Juno News - Feds confirm gun grab won't take place until after next election

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

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

00:01:20.320 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:30.180 lawton show here on true north with a slightly more normal sounding host today compared to

00:01:36.140 yesterday we're not like totally back to full strength irreverence but we are getting close

00:01:40.600 to it thank you to all of you who sent me kind well wishes after yesterday's program

00:01:45.260 one of them was my mother who i like hadn't told i was sick and i think she learned it by listening

00:01:49.560 to the show so uh that was very kind of her to uh to reach out sorry i didn't give you a heads up

00:01:54.600 there mom but uh we are going to work our way through it the andrew lawton death watch has

00:01:59.860 commenced but if we can get through the next uh half hour so we are good to go and then i get a

00:02:05.200 whole weekend to rest up before hitting back actually no i'm off next week so i've got like

00:02:09.200 lots of time to uh to rest up but we'll try to make the most of it as we close out this week of

00:02:14.180 the andrew lawton show here for you going to be speaking very shortly with mark milkey of the

00:02:19.240 Aristotle Foundation about a rather interesting study they've done finding that systemic racism

00:02:25.900 is not actually a thing in Canada which you may have probably surmised on your own but that is

00:02:31.860 certainly news to many of the elites and thought leaders of this country so good to have the data

00:02:36.920 to push back against those. I also want to talk about the firearms file which is one where gun

00:02:42.940 owners are getting a rare reprieve under this liberal government but before I get there I've

00:02:47.660 got to point out something here really funny. Catherine Tate, who is the CEO of CBC, the Canadian

00:02:53.300 state broadcaster, was appearing, doing some speaking event, and she was blaming the CBC's

00:03:00.600 $100 million budget shortfall on big tech companies. She's saying, oh, well, yes, you know,

00:03:06.100 we're getting squeezed and suffocated by all these regulations from Meta and Google. And I'm like,

00:03:11.960 your entire budget comes from taxpayers. If you manage to have a budget shortfall,

00:03:17.960 it's because you're spending too much. And anyone who's ever seen CBC in action will know that they

00:03:23.660 spend insane amounts of money. I once was, this was years ago, back when I did my old radio show

00:03:29.520 in London, Ontario, I was covering a thwarted terrorist attack in Strathroy, which is a town

00:03:35.580 just about, I don't know, like half an hour west of London. And it was the Aaron Driver incident,

00:03:40.100 if you'll remember that. So this would have been 2017, I think. And I was on the scene there

00:03:45.880 reporting on it. And then the next day, I set it up so that I would do my show live from the street

00:03:51.620 in Strathroy. We have this little mobile kit and I went there. And by this point, it's a national

00:03:56.580 news story. So you've got national media there. There's a guy from Globe and Mail. CTV's got a

00:04:01.040 satellite truck. And CBC, I'm going to count it out because I always forget how many crews there

00:04:06.360 were. They sent CBC National. They sent CBC The National. So that's like the show called The

00:04:13.300 National. They sent CBC's local Toronto Bureau. They sent CBC's local Windsor Bureau. They sent

00:04:20.120 someone from the CBC London Bureau. And then they sent also, it was CBC Radio Canada. Yeah,

00:04:27.220 Sean reminded me, it's the Radio Canada guys. So to do the same thing in French. So that was six

00:04:32.200 separate crews that they sent to cover one single event. I'm like, maybe you could just get one

00:04:38.380 person and everyone uses their coverage, but no, that would just be too easy. So if CBC has a $100

00:04:44.660 million budget shortfall, I can find at least six crews worth cutting there that could probably save

00:04:50.360 a few bucks every year. But this is where I go back to, if you're a fan of Pierre Polyev, you'll

00:04:55.060 no doubt have heard his line that he can't wait until some beautiful Toronto couple goes and 0.97

00:05:00.300 shows up at their new home, which was formerly the CBC headquarters in Toronto. So they are ripe

00:05:06.260 for the picking there, CBC's spending. This is a big issue for me. I am a firearms owner, as you

00:05:13.060 know, doubt have heard me talk about, but even if you're not, I think most people in Canada should

00:05:18.140 be able to understand the idea of due process and of property rights. These are very important

00:05:23.760 concepts and things that the government on the gun file has completely and utterly abandoned.

