Juno News - “Experts” think Trudeau should get to keep governing if he loses next election

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:05.120 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:11.900 Everyone, welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show,

00:00:15.480 the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North on this Wednesday, July 19th.

00:00:20.240 This is the continued week of Proof of Life.

00:00:23.360 I was actually at my favorite little coffee shop this morning,

00:00:27.560 and I was picking up a few things,

00:00:29.980 And the owner, who's a very, very lovely man,

00:00:32.820 he and his sister, which own this great business.

00:00:35.180 I don't want to name the business because I'm worried

00:00:37.760 that then like all the trolls will descend on them.

00:00:40.040 So if you guys want the shout out, let me know and I'll give you the shout out.

00:00:43.380 But he was like a bit worried that I had been away for two weeks

00:00:46.840 and he had thought like some other people that something had happened.

00:00:49.460 No, I'm still here. I'm still alive.

00:00:51.500 I don't have anything with a date on it to hold up.

00:00:54.520 I have an Air Canada meal voucher from a cancelled flight.

00:00:57.480 What's the date on that?

00:00:58.760 No, that's from June 8th, so that doesn't actually give me proof of life.

00:01:03.100 So you just have to take my word for it when I say it is July 19th and I am here and alive.

00:01:07.880 And according to my Apple Watch, I'm not even wearing my eyes, so even the Apple Watch can't give me proof of life.

00:01:13.620 My goodness, this is just a great intro to hopefully a show that can only go up from here.

00:01:19.100 We're going to talk a little bit later on in the program about the one province that seems to be clinging to its vaccine mandate more than anywhere else.

00:01:28.300 And if you live in British Columbia, you know I am talking about you, but it is in fact BC, which still has a horrendous vaccine mandate in place for its health care workers.

00:01:38.860 Now, I should say, it's not the only mandate remaining. There are little pockets of this.

00:01:44.060 There's actually a township not far from me in southwestern Ontario that has one as well.

00:01:49.620 But BC is one of the most sweeping, I'd say.

00:01:54.040 And despite the fact that the health care system is across the country still suffering from gaps in employment because they can't seem to find people, perhaps they shouldn't have fired all the nurses and other workers that they needed.

00:02:06.040 But I also want to talk a little bit about this strange discourse that's taken hold online in which the so-called experts, in this case the Laurentian elites, have a very different view of Canadian democracy compared to ordinary Canadians.

00:02:24.000 And I'm going to try to not get too into the weeds here, but it's an important discussion because we have in Canada a Westminster parliamentary system, which means, in effect, that elections are not the sole determinant or technically not the determinant at all of who becomes prime minister.

00:02:40.860 It is the composition of the House of Commons that decides that.

00:02:44.400 There is no technical role for the prime minister as a byproduct of Canadian elections.

00:02:50.260 So theoretically, all of the members of Parliament could be elected and the MPs could get there on the first day and say, you know, we think Cheryl Gallant should be Prime Minister, not Justin Trudeau, not Pierre Polyev, Cheryl Gallant.

00:03:06.280 They could say, oh, Nikki Ashton, yeah, the NDP MP Nikki Ashton, she's the Prime Minister. 0.62

00:03:12.460 Now, are they going to do either of these things? No.

00:03:14.920 But technically, members of Parliament could do that.

00:03:18.060 Now, this is something that we know exists.

00:03:20.420 We know there are non-confidence motions.

00:03:22.400 We know that parliamentarians can get together and oust a prime minister,

00:03:27.120 as a lot of people have been desperately hoping Jagmeet Singh will find a spine to do with Justin Trudeau.

00:03:32.880 But no such luck.

00:03:34.620 That spinal transplant must be way down the list on the waiting list on health care procedures.

00:03:39.680 This is British Columbia.

00:03:40.500 They can't find any nurses to give Jagmeet Singh his spinal transplant.

00:03:44.340 So he's just limping around there, like flopping over.

00:03:46.960 Hopefully one day he'll be able to stand erect, but it hasn't happened yet.

