Juno News - Freedom Convoy organizer is still behind bars

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

00:00:17.820 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:26.580 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:28.920 it is thursday march 3rd 2022 you are tuned in live to canada's most irreverent talk show here on

00:00:36.520 true north this is the andrew lawton show going live once again so if you have any questions or

00:00:42.040 comments do send them along in the comment section on facebook on youtube wherever you may be watching

00:00:47.560 we'll try to get to a few as the show progresses but we do have a lot of content to get through

00:00:52.440 some big news coming up today we've got the rules of the race for the conservative party of canada

00:00:58.120 leadership contest. They're going to decide their leader in September. We don't actually have the

00:01:03.400 full rules out, but the timeline and the entry fee are the big questions that a lot of people

00:01:08.100 were keeping an eye peeled for. So we'll talk about that a little bit later on. Also, I want

00:01:13.620 to talk to criminal defense lawyer, David Amber, who's been doing some fantastic work covering the

00:01:18.860 convoy from the legal perspective and actually representing some people involved. He's going to

00:01:23.420 be on the show in just about 15 minutes time, I think, to talk about all that's happening there. 0.83

00:01:28.920 And also on that note, Tamara Leach, the Freedom Convoy fundraiser and organizer, still behind bars

00:01:35.980 as a judge decides whether to let her go back home to Alberta on bail. But he's decided he's

00:01:41.860 going to take his dear sweet time and make a decision come Monday. So she has been, as of I

00:01:46.760 think tomorrow, behind bars for two weeks, which is quite significant for the alleged crime of

00:01:54.220 counseling mischief, which was what they arrested her on. She said, hold the line on her way to the

00:01:59.700 police car. But before we get to all of that, let's talk about something that can unite us all,

00:02:05.480 which is frustration with CBC, specifically the amount of money that CBC spends, not of its own

00:02:12.580 money, not of its shareholders. I mean, yes, of its shareholders in a way, you and I, but not with

00:02:17.300 the shareholders' consent. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which has been doing some tremendous

00:02:22.280 work on this, launched a petition, I think it was just one week ago, to call on the government to

00:02:28.480 scrap the CBC subsidy, to defund CBC. And this has now reached 52,000 signatures in just a week.

00:02:37.660 Tremendous work. Franco Terrazzano is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:02:42.900 and joins me now. Franco, I know sometimes getting people to pay attention to

00:02:48.560 taxpayer spending has been challenging. It's why you work around the clock so tirelessly trying to

00:02:53.660 get people to pay attention. But have you ever had something with quite this uptake?

00:02:58.300 Well, we have had some very big petition numbers, but they accumulate over time, right? Like we did

00:03:03.600 have one petition delivery. It was about 200,000 signatures to scrap the governor general's perks

00:03:10.900 like the lifetime annual expense account former governor generals get. But what's so different

00:03:17.520 about this petition, 52,000 signatures in a week. So Andrew, to me, that really shows a strong signal

00:03:25.540 that there's many Canadian taxpayers that are deeply, deeply concerned, but with the amount

00:03:30.520 of money that the government that the government is sending to the CBC every year and also that

00:03:35.820 600 million dollar media bailout. Yeah the media bailout is a big one as well and we've talked

00:03:42.320 about it at great length at True North because in a lot of ways it raises questions that a lot of

00:03:47.140 people have as to whether reporters are even fairly covering that because their livelihoods their

00:03:52.240 businesses longevity depends on it but let me ask you is this to you an issue of content is it an

00:03:58.840 issue of the fact that we're funding reporting and the fact that we're funding CBC, or is it just

00:04:04.440 about the funding itself rather than the specific content that's being published? Well, Andrew, I

00:04:09.600 think there's a lot of people who have a lot of different thoughts when it comes to this matter,

00:04:13.520 but from the Taxpayers Federation, it really boils down to this. We believe that all Canadians

00:04:19.200 should be able to keep their own money and decide which media organizations they want to fund with

00:04:25.300 their own money right taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize certain media organizations

00:04:31.120 so it really comes down to that let taxpayers decide which organizations we want to support