00:05:29.060 So let's go back to 2020. We have this horrific mass killing in Nova Scotia and it's just a

00:05:36.980 horrible offense. The guy's firearms that he used were not purchased or owned legally. They were

00:05:41.440 all smuggled in illegally from the United States, which is true of most guns used in crime in

00:05:46.860 Canada. Nevertheless, the bodies were not even cold yet and the federal government decided to,

00:05:52.200 by order and counsel, with the stroke of a pen, ban 1,500 variants of firearms. The most notable

00:05:58.780 was the AR-15 type of gun. And Justin Trudeau had this way of describing these guns.

00:06:05.500 We are banning 1,500 models and variants of these firearms by way of regulations.

00:06:12.420 These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only,

00:06:16.960 to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.

00:06:22.880 Now that was news to the gun owners who owned those firearms and had never killed anyone or

00:06:28.420 anything with them or those who use the guns legally for hunting people that use them for

00:06:33.860 sport shooting for collecting for target practice for hunting all of these are legitimate legal

00:06:39.860 uses for the firearms that with that stroke of a pen on may 1st 2020 the government prohibited

00:06:46.660 but the government committed to this narrative we heard bill blair who at the time was the public

00:06:51.060 safety minister make very similar comments around that same time these guns are killing machines

00:06:56.100 That's the only thing they are, calling them weapons, military-grade assault weapons, military-grade assault rifles.

00:07:02.880 That was a term that we heard used to describe these things, which were specifically designed for civilians.

00:07:09.500 They were specifically designed for the civilian market.

00:07:13.520 But that rhetoric is still important, because if these guns were, as the Liberals pretended in 2020, killing machines,

00:07:21.140 why have they been so slow to confiscate them?

00:07:23.880 It has now been well over three years, about three and a half years since that order in council, and there has not been one single firearm bought back as part of the federal government's promised buyback.

00:07:35.680 It was supposed to be a two-year amnesty wrapping up in 2022.

00:07:39.920 Eventually, it got kicked back, and then it got kicked back yet again a couple of weeks ago to 2025, we were told.

00:07:45.740 Now, they've made that official, so it's now going to be after the next federal election, before the amnesty period, which means the period at which I can still continue to own these prohibited guns, will end.

00:07:59.740 Now, that's actually a big deal for gun owners because it means that now it's not a fait accompli.

00:08:04.580 There is a federal election in between now and when that eventual gun confiscation will take place, which means a government that wants to commit to a different path could potentially form, and we have a very different landscape.

00:08:19.520 Now, maybe the liberals think that if the election is won and is fought over guns, they're going to win it.

00:08:24.640 That's certainly what they tried to do with Aaron O'Toole in 2021.

00:08:27.940 One, Pierre Polyev has been fairly consistent that he is a supporter of lawful gun ownership

00:08:33.280 and that he opposes these liberal government measures.

00:08:36.200 But we also know that the media will buy into that liberal narrative on what these guns

00:08:40.880 are, as happens time and time again, because gun owners in Canada are a minority.

00:08:46.040 That is, I think, just a statement of fact.

00:08:48.140 They are a minority.

00:08:49.320 So it's difficult to get people who aren't in that community to understand why anyone

00:08:54.200 needs an AR-15, why anyone needs a Mini-14.

00:08:57.940 And this is why I've tried to make public education a big part of this show whenever the issue arises.

00:09:03.800 Because what you get from the government is a lot of rhetoric that sounds nice but isn't borne out by the facts.

00:09:09.380 This was Dominic LeBlanc, one of the Liberal Ministers, weighing in on the extension here.

00:09:14.960 With respect to your question, Senator, it may not surprise you.

00:09:19.420 I don't think that Indigenous peoples writ large oppose this bill.

00:09:24.420 and I don't think to say that hunters or sports groups oppose this legislation.