00:03:50.740 The reason I bring all of this up is because it's always Andrew Coyne on this issue, by the way.

00:03:55.860 This is like one of his number one go-to issues.

00:03:59.680 Andrew Coyne wrote a column a few weeks ago in which he stated what is technically a correct point.

00:04:05.420 It is a technically correct point based on the letter of the law and the unwritten convention

00:04:11.160 that there is a coming crisis of legitimacy in federal politics.

00:04:15.620 That's not the one. That's not the one. That's the one he wrote yesterday, which is I'll get to in a second here. But I bring this up because he was saying that you could lose the election and continue to govern, that Justin Trudeau could lose the election to the conservatives and say, you know what, the NDP is going to keep backing us. So we're just going to keep on going.

00:04:36.320 And this is something that the Laurentian elite think is an entirely appropriate course of action

00:04:42.760 because it fits the letter of what is constitutional in Canada.

00:04:48.100 Philippe Lagasse, who's again, I have no issues with Philippe,

00:04:52.320 but he is like the most technical guy when it comes to his analysis.

00:04:57.520 And he's very right. He knows his stuff.

00:04:59.900 But he writes this piece in the line,

00:05:01.820 ultimately the confidence convention is all that matters.

00:05:04.340 So it's not about elections, it's not about what we think is legitimate, this is all that

00:05:08.820 matters, that you have to command the confidence of the House, and if you do that, you're still

00:05:12.660 there.

00:05:13.740 Why this is so important is because what the experts are talking about is miles away from

00:05:20.360 what any ordinary Canadian would think about this if you were to ask them.

00:05:24.220 A Canadian would think that when they go to the polls, when they cast a ballot in an election,

00:05:28.640 that that means something.

00:05:29.980 And that when they vote for the local conservative or the local liberal or the local PPC or the local bloc, that they're actually voting for the person they think is going to be prime minister.

00:05:41.800 Even though Justin Trudeau's name is not on the ballot in London West, or AS is a real riding name, they still know that the stakes of the election are such that they're voting for or against candidates that are in the running for prime minister.

00:05:58.540 So when people come along and start to tell people that actually your votes don't matter,

00:06:05.000 it is causing a significant problem.

00:06:08.060 And I'm fully on board with the idea that I don't actually think there is such a thing

00:06:13.180 as a conservative minority government for the foreseeable future.

00:06:17.200 I think that Pierre Polyev, as the most viable challenger to Justin Trudeau,

00:06:21.780 needs to win a majority or he's not going to get a chance to govern.

00:06:25.280 Now, does this mean the election has been stolen?

00:06:29.420 I would say it's a tricky claim because technically there is nothing preventing Justin Trudeau

00:06:35.360 from doing exactly what Andrew Coyne and Philippe Lagasse are talking about,

00:06:39.020 losing the election and saying, you know, and this is again,

00:06:42.960 assuming that the Conservatives were to win a minority, a plurality, but not a majority.

00:06:48.060 Them saying, you know, Jagmeet Singh, he's going to keep us in business

00:06:51.120 and maybe the Bloc Quebecois, we bring them on board as well.

00:06:54.000 and we're just going to not allow the conservatives to do anything a few years ago when I think it was

00:07:01.560 the 2015 election Stephen Harper was doing an interview and he mentioned a nonchalant point

00:07:06.640 that I think most Canadians would agree with he said you know if I cease to if I don't win the

00:07:12.220 election if I don't win the most seats I will cease to be prime minister and what he was saying

00:07:17.680 is that if he doesn't win he is not going to keep around he's not going to stay around he's

00:07:23.940 not going to try to cling to power. And you had a lot of these same people, particularly Andrew

00:07:28.360 Coyne at the time, talking about this as though Harper was spreading misinformation that, oh no,

00:07:33.700 no, he absolutely could continue being prime minister after losing the election. And this is

00:07:38.240 not how Canadians view our system. So yeah, there are many different ways in which I could imagine