00:04:36.620 but then also too on the other hand andreas as you know uh it's it's really not fair for certain

00:04:42.320 news organizations to have to compete with massive government funded organizations like the cbc

00:04:49.140 more than a billion dollars every single year or these other news outlets that are getting some of

00:04:54.520 that $600 million media bailout. So for us, it's all about let Canadians decide which organizations

00:05:01.140 we want to fund with our own money. Yeah, there is a leveling the playing field issue here because

00:05:07.320 all of a sudden, first off, you have to have government deciding what constitutes a media

00:05:12.120 outlet, what constitutes a journalism outfit that's eligible for funding, which raises

00:05:16.540 significant questions, even if I'm not aware of specific issues where an outlet's applied and has

00:05:22.200 been denied. But moreover, you're right. It means that the ones who may not take that, there are a

00:05:26.880 number of outlets like Black Locks Reporter is a great example. They are in the parliamentary

00:05:30.920 press gallery. They're an official media outlet, even if they don't go along with sometimes the

00:05:35.660 mainstream media narrative on things. They've said they don't want government funding. Well,

00:05:40.060 all of a sudden they're at a competitive disadvantage because they have to deal with

00:05:44.240 things without being able to rely on that subsidy. So it almost incentivizes companies taking it

00:05:50.520 because they don't want to be at a disadvantage to their counterparts and their opponents.

00:05:55.200 Yeah. And, you know, you touched on this at the beginning of the show, but just that

00:05:58.260 I think we all agree that one of the most fundamental pillars of a strong and healthy

00:06:03.520 democracy is an independent press and independence, both in practice, but also perception.

00:06:09.580 Right. I think there's many journalists out there who are doing a great job, but you can

00:06:14.700 understand if people perceive that they might have some bias when it's the government who is

00:06:21.480 is funding their organizations right i think that is a very key problem and we're not the first ones

00:06:26.380 to bring up that objection right there's we've we've heard it from other journalists in the past

00:06:32.220 um but also too you talk about how you now have an incentive for organizations to want

00:06:38.320 to collect these tax dollars well what about us struggling taxpayers the federal government right

00:06:43.780 What about us struggling taxpayers?

00:06:45.820 The federal government is already more than a trillion dollars in debt.

00:06:49.140 You break that down per person, and that's more than $30,000

00:06:52.180 that each Canadian man, woman, and child is on the hook for, right?

00:06:56.220 How high of our tax bill does it have to get

00:06:58.840 before we actually have a federal government that finds some savings?

00:07:02.000 And Andrew, that $1.4 billion to the CBC,

00:07:06.280 the $600 million media bailout,

00:07:08.400 those are perfect areas to find some savings.

00:07:11.380 One point that I've always raised about CBC, and this, again, should extend even if you love CBC,

00:07:17.840 I would love nothing more than for people to say, I love CBC so much I'm paying for a subscription

00:07:22.640 like I do for the Globe and Mail or the National Post or donating to True North or taking out a

00:07:27.760 subscription to the Western Standard, whatever the case is. People who like that, we're not saying

00:07:32.440 abolish the CBC. We're saying don't make it reliant on government money. Let it compete

00:07:37.400 like anything else. And even if, even if we're going to have as a society, this decision where

00:07:42.520 we believe CBC is important, CBC content's important, why is it not a public good? Why

00:07:48.060 is its content not free for other people to republish? Why is it competing with private

00:07:53.360 companies for the rights to carry the Olympics, for example, something that companies pay a lot

00:07:57.800 of money for? Why are they trying to elbow out private sector media? That kind of defeats the

00:08:03.900 purpose of CBC, which is to fill a void that they say wouldn't exist in a free market.

00:08:09.060 Andrew, so many good points that I want to dissect there. Let's start with this. Even if we want to

00:08:15.600 call this a public good, even if, right, does it really need $1.4 billion every single year? Really

00:08:22.560 $1.4 billion every single year? And to your earlier point, you said, hey, we're not looking

00:08:28.800 to abolish the CBC, just remove the government funding, right? The taxpayers' money that has

00:08:34.640 been forced to go to this organization. Now, we've been doing a lot of digging through the

00:08:39.420 annual reports just to make sure the numbers are correct. And the last figure that I saw

00:08:44.920 was that the CBC was able to raise about $500 million in non-government revenue.

