On this episode of The Andrew Lawton Show, host Andrew Lawton is joined by journalist Colby Kosh to discuss an apple-munching attack on a reporter from British Columbia, and whether Scouts Canada should team up with Tory leader Justin Trudeau for an Apple Day promo.
00:02:36.860My mom would take all the leftover apples and she would make this delightful apple crisp.
00:02:42.020And we were going on a camping trip one particular year.
00:02:45.380And 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.
00:02:52.620Now, the leaders were getting into the apple crisp the night before it was to be distributed.
00:02:59.420And 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.
00:03:07.020and that would have been a perfect crime
00:03:09.620had one of the leader's sons not been me
00:03:12.560who then goes home and has the mother ask
00:03:34.960a brand deal between the Conservative leader and Scouts Canada.
00:03:39.060One thing I want to talk about before we get too deeply into the weeds on apples any further,
00:03:44.160that might actually be the end of the Apple discourse, don't worry,
00:03:46.920is that I know a lot of you are going to be coming out to True North Nation on Saturday in Calgary.
00:03:52.320It's sold out, so if you didn't get your ticket, you'll have to come next time.
00:03:55.700But I can't wait, and if you did get a ticket, I can't wait to see you on Saturday
00:03:59.580at what's sure to be a fantastic, fantastic event.
00:04:02.880And 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.
00:04:18.880My producer is asking me to do more Apple talk, but I mean, no, we have to get to the core of the show here.
00:04:25.960We can't do that today. One of the things that I do want to talk about, though, is Pierre Poliev
00:04:30.760and Justin Trudeau in the polls. Now, as a general rule, I do not cover polling on the show. I find
00:04:37.100it to be utterly boring. You can be like, oh, well, this person's up 3% and that's up 2% and
00:04:42.500new market Aurora is looking like a real horse race this time around. And it's all nonsense
00:04:46.680because as we learn, polls lie. They don't tell the whole picture and you can be very shocked on
00:04:52.260election day. But I do like to pay attention to the gestalt of polling, by which I mean if there
00:04:59.260is an overarching trend that has been completely and utterly impossible to really be wrong because
00:05:05.640every single poll is saying the same thing. And that's exactly what's happening when you look at
00:05:11.140Justin Trudeau's polling numbers. He is not only tremendously unpopular, his party brand is in the
00:05:17.180mud. Pierre Polyev, despite being held up as, I don't know, the new Hitler by the left, is being
00:05:23.320seen as quite popular. And even those who were not exactly fans of his are getting over it as they
00:05:30.340get to know him, which is something, I mean, in past politics elections in Canada, when you get
00:05:36.580to know someone, sometimes you like them even less. That doesn't seem to be the case with Polyev
00:05:42.340here but one of the things that I was so I was looking at my watch there because I just saw like
00:05:47.060a giant flash of Justin Trudeau and Narendra Modi and I don't know if you can see it there but I was
00:05:54.940like there we go I was like worried there was some giant breaking news story but the story is that
00:05:59.800a large number of Canadian diplomats have left India amid tensions so we'll try to dig into that
00:06:05.840as the afternoon progresses but on the polling numbers the reason I think this is so important
00:06:11.820to talk about here is that the liberals have not really changed anything about their approach.
00:06:17.680They're not showing any contrition. They're not showing any humility. They're not doing anything
00:06:22.120to suggest they get it and are trying to change tax. So they're going to do what they do when
00:06:27.480they get desperate every single time. They're going to whip out, they're going to look up the
00:06:31.820bag of tricks. They're going to whip out everything. We're going to get assault rifles, abortion,
00:06:35.940gay marriage, social conservatives are evil, scary, soldiers in the streets. Like any
00:06:41.640crazy, insane, unhinged, deranged attack that they can find they're going to bring up,
00:06:47.680except they're against someone this time around who is a lot more capable at answering and
00:06:53.200addressing questions than his predecessors have been, which is why I'm not all that
00:06:58.640convinced that these liberal attacks will shift. And at a certain point, the liberals are left
00:07:03.760with one fundamental reality, which is that their leader is not the guy that can deliver them to
00:07:09.280anything other than electoral humiliation.
00:08:05.920But of those, it's a relatively even split.
00:08:09.280So 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.
00:08:20.440Now, 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.
00:08:36.520And that's not an endorsement or an anti-endorsement.
00:08:38.640That is a prediction based on looking at this landscape here.