00:07:44.940 this happening. But I'm very much on board with what Ginny Roth wrote in The Hub. And we tried

00:07:50.600 to get Ginny on the show today but she was uh on holiday so couldn't join us uh and she says in

00:07:55.340 the minds of Canadians the party with the most seats win the election that's that so if you want

00:08:01.960 to talk about all these different scenarios in which Justin Trudeau or the liberals could remain

00:08:05.840 in power you are going to have a crisis on your hand because Canadians who do not care about the 1.00

00:08:12.480 intricacies of the constitutional convention or the confidence convention are going to see a guy

00:08:17.760 who lost the election using these antiquated tricks to stay in power and while it won't be

00:08:24.480 illegal there is no way whatsoever that such a thing would be legitimate and I think it's actually

00:08:30.900 very concerning and probably very revealing that we have so many different so-called experts that

00:08:37.000 seem invested in this narrative that are piping up now when there could be an election in the

00:08:41.740 coming months or in the coming year and a half two years all these experts that are talking about all

00:08:46.980 these scenarios that will conveniently keep Justin Trudeau or his successor in power.

00:08:52.940 And by the way, I mean, Justin Trudeau is not a popular figure right now. He just isn't. You look

00:08:57.760 at the polls, he's not a popular guy. So I don't think the NDP would keep Trudeau personally in

00:09:04.340 power. I think if anything like this were to happen, it would have to be contingent on someone

00:09:09.120 else. They'd say, okay, we'll back the liberals, but Justin Trudeau has got to go. And ideally,

00:09:15.060 the NDP will manage to find, you know, something that they can claim has been a concession. Because

00:09:21.180 this is the problem is that like Jagmeet Singh will go into a room with Justin Trudeau and say,

00:09:25.520 okay, I'll make you a deal. I'll keep you in power. And then Trudeau is just like sitting

00:09:30.720 there waiting for the, but you have to do X and it never comes. And then Jagmeet Singh leaves the

00:09:35.500 room and does his little dance and says, oh yeah, we won. It's great. It's like, if you ever saw

00:09:40.620 that old episode of Seinfeld when Kramer was trying to get the settlement from the coffee

00:09:46.140 company. They were about to offer him a lifetime supply of free coffee and a big fat check. And

00:09:51.180 he said, I'll take it before they announced that they were going to give him money. That's Jagmeet

00:09:55.500 Singh. He is the Cosmo Kramer of Canadian politics, except Singh didn't even get the lifetime supply

00:10:00.500 of free coffee. He actually gets nothing and keeps Justin Trudeau in power. So there's a visual for

00:10:07.120 you. Kramer, Jagmeet Kramer, Cosmo Singh will try to find a little way to make the meme work. But

00:10:12.920 that's effectively what's happening in Canadian politics. So when you hear this discussion,

00:10:19.040 be very concerned and very aware of what it's heading towards. There are people that are trying

00:10:24.200 to start right now crafting a narrative in which the Liberals get to govern virtually indefinitely,

00:10:31.860 even if they lose the election and I think if you're the conservatives you need to stress this

00:10:37.880 point that listen this is what these other guys are trying to do the only way you're going to be

00:10:43.240 guaranteed to get rid of Justin Trudeau is if you elect a conservative majority government now I'm

00:10:48.320 not a partisan I don't like Trudeau but I am not invested in one particular party I'm merely

00:10:53.620 offering some unsolicited advice here to the conservatives that that's the narrative they

00:10:58.560 need to put. Now, Stephen Harper did this because they saw in 2008 when the liberals, the bloc and

00:11:05.400 the NDP tried to make that unholy alliance with that weird three-way handshake in which they were

00:11:10.680 basically trying to overturn the results of the 2008 election. And it didn't work. It didn't work.