00:08:50.720 So we're not saying abolish the CBC, just defund the subsidies that the government is giving to

00:08:56.700 the CBC. Now, who knows what would end up happening to the non-government revenue? But like I said,

00:09:02.920 the last number that we saw was $500 million, not from the taxpayer.

00:09:08.280 And I think there's an important point there because I don't think most Canadians, even many

00:09:12.620 who signed that petition of yours, would object to CBC saying, okay, we're going to get rid of the

00:09:17.760 online news section. We're going to get rid of, you know, Little Mosque on the Prairie or whatever

00:09:22.660 the 2022 version of is we're going to get rid of all of that we're going to broadcast in northern 0.99

00:09:27.700 communities we're going to broadcast in indigenous languages we're going to go where there is no

00:09:32.020 private sector alternative they could probably do that for less than that 500 million dollars you

00:09:37.780 talked about yeah or certainly less than the 1.4 billion dollars well yeah every single year like

00:09:43.140 i have to keep going to this right because even if you do want to make the argument that the

00:09:46.980 government should be funding i think okay like let's we can arm wrestle on over that for about

00:09:51.140 a week, you and I going back and forth, but $1.4 billion every single year. I think that is

00:09:59.260 quite unacceptable. And it's not just me. It's not just you. I think that's one of the reasons why

00:10:04.880 we saw 52,000 signatures on the petition in a week. That shows me that there's many Canadians

00:10:11.280 who clearly think that this is an issue and clearly think that this is a big issue.

00:10:16.500 And that petition is at taxpayer.com, correct?

00:10:19.420 Yep, absolutely.

00:10:20.120 Just head over to taxpayer.com,

00:10:21.780 click on the petitions tab and you'll find it there.

00:10:24.200 Franco Terrazano, Federal Director

00:10:25.820 for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:10:27.840 Thanks very much, good sir.

00:10:29.140 Hey, it was my pleasure.

00:10:30.020 Thanks for having me on.

00:10:31.200 Thank you.

00:10:31.920 Before I get to my next guest,

00:10:33.560 I do wanna mention very quickly here,

00:10:36.040 one of the content-related challenges

00:10:38.620 people have with CBC.

00:10:40.240 Again, there's a moral position there on government funding

00:10:42.960 that CBC should have to compete

00:10:44.520 with other people in the industry

00:10:46.400 like and go through all of the market realities

00:10:48.580 And even if you like CBC, you can support that position.

00:10:51.640 But then you look at some of the coverage they do.

00:10:55.000 This story came out, I think it was this morning.

00:10:58.020 Numbers suggest many American protest convoy donors also gave to Trump Republicans.

00:11:04.860 And they were using that list that leaked purportedly of Give, Send, Go donors.

00:11:09.900 So the list that was illegally hacked from Give, Send, Go and published online

00:11:13.240 that has allowed reporters to go through and start doxing anyone who donated,

00:11:17.620 you know, $10 to the Freedom Convoy because they believed in what the truckers were doing and all

00:11:22.160 of that. And CBC has taken that list and they've looked at the top 200 American donors and they

00:11:28.200 found that half of them have names matching to donors of the Republicans and Donald Trump.