00:09:31.380 There is, every time governments or parliament legislate in this area,

00:09:37.300 a very quick reaction from hunting groups, sports shooters,

00:09:43.820 many of whom are in my constituency in rural New Brunswick.

00:09:47.520 That's why I think it's important for us to continue to explain

00:09:52.080 and to be able to point in the legislation to why these particular legislative measures,

00:09:58.360 first of all, respect completely Indigenous rights.

00:10:01.940 That's a part that we amended, we added to the bill,

00:10:05.240 because I think in an initial version of this legislation,

00:10:08.820 much of what you identified in your question was a very real concern.

00:10:13.280 That's why I think the legislative process in our place, I hope,

00:10:17.380 to a large extent attenuated or diminished those concerns.

00:10:21.480 So we are entirely respective of Indigenous Section 35 rights, and we're designing legislation that deliberately targets those who use weapons or want to have weapons that are not, in fact, part of a typical hunter or sports person's routine.

00:10:41.420 So I think that there's broad support in Canada for thoughtful, effective measures to reduce the proliferation and access to military-style assault weapons.

00:10:56.800 Sorry, I was like getting comfortable there, sitting back watching the show with Dominic LeBlanc.

00:11:01.460 But there he's saying, you know, military-style assault weapons.

00:11:04.700 That's the Liberals' word of the day there, military-style assault weapons.

00:11:08.600 He's saying, oh yeah, no, we're just going to make Canadians aware that this is not going to

00:11:13.660 cover the average hunter or sports shooter or farmer or anything like that, except it will.

00:11:19.020 And every time, that was on Bill C-21, which is the bill that's going to cement the handgun ban,

00:11:24.320 among other things. But that's what the government has done. They've tried to muddy the waters here

00:11:29.580 and pretend that they're not going after things they're going after. It only takes one example

00:11:34.920 to prove a negative or to disprove a thesis. So when the government says we're not targeting

00:11:39.900 hunters and someone can point to one single gun that is used by hunters, the government's line

00:11:45.120 has been proven to be a lie. When they say we're not going after sports shooters, all you have to

00:11:50.480 do is say, well, there are sports shooting competitions that involve AR-15s. So therefore,

00:11:54.920 the government's line is a lie. And this is what's happened time and time again. So he wants to sit

00:12:00.900 back and pretend to be reasonable. Oh, no, but we're listening in this. Oh, no, we're respecting

00:12:05.760 indigenous people. We're respecting sport shooters. We're respecting hunters. We're doing all of that.

00:12:10.660 Well, let me tell you, I've not met a single gun owner in this country who has felt respected by

00:12:15.060 the liberal government in the last eight years. And it was interesting, behind Dominic LeBlanc

00:12:21.860 there, you could see just to the left, Terry Bryant. Now, Terry Bryant is the chief firearms

00:12:26.680 officer in Alberta. Now, the firearms regimes are federal. The regulations, the laws are federal.

00:12:33.840 But provinces can appoint their own CFO. And this was something I actually brought up with

00:12:39.640 Terry Bryant when I ran into Terry at the UCPAGM in Calgary. How much authority do provinces

00:12:45.700 really have? This was our conversation in Calgary on the weekend. Is the landscape for firearms

00:12:52.480 issues in Alberta so different compared to several other provinces in Canada right now?

00:12:56.680 Well, I think there's two answers to that, I think. One is it's not as different as you might think because if you go outside a few of the major metropolitan areas, you'll find that the vast majority of the geographical area of Canada thinks that not that much differently than Alberta.

00:13:13.020 But we do have some specific circumstances in Alberta.

00:13:17.660 For example, we've long had a major role played by agriculture and ranching,

00:13:22.880 which instilled a sort of sense of individual responsibility and looking after oneself.

00:13:31.320 And I think firearms have been a part of that because they were so actively used by ranchers and farmers.