00:11:17.880 Stephen Harper, I mean, talk about constitutional tricks. He used propagation, which the folks that

00:11:23.400 were trying to launch a reversal of the election dared to say was tantamount to an authoritarian

00:11:29.480 power grab. So this is the type of stuff that's happening here. So be very wary of what the

00:11:36.200 government is going to do if it comes down to it and they need to cling to power. And to go back

00:11:42.100 to Jenny Roth's point, the liberals know that they can't just say, well, it's technically

00:11:46.580 constitutional. They'll need to offer people a little bit more. But my message to all the experts

00:11:51.800 on this is that you can't just cling to what is technically valid what is technically lawful what

00:11:58.680 is technically compliant with the constitution while ignoring the fundamental question the most

00:12:05.720 fundamental question that is facing governments in democratic nations or supposedly democratic

00:12:11.800 nations and that is is the government legitimate and i don't mean legitimate as in do you agree

00:12:19.040 with its policies. I mean legitimate in the, does the government have the consent of the governed?

00:12:25.820 Does the government have legitimacy in the eyes of the people? Because again, I can say, all right,

00:12:30.880 the guy I didn't vote for won, but that is still the legitimate government of the country. People

00:12:37.160 are not going to view a liberal government that continues governing after losing an election

00:12:41.700 as being legitimate. And that is how, I mean, all the commentators in the media in Canada love to

00:12:46.980 say that the Freedom Convoy was our January 6th incident, that it was our January 6th. And I mean,

00:12:53.340 setting aside how dishonest a lot of the media's interpretations of January 6th has been,

00:12:58.360 this would be a January 6th incident. You're going to incident. I can't say the word incident now.

00:13:03.040 This would be a January 6th incident. I used to actually, believe it or not, have a lisp. And I

00:13:09.100 had to do speech therapy as a child. And I was good for like, you know, the last 30 years. And

00:13:14.220 then it just all of a sudden came back when I tried to say sixth and incident back to back.

00:13:18.940 That was what broke it. That was what fried the brain. That makes me as effective a speaker as

00:13:24.020 Jagmeet Singh is a leader, evidently. But all of this is to say that we are going to have,

00:13:30.420 when the next election comes, a very critical question, which is, is the result going to be

00:13:36.920 the result and Canadians are especially those who are only occasional observers of politics

00:13:44.420 Canadians are going to have some very big and very uncomfortable questions if they vote for

00:13:49.860 an outcome that is not respected by the people in the halls of power that is it for this but do let

00:13:57.220 me know what you think in the comments on this and again I am okay with pedantry I'm okay with

00:14:02.760 zay me well actually uh thing and i'm okay with going well well the letter of the law says this

00:14:07.780 but i i'm talking about the bigger question here of what it will translate to to voters and what

00:14:14.460 it will translate to to canadians and if you're if you have the letter of the law on your side if you

00:14:19.420 have the constitution on your side but no one's respecting it well that piece of paper isn't

00:14:23.840 really doing anything for you and that's the point about which i am trying to warn people

00:14:28.840 Because, again, sometimes what's on paper doesn't translate to reality.

00:14:33.320 This one here is great.

00:14:34.720 Chrystia Freeland was bragging on Twitter that inflation is the lowest in two years.

00:14:41.960 She says, ooh, yes, inflation is the lowest it's been in two years

00:14:46.020 and within the Bank of Canada's target range,

00:14:48.760 and now it's lower than in any other G7 country.

00:14:52.080 So to use Chrystia Freeland's old measure for belt tightening, 0.99

00:14:55.760 This means we can all buy our Disney Plus subscriptions back once again.

00:14:59.900 So if you cancel Disney Plus to deal with inflation,

00:15:02.580 now is the time that you can actually get your Disney Plus subscription back.

00:15:06.980 So you can start binging on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin

00:15:09.580 and the CGI reboots thereof

00:15:11.920 because Christian Freeland says inflation is at an all-time low.

00:15:14.900 Well, take a look around your grocery store.

00:15:17.980 When you are paying $8, $9 for butter,

00:15:20.960 when eggs continue to be a luxury item,

00:15:23.780 when you can't really afford to churn through all the milk that you normally would to keep your family milked up.

00:15:30.280 I don't know how many, I used to always have the milk growing up.

