Juno News - Even Liberal voters are sick of Justin Trudeau

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.440 north welcome back to the andrew lawton show this is canada's most irreverent talk show here on true

00:01:31.700 north it is thursday october 19th and i am delighted to have you aboard the program here

00:01:38.260 i was just thinking i saw colby kosh in the national post just had a great piece i was

00:01:43.300 reading before i went on air about pierre polyev's apple munching takedown of that

00:01:48.860 reporter editor from British Columbia. And I was thinking, I don't know if Scouts Canada,

00:01:53.760 like every other institution, has gone woke now. I suspect they probably have. But if not,

00:01:58.680 it would be great if Scouts Canada could secure some great Apple Day promo with Pierre Paulyev.

00:02:04.320 Do they still do Apple Day? I did this when I was a kid, and there was a great moment where

00:02:08.740 at the end of Apple Day, if you've never done it, it was where you just stand outside grocery

00:02:13.660 stores as a cub or a scout, and you just give people apples, and they give you some money.

00:02:18.480 It was so wholesome and fun and you like, that's why like every kid who was ever in

00:02:23.080 Cubs has a hunchback because they had that like container with the apples just like around

00:02:27.380 their neck for, you know, 19 hours or something.

00:02:30.020 But there was this like great one where afterwards, my mom would always take the leftover, because

00:02:35.500 my dad was a cub leader.

00:02:36.860 My mom would take all the leftover apples and she would make this delightful apple crisp. 0.73

00:02:42.020 And we were going on a camping trip one particular year.

00:02:45.380 And what my mom decided to do was say, oh, let's make a bunch of apple crisp and give them all to the cubs and leaders for the camp. 1.00

00:02:52.620 Now, the leaders were getting into the apple crisp the night before it was to be distributed.

00:02:59.420 And at a certain point, they got to this, well, at a certain point, they got to the point where there was not enough to give, so they had to finish it all.

00:03:07.020 and that would have been a perfect crime

00:03:09.620 had one of the leader's sons not been me

00:03:12.560 who then goes home and has the mother ask

00:03:15.300 how was the apple crisp

00:03:16.500 to which I responded

00:03:17.560 what apple crisp and the jig was up

00:03:19.780 they should have roused me from my sleep

00:03:22.540 and bought my silence with some

00:03:24.040 but nope they did not think to do that

00:03:25.800 in any case Pierre Polyev

00:03:27.460 with his apple munching takedown of that reporter

00:03:30.600 would be a great spokesperson for Apple Day

00:03:33.160 get a little cross promo there

00:03:34.960 a brand deal between the Conservative leader and Scouts Canada.

00:03:39.060 One thing I want to talk about before we get too deeply into the weeds on apples any further,

00:03:44.160 that might actually be the end of the Apple discourse, don't worry,

00:03:46.920 is that I know a lot of you are going to be coming out to True North Nation on Saturday in Calgary.

00:03:52.320 It's sold out, so if you didn't get your ticket, you'll have to come next time.

00:03:55.700 But I can't wait, and if you did get a ticket, I can't wait to see you on Saturday

00:03:59.580 at what's sure to be a fantastic, fantastic event.

00:04:02.880 And if you want to make sure that you learn more about future events of that nature, please head over to TNC.news and you can hit subscribe and never miss an update, which is especially important in this era of Internet regulation and censorship.

00:04:18.880 My producer is asking me to do more Apple talk, but I mean, no, we have to get to the core of the show here.

00:04:25.960 We can't do that today. One of the things that I do want to talk about, though, is Pierre Poliev

00:04:30.760 and Justin Trudeau in the polls. Now, as a general rule, I do not cover polling on the show. I find

00:04:37.100 it to be utterly boring. You can be like, oh, well, this person's up 3% and that's up 2% and

00:04:42.500 new market Aurora is looking like a real horse race this time around. And it's all nonsense

00:04:46.680 because as we learn, polls lie. They don't tell the whole picture and you can be very shocked on

00:04:52.260 election day. But I do like to pay attention to the gestalt of polling, by which I mean if there

00:04:59.260 is an overarching trend that has been completely and utterly impossible to really be wrong because

00:05:05.640 every single poll is saying the same thing. And that's exactly what's happening when you look at

00:05:11.140 Justin Trudeau's polling numbers. He is not only tremendously unpopular, his party brand is in the

00:05:17.180 mud. Pierre Polyev, despite being held up as, I don't know, the new Hitler by the left, is being

00:05:23.320 seen as quite popular. And even those who were not exactly fans of his are getting over it as they

00:05:30.340 get to know him, which is something, I mean, in past politics elections in Canada, when you get

00:05:36.580 to know someone, sometimes you like them even less. That doesn't seem to be the case with Polyev

00:05:42.340 here but one of the things that I was so I was looking at my watch there because I just saw like

00:05:47.060 a giant flash of Justin Trudeau and Narendra Modi and I don't know if you can see it there but I was

00:05:54.940 like there we go I was like worried there was some giant breaking news story but the story is that

00:05:59.800 a large number of Canadian diplomats have left India amid tensions so we'll try to dig into that

00:06:05.840 as the afternoon progresses but on the polling numbers the reason I think this is so important

00:06:11.820 to talk about here is that the liberals have not really changed anything about their approach.