00:13:39.260 obviously provinces have the ability as in your case to appoint their own cfo but so many of the

00:13:45.240 laws and regulations are federal so how much autonomy do provinces really have and where

00:13:50.380 are those issues where they can kind of be a bit more independent on firearms issues and respect

00:13:54.700 gun owners a bit more well i think there's a couple of aspects to that again one it makes a big

00:14:01.020 difference uh the attitude of the people you have in the office and i can't tell you how many people

00:14:07.300 You know, I attend gun shows virtually every weekend or other firearms events, and I can't tell you how many people come up to praise my staff for the great work that they're doing because they just have an approach of how can we help you to solve whatever issue you have instead of how can we make your life difficult.

00:14:25.400 And so that's, I think, one important aspect.

00:14:29.480 The other important aspect is it is true that this is an area where there is primarily federal jurisdiction,

00:14:35.860 but that just makes it all the more important for us to seek out every nook and cranny

00:14:39.980 where there is some opportunity to exercise provincial discretion.

00:14:44.740 And as part of that process, that also means that we are learning exactly how the whole program works

00:14:53.320 So that if we do get a change of government in Ottawa, we'll be able to assist in transitioning to a more firearms owner friendly regime, which will, I think, pay huge dividends in terms of public safety for even for non firearms owners.

00:15:09.700 because there is just so much of what the federal government does that is not focused on public safety.

00:15:15.800 It is focused on bureaucratic procedures, making life difficult for ordinary firearms owners instead of going after criminals.

00:15:23.240 And if we were able to refocus a bit on the problem areas and give the law-abiding people a little bit more leeway,

00:15:35.640 then I think we would get a lot more support for the program all across Canada.

00:15:40.820 And as everyone in law enforcement will tell you, it was mentioned, I think, by both administers today,

00:15:47.020 public safety requires public support for all of the aspects of administration and enforcement of the law.

00:15:58.980 And so if we're able to build better relationships with the public, that will pay great dividends in terms of public safety.

00:16:08.540 And that, I think, right there is one of the key differences, is that often the firearms approaches that we see are about what can we do to get in the way of Canadians from owning firearms, whereas in Alberta, they've actually taken it.

00:16:22.100 This is in large part due to Jason Kenney's appointment of Terry Bryant and Terry Bryant's continued work under the Danielle Smith government to make a customer service focus central to the Alberta firearms.

00:16:33.920 And again, it didn't come up in the interview there, but the Alberta government has said to the federal government, we will not direct any police resources to be used to confiscate these firearms.

00:16:45.140 So the federal government kind of had its hands tied because they cannot direct Alberta's police officers.

00:16:51.180 Even when the RCMP is working in Alberta, it's under contract and license to the Alberta government,

00:16:56.140 so they cannot take their orders from Ottawa.

00:16:58.340 So, you know, game, set, match right there.

00:17:01.320 I also spoke about this with Justice Minister Mickey Amory in Alberta

00:17:05.620 to get more of the government political side of that same discussion I had with Terry Bryant.

00:17:10.660 This is my chat with Minister Amory.

00:17:13.220 Why is the firearms landscape for Albertans so different than it is in several other provinces right now?

00:17:18.800 What's your government been doing to make that happen?

00:17:20.300 Well, first and foremost, I want to tell you that per capita, Alberta has the highest rate of gun ownership, law-abiding gun ownership in the entire country.

00:17:30.560 And so guns are near and dear to many Albertans for sport, for survival, for any number of reasons.

00:17:36.560 I think that's an important component.

00:17:38.480 We're working on developing the, I think, one of the leading chief firearm offices in the country.

00:17:45.540 It is being led by our resident expert, the Chief Firearms Officer Terry Bryant, who has likely the most experience and probably the most knowledge when it comes to legal gun ownership in the country.

00:18:00.180 I'm tremendously proud of the way that that office is moving.

00:18:03.540 It is taking on a leading role both within Alberta and providing services potentially to other provinces across Canada in helping them develop their own offices as well.

00:18:12.980 And so there are many things that I'm proud about when it comes to our firearms program, the chief firearms office and the firearms officer.

00:18:20.920 And this is something that I think makes Alberta very unique.

00:18:24.260 So many of the laws and regulations are federal. So do you feel a bit handcuffed in a way?

00:18:28.680 I mean, are there enough areas where the province can really exercise a bit of autonomy on this issue?

00:18:33.660 Yeah, and I fully acknowledge that there are certain barriers and challenges when it comes to our federal counterparts.

00:18:39.280 But one of the key components here is that we are going to be a voice of reason every time we approach this issue.

00:18:46.940 A few weeks ago, I wrote to the public safety minister suggesting that we need to put the gun confiscation program on hold for two years.

00:18:57.840 Immediately after that, we received the wonderful news that they were going to do that.

00:19:01.540 That suggests to me that the program was not nearly ready, that it was not well-reasoned,

00:19:06.540 it was not well-grounded in the philosophies that the federal government has providing to Canadians.

00:19:13.040 That two-year period will allow us to assess our position and assess our strategies going forward.

00:19:20.020 I will also say this.

00:19:21.180 We've taken a number of different approaches when it comes to existing court cases

00:19:26.100 as they relate to the gun programs here in this province and the federal initiatives,

00:19:30.700 and we'll continue to do that.

00:19:32.400 We'll continue to assess each and every one on its merits.

00:19:34.720 will continue to take the approach of Albertans first.

00:19:38.360 Law-abiding Albertans should be able to own guns

00:19:40.740 and use them in ways that are appropriate where and whenever they want to.

00:19:45.880 That extension of the amnesty, I think, delays the confiscation,

00:19:49.020 but it doesn't do anything about Alberta gun store owners

00:19:51.620 who have been sitting on tens of thousands of dollars,

00:19:53.820 hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory,

00:19:55.600 gun owners that haven't been able to take their guns to the range

00:19:58.640 or do anything with them for years.

00:20:00.240 Is there any message to these people?

00:20:01.980 Is there anything that can be done apart from waiting for a change

00:20:04.260 in the federal landscape?

00:20:05.820 Well, certainly I want all of those individuals

00:20:08.100 to know, all of those business owners,

00:20:09.840 all the people that invested a tremendous amount

00:20:11.820 in their businesses and in their futures,

00:20:14.460 that we are doing everything we can,

00:20:16.320 whether it's through political pressure,

00:20:18.380 whether it's through addressing it through our courts,

00:20:20.600 whether it's going to Ottawa

00:20:22.100 and advocating on behalf of gun owners

00:20:24.520 and business owners relating to that industry.

00:20:27.380 I am well aware of some of the things

00:20:28.820 that these business owners are struggling with.

00:20:31.160 My heart goes out to them.

00:20:32.140 I want to make sure that all of them know that we're doing everything we can within the realm and the limitations that we have to make sure that their views are being addressed in a constant way to our federal counterparts.

00:20:45.000 This is a province that prides itself on being business friendly, on promoting and ensuring the growth of businesses in this province.

00:20:54.020 And we want to continue with that reputation for many decades to come.

00:20:57.200 that was alberta justice minister mickey amory on the firearms file so the good news is if you're

00:21:03.960 a gun owner you've got a bit of a reprieve until the next election but you are not out of the woods

00:21:08.160 just yet and i think it's why property rights in general need to be something we have a much

00:21:13.420 greater discussion about in this country so we will close the book on firearms talk for today

00:21:18.580 and move on to an issue that i find to be a fascinating one because internalized hatred of

00:21:24.420 your own country has become this like real epidemic in Canada. One of the things we love

00:21:29.900 doing here is importing American cultural battles. So when the George Floyd protests were waging in

00:21:35.980 the United States, Canada also became very introspective. And we started to see all of

00:21:40.860 these accusations that were based on these things that didn't quite make sense to a lot of people,

00:21:47.600 like Canada is a deeply systemically racist country. But this wasn't just being shouted by

00:21:53.600 bunch of rabid left-wing activists this was actually embedded in justin trudeau's mandate

00:21:58.880 letters to his ministers in december 2021 he put this following line in his ministerial mandate

00:22:05.920 letters profound systemic inequities and disparities that remain present in the core

00:22:11.360 fabric of our society including our core institutions we've had the rcmp commissioner

00:22:17.360 forced to testify on the stand of a parliamentary committee to the rcmp being filled with systemic

00:22:22.800 racism. We've seen the Department of National Defense talk about how Canada's foundations

00:22:27.420 have a white supremacy woven into them, the fabric of Canadian society. So is Canada a

00:22:34.660 systemically racist country and what does that mean? Well, our friends at the Aristotle Foundation,

00:22:39.620 specifically Matthew Lau, did a deep dive into it and they looked at a number of key metrics and

00:22:44.660 found that in fact not at all is this accusation true. Joining me is the founder and president of

00:22:52.000 the Aristotle Foundation, Mark Mielke. Mark, good to talk to you as always, sir. Thanks for coming

00:22:56.320 on today. Thanks for having me on, Andrew. So let's start off firstly with why the Aristotle

00:23:01.540 Foundation went into this issue in the first place and why Matthew did this study.

00:23:06.820 Sure. Well, for years, as you've pointed out, we've heard this notion that Canada is systemically

00:23:11.180 racist, institutionally racist, and you have to unpack that. You can meet bigots anywhere,

00:23:17.160 any age. But I wrote in this some time ago in my last book, The Victim Cult. Matthew wrote about it

00:23:23.280 in a chapter for the 1867 project, Why Canada Should Be Cherished, Not Cancelled. And you and

00:23:28.420 I talked about that, as did Matthew a couple of months ago, that chapter. But this accusation

00:23:34.040 that Canada is systemically racist really needs to be unpacked. And you mentioned American influence

00:23:39.200 a moment ago. Well, Thomas Sowell has done a lot of great analysis in this United States, right?

00:23:43.680 But we found that there wasn't a lot of good analysis kind of challenging this narrative, you know, that United States in Seoul's case or Canada in this case is systemic racist.

00:23:53.020 And I can tell you some of the research I did in my previous book that Matthew has done shows, you know, shows it's nonsensical.

00:24:01.320 As one example, Ontario in the early 1950s began to pass laws against discrimination based on gender or ethnicity in the early 1950s for accommodation, for employment, that sort of thing.

00:24:13.680 Prior to the 1950s, if you were black or if you're a woman, you may be denied accommodation or a certain job.

00:24:18.920 Post early 1950s, 70 years ago, that was outlawed.

00:24:23.320 So what Matthew has done in a new paper for the Aristotle Foundation is unpack this even more.

00:24:28.880 Yeah, and I think the one thing that's important to point out here is that no one is saying that racism does not exist in Canada.

00:24:35.540 There are individual racists, there are individual racism incidents.

00:24:38.860 But when you say systemic racism, that carries a lot of weight because you're saying that it's embedded in institutions.

00:24:45.220 It's baked into institutions.

00:24:47.100 And how do you go about disproving that?

00:24:49.700 How do you go about proving the negative in a way that, you know, systemic racism is not present?

00:24:54.340 Well, first of all, start to define it clearly.

00:24:57.200 So you read the definitions from the federal government at the outset of the show.

00:25:01.880 And what you have to do is unpack that again.

00:25:03.980 So systemic racism literally does an institution discriminating against you because of your color, your gender, this sort of thing.

00:25:11.220 We have clear examples in history.

00:25:13.140 If you were Jewish at a certain point in Canadian and American history, you might not have been allowed into certain colleges or at least not above a certain percentage of the population.

00:25:22.200 Chinese people in San Francisco were not allowed at white hospitals because they were white. 0.96

00:25:27.040 The Chinese of San Francisco literally had to set up their own hospitals.

00:25:30.420 That was institutional discrimination.

00:25:32.140 pre-1960s in the American South. You could not be on the bus. At the front of the bus,

00:25:37.580 if you were black, you had to be at the back. The system, the institution literally discriminated 0.74

00:25:42.640 against you, whether it was a hospital, a busing authority, a landlord, so on and so forth.