00:15:33.000 I don't know if that's still what families are drinking or if everything's all like organic vegan soy almond chai or something.

00:15:38.940 But nevertheless, I bet the organic vegan almond soy chai is going up with inflation as well.

00:15:44.300 So when the finance minister says, oh, well, everything's at a two-year low,

00:15:48.000 that has not translated to the pricing that you see on grocery store shelves and as Adam Chambers

00:15:55.400 the conservative MP noted on Twitter a lot of this is about the separation of the technical economy

00:16:02.320 from the real economy the financial economy from the real economy as you see the volatility of

00:16:09.520 energy prices notably cause things to go up and down up and down when for Canadians they're just

00:16:15.040 continuing to go up and up so we'll talk about this a little bit more next week on the show

00:16:21.220 I want to talk about British Columbia here because this every time I talk about the post-pandemic

00:16:27.340 era or I talk about restrictions and mandates in the past tense I always get a few emails very

00:16:32.960 kind thoughtful emails from people in British Columbia saying well you know hate to break it

00:16:38.320 to you but it hasn't really ended here and this is true British Columbia for a lot of the pandemic

00:16:43.460 was one of the best provinces for not locking down for keeping businesses open but not perfect

00:16:49.940 they still had the vaccine passport and it has also been the most stubborn when it's come to the

00:16:54.880 vaccine mandates especially as they pertain to health care workers so as we see now bc is still

00:17:02.460 holding to its vaccine mandate for health care workers but they've said that no longer do you

00:17:07.840 need to provide the proof of your vaccination status to your regulatory colleges. In fact,

00:17:14.200 there's actually been a bit of a disconnect in how some people were reading this report originally

00:17:19.100 and how it is now. And ultimately, I want to get to the bottom of this and talk about

00:17:24.140 some of the legal challenges that are afoot against the British Columbia government over

00:17:28.860 this. Joining me on the line now is Charlene Lebeau, who is a lawyer with the Justice Centre

00:17:34.300 for constitutional freedoms.

00:17:36.260 And I should also just say, by way of disclosure,

00:17:38.520 I actually sit on the board of the JCCF,

00:17:41.620 though that had no bearing in setting up this interview.

00:17:44.980 And I always put that disclosure

00:17:46.820 just so everyone is aware of where I'm coming from

00:17:49.700 in my support for the organization.

00:17:51.940 But I'll ask you, Charlene,

00:17:53.640 what is the situation in BC now, first and foremost?

00:17:56.540 Because I think there was a bit of confusion this week

00:17:58.360 about whether the government was dropping the mandate

00:18:01.000 or just amending how it's unfolding.

00:18:04.080 Right. Thanks for having me, Andrew. Yes, the mandate is still in place for the

00:18:09.280 BC healthcare workers. So any healthcare worker who is employed by a BC health authority

00:18:16.960 is still required to show proof of having taken two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine

00:18:22.800 in order to be able to work. So this new order that Dr. Bonnie Henry issued on July the 14th,

00:18:29.760 just this past Friday, essentially cancels an order that she made on June 10th, 2022,

00:18:36.320 about a year ago, that required regulated healthcare workers to provide proof of vaccination

00:18:42.560 to their colleges. So really, that order impacted those in private practice, not those that were

00:18:53.120 employed by a BC health authority. So that's very significant. So cancelling that order means that

00:19:00.800 those regulated healthcare workers in private practice do not have to show or do not have to

00:19:11.040 provide proof of vaccination to their colleges. So it doesn't impact our lawsuit. So I'm one of

00:19:17.360 of the lawyers on a lawsuit in which we're representing 11 BC healthcare workers who

00:19:24.580 were fired for not having taken the vaccine. So that, that lawsuit is continuing and we have

00:19:31.080 trial dates set for November of this year. Now just to, how do they define vaccinated? Are they,

00:19:38.120 is it a two dose definition or a booster definition? It's a two dose definition. There