00:11:35.840 So the CBC story is 100 Americans donated to Trump and the Freedom Convoy or 100 people who

00:11:43.760 shared the same name as Trump and Freedom Convoy donors. And I looked at this and I'm like,

00:11:49.280 okay, who cares? The fact that 100 people out of the 74 million who voted for Donald Trump,

00:11:56.120 even when he lost, he had 74 million people vote for him. The fact that they also voted for the

00:12:00.460 Freedom Convoy doesn't seem newsworthy. But CBC's position on this is that if you were a Trump voter,

00:12:06.380 you're just like a dirty person that doesn't belong in civil society. That's the premise 0.99

00:12:11.280 through which they're approaching this now i don't know how many canadians are trump supporters or

00:12:15.520 republican supporters whatever the case may be but what i do know is that when cbc is content

00:12:22.720 on really predicating its coverage based on the idea that it is wrong to have a particular

00:12:28.240 political persuasion perhaps this isn't this grand unifying public broadcaster that we are all

00:12:35.120 rallying behind as they seem to pretend and certainly as the narrative suggests in them

00:12:39.360 getting so much taxpayer money each year. So all of that is to say, I understand why people have

00:12:44.840 frustrations with CBC beyond just the dollar value of it here. But let's talk about the convoy

00:12:50.720 fundraising here. Tamara Leach, who is the lead convoy fundraiser, she was the one that started

00:12:56.800 the GoFundMe. She was the one that was in Ottawa, was yelling out, hold the line as she was arrested

00:13:03.000 by police. Tamara Leach, after a bail hearing yesterday, has been kept behind bars for at least

00:13:09.140 another five more days. So that'll bring us to Monday when the judge will decide whether or not

00:13:16.220 she should be released on bail. That will be about two and a half weeks, or if I'm being precise here,

00:13:22.220 two weeks and three days since she was first arrested for organizing a protest. She was

00:13:29.300 arrested on the charge of counseling mischief. I've never heard of someone being kept behind bars

00:13:34.240 with the Crown so fervently trying to keep them there

00:13:36.900 as is happening in the case of Tamara Leach.

00:13:39.620 I want to talk about this and much more

00:13:41.420 about the aftermath of the convoy

00:13:43.300 with criminal lawyer David Anber,

00:13:45.120 who, believe it or not, is not a Simpsons character.

00:13:47.580 On Twitter, you may be mistaken if you thought that,

00:13:49.840 but he has a real-life identity

00:13:51.520 and he is sharing it with us today.

00:13:53.520 David, good to talk to you.

00:13:54.480 Thanks very much for coming on the program.

00:13:56.780 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:13:58.420 You and I talked in a Twitter space a couple of weeks back

00:14:01.760 and I said I wanted to delve into some of these issues

00:14:03.900 with you further. And of course, this issue has changed. But let me just start with the bail

00:14:08.400 question here. When Tamara Leach was first asking for bail, I think it was the day after she was 0.98

00:14:14.060 arrested. Actually, yeah, it's two weeks ago today, because I recall the day after was a Friday.

00:14:18.960 And I thought it was bizarre that the judge didn't make the decision right away. And this judge as

00:14:24.140 well, taking five days to review the bail. Is this normal in a criminal proceeding?

00:14:28.480 To a certain extent, Andrew, it is normal when judges have decisions that are important. I mean, they're all important. But when they're in the national scrutiny, in the national eye, if they deal with something that's a complicated legal question, I appreciate that there are many who feel that this is a slam dunk.

00:14:48.740 it's a mischief charge and she should be released. And look, I'm a big believer that the first judge

00:14:55.020 got it wrong. But I did also believe at the time that it's a much closer call than people think it

00:15:01.420 is when you apply the rules that apply to bail. And look, the prosecutor who's been arguing the

00:15:07.200 case has been doing a very good job at advancing the prosecution's theory of the case. So Justice

00:15:13.320 bourgeois uh wanted to wait until i think it was after the holiday monday uh the tuesdays when she

00:15:19.800 released her decision so that's that's somewhat normal what happened uh yesterday and it was uh

00:15:25.240 what's called a bail review which is essentially like an appeal i won't bog down in the minutiae

00:15:29.960 of what it is it's basically an appeal of uh of the first bail ruling to a higher court judge

00:15:35.880 it's actually just for those of you who are interested it's a it's a harper appointee

00:15:40.280 judge the provincial court judge was appointed by the provincial government but this is a superior

00:15:45.400 court judge a former defense lawyer a very good judge very open-minded judge not a pushover one

00:15:52.120 way or the other so he heard a full day hearing basically the matter went to close to six o'clock

00:16:01.160 in the afternoon in the evening and he indicated that he needed some time to reflect on that now i

00:16:09.800 I think due to scheduling reasons, he's in other courts and other jurisdictions for the

00:16:14.280 remainder of the week, the Thursday and the Friday.