00:25:47.700 But much of that has been outlawed for 60 or 70 years. So that's very different than meeting a

00:25:54.260 bigot on the street today, who may be anti-Semitic, by the way. That seems to be the latest popular

00:25:59.500 prejudice out there, which should be attacked. So you can meet bigots, but that's not the same

00:26:04.940 thing as saying the system is rigged against you. So what Matthew does in his paper for the Aristotle

00:26:09.100 Foundation, asking about this question, and you can find it at AristotleFoundation.org, is he

00:26:14.860 compares incomes, for example, and says, okay, if we're actually a systemically racist society,

00:26:20.460 shouldn't that show up in the data? So as one example, he goes to Statistics Canada,

00:26:26.300 and he uses the data that tries to equalize for you know people that work full year full time

00:26:30.940 look at income by ethnicity well what does he find if you've got skin color like me and you

00:26:36.380 andrew we're in the middle of the pack right males or females and you find um you know some portions

00:26:42.140 of of ethnic canada if you're japanese canadian or korean canadian if that's your ancestry

00:26:47.500 you've actually got higher weekly average earnings or median earnings rather so um that matters

00:26:53.660 Because as Matthew points out in his paper for the Aristotle Foundation, do you say, for example, that if you're, say, Latin American in some cases, and your income is lower than the average white Canadian, does that mean somehow the system is rigged against you as a Latin American, but not as a Korean Canadian or a Chinese Canadian?

00:27:12.580 So he brings up the absurdity again of this claim.

00:27:15.340 You'd think, for example, that white Canadians should have incomes that are higher than anybody else. 0.82

00:27:22.320 if this claim is true.

00:27:24.540 So what Matthew does is he goes through this

00:27:26.140 and he also uses some other interesting stats.

00:27:28.600 So for example, South Asian Canadians

00:27:30.640 make up about 8% of the working age population,

00:27:33.940 but he finds they make up something like,

00:27:35.700 I think it was 19% of physicians in the country

00:27:38.320 or engineers rather.

00:27:40.100 And he has other statistics to that effect.

00:27:42.040 So again, if the claim is that

00:27:44.580 there's an institutional bias

00:27:46.300 against certain minority Canadians,

00:27:49.400 I despise that term,

00:27:50.840 but certain Canadians who are considered minorities by the government.

00:27:54.640 You'd expect that consistently in the data for incomes or jobs

00:27:58.920 that you would find minority Canadians at the bottom of the pack.

00:28:02.680 But, you know, Asian Canadians, for example, do incredibly well,

00:28:05.480 which is a good thing in incomes and assets in degrees.

00:28:09.560 And that's something Matthew tries to point out as well, including, by the way,

00:28:12.720 for indigenous Canadians, that if you have an education,

00:28:17.320 a bachelor's degree, for example, as an indigenous Canadian,

00:28:20.240 you make almost as much as any other Canadian. And if you have a slightly higher than a bachelor's

00:28:25.360 degree, maybe a master's degree, you will actually make $2,000 more working full year, full time as

00:28:31.120 an Indigenous Canadian than a non-Indigenous Canadian. So again, Matthew unpacks this notion

00:28:36.600 that Canada is systemically racist. Again, institutions literally discriminating. And I

00:28:41.420 think that's an important tight point to make that Matthew does in his paper.

00:28:45.180 Well, and one of the things that I wondered when I was first started out reading this is if a big

00:28:50.220 part of the problem has been that equality of outcome has been pushed by a lot of people more

00:28:55.960 than equality of opportunity. And that, you know, in Canada, we do not have any, you know, direct

00:29:00.620 systemic racial barriers that work against people of color that unless someone wishes to correct me.

00:29:06.740 Now, there are some positions that we see that are for jobs that, you know, are specifically for

00:29:11.280 those people and not for white people. And, you know, whether affirmative action is right or wrong,

00:29:16.180 people can determine for themselves. But if there are disparities that are coming about on an

00:29:20.640 outcome side, they don't seem to be caused by anything that the institutions themselves have

00:29:26.380 set up. No. And in fact, they're related to other factors such as education or geography.

00:29:32.260 And a good example is First Nations reserves. The average or median First Nation income,

00:29:37.640 again, when you don't do the apple to apple comparison, right? Full time, full year,

00:29:41.420 bachelor's degree, that sort of thing. When you don't do those comparisons, yeah, the average

00:29:45.820 and medians look a lot lower than other Canadians. But why is that? Because a greater proportion of 1.00

00:29:51.060 First Nations people or Indigenous people live in remote areas, often on reserves, where there's

00:29:55.460 not great access to education, at least higher education. There's not great access to great

00:29:59.960 jobs. That makes a difference, as does the average education level, which is lower for Indigenous

00:30:04.940 Canadians vis-a-vis other Canadians. So education makes a difference. But the American economist

00:30:10.380 Thomas Sowell has a wonderful example explaining the folly of saying everyone should have an equal 1.00

00:30:14.920 outcome or every group should. And if it's not, then it must be due to racism. He talks about how

00:30:19.360 historically Italians dominated the fishing fleet worldwide, unlike the Swiss. Does this mean the 0.98

00:30:25.820 fishing industry is systemically biased and racist against Swiss, you know, the Swiss? And Thomas

00:30:31.360 Sowell makes the obvious point. No, it's because the Swiss don't have coastlines. The Italians have 1.00

00:30:36.020 coastlines. Of course, growing up around the coast will help you know how to fish and get involved

00:30:40.460 in the fishing sector. And then you emigrate from Italy over the last 100 years, you're going to 0.87

00:30:44.660 dominate the fishing fleets around the world because of that experience, at least for a

00:30:48.960 country that has lots of immigrants, as Italy did for 100 years, outpouring of immigrants.

00:30:53.600 So that explains again or helps explain that you're not going to have equal outcomes.

00:30:58.160 Or the other example, as Sowell points out, which Matthew notes as well, and I have in

00:31:02.460 my work, look, families, I have three siblings.

00:31:07.080 We don't have equal outcomes.

00:31:08.440 We had the exact same environment growing up.

00:31:10.600 but people vary widely in outcomes despite exactly similar similar upbringings so to blame

00:31:17.200 everything on racism as people do are mostly on racism is simplistic to the extreme the paper you

00:31:24.400 can read at aristotlefoundation.org and there's also lots of other good stuff there you should

00:31:28.560 check out the founder of that mark milkey joins us mark always good to talk to you thanks for

00:31:33.100 coming on today thank you thank you that does it for us for today and that does it

00:31:40.540 for us for this week. I am off next week on, I'm technically vacation, but I'm working on a book

00:31:47.060 and I'm woefully behind. So I have to hunker down and get that done. But I just want to say,

00:31:52.240 because this is the last show before Remembrance Day, I wanted to just say a big thank you. I know

00:31:57.920 it's a day where we honor fallen soldiers, people who fought and lost their lives in the line of

00:32:02.660 duty specifically. And my heart goes out to anyone who is family member, fits that category, anyone

00:32:08.340 who lost a parent, a grandparent, a sibling, a child, all of that in any of the conflicts,

00:32:13.980 whether it's World War I, II, Afghanistan, it doesn't matter. Their sacrifice is still just

00:32:19.540 as significant. And in general, to all veterans, I thank you for your service. I've tried to,

00:32:24.660 as someone who is the son of a father who was in the military, the son of two grandfathers who

00:32:30.840 fought in the war, I've always tried to make honoring and respecting veterans a key part of

00:32:36.340 my work and also my life. And that's why, I mean, even yesterday I was so sick, but I left the house

00:32:41.540 to go and get a poppy because I knew it was important to have representation. And it's

00:32:46.060 actually quite sad how difficult they are to find in this day and age. So that's why I believe

00:32:52.680 representation is important, why we need to continue to honor the fallen and say thank you

00:32:57.600 and lest we forget. Thank you, God bless and good day to you all.

00:33:06.340 True North at www.tnc.news.

00:33:36.340 We'll be right back.

00:34:06.340 We'll be right back.

Juno News - November 09, 2023

Feds confirm gun grab won't take place until after next election

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