00:08:41.880Here's a guy who's dealing with fatigue.
00:08:44.260The voters no longer are excited about him.
00:08:46.720He's no longer the young, charming, debonair, sexy guy with the nice flowing hair.
00:13:29.280increasingly seems to be the case that Hamas was.
00:13:32.500but she was basically winking to those who want to blame Israel for this
00:13:36.980and instead of looking at the reality.
00:13:39.040So apparently she's the contender of this.
00:13:42.940I believe we have or soon we'll have that Dwight Schrute clip.
00:13:46.080So stand by because if you haven't seen it and don't know what I'm talking about,
00:13:49.320we definitely have to play that for you.
00:13:51.200But all of this is to say that Justin Trudeau right now
00:13:55.380is selling something that Canadians are not buying.
00:13:58.580And when even liberals, people in his own party, the party faithful,
00:14:02.500that got him elected each time he's run are saying it's time for a change that's not a recipe for that
00:14:09.860party to have success now the question i'll put to you and if you're watching this on facebook or
00:14:15.060youtube or rumble or i don't know wherever else we're streaming but anywhere uh you can weigh in
00:14:19.140in the comments because i'm curious if you don't like trudeau which i don't think a lot of our
00:14:23.780audience does i maybe you do that's fine i welcome you all we're equal opportunity here
00:14:28.340But if you don't like Trudeau, what would you prefer?
00:14:31.660Would you prefer, you know, your person to be running against him in 2025 or would you
00:14:37.220prefer him to just resign and be gone?
00:14:39.900Because there is something to the effect that if you are taking opportunity early to replace
00:14:47.520your leader and put someone in who can rebrand, you actually may have a better shot at winning.
00:14:53.300You may have a better shot at victory.
00:14:55.180I remember in Ontario in 2018, now I know this election quite well because I was running as a
00:15:00.780candidate in it, but in 2018, what happened was Kathleen Wynne, who was the outgoing Ontario
00:15:06.760Premier, running for re-election, she was loathed. Everyone hated her, despised her.
00:15:13.540She was the answer to the question, who could be worse than Dalton McGuinty?
00:15:17.780And that was basically the election. It was that everyone hated her, everyone knew the PCs were
00:15:22.880going to win. I was optimistic and they did win, but I didn't. And that's fine because, well, the
00:15:27.920next few years would have made me regret being there. But the thing about it was that Kathleen
00:15:32.060Wynne had to do this abrupt pivot during the election where she said, OK, you guys clearly
00:15:37.980don't want me to be the Premier of Ontario. So I'm going to resign any. Like, I'm not going to
00:15:44.340be the Premier. I've already lost. Don't worry about it. But you need to vote Liberal so that
00:15:49.480our party has a stronger foothill to rebuild in the future. So she basically conceded defeat
00:15:55.240and accepted that she was the liability and then said, OK, I've already lost, but vote for us
00:16:01.560anyway, which was like a very weird sell to try to make to voters. But that was what happened
00:16:07.140because Kathleen Wynne knew that she was the great liability. And Justin Trudeau does not
00:16:13.720accept that. And maybe he will at some point midway through the election. Maybe he'll pop up
00:16:18.660at halfway through the writ period in 2025 and say, listen, I'm not going to be the prime minister,
00:16:23.660but vote liberal so that we can hold the evil conservatives to account. Maybe that's what he'll
00:16:27.820do. I do not think he has the humility. And that's the question that I think a lot of liberals need
00:16:33.500to be asking right now. Does Justin Trudeau want the ship to go down if he can't be the captain of
00:16:39.120it? I think there is a very strong argument that he does. When he gets up there and says time and
00:16:45.340time again, that he's the guy, that he's running ahead. When he is unrepentant, even facing poll
00:16:51.600numbers that are showing massive, massive unpopularity for him and his party, his only
00:16:56.840response is that the other guys are evil. The other guys are lying. The other guys are divisive.