00:16:17.240 And so the first opportunity after that that he would have to render a decision would be

00:16:21.560 on the next Monday.

00:16:22.580 So certainly nobody likes the idea that you have to wait for justice, especially when

00:16:28.580 you're in custody.

00:16:29.480 But I think that there's nothing nefarious going on behind the scenes.

00:16:33.280 That's just the way everything shook out with the way the bail went all day yesterday.

00:16:38.140 Not being a lawyer, I typically look at the two considerations that seem to come up in any bail stories I've covered as being the seriousness of the offense or the alleged offense and also whether the person is a flight risk.

00:16:51.620 Now, again, I'm hoping you can explain what the factors are that go into these decisions.

00:16:56.140 But on those two points, we're talking about relatively minor charges here.

00:17:00.180 And also, we're talking about a woman who has had her bank accounts frozen previously, doesn't have a lot of money and isn't vaccinated, so couldn't even if she wanted to get on a plane to flee the country here.

00:17:11.680 So I don't think we're talking about much of a flight risk here.

00:17:14.720 What are the factors at play here that have been justifying keeping her detained, not giving her bail, especially when one of her co-organizers, Chris Barber, was given bail by that first judge, Justice Bourgeois?

00:17:26.940 on. Okay. So Andrew, there are three considerations in bail. The first, as you indicated, is the

00:17:33.400 flight risk. The second is the substantial likelihood of the repetition of the offense

00:17:38.940 or further offenses. And the third is the reputation of the administration of justice

00:17:43.820 as that's perceived in the community. And that normally doesn't play much of a factor into a

00:17:48.600 typical mischief charge, but it actually is playing a large factor here because it's got such a high

00:17:53.740 profile because members of the community allegedly were so much affected by what was being framed as

00:18:00.620 a a blockade as an occupation so on the first consideration uh justice bourgeois did not detain

00:18:09.020 tamara leach on the first first consideration the first consideration i believe the crown had argued

00:18:14.300 it was a a factor but that's not been uh the that's not been the consideration it's been the

00:18:20.460 second and the third that have been in play in this particular case and a lot has been said and

00:18:26.540 a lot has been made of tamara leach saying the hold the line i mean and again look i put myself

00:18:32.380 in the shoes of the prosecutor if i were prosecuting this i would be making the same

00:18:36.780 point as he did it's that the you know the politician said to go home the police said to go

00:18:42.300 home the emergency act was uh invoked and then as she's being arrested she says hold the line one

00:18:48.620 more time and so the argument that they're making is that she can't be governed by the rule of law

00:18:54.940 now again i i believe that the bail judge got it wrong in the first instance there's a heavy onus

00:19:00.780 in terms of releasing people uh particularly those without a prior record and so um notwithstanding

00:19:07.820 the fact that that's a concern the conditions of bail could be fashioned in such a way as to

00:19:14.300 alleviate that. Now in Canada, we don't rely so much on cash bail, although that would have been

00:19:20.320 an option. I know in Quebec, they're a little more interested in doing that than they are in

00:19:24.900 Ontario. Ontario places a big emphasis on shirties. That's a person who is willing to step up and sign

00:19:31.100 for the person and be responsible for the person, like their jailer. So they would turn them into

00:19:36.680 police if they weren't following conditions. Tamara Leach's first shirtie was not seen as

00:19:42.080 being suitable. But a different surety testified there was a publication ban on the identity of

00:19:48.820 that surety. So I can't really say much more other than there was a different surety that was put

00:19:53.060 forward. And there was a debate held over whether or not that person would be appropriate. But

00:20:00.880 moving now to the third consideration, sort of the public's perception of the administration of

00:20:05.380 justice, should this person be released? And we're seeing something that we see pretty much in other

00:20:10.960 areas of of civil society or politics or what have you it's that there are these two different