00:19:43.380 was some confusion in April of 2023. So April 6, Dr. Bonnie Henry issued two new orders and we call

00:19:52.060 them the hospital and community care order and the residential care order. And there was some

00:19:57.700 confusion because people thought that she was changing it to require or changing the definition

00:20:05.160 of fully vaccinated to mean three doses, but in fact, that's not accurate. Those April 6, 2023

00:20:15.240 orders, they still only require two doses of the vaccine. The order talks a lot about the booster

00:20:25.000 and encourages people to get the booster and talks about how good the booster is,

00:20:32.360 but it doesn't require it. And those orders also essentially captured two new groups of workers, 0.66

00:20:42.120 not even healthcare workers, but those workers that enter health facilities such as construction

00:20:50.520 workers and occasional workers who do not have contact with patients. So before the April 6th

00:20:56.600 orders were granted those two groups of workers did not if they did not show proof of vaccination

00:21:03.480 they had to physically distance and wear masks so that was an exemption in those orders it wasn't

00:21:10.600 called an exemption but it it was that they were allowed to enter facilities without

00:21:15.160 showing proof of vaccination and now that's those that's taken out of the orders so now those two

00:21:21.880 groups of workers are included. Just to talk about the doses for a moment here, this is so

00:21:28.200 absurd because even if you take the government's own messaging around vaccine efficacy at face

00:21:34.300 value, which I think is fraught with challenges, but a healthcare worker who got their first dose

00:21:39.440 in December of 2020 and maybe their second dose in, say, February of 2021 has gone two and a half

00:21:48.320 years without ever receiving any dose whatsoever of vaccine which means the effectiveness of that

00:21:56.620 vaccine again to use the government's own narrative is zero neck is literally nothing so the idea that

00:22:02.620 that is a requirement to work in health care is absurd when if you got vaccinated in january of

00:22:10.840 2021 or 2022 even, you are less protected than an unvaccinated person who got COVID a month ago is.

00:22:20.060 Yes, and that is one of our arguments for sure. So what has the government done, if anything,

00:22:26.720 in its submissions or in public comments to push back against this, to basically defend

00:22:32.300 the science of its mandate? Well, they're still repeating the same mantra, which is that

00:22:39.400 um it the the vaccine is is is safe and effective and you know essentially they're silent on

00:22:48.540 I mean I guess they say they say two things they do acknowledge that um the vaccine efficacy wears

00:22:57.180 off over time or wanes quickly really but at the same time they say that um it reduces symptoms

00:23:05.860 symptoms and that having two doses is certainly better than being unvaccinated. But yes, you

00:23:12.860 should get a booster as well. So those are the types of things that they say. I saw, I can't

00:23:18.680 remember the exact number, but I know that the BC Nurses Union just a couple of months ago was

00:23:23.340 talking about the nursing shortages in BC. And the problem was the ratio of healthcare workers to

00:23:29.660 patients was concerning and ultimately leading to a lack of adequate patient care. So here we have

00:23:37.020 a government that is preventing people from working in its healthcare system. Well, the people

00:23:42.820 in that system who are vaccinated, who've gone through the protocols are saying, hey, we need

00:23:47.760 more staff. Oh, yes, absolutely. And I mean, you'll hear Adrienne Dix say, you know, talk about how

00:23:55.560 they're bringing in workers from overseas and they have a plan to increase the health care workers

00:24:02.280 by, you know, certain numbers. But yeah, I mean, the fact is that there is a serious health care

00:24:09.700 shortage and they talk about how they're going to fix it, but it's still, you know, a real problem.

00:24:17.760 What is the basis of the argument here? Because I know there's always been a bit of a question about

00:24:22.540 the best avenue to challenge some of these mandates, whether it's on constitutional grounds

00:24:28.200 or through other means. So what's the, if you can, as much as you can divulge anyway,

00:24:32.800 what's the strategy that you're taking with your challenges?