00:17:01.920That's the only response he has. And when you looked at how the Liberals handled their caucus
00:17:08.300meeting in London, this is the one that I was banned from attending as a journalist, the Liberal
00:17:14.360caucus meeting was going to last, I think at one point, 30 minutes. They had scheduled 30 minutes
00:17:19.820for, you know, however many Liberal MPs there are, I forget the number, to all air their grievances
00:17:25.280while they're dealing, while they're just getting slaughtered by the Conservatives. And it ended up
00:17:28.540where the caucus meeting went longer and more people had a chance to weigh in and say their
00:17:33.560piece. But it was a really revealing moment. And I don't think a lot of Liberal MPs are really
00:17:39.420grasping it. And the leaks have been very minimal from this party. And you know what, when push
00:17:45.560comes to shove, I do not believe that he is going to step down. I think the caucus needs to use its
00:17:51.780power and its authority and its autonomy to stand up and get rid of him if they don't want him
00:17:56.860leading them into the next election, because he certainly does not want anyone else leading his
00:18:02.620party into the next election so uh take from that what you will uh one thing i am going to share
00:18:09.820here 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
00:18:13.900was like my interpretation of the oh no apparently we're having a network issue so maybe we don't
00:18:19.820have the uh the clip handy okay don't worry about it you can look it up on youtube it's uh dwight
00:18:24.780schrute blood alone moves the wheels of history so uh nevertheless i want to pivot to alberta
00:18:30.860here because yesterday we saw a rather unique standoff between the Alberta government and the
00:18:36.680federal government. Alberta has been in the process of weighing in on whether to get out of Canada
00:18:44.060pension plan and have an Alberta pension plan. So what the Alberta government wants to do is
00:18:49.460basically say, we think that we can invest our money better. We think it's our money to invest.
00:18:54.580We want to, as Albertans, manage this ourselves. Now, the government has not said it's going full
00:18:59.720team ahead on this. They've said they'll have consultations, and they've also said that they
00:19:04.060want to have a referendum. They want to put it to the Albertans whose money will be invested in this.
00:19:10.500Now, this is a right the provinces have. Quebecers already have their own pension plan. A few years
00:19:16.260back, Ontarians wanted to have their own under Kathleen Wynne, and that was something that
00:19:21.100Ontario voters rather soundly rejected, and the Ontario government backed off. But this is not
00:19:26.820unheard of, yet the federal government is treating it as though it is a capital case or to pardon the
00:19:31.700pun, treat it as though it's a federal case. The federal government from Justin Trudeau sent a
00:19:36.900letter to Danielle Smith yesterday saying the government will use all means necessary and
00:19:42.200available to fight this and to inform Albertans how reckless it is, which makes me wonder if
00:19:47.460they're going to like start doing the ad campaigns driving around Edmonton and Calgary that like
00:19:51.520Alberta government officials have been doing in Ottawa, but you never know. Let's discuss this in
00:19:57.260a bit of detail with Aaron Woodrick, who is the domestic policy director for the Macdonald
00:20:03.620Laurier Institute. Aaron, good to talk to you. Now, you are not an Albertan yourself, but I think
00:20:08.780you understand provincial autonomy very well here. I can understand Justin Trudeau saying,
00:20:13.920listen, we defend CPP, we back it, we don't think you should do this, but saying he's going to fight
00:20:19.580it seems a little bit odd. I don't know if it's that odd, Andrew. I mean, it's not won't be a
00:20:24.500surprise to most people that the government of Alberta and the federal government are not getting
00:20:27.980along on an issue. I mean, they come from completely different worldviews. There's a lot
00:20:32.520of acrimony, a lot of bad blood there. We actually just came off that court ruling with the No More
00:20:37.860Pipelines Act, officially called the Impact Assessment Act, where the Supreme Court, bless it
00:20:41.960for getting it right this time, basically said, look, it doesn't matter that climate change is
00:20:45.900important. The Constitution says what it says, and you don't have the power to do this. So,
00:20:50.720you know, the Trudeau government was quite, should have been chastened on that. I'm worried
00:20:54.060they weren't as much. But this, I mean, look, I think that this pension plan issue is not really
00:20:59.700about a pension plan at all. It's about Alberta asserting its authority, which, as you point out,
00:21:03.660it does have. I mean, it can do this. It has the power to do it. Quebec does it, which is often
00:21:10.200pointed out as an example. If Quebec can do it, why can't Alberta? I think the real question is
00:21:14.640whether it's a good idea, whether it serves Alberta well, and whether it does really achieve
00:21:20.560anything other than to sort of have Alberta assert itself and sort of blow off steam and say,
00:21:24.760you know what, we're going to do this because we can. And we don't trust Ottawa because of the way
00:21:29.140you act on all these other things. And so we want to take this and do this ourselves. I think that's
00:21:33.640what's really going on here is this is just a one front and a much bigger sort of political spat.
00:21:39.300Yeah, I think you're right about that. And I would love it if the debate were purely an
00:21:42.700economic one for Canadians and Albertans. I mean, Justin Trudeau could have in his open letter said,
00:21:47.720well, actually, here's a list of the reasons why Albertans are better served by being in CPP. And
00:21:52.180to its credit, the Canada pension plan does have very good returns. I mean, it's a relatively
00:21:57.720well-managed portfolio as far as other public pension plans and private pension plans are
00:22:02.880concerned. And I think the Alberta government will have to give a stronger argument if they do want
00:22:07.900to go down this road of here's how we could do it better rather than just Alberta first, which,
00:22:13.100look, I think is a compelling argument on a lot of policies. This is the one where I'm not as
00:22:16.880convinced it is. Yeah. And look, Alberta has a lot of legitimate grievances when it comes to
00:22:21.460Ottawa, right? I mean, Ottawa has treated Alberta like a cash cow. Again, there's some confusion
00:22:26.720about how that is. Things like equalization, I think the way it's structured or prejudiced
00:22:30.600Alberta. Albertans pay more taxes. But part of the reason that is, is that Albertans are just
00:22:34.940richer. Albertans have the highest per capita income in Canada. So if you were rich in any
00:22:40.360province, you pay the same level of taxes that a rich Albertan does. So it just happens to be that
00:22:45.140because Alberta is such a prosperous place, there's more rich people. But all that said,
00:22:49.440Andrew, I think, you know, this government in particular, the federal government,
00:22:53.300their activity and their sort of relentless attack on anything that they think will help
00:22:58.440fight climate change has prejudiced Alberta greatly. And it harms Alberta's prosperity.
00:23:02.660And Alberta is a right to say, you know, you want to have it both ways.
00:23:05.860You want to you want to benefit from our wealth and prosperity.
00:23:08.160And yet all your actions are moving to harm us.
00:23:11.260And 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.
00:23:24.340And so in Alberta, if we're going to take a different approach, we're going to invest in a different way.
00:23:27.660we're going to have a different focus. I think that may be the sort of the frontline argument
00:23:32.000is that we're going to make different investment decisions than you are because we see the world
00:23:36.340in a very different way than you do. Yeah. And we've talked on the show in the past about a
00:23:40.500number of these campaigns. I mean, universities are particularly targeted to basically remove
00:23:46.260their endowments from investments in the oil and gas sector. And we see huge, huge lobbying on this.
00:23:51.820And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if the federal government were to at one point, you know,
00:23:55.640direct CPP to only invest in companies run by disabled transgender women that are looking into
00:24:02.040alternative energies. But at this point, that hasn't really happened yet. So I think in Alberta's
00:24:06.940case, yeah, I think they do have a different worldview here. But a lot of people just want
00:24:11.700their returns to be what they're after. And I don't know if it goes to a referendum, if that's
00:24:16.180the debate that will really be had. No, I agree. And if we want to talk about better ways to have
00:24:21.120investment, maybe we shouldn't be talking about these massive pooled funds at all. We could talk
00:24:25.420about individual, right? There are a lot of countries that have, you have a mandatory sort
00:24:30.020of individual pension plan that you have to contribute to, but it's portable. You can choose
00:24:34.820from a bunch of different providers. And I think it's a little bit ironic, in fact, that you have
00:24:38.420a government that ostensibly is more conservative in Alberta. You would think they would be looking
00:24:42.800at more individualized options. You would look at some of these other countries, like Chile is a
00:24:46.260good example. A lot of people point to where you are required to make payments. I understand it's
00:24:52.340good public policy for governments to say we want to encourage or in some cases coerce you
00:24:56.460into saving for your future but give people more options then people can shop around they can pick
00:25:01.080a pick an investment vehicle that they're comfortable with that has the risk they like
00:25:04.120right now it's sort of like cpp is all you've got if we had an app well you'd have that's a
00:25:09.940different one but we're still only talking about a handful of choices so i think there's actually
00:25:13.440a more interesting discussion around how to encourage savings in a way that is tailored
00:25:18.980rather than one size fits all for Canadians.
00:25:46.660Again, if it were to ever come to fruition,
00:25:48.980a very dangerous proposition because federal government takes this one size fits all approach.