00:06:17.680 They're not showing any contrition. They're not showing any humility. They're not doing anything

00:06:22.120 to suggest they get it and are trying to change tax. So they're going to do what they do when

00:06:27.480 they get desperate every single time. They're going to whip out, they're going to look up the

00:06:31.820 bag of tricks. They're going to whip out everything. We're going to get assault rifles, abortion, 0.74

00:06:35.940 gay marriage, social conservatives are evil, scary, soldiers in the streets. Like any 1.00

00:06:41.640 crazy, insane, unhinged, deranged attack that they can find they're going to bring up,

00:06:47.680 except they're against someone this time around who is a lot more capable at answering and

00:06:53.200 addressing questions than his predecessors have been, which is why I'm not all that

00:06:58.640 convinced that these liberal attacks will shift. And at a certain point, the liberals are left

00:07:03.760 with one fundamental reality, which is that their leader is not the guy that can deliver them to

00:07:09.280 anything other than electoral humiliation.

00:07:12.300 And I was particularly intrigued

00:07:14.440 and I'm breaking my rule

00:07:15.660 on not talking about individual polling

00:07:17.480 by this one particular poll

00:07:20.040 that Angus Reid did,

00:07:21.720 which showed, you know,

00:07:22.760 the majority of Canadians

00:07:23.780 want Justin Trudeau and the Liberals gone.

00:07:26.080 So you may think, okay, whoop-dee-doo, whatever.

00:07:27.780 That's not surprising now.

00:07:29.760 But here's what's interesting.

00:07:31.840 Two out of every five past Liberal voters surveyed

00:07:36.200 say Justin Trudeau should step down.

00:07:39.280 Now, this is very noteworthy.

00:07:41.480 44% of people who voted liberal in 2021

00:07:45.300 say Trudeau should stay on.

00:07:48.280 41% say he should leave the party to a fresh face.

00:07:52.900 So that means they're evenly split.

00:07:55.420 If you combine those two, 44 and 41,

00:07:57.800 I'm not great at math, but I think you get to 104.

00:08:00.360 No, you get to 85.

00:08:01.860 So 15%, I guess, are indifferent 0.99

00:08:03.820 or don't particularly care.

00:08:05.920 But of those, it's a relatively even split.

00:08:09.280 So there are not a huge number of liberal voters, people who voted liberal just two years ago, that think Justin Trudeau is the guy that should continue forward with the party.

00:08:20.440 Now, this is something where, to go back to the old prediction I've made, that the liberals are probably best positioned for a win if they get rid of Justin Trudeau now, find someone who can run that party in a very different way and go forward.

00:08:36.520 And that's not an endorsement or an anti-endorsement.

00:08:38.640 That is a prediction based on looking at this landscape here.

00:08:41.880 Here's a guy who's dealing with fatigue.

00:08:44.260 The voters no longer are excited about him.

00:08:46.720 He's no longer the young, charming, debonair, sexy guy with the nice flowing hair.

00:08:51.600 Maybe he is to you.

00:08:52.800 But certainly politically, that's not exactly how it's playing.

00:08:57.420 So why this is so important is that the Liberal caucus has been in lockstep behind him.

00:09:02.960 There has been no dissent whatsoever beyond a couple of little peeps from, well, that

00:09:08.620 one guy, Joel Lightbound, during the federal COVID response, who spoke up and again has

00:09:14.540 never really been heard from again.

00:09:16.320 I think Joel Lightbound has been memory-holed by the Liberals.

00:09:19.500 Even with cabinet shuffles, there's been nothing.

00:09:22.220 There was some dissent a few years back with Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott and

00:09:27.580 Selina Cesar-Cheven, but even then, that was essentially it.

00:09:31.720 and ever since then, what Trudeau did there is very important. He showed that he has no tolerance

00:09:37.820 for dissent. When Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott spoke up, they were gone. They were out

00:09:43.940 before you could say blackface, and that was that. So now we have a caucus that realizes its political

00:09:50.420 future depends on loyalty to the dear leader, and this is exactly why everyone in caucus is falling

00:09:56.080 in line. It also means that if the liberals are to find a new leader, they're going to have a very,

00:10:01.100 very difficult time distancing themselves from the Trudeau brand because, well, everyone has

00:10:07.740 been a left-handed. I mean, look at Chrystia Freeland. How could Chrystia Freeland be a 1.00

00:10:12.620 non-Trudeau alternative when she is literally the most visible member, the visible messenger

00:10:18.200 and hatchet woman of the Trudeau government, apart from Trudeau himself? But Justin Trudeau

00:10:24.440 is not going anywhere, as he tells her. This is one of his more recent reiterations of that at

00:10:29.900 the Liberal Party's convention a couple of months back. Liberals, Canadians, in these

00:10:37.960 serious times, let's continue to work hard on serious solutions. And my friends, when the

00:10:46.980 election comes, when Canadians need to make a consequential choice in this consequential

00:10:54.620 moment. It will be the honor of my life to lead us through it and continue building a better

00:11:02.340 future. So let us fight this fight together. Merci. I didn't catch this the first time I

00:11:12.340 saw the clip, but if you're a fan of The Office, does it remind you of Dwight Schrute when he was

00:11:17.380 speaking at that sales conference and he was told to like be angry and pound his fists on the table

00:11:22.320 and blood alone moves the wheels of history.

00:11:24.640 That was kind of what Justin Trudeau was doing there.

00:11:26.620 He just starts like yelling for no apparent reason.

00:11:29.320 In fact, white troop might make a better prime minister 1.00

00:11:31.760 than Justin Trudeau on a number of key files.

00:11:34.020 Certainly, I think on foreign policy and diplomacy,

00:11:37.380 it would be no contest whatsoever.

00:11:39.660 But here we have a reality that the Liberals have to reckon with

00:11:43.240 and that Canadians are not happy with what they're selling.

00:11:46.140 Canadians are not as scared at the alternative

00:11:48.880 as the Liberals want them to be.

00:11:50.640 And even liberal voters are saying, you know, maybe, just maybe, I have some buyer's remorse.

00:11:56.560 Now, there are a couple of ways to unpack that.

00:11:59.220 People who voted liberal in 2021 might be longtime liberal voters that are just sour on Trudeau and ready for an alternative.

00:12:06.640 They might also have been people that just voted liberal that one time, that weren't really dyed-in-the-wool liberals,

00:12:11.800 but they thought Trudeau was a more compelling voice than Maxime Bernier or Aaron O'Toole or

00:12:17.560 Anime Paul or whoever else was running Jagmeet Singh. He's less relevant than Anime Paul at

00:12:23.960 times, but that's basically where things are headed now. So the Liberal caucus, if they're

00:12:30.080 serious about remaining a party and not going back to the utter humiliation they had after

00:12:35.640 the 2011 election, they should really think carefully about what their best foot forward

00:12:41.580 looks like when they are heading into the next election, which again, we can talk about as

00:12:46.640 likely being 2025. It's entirely possible that it comes sooner than that, but we just don't know

00:12:52.780 because again, that requires the NDP finding somehow a backbone, which it's very difficult

00:12:58.140 to get a spinal transplant with healthcare weightless being what they are. And you know,

00:13:02.880 I mean, Sean just shared a piece in our little chat here.

00:13:06.920 Contender to replace Trudeau faces first real test.

00:13:10.660 This is Melanie Jolie.

00:13:12.660 I didn't know Melanie Jolie was a contender to replace Trudeau. 0.97

00:13:15.720 This is the woman who posted yesterday on Twitter

00:13:19.040 this like oblique, nondescript condemnation of a bombing of a hospital

00:13:24.540 without actually saying who she thinks was behind it,

00:13:28.060 which as we talked about yesterday,

00:13:29.280 increasingly seems to be the case that Hamas was.

00:13:32.500 but she was basically winking to those who want to blame Israel for this

00:13:36.980 and instead of looking at the reality.

00:13:39.040 So apparently she's the contender of this.

00:13:42.940 I believe we have or soon we'll have that Dwight Schrute clip.

00:13:46.080 So stand by because if you haven't seen it and don't know what I'm talking about,

00:13:49.320 we definitely have to play that for you.

00:13:51.200 But all of this is to say that Justin Trudeau right now

00:13:55.380 is selling something that Canadians are not buying.

00:13:58.580 And when even liberals, people in his own party, the party faithful,

00:14:02.500 that got him elected each time he's run are saying it's time for a change that's not a recipe for that

00:14:09.860 party to have success now the question i'll put to you and if you're watching this on facebook or

00:14:15.060 youtube or rumble or i don't know wherever else we're streaming but anywhere uh you can weigh in

00:14:19.140 in the comments because i'm curious if you don't like trudeau which i don't think a lot of our

00:14:23.780 audience does i maybe you do that's fine i welcome you all we're equal opportunity here

00:14:28.340 But if you don't like Trudeau, what would you prefer?

00:14:31.660 Would you prefer, you know, your person to be running against him in 2025 or would you

00:14:37.220 prefer him to just resign and be gone?

00:14:39.900 Because there is something to the effect that if you are taking opportunity early to replace

00:14:47.520 your leader and put someone in who can rebrand, you actually may have a better shot at winning.

00:14:53.300 You may have a better shot at victory.

00:14:55.180 I remember in Ontario in 2018, now I know this election quite well because I was running as a

00:15:00.780 candidate in it, but in 2018, what happened was Kathleen Wynne, who was the outgoing Ontario

00:15:06.760 Premier, running for re-election, she was loathed. Everyone hated her, despised her. 1.00

00:15:13.540 She was the answer to the question, who could be worse than Dalton McGuinty?

00:15:17.780 And that was basically the election. It was that everyone hated her, everyone knew the PCs were

00:15:22.880 going to win. I was optimistic and they did win, but I didn't. And that's fine because, well, the

00:15:27.920 next few years would have made me regret being there. But the thing about it was that Kathleen

00:15:32.060 Wynne had to do this abrupt pivot during the election where she said, OK, you guys clearly

00:15:37.980 don't want me to be the Premier of Ontario. So I'm going to resign any. Like, I'm not going to

00:15:44.340 be the Premier. I've already lost. Don't worry about it. But you need to vote Liberal so that

00:15:49.480 our party has a stronger foothill to rebuild in the future. So she basically conceded defeat

00:15:55.240 and accepted that she was the liability and then said, OK, I've already lost, but vote for us

00:16:01.560 anyway, which was like a very weird sell to try to make to voters. But that was what happened

00:16:07.140 because Kathleen Wynne knew that she was the great liability. And Justin Trudeau does not

00:16:13.720 accept that. And maybe he will at some point midway through the election. Maybe he'll pop up

00:16:18.660 at halfway through the writ period in 2025 and say, listen, I'm not going to be the prime minister,

00:16:23.660 but vote liberal so that we can hold the evil conservatives to account. Maybe that's what he'll

00:16:27.820 do. I do not think he has the humility. And that's the question that I think a lot of liberals need

00:16:33.500 to be asking right now. Does Justin Trudeau want the ship to go down if he can't be the captain of

00:16:39.120 it? I think there is a very strong argument that he does. When he gets up there and says time and

00:16:45.340 time again, that he's the guy, that he's running ahead. When he is unrepentant, even facing poll

00:16:51.600 numbers that are showing massive, massive unpopularity for him and his party, his only

00:16:56.840 response is that the other guys are evil. The other guys are lying. The other guys are divisive.

00:17:01.920 That's the only response he has. And when you looked at how the Liberals handled their caucus

00:17:08.300 meeting in London, this is the one that I was banned from attending as a journalist, the Liberal

00:17:14.360 caucus meeting was going to last, I think at one point, 30 minutes. They had scheduled 30 minutes

00:17:19.820 for, you know, however many Liberal MPs there are, I forget the number, to all air their grievances

00:17:25.280 while they're dealing, while they're just getting slaughtered by the Conservatives. And it ended up

00:17:28.540 where the caucus meeting went longer and more people had a chance to weigh in and say their

00:17:33.560 piece. But it was a really revealing moment. And I don't think a lot of Liberal MPs are really

00:17:39.420 grasping it. And the leaks have been very minimal from this party. And you know what, when push

00:17:45.560 comes to shove, I do not believe that he is going to step down. I think the caucus needs to use its

00:17:51.780 power and its authority and its autonomy to stand up and get rid of him if they don't want him

00:17:56.860 leading them into the next election, because he certainly does not want anyone else leading his

00:18:02.620 party into the next election so uh take from that what you will uh one thing i am going to share

00:18:09.820 here i do we have i don't do we have the clip i just it's i mentioned it so it's just funny this

00:18:13.900 was like my interpretation of the oh no apparently we're having a network issue so maybe we don't

00:18:19.820 have the uh the clip handy okay don't worry about it you can look it up on youtube it's uh dwight

00:18:24.780 schrute blood alone moves the wheels of history so uh nevertheless i want to pivot to alberta

00:18:30.860 here because yesterday we saw a rather unique standoff between the Alberta government and the

00:18:36.680 federal government. Alberta has been in the process of weighing in on whether to get out of Canada

00:18:44.060 pension plan and have an Alberta pension plan. So what the Alberta government wants to do is

00:18:49.460 basically say, we think that we can invest our money better. We think it's our money to invest.

00:18:54.580 We want to, as Albertans, manage this ourselves. Now, the government has not said it's going full

00:18:59.720 team ahead on this. They've said they'll have consultations, and they've also said that they

00:19:04.060 want to have a referendum. They want to put it to the Albertans whose money will be invested in this.

00:19:10.500 Now, this is a right the provinces have. Quebecers already have their own pension plan. A few years

00:19:16.260 back, Ontarians wanted to have their own under Kathleen Wynne, and that was something that 0.97

00:19:21.100 Ontario voters rather soundly rejected, and the Ontario government backed off. But this is not

00:19:26.820 unheard of, yet the federal government is treating it as though it is a capital case or to pardon the

00:19:31.700 pun, treat it as though it's a federal case. The federal government from Justin Trudeau sent a

00:19:36.900 letter to Danielle Smith yesterday saying the government will use all means necessary and

00:19:42.200 available to fight this and to inform Albertans how reckless it is, which makes me wonder if

00:19:47.460 they're going to like start doing the ad campaigns driving around Edmonton and Calgary that like

00:19:51.520 Alberta government officials have been doing in Ottawa, but you never know. Let's discuss this in

00:19:57.260 a bit of detail with Aaron Woodrick, who is the domestic policy director for the Macdonald

00:20:03.620 Laurier Institute. Aaron, good to talk to you. Now, you are not an Albertan yourself, but I think

00:20:08.780 you understand provincial autonomy very well here. I can understand Justin Trudeau saying,

00:20:13.920 listen, we defend CPP, we back it, we don't think you should do this, but saying he's going to fight

00:20:19.580 it seems a little bit odd. I don't know if it's that odd, Andrew. I mean, it's not won't be a

00:20:24.500 surprise to most people that the government of Alberta and the federal government are not getting

00:20:27.980 along on an issue. I mean, they come from completely different worldviews. There's a lot

00:20:32.520 of acrimony, a lot of bad blood there. We actually just came off that court ruling with the No More

00:20:37.860 Pipelines Act, officially called the Impact Assessment Act, where the Supreme Court, bless it

00:20:41.960 for getting it right this time, basically said, look, it doesn't matter that climate change is

00:20:45.900 important. The Constitution says what it says, and you don't have the power to do this. So,

00:20:50.720 you know, the Trudeau government was quite, should have been chastened on that. I'm worried

00:20:54.060 they weren't as much. But this, I mean, look, I think that this pension plan issue is not really

00:20:59.700 about a pension plan at all. It's about Alberta asserting its authority, which, as you point out,

00:21:03.660 it does have. I mean, it can do this. It has the power to do it. Quebec does it, which is often

00:21:10.200 pointed out as an example. If Quebec can do it, why can't Alberta? I think the real question is

00:21:14.640 whether it's a good idea, whether it serves Alberta well, and whether it does really achieve

00:21:20.560 anything other than to sort of have Alberta assert itself and sort of blow off steam and say, 0.97

00:21:24.760 you know what, we're going to do this because we can. And we don't trust Ottawa because of the way

00:21:29.140 you act on all these other things. And so we want to take this and do this ourselves. I think that's

00:21:33.640 what's really going on here is this is just a one front and a much bigger sort of political spat.

00:21:39.300 Yeah, I think you're right about that. And I would love it if the debate were purely an

00:21:42.700 economic one for Canadians and Albertans. I mean, Justin Trudeau could have in his open letter said,

00:21:47.720 well, actually, here's a list of the reasons why Albertans are better served by being in CPP. And

00:21:52.180 to its credit, the Canada pension plan does have very good returns. I mean, it's a relatively

00:21:57.720 well-managed portfolio as far as other public pension plans and private pension plans are

00:22:02.880 concerned. And I think the Alberta government will have to give a stronger argument if they do want

00:22:07.900 to go down this road of here's how we could do it better rather than just Alberta first, which,

00:22:13.100 look, I think is a compelling argument on a lot of policies. This is the one where I'm not as

00:22:16.880 convinced it is. Yeah. And look, Alberta has a lot of legitimate grievances when it comes to 1.00

00:22:21.460 Ottawa, right? I mean, Ottawa has treated Alberta like a cash cow. Again, there's some confusion

00:22:26.720 about how that is. Things like equalization, I think the way it's structured or prejudiced

00:22:30.600 Alberta. Albertans pay more taxes. But part of the reason that is, is that Albertans are just

00:22:34.940 richer. Albertans have the highest per capita income in Canada. So if you were rich in any

00:22:40.360 province, you pay the same level of taxes that a rich Albertan does. So it just happens to be that

00:22:45.140 because Alberta is such a prosperous place, there's more rich people. But all that said,

00:22:49.440 Andrew, I think, you know, this government in particular, the federal government,

00:22:53.300 their activity and their sort of relentless attack on anything that they think will help

00:22:58.440 fight climate change has prejudiced Alberta greatly. And it harms Alberta's prosperity.

00:23:02.660 And Alberta is a right to say, you know, you want to have it both ways.

00:23:05.860 You want to you want to benefit from our wealth and prosperity.

00:23:08.160 And yet all your actions are moving to harm us.

00:23:11.260 And so I think the CPP is in a way, you know, Danielle Smith can make the case that, look, you in Ottawa, you've shown that you care more about things like, you know, getting to net zero than the actual prosperity of families in this country.

00:23:24.340 And so in Alberta, if we're going to take a different approach, we're going to invest in a different way.

00:23:27.660 we're going to have a different focus. I think that may be the sort of the frontline argument

00:23:32.000 is that we're going to make different investment decisions than you are because we see the world

00:23:36.340 in a very different way than you do. Yeah. And we've talked on the show in the past about a

00:23:40.500 number of these campaigns. I mean, universities are particularly targeted to basically remove

00:23:46.260 their endowments from investments in the oil and gas sector. And we see huge, huge lobbying on this.

00:23:51.820 And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if the federal government were to at one point, you know,

00:23:55.640 direct CPP to only invest in companies run by disabled transgender women that are looking into

00:24:02.040 alternative energies. But at this point, that hasn't really happened yet. So I think in Alberta's

00:24:06.940 case, yeah, I think they do have a different worldview here. But a lot of people just want

00:24:11.700 their returns to be what they're after. And I don't know if it goes to a referendum, if that's

00:24:16.180 the debate that will really be had. No, I agree. And if we want to talk about better ways to have

00:24:21.120 investment, maybe we shouldn't be talking about these massive pooled funds at all. We could talk

00:24:25.420 about individual, right? There are a lot of countries that have, you have a mandatory sort

00:24:30.020 of individual pension plan that you have to contribute to, but it's portable. You can choose

00:24:34.820 from a bunch of different providers. And I think it's a little bit ironic, in fact, that you have

00:24:38.420 a government that ostensibly is more conservative in Alberta. You would think they would be looking

00:24:42.800 at more individualized options. You would look at some of these other countries, like Chile is a

00:24:46.260 good example. A lot of people point to where you are required to make payments. I understand it's

00:24:52.340 good public policy for governments to say we want to encourage or in some cases coerce you

00:24:56.460 into saving for your future but give people more options then people can shop around they can pick

00:25:01.080 a pick an investment vehicle that they're comfortable with that has the risk they like

00:25:04.120 right now it's sort of like cpp is all you've got if we had an app well you'd have that's a

00:25:09.940 different one but we're still only talking about a handful of choices so i think there's actually

00:25:13.440 a more interesting discussion around how to encourage savings in a way that is tailored

00:25:18.980 rather than one size fits all for Canadians.

00:25:21.800 Yeah, and I think that therein lies

00:25:23.780 what Alberta's approach to these things generally is,

00:25:27.460 which is that when the federal government

00:25:29.000 bullies its way in,

00:25:30.180 whether it's on a carbon tax

00:25:31.480 or on, I mean, healthcare in a lot of cases

00:25:34.160 or on this pension plan,

00:25:35.940 it's a very one size fits all solution.

00:25:38.440 And I mean, the backdrop against

00:25:39.920 we're having this discussion,

00:25:41.400 you know, the Senate this week

00:25:42.700 is talking about universal basic income

00:25:45.400 or guaranteed basic income.

00:25:46.660 Again, if it were to ever come to fruition,

00:25:48.980 a very dangerous proposition because federal government takes this one size fits all approach.

00:25:53.800 So do you think this helps or hurts Alberta? Because I think that, you know, the Alberta sort

00:25:58.760 of political environment thrives off of that tension with Ottawa. And when you get a letter

00:26:02.680 like this from Trudeau, I don't think it's the win he thinks it is for him. No, it isn't. But I think

00:26:07.620 we're well past believing that Mr. Trudeau is a uniter in this country. I mean, as much as he

00:26:12.340 spouts off about a division, he's happy to divide if he thinks it serves his purposes.