00:24:35.860 Yes, well, part of the challenge is based on constitutional grounds, that it's a violation

00:24:41.000 of constitutional rights. So yeah, so that's one basis. But, you know, we're also looking at

00:24:46.480 of challenging the science. So the efficacy of the vaccine, and also adverse reactions and things

00:24:57.220 like that. So we're looking at the science, and we're definitely incorporating that into our

00:25:00.680 argument. One of the big things that and this has come up when we've talked about vaccine mandates

00:25:07.400 in other sectors as well, whether it's the federal public service vaccine, or the airline employee

00:25:13.040 vaccine and whatever the case is that you know there are a few different categories of people

00:25:17.560 here there are those who say you know what i'm not going along with this and therefore they lose

00:25:22.060 their job or they get laid off or fired they're victims of this i i would also say the people that

00:25:27.080 that get vaccinated against their will to keep their job are victims of of this as well and and

00:25:34.840 i don't know how you quantify that number but there's a large group here of people that were

00:25:39.140 literally coerced into this and are still being coerced into this because uh this is the only

00:25:43.520 way they get to do what for many of them has been a lifelong a lifelong calling working in health

00:25:48.660 care yes so yes it very it does look like coercion absolutely but the government's answer to that is

00:25:58.760 it's a choice it's still a choice you're not it's actually not a mandate is what they're saying

00:26:03.760 it's a choice. So, I mean, it really looks like coercion. But technically, it's still a choice.

00:26:16.500 And the thing is, is that the right to work is not protected under the Constitution.

00:26:24.980 How were, how have the, I mean, I'm assuming I know the answer to this, but I'm curious to hear

00:26:30.240 the way you describe it here. How have the hospitals, how has the healthcare system been

00:26:36.300 on exemptions? Because I know that technically, people can claim a religious exemption or a

00:26:42.540 medical exemption to these things under human rights laws, but I know that these have been

00:26:46.420 next to impossible for people to get reliably in other provinces when they've had these mandates

00:26:52.060 in place. Well, so the orders actually do not allow for any exemption other than a medical

00:26:59.140 exemption so naughty they don't even allow the religious uh conscientious exemption wow no no

00:27:05.060 that's right and the medical exemption really is just the the criteria is it's just such a narrow

00:27:12.020 um exemption that essentially nobody qualifies you know so um the exemptions require that you

00:27:21.060 either have to have taken one dose i mean there's there's a whole list but essentially you have to

00:27:26.900 to have taken a dose and been um you know had a severe allergic reaction almost died you know

00:27:34.280 gotten really ill from the first dose and and the exemptions really are not true exemptions

00:27:41.300 they're really just deferrals so very few people have qualified just to drill into that point so

00:27:48.120 someone could have a very good relationship with their family doctor and the family doctor could be

00:27:53.040 very pro-vaccine and say, you know, in your case, I think you might have an issue with this vaccine

00:27:59.140 because of X. And that person might actually have to go through that issue before that medical

00:28:06.020 advice qualifies them for an exemption. Well, yes. And first they have to go to an allergist

00:28:11.060 to get that opinion. And the thing is also is many medical professionals were very reluctant to

00:28:18.340 get involved and to provide those kinds of letters requesting exemptions. So it's very difficult.

00:28:26.020 Yeah, very difficult for people to obtain that exemption. I don't have much time for the BC

00:28:33.700 Human Rights Tribunal, but I know that it is a body that does have a fair bit of power on these

00:28:39.360 things. So how has it not become involved in this when you have exemptions that, as I understand,

00:28:45.780 should be protected under human rights law at least that aren't being respected by the mandate

00:28:51.780 yeah i don't know of any um cases at present that are being handled yeah interesting and again i i

00:29:00.180 mean the the challenge with that body is that i i feel it more often works against individual

00:29:05.220 choice than for it but uh from what you had just said which i i didn't know that the bc mandates

00:29:10.820 for healthcare workers don't even allow for the human rights exemptions that other provinces

00:29:15.700 at least claim to. I found that quite shocking. So just looking forward here, I mean, we've seen

00:29:21.620 in some of the COVID cases that have come up in different provinces, a fair bit of deference from

00:29:27.460 courts to governments. And I'm wondering if you're expecting in BC to have a similar challenge afoot,

00:29:34.700 or if maybe the courts in British Columbia have been somewhat better on this in your view.