00:25:53.800So do you think this helps or hurts Alberta? Because I think that, you know, the Alberta sort
00:25:58.760of political environment thrives off of that tension with Ottawa. And when you get a letter
00:26:02.680like this from Trudeau, I don't think it's the win he thinks it is for him. No, it isn't. But I think
00:26:07.620we're well past believing that Mr. Trudeau is a uniter in this country. I mean, as much as he
00:26:12.340spouts off about a division, he's happy to divide if he thinks it serves his purposes.
00:26:16.020Too 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.
00:26:41.400So, look, I think Albertans are within their rights to explore this.
00:26:45.360I think, as I said, they've got a lot of legitimate grievances, and I think they're right to push back on things.
00:26:49.440But I would say the real question they have to ask themselves on this specifically is, will we be better off for it?
00:26:55.260Don't do this just because you want to stick it to Mr. Trudeau in Ottawa, as tempting as that may be.
00:27:00.260Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
00:27:14.660Just to throw one curveball at you, which I'll only do because I learned about it from something you retweeted this morning, Aaron.
00:27:20.560So I figure you probably know about it more than I do.
00:27:22.660I 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.
00:27:32.120They were going to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history.
00:27:35.200At one point, they even said cabinet minister's offices and the PMO would be subject to ATIP, which eight years later has never happened.
00:27:55.020Look, on the one hand, I try not to be cynical.
00:27:58.360This 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.
00:28:05.760The style, the way they did business is going to be different.
00:28:09.940Turns out they're just like the government for them.
00:28:12.120Mr. Harper's government developed quite a reputation for being secretive, avoiding transparency.
00:28:16.420I think that was a fair characterization.
00:28:18.520But the Trudeau government, by almost every measure, including people who are not fans of the Harper government, they're even worse.
00:28:25.500the Trudeau government is more secretive, more averse to transparency. I think we all know why
00:28:30.140this is. Transparency sounds great when you're in opposition because it's a tool to beat up on the
00:28:33.840government. When you get into power, the only thing transparency represents is risk. It's the
00:28:38.440risk of more problems. It's the risk of people seeing things, seeing how the sausages are made,
00:28:42.800seeing where you may have lied or embellished the truth. So it's no surprise to me that governments
00:28:47.500don't want to do this. And in fact, that's why I think the perfect time to do it is this is an
00:28:51.980opportunity for all the opposition parties to get together and impose the change now, because
00:28:56.620if they do it now, they're not in government and it only affects it. But that's the only way it's
00:29:00.480going to happen, because once governments in power, Andrew, they just they just see this as
00:29:04.260a risk and a danger they'd rather avoid. Yeah. And but I'd be very cynical of a government that
00:29:09.120promised transparency starting whenever the next guys come in, which is, I think, also part of the
00:29:14.100problem. But anyway, very well said, as always, Aaron Woodrick with the McDonald Laurier Institute.
00:29:19.020thanks for coming on sir thanks a lot all right yeah and it's tough because atip reform is one
00:29:24.140of these issues where i'm all for it but i know that like only nine people in the world care about
00:29:29.260it and i'm one of the nine because it's only really journalists and some activists and ngo
00:29:35.500groups that really use this it's more than nine but it's atip is not a huge issue if you were to go
00:29:41.020to uh you know joe down the street or joanne down the street and say what's an atip they'll say oh
00:29:45.900oh, is that some like off-brand Q-tip?
00:30:39.000But the system itself is very much broken.
00:30:42.180And as I was talking about last week with, I forget who it was, but we were talking about it at some point.
00:30:47.760And some of these, it was with Duff Conacher.
00:30:50.960Some 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.
00:31:00.400One 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,
00:31:07.360the organizers and most visible faces of the Freedom Convoy, which took place in Ottawa
00:31:13.040about a year and, well, more than a year and a half ago now, but a year and eight months back.
00:31:18.660And there was a bit of a break and the trial was supposed to be done on October 13th, but they've
00:31:24.780added more dates. I've been told they could even end up going into December at the pace things are
00:31:30.260going. The Crown is still making its case. New witnesses were added this week, notably residents
00:31:35.920of downtown Ottawa, who testified to the horrors that they had to endure as residents of downtown
00:31:42.560Ottawa, which, I mean, I'd be horrified living in downtown Ottawa myself, but they are not
00:31:46.840generally, but they were for those three weeks in 2022. I want to welcome into the show to talk
00:31:52.540about this Matthew Horwood, who is a reporter with the Epoch Times. Matthew, it is good to talk to
00:31:57.720you. Thanks for coming on today. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for having me. Your audio is a little
00:32:04.400out of sync, so hopefully we'll be able to get that sorted out. It might be an issue with our
00:32:08.280system here, but let me ask you about the decision to call these residents, because I understood when
00:32:13.460the Public Order Emergency Commission happened, people who lived in Ottawa have a perspective to
00:32:18.040share about what they were living in. The people that were testifying this week, by my understanding,
00:32:22.780didn't really have anything to say about Tamera Leach and Chris Barber, who are the two individuals
00:32:58.100So there's no need to call these residents.
00:33:00.540And 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.
00:33:09.100So 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.
00:33:17.560And 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.
00:33:25.260So it just added a lot more to the lengthy process.
00:33:28.100added a whole lot to the Crown's case, from my understanding.
00:33:32.520Yeah, and I, you know, obviously there is an important aspect of this and you need to
00:33:37.020take the time if there is a discrepancy to go over it here, but we're talking about a trial
00:33:41.580that was supposed to be done almost a week ago now. Is there any end in sight? Because the defense
00:33:46.160hasn't even made its case yet. Well, it's certainly getting lengthier and I've heard talk about it
00:33:52.980going into 2024 because of how many delays there's been, both with audio troubles, with delays and
00:33:59.300deliberations over housekeeping rules and adding these eight new witnesses. But I mean, certainly
00:34:05.300it's important to have people talk about the impact that the Freedom Convoy had on them. But
00:34:09.720as you mentioned, none of it had any relation to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber. It only had
00:34:14.700impact or relation to the actual protesters themselves. And it's nothing new that we're
00:34:19.640hearing. It's the honking, it's diesel fumes, it's people publicly urinating, it's people being
00:34:24.680harassed for not for wearing masks outside. But none of it is really, as I said, giving a lot
00:34:30.300more sway to the Crown's argument and proving the charges at hand and how they relate back to
00:34:34.880Tamera Leach and Chris Barber. Has there been in any of the trial that you've seen any real
00:34:40.380bombshell, like any real smoking gun, so to speak, that shows Tamera and Chris did something other
00:35:15.560But 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.
00:35:31.740So 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.
00:35:40.180And 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.
00:35:51.180And 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.
00:35:59.880And the defense has made the argument, the rebuttal, that hold the line doesn't necessarily mean come and protest.
00:36:05.340I mean, there's a clip of Brian Peckford, the former former premier of Newfoundland, saying that as well.
00:36:10.640And 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.
00:36:17.220So it doesn't necessarily act as a smoking gun.
00:36:20.100But 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.
00:36:27.600Yeah, 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.
00:36:34.800I 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.
00:36:53.120But 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.
00:37:23.940Exactly. I mean, hold the line can mean many different things to many different people.
00:37:28.020We did see clips during the trial of protesters yelling that line, repeatedly saying that as they were being moved out by police officers.
00:37:36.240So, I mean, there's a debate about what exactly it can mean.
00:37:39.620But, yeah, I think we're just going to have to wait and see what the judge says.
00:37:45.260I mean, Justice Perkins McVoy has been very fair.
00:37:48.420She'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.
00:38:01.780Obviously, 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?
00:38:14.860There hasn't been a lot of indication thus far.
00:38:17.520they've mostly been poking holes in the arguments of some of the people testifying in the Ottawa
00:38:22.420witnesses. One of them was Zexy Lee, as I'm sure you remember. She was the lead plaintiff of the
00:38:27.460injunction against honking, and she testified at the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:38:32.140And lawyer Lawrence Greenspon kind of...
00:38:35.860Now, this is just for people to know this is Tamara Leach's lawyer, Lawrence.
00:38:39.260Right, right. And he was saying that she was sort of contradicting earlier testimony she had
00:38:43.340at the Public Order Emergency Commission
00:39:13.340Yeah, 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?
00:39:32.640And at a certain point, I realized that, look, I need to do the show.
00:39:35.500So we'll keep people apprised and we'll have interviews with folks that are involved.
00:39:39.480And of course, after it's all done, we'll happily have lawyers on and have Lawrence Greenspan
00:39:44.260on and Tamara Leach and Chris Barber, all of it.
00:39:46.620But I'm glad I didn't commit to it because had I like decided to move to Ottawa for those
00:39:51.440three weeks, then I learned it's actually going to become like a three year long relocation