00:26:16.020 Too often, I think, unfortunately, his tendency is to centralize. This is a federal country, Andrew. It only really operates if we give different regions, you know, maximum sort of leeway to do their own thing. I think that's the only way this country can work. And when you have a centralizing tendency like you do in Mr. Trudeau, it just starts to grate on people because he tries to impose a single vision on the rest of the country, especially in parts that are just completely out of sync with him.

00:26:41.400 So, look, I think Albertans are within their rights to explore this.

00:26:45.360 I think, as I said, they've got a lot of legitimate grievances, and I think they're right to push back on things.

00:26:49.440 But I would say the real question they have to ask themselves on this specifically is, will we be better off for it?

00:26:55.260 Don't do this just because you want to stick it to Mr. Trudeau in Ottawa, as tempting as that may be.

00:27:00.260 Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

00:27:02.880 You know, look at it in detail.

00:27:04.440 Look at how it will be structured.

00:27:05.680 If it is something where you really think you'd be better off, by all means, pursue it.

00:27:08.700 But don't just do it because of legitimate grievance.

00:27:12.640 I think that might be a mistake.

00:27:14.660 Just to throw one curveball at you, which I'll only do because I learned about it from something you retweeted this morning, Aaron.

00:27:20.560 So I figure you probably know about it more than I do.

00:27:22.660 I understand that the government has like once again kicked down the road reforming access to information, which was like this big grand promise that the Trudeau government made.

00:27:32.120 They were going to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history.

00:27:35.200 At one point, they even said cabinet minister's offices and the PMO would be subject to ATIP, which eight years later has never happened.

00:27:42.720 And what do you know?

00:27:43.320 They've also said, again, we'll deal with it.

00:27:46.360 We're not going to deal with this.

00:27:47.940 Yeah.

00:27:48.240 Well, open by default.

00:27:49.660 That, I believe, was their specific promise.

00:27:51.400 It was going to be this reverse onus.

00:27:53.780 It was just by default.

00:27:55.020 Look, on the one hand, I try not to be cynical.

00:27:58.360 This is a government that, you know, aside from their sort of policy positions, they really presented themselves as a government that was going to do things differently.

00:28:05.760 The style, the way they did business is going to be different.

00:28:09.940 Turns out they're just like the government for them.

00:28:12.120 Mr. Harper's government developed quite a reputation for being secretive, avoiding transparency.

00:28:16.420 I think that was a fair characterization.

00:28:18.520 But the Trudeau government, by almost every measure, including people who are not fans of the Harper government, they're even worse.

00:28:25.500 the Trudeau government is more secretive, more averse to transparency. I think we all know why

00:28:30.140 this is. Transparency sounds great when you're in opposition because it's a tool to beat up on the

00:28:33.840 government. When you get into power, the only thing transparency represents is risk. It's the

00:28:38.440 risk of more problems. It's the risk of people seeing things, seeing how the sausages are made,

00:28:42.800 seeing where you may have lied or embellished the truth. So it's no surprise to me that governments

00:28:47.500 don't want to do this. And in fact, that's why I think the perfect time to do it is this is an

00:28:51.980 opportunity for all the opposition parties to get together and impose the change now, because

00:28:56.620 if they do it now, they're not in government and it only affects it. But that's the only way it's

00:29:00.480 going to happen, because once governments in power, Andrew, they just they just see this as

00:29:04.260 a risk and a danger they'd rather avoid. Yeah. And but I'd be very cynical of a government that

00:29:09.120 promised transparency starting whenever the next guys come in, which is, I think, also part of the

00:29:14.100 problem. But anyway, very well said, as always, Aaron Woodrick with the McDonald Laurier Institute.

00:29:19.020 thanks for coming on sir thanks a lot all right yeah and it's tough because atip reform is one

00:29:24.140 of these issues where i'm all for it but i know that like only nine people in the world care about

00:29:29.260 it and i'm one of the nine because it's only really journalists and some activists and ngo

00:29:35.500 groups that really use this it's more than nine but it's atip is not a huge issue if you were to go

00:29:41.020 to uh you know joe down the street or joanne down the street and say what's an atip they'll say oh

00:29:45.900 oh, is that some like off-brand Q-tip?

00:29:47.720 I like, who knows?

00:29:48.880 And I think people at their core

00:29:50.740 don't even know how much information

00:29:52.560 is available to them.

00:29:53.880 You could, anyone,

00:29:54.960 you don't need to have any standing

00:29:56.420 as a journalist or an academic or anything.

00:29:58.380 You can just go and file a request.

00:29:59.920 You can say, I'd like to see

00:30:01.700 Rosie Barton's makeup receipts or whatever.

00:30:06.260 Like, and some stuff will be protected.

00:30:08.720 That one probably would not get revealed,

00:30:11.060 but you could go and say,

00:30:12.700 as our friends at Rebel News did this week,

00:30:14.720 I want to see all of the expenses that CBC has racked up for private vehicle transport.

00:30:20.760 And they found out through access to information documents that CBC has spent in the last few

00:30:25.140 years, I think it was like $119,000 on limos and executive car services for their executives.

00:30:30.940 That is information that any Canadian would have access to if they just asked the question

00:30:35.520 and paid the $5 filing fee.

00:30:39.000 But the system itself is very much broken.

00:30:42.180 And as I was talking about last week with, I forget who it was, but we were talking about it at some point.

00:30:47.760 And some of these, it was with Duff Conacher.

00:30:50.960 Some of these reports have like years and years and years before the government will ever pony up the documents that they're supposed to be handing over in 30 days.

00:31:00.400 One thing we have not done on this show in a couple of weeks is checked in with the ongoing criminal trial of Tamara Leach and Chris Barber,

00:31:07.360 the organizers and most visible faces of the Freedom Convoy, which took place in Ottawa

00:31:13.040 about a year and, well, more than a year and a half ago now, but a year and eight months back.

00:31:18.660 And there was a bit of a break and the trial was supposed to be done on October 13th, but they've

00:31:24.780 added more dates. I've been told they could even end up going into December at the pace things are

00:31:30.260 going. The Crown is still making its case. New witnesses were added this week, notably residents

00:31:35.920 of downtown Ottawa, who testified to the horrors that they had to endure as residents of downtown

00:31:42.560 Ottawa, which, I mean, I'd be horrified living in downtown Ottawa myself, but they are not

00:31:46.840 generally, but they were for those three weeks in 2022. I want to welcome into the show to talk

00:31:52.540 about this Matthew Horwood, who is a reporter with the Epoch Times. Matthew, it is good to talk to

00:31:57.720 you. Thanks for coming on today. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for having me. Your audio is a little

00:32:04.400 out of sync, so hopefully we'll be able to get that sorted out. It might be an issue with our

00:32:08.280 system here, but let me ask you about the decision to call these residents, because I understood when

00:32:13.460 the Public Order Emergency Commission happened, people who lived in Ottawa have a perspective to

00:32:18.040 share about what they were living in. The people that were testifying this week, by my understanding,

00:32:22.780 didn't really have anything to say about Tamera Leach and Chris Barber, who are the two individuals

00:32:28.820 that are right now on trial?

00:32:32.180 No, none of these witnesses had any direct dealings

00:32:35.060 with Tamera Leach or Chris Barber,

00:32:36.580 and that was the question that the defense asked

00:32:39.500 at the end of every testimony.

00:32:41.240 And the reason that the Crown wanted to have these people testify

00:32:44.020 is to demonstrate the scope and the impact of the Freedom Convoy

00:32:47.900 and the impact it had on residents.

00:32:50.600 But the defense has said, well, we're prepared to admit

00:32:53.740 that this caused disruption to downtown residents

00:32:56.880 and their enjoyment of property,

00:32:58.100 So there's no need to call these residents.

00:33:00.540 And they also said that they would essentially be victim impact statements, which are normally done at the end of a trial and are not applicable at this point in it.

00:33:09.100 So there were about, I'd say, about two days in full where the Crown and Defense spent time arguing back and forth about this, which, of course, added further delays to it.

00:33:17.560 And the judge made the point that at one point that if they had been allowed to testify and hear from it, then we would have already gotten through it.

00:33:25.260 So it just added a lot more to the lengthy process.

00:33:28.100 added a whole lot to the Crown's case, from my understanding.

00:33:32.520 Yeah, and I, you know, obviously there is an important aspect of this and you need to

00:33:37.020 take the time if there is a discrepancy to go over it here, but we're talking about a trial

00:33:41.580 that was supposed to be done almost a week ago now. Is there any end in sight? Because the defense

00:33:46.160 hasn't even made its case yet. Well, it's certainly getting lengthier and I've heard talk about it

00:33:52.980 going into 2024 because of how many delays there's been, both with audio troubles, with delays and

00:33:59.300 deliberations over housekeeping rules and adding these eight new witnesses. But I mean, certainly

00:34:05.300 it's important to have people talk about the impact that the Freedom Convoy had on them. But

00:34:09.720 as you mentioned, none of it had any relation to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber. It only had

00:34:14.700 impact or relation to the actual protesters themselves. And it's nothing new that we're

00:34:19.640 hearing. It's the honking, it's diesel fumes, it's people publicly urinating, it's people being

00:34:24.680 harassed for not for wearing masks outside. But none of it is really, as I said, giving a lot

00:34:30.300 more sway to the Crown's argument and proving the charges at hand and how they relate back to

00:34:34.880 Tamera Leach and Chris Barber. Has there been in any of the trial that you've seen any real

00:34:40.380 bombshell, like any real smoking gun, so to speak, that shows Tamera and Chris did something other

00:34:47.000 than what's already been reported?

00:34:48.600 Because I haven't seen that from my end,

00:34:50.560 although I haven't been in the room.

00:34:52.580 Yeah, well, I think the best evidence against the two

00:34:55.680 have come at the beginning of the trial

00:34:57.580 when videos were shown by the Crown

00:34:59.240 taken from Chris Barber's TikTok

00:35:02.340 and Tamera Leach's live streams. 0.93

00:35:04.480 Now there's one clip, to start off,

00:35:06.600 there's many clips where Chris Barber repeatedly says,

00:35:09.260 be peaceful, respect police, don't act up.

00:35:12.480 We wanna not lose the will of the public.

00:35:14.600 He says that repeatedly,

00:35:15.560 But there is one video after the injunction against honking had been in place where Barbara told protesters that if the police came to take them away to lay on the horn and don't let go until, you know, as a way of letting the protesters know that police action was happening.

00:35:31.740 So that was a clip that resulted in the additional charge of counseling others to disobey a court order came into play, which he pled not guilty to.

00:35:40.180 And for Tamara Leach, there is a video taken shortly, the day before she was arrested, where she tells protesters to once again, as we heard many times, hold the line and keep fighting the good fight.

00:35:51.180 And the Crown is trying to make the argument that she's counseling people to disobey the court order, to disobey the police action and to come to Ottawa and protest.

00:35:59.880 And the defense has made the argument, the rebuttal, that hold the line doesn't necessarily mean come and protest.

00:36:05.340 I mean, there's a clip of Brian Peckford, the former former premier of Newfoundland, saying that as well.