00:29:38.560 I don't think so, no. The courts have been pretty consistent across Canada in

00:29:43.760 deferring to the government and the government science. So just a little bit more about our case.

00:29:53.520 Many of our petitioners were administrative workers or who worked remotely anyway,

00:29:58.640 not even due to the pandemic. And so one of our arguments is that the orders are overbroad

00:30:06.560 because they are impacting you know so these these workers were fired for not taking the vaccine and

00:30:13.360 yet they worked in administrative positions and or so they weren't at a risk of infecting a patient

00:30:20.240 which is basically the argument the government used to justify these things that's right explain

00:30:26.320 to me if you can and i i mean i know it's difficult to explain the the inexplicable but

00:30:30.720 But how the government has, to back up here, what it seems like is that the government is trying to filter out a type of person that it doesn't want working for it more than it's trying to prevent against any risk.

00:30:45.680 And I'm wondering if I'm being perhaps too cynical there, or if that would align with your perspective on this, having now studied this file so extensively.

00:30:54.420 Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, they want a certain type of worker. Yeah. 1.00

00:30:58.520 So in this particular case, you have a mandate that really serves to just say, you know, you're either on this side of the debate or you're on this side of the debate.

00:31:08.200 Exactly. Yeah.

00:31:10.360 Well, I appreciate very much you chatting about this.

00:31:13.440 I know we'll cover this up in November when the trial comes.

00:31:17.540 Joining me now is lawyer for the JCCF, Charlene Lebeau.

00:31:21.540 Charlene, thank you so much for coming on today.

00:31:23.820 Thank you for having me.

00:31:24.780 thank you and again i just say so that no one can accuse me of uh going too soft on charlene and the

00:31:31.060 jccf i'm on the board of that organization but again i was interviewing their folks and talking

00:31:36.900 about their cases before i joined the board and presumably will do so after i leave whenever that

00:31:41.900 time comes but uh i haven't been fired just yet which is uh if you get fired from a volunteer

00:31:47.460 position i think you have to be uh really doing something quite wrong here uh just

00:31:51.860 funnily enough on the note of mandates i don't know if you've ever been to in and out burger

00:31:56.300 i've never been because when i'm in like the southern u.s my go-to is chick-fil-a that's like

00:32:01.160 i was in uh tennessee recently and literally first thing i did before leaving the airport

00:32:05.900 got to go to chick-fil-a uh so i haven't been to in and out burger uh but people in the u.s

00:32:11.400 seem to love it i've got friends in the u.s that love it uh in and out burger has put a mask

00:32:16.840 mandate in place. Now before you go against In-N-Out Burger, you should learn it's actually

00:32:22.240 a no mask mandate. They've actually banned employees in five states from wearing masks

00:32:28.500 and they say if you want to wear a mask at work, you need a letter from your doctor saying you

00:32:34.600 must. So this is Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah starting August 14th, no masks allowed.

00:32:42.640 Now this is not something, Starbucks is like the one place, if you go to a Starbucks, you're going

00:32:46.380 to see lots of people that are wearing masks no matter where you go like young healthy vibrant

00:32:51.880 people in the prime of their lives will wear their masks because it's like a status symbol to some of

00:32:57.020 these folks but if you're looking for a burger in Arizona Colorado Nevada Texas or Utah you won't

00:33:03.620 have any masks getting in the way of the ordering process at In-N-Out Burger may as well just go

00:33:09.960 there while you still can I'm sure Biden will find some way to shut them down anyway that does it for

00:33:15.180 us for today. We will talk to you all on Friday with another special edition of The Andrew Lawton

00:33:20.620 Show here on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to The

00:33:25.820 Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - July 19, 2023

“Experts” think Trudeau should get to keep governing if he loses next election

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript