was released before GoFundMe had refunded everyone
00:38:45.920 and that money was frozen.
00:38:47.460 There was also a significant sum in crypto.
00:38:51.520 $20 million total is what one estimate said here
00:38:55.540 between crypto and cash donations.
00:38:58.140 Now, there is no emergency.
00:38:59.800 It was the Emergencies Act which authorized freezing this money.
00:39:04.160 But now they're deferring to that Ontario court order
00:39:07.460 that took place before the Emergencies Act was invoked.
00:39:10.600 They've extended this injunction
00:39:12.400 and have also expanded it to include cryptocurrency.
00:39:17.360 So this injunction now affects what they say is $20 million in assets,
00:39:21.720 which they're preventing to going to the truckers
00:39:24.540 who have had to deal with fuel costs, food costs, time off work.
00:39:29.800 and they're doing it pending this class action lawsuit that was filed initially to get the
00:39:34.820 honking to stop in downtown Ottawa. And Paul Champ, who's the lawyer for the class, the lawyer for
00:39:41.480 the class whose lead plaintiff is Zexy Lee, an Ottawa public servant, he has said that he has
00:39:47.840 gone around himself and played private investigator and checked on, I think it was 400 different
00:39:53.640 trucks, 400 different trucks that he's identified here. And I'm just trying to find the exact number.
00:39:59.800 It might have actually just been about 400.
00:40:01.980 It might have just been an imprecise number.
00:40:03.900 But this class action is seeking $306 million in damages
00:40:07.580 for people living in Centertown and the Byward Market
00:40:10.660 in the Sandy Hill area, which is all in downtown Ottawa.
00:40:14.880 And they've now gotten a judge
00:40:16.420 to freeze convoy donations pending this.
00:40:19.640 Now, I don't know how long this is going to take,
00:40:21.640 but they're still going after the money.
00:40:24.560 They're still going after the convoy's money,
00:40:26.480 even without the emergency,
00:40:28.160 which was what let the government go after individual bank accounts so if you donated
00:40:33.560 to the convoy and you thought great well now my money is making it to the truckers it's still not
00:40:38.360 and even crypto now interestingly enough government has no idea whose crypto wallets
00:40:44.620 are connected to this now i actually got into crypto incidentally i'm going to do a probably
00:40:50.120 a longer show about it in the future i not hugely into it but when the government was going around
00:40:55.980 and systematically freezing hundreds of bank accounts,
00:40:58.940 I said, you know what?
00:40:59.920 Maybe this idea of something
00:41:01.340 that the government can't access is valid.
00:41:04.420 So I have like nothing in there.
00:41:05.920 I've got like $100 worth of Bitcoin
00:41:07.580 in this little Bitcoin wallet that I had.
00:41:10.980 But the reality is it was for me an experience
00:41:14.100 because I've avoided it just because I don't understand it.
00:41:17.480 And the government,
00:41:18.240 that the government is so hell bent
00:41:19.780 on wanting to access and freeze
00:41:21.820 and control people's Bitcoin wallets
00:41:23.940 is kind of the point of Bitcoin.
00:41:27.320 The people didn't want government
00:41:28.740 to be able to tap into this part of them.
00:41:30.700 And we've seen in the last few weeks
00:41:32.680 what happens when government
00:41:33.720 has just unchecked power
00:41:35.060 over your bank accounts
00:41:36.640 and over the banking sector in general.
00:41:39.000 But this court order is extending to it.
00:41:41.220 And they're actually trying to get
00:41:42.120 any convoy organizer
00:41:43.340 to swear a statement
00:41:45.040 that says they've not done anything
00:41:47.660 to hide or move around
00:41:48.980 or get rid of any crypto donations.
00:41:50.760 Now, I'm assuming,
00:41:51.960 and again, I have no inside knowledge on this.
00:41:53.520 I'm assuming that most of this money has already been moved to avoid this very problem.
00:41:59.180 I heard from one source that a lot of it was deliberately being kept out of the country
00:42:02.700 so it wouldn't be controlled by these court orders.
00:42:05.400 But again, if this money is being kept out of the country,
00:42:08.160 that also means it's not making it to the truckers.
00:42:11.940 And those were the people that this money was there to support,
00:42:15.040 individuals across the country and around the world
00:42:17.260 that wanted to give $10, $20 to support a trucker getting a few liters of diesel
00:42:22.320 so that they could keep up the good fight for freedom.
00:42:26.740 And even again, with Justin Trudeau's phony emergency gone,
00:42:30.980 this money is still being frozen.
00:42:33.500 So it's not over.
00:42:34.920 And by the time people move on from these things,
00:42:36.960 you may forget about these battles,
00:42:38.420 but for the people in the trenches on them,
00:42:40.020 they are still underway.
00:42:41.340 We'll, of course, keep you updated as this goes on.
00:42:44.480 And again, I'm not ignoring what's happening in Russia, Ukraine,
00:42:48.000 but we also can't, at the expense of things
00:42:50.800 that are still happening here
00:42:51.820 divert all of our attention there.
00:42:53.360 So we're going to do a balance on this show.
00:42:55.620 My thanks to all of you
00:42:56.860 for tuning into the program today.
00:42:58.440 We'll be back tomorrow
00:42:59.560 for a special edition of the show.
00:43:01.700 I won't tell you exactly what's happening
00:43:03.220 because if I do that, I jinx it,
00:43:05.060 but it is going to be one you'll want to see.
00:43:06.960 And of course, lots more at True North.
00:43:08.780 If you want to contribute to the work we're doing,
00:43:10.680 head on over to donate.tnc.news.
00:43:13.240 We'll talk to you soon, folks.
00:43:14.440 Thank you.
00:43:14.860 God bless and good day.
00:43:18.240 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:43:20.280 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:43:50.280 Thank you.