00:36:10.640 And he means it more of in a way of, you know, keep up, like hold true to your values, keep standing up for what you believe in.

00:36:17.220 So it doesn't necessarily act as a smoking gun.

00:36:20.100 But I would say those two clips would be the best pieces of evidence that the Crown has shown thus far to prove the charges at hand.

00:36:27.600 Yeah, the hold the line thing is interesting because there were no doubt in Ottawa people that viewed hold the line as being a very literal call.

00:36:34.800 I remember on that last weekend, I was in Ottawa when the police were moving in and you had some people that were literally saying, we've got to hold this line. And they were referring to a very specific line on the snow. And they somehow thought that if they shoveled the snow into like piles, that would, you know, hold the police horses and battering rams and all of that back. And it lasted, I think, like five seconds.

00:36:53.120 But then there were other people where it was, like you just mentioned, Matthew, it was like more of a rallying cry, a spiritual cry. I mean, even that video when Tamara was arrested and she says, hold the line, like what actually happened was one of her supporters who was filming it said, hold the line. And she just like kind of flippantly shouted it back at him. It wasn't like this call to do anything. And I think that that's where, I mean, the case really seems to be about trying to understand someone's state of mind, which is always a tricky thing to do.

00:37:23.940 Exactly. I mean, hold the line can mean many different things to many different people.

00:37:28.020 We did see clips during the trial of protesters yelling that line, repeatedly saying that as they were being moved out by police officers.

00:37:36.240 So, I mean, there's a debate about what exactly it can mean.

00:37:39.620 But, yeah, I think we're just going to have to wait and see what the judge says.

00:37:45.260 I mean, Justice Perkins McVoy has been very fair.

00:37:48.420 She's, I've seen, criticized the Crown lawyers more often than the defense lawyers, and she's been, but she's been very fair so far, so we'll have to see what her verdict is, but we're a long way from getting there.

00:38:00.640 Do we know yet?

00:38:01.780 Obviously, the defense doesn't have to pony up its case until it's time to do so, but has there been any indication from the defense at how they're going to handle things once the Crown's done and it shifts to them?

00:38:14.860 There hasn't been a lot of indication thus far.

00:38:17.520 they've mostly been poking holes in the arguments of some of the people testifying in the Ottawa

00:38:22.420 witnesses. One of them was Zexy Lee, as I'm sure you remember. She was the lead plaintiff of the

00:38:27.460 injunction against honking, and she testified at the Public Order Emergency Commission.

00:38:32.140 And lawyer Lawrence Greenspon kind of...

00:38:35.860 Now, this is just for people to know this is Tamara Leach's lawyer, Lawrence. 0.97

00:38:39.260 Right, right. And he was saying that she was sort of contradicting earlier testimony she had

00:38:43.340 at the Public Order Emergency Commission

00:38:45.360 and that what she was saying

00:38:46.860 wasn't fully accurate.

00:38:48.280 And he also mentioned a clip

00:38:50.320 where she's seen swearing at these people

00:38:52.400 and being very, you know,

00:38:55.360 a little bit angry at them

00:38:56.400 as is understandable.

00:38:58.460 But so far, it's just been

00:38:59.840 methodically picking apart those arguments

00:39:01.740 and we haven't seen a real indication

00:39:03.120 of what exactly their response

00:39:05.260 is going to be once they get to that point.

00:39:07.420 Matthew Horwood with the Epoch Times in Ottawa.

00:39:09.920 Good to talk to you, Matthew.

00:39:10.700 Thanks for coming on today.

00:39:12.140 Thank you, Andrew.

00:39:12.740 Appreciate it.

00:39:13.340 Yeah, so this is, look, I'm going to continue to follow what's going on there. And to be honest, I'm glad at the beginning, there was a bit of a discussion that I had internally, which is like, these are always the most dangerous discussions I have, in which I wondered whether it was worth going up for the three weeks. And, you know, should I go to Ottawa and cover this?

00:39:32.640 And at a certain point, I realized that, look, I need to do the show.

00:39:35.500 So we'll keep people apprised and we'll have interviews with folks that are involved.

00:39:39.480 And of course, after it's all done, we'll happily have lawyers on and have Lawrence Greenspan

00:39:44.260 on and Tamara Leach and Chris Barber, all of it.

00:39:46.620 But I'm glad I didn't commit to it because had I like decided to move to Ottawa for those

00:39:51.440 three weeks, then I learned it's actually going to become like a three year long relocation

00:39:55.740 to Ottawa to cover this trial.

00:39:57.060 I would have been very upset and I would have felt a little bit hoodwinked by the justice

00:40:00.760 system, which I guess wouldn't be the first time. But with that aside, we will bid you adieu for

00:40:06.480 today. This is Canada's most irreverent talk show on True North. And let me just say we are user

00:40:11.720 supported. We do not get these big, giant fat checks from the government. We don't get the $1.3

00:40:16.400 billion CBC subsidy. We're not part of the media bailout. We exist because you like us and want us

00:40:23.160 to keep existing. So if you value what we do, and I would say independent media in general,

00:40:28.440 please show that at donate.tnc.news

00:40:32.020 and to some of you

00:40:33.220 I will see you in Calgary on the weekend

00:40:35.320 thank you, God bless

00:40:36.480 and good day to you all

00:40:37.880 thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show

00:40:40.760 support the program by donating to True North

00:40:43.320 at www.tnc.news

00:40:58.440 We'll be right back.

00:41:28.440 We'll be right back.

Juno News - October 19, 2023

Even Liberal voters are sick of Justin Trudeau

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