00:20:16.940 realities of what was going on in ottawa that are being put forward there's the reality at least the

00:20:22.500 one that i saw and i drove the streets uh my offices you can see uh right yeah you've got

00:20:28.640 you had quite a beautiful view of the action and even normally of downtown ottawa there i can i'm

00:20:32.960 actually quite jealous here being in my little basement office of your view absolutely we're

00:20:37.480 right downtown and yeah there was some a little bit of additional delays when getting to work but

00:20:43.080 i i could drive other than wellington i could drive pretty much every street downtown there

00:20:48.540 was at least one lane of traffic open on every major downtown core street uh you know say what

00:20:54.680 you will about the the flags that were there on the first day you know one or two flags that were

00:20:59.520 really really focused on by the media but you know there were hundreds or thousands of canadian flags

00:21:04.920 every day. It was a very peaceful and a very cordial protest for a very long time. That's

00:21:13.740 one reality. The other reality is that this was a blockade, an occupation, that there was harassment

00:21:19.300 going on. We heard a member of parliament even say that there was sexual assaults that were

00:21:24.820 taking place when there's really no evidence to support that. There was the ongoing honking,

00:21:29.280 which was a concern, and there was a court order that addressed that. But when you get the

00:21:35.680 prosecution that puts essentially a package of photos and pieces of evidence together, including

00:21:41.800 statements from the civil lawsuit that's going on, you get this one reality that makes it look

00:21:47.760 like it's some kind of hellscape, that Tamara Leach was responsible for visiting upon the city

00:21:53.860 of Ottawa. And so I think that to a certain degree, that was the perception that was

00:22:00.880 guiding the first bail judge. And Justice Johnston, he normally sits in Ottawa. He's a little bit

00:22:09.140 removed from the city of Ottawa and was able to, I think, you know, not necessarily tune into what

00:22:14.640 the innuendo is in the media, but focus on what the evidence was before him and put it into the

00:22:20.520 proper context and into the proper prioritization. Because again, you know, people can be released

00:22:25.840 on any crime in Canada, no matter how heinous. So it's a consideration of all three of those

00:22:31.160 factors. I think that the lawyer for Tamara Leach did a good job of advancing the argument on a bail

00:22:38.000 review and getting through some of those technicalities. Because it's not quite an appeal.

00:22:42.000 There's some, you know, certain issues that are assumed to have been correct by the bail judge.

00:22:49.660 Other issues can be challenged.

00:22:51.500 There's this concept of a change of circumstances.

00:22:54.620 One change of circumstance that I didn't really see argued that much, which I was quite surprised,

00:22:59.740 is that the protest isn't there anymore.

00:23:01.980 Yeah, the convoy, the mischief ceases to exist.

00:23:06.000 Right, exactly.

00:23:06.780 And I know there's always the argument that it could come back, but I think that the landscape

00:23:10.540 is very different right now.

00:23:12.400 It's had the occupation, as they call it, been still there and Tamara Leach was released.

00:23:18.180 more of an argument could have been made that you know uh she could give moral support or do

00:23:25.060 something to hinder the police in clearing out the area but the area is cleared out it's it's it's

00:23:30.100 gone right so that's one change of circumstance from the time the bail hearing was first argued

00:23:35.740 that i would argue uh makes it such that it's even less of a risk of her re-offending and less

00:23:43.580 of a concern to the public overall. I want to talk about some of the broader aftermath aspects

00:23:51.020 of this. I know you're representing the woman who was trampled by the police, the mounted police,

00:23:57.140 in that famous video now. And again, I'm talking about this as someone who was pepper sprayed at

00:24:01.920 the protest while doing my job as a journalist. There's another journalist, a photographer with

00:24:06.560 an agency I can't recall the name of immediately, who was arrested, zip-tied, thrown to the ground

00:24:11.680 by police and he was later released. There have been a number of incidents like this that have

00:24:16.260 come up. The only force, the only violence, in fact, I've heard of from anyone came from law

00:24:21.360 enforcement on that weekend when this was all basically dismantled by police. So just either

00:24:27.740 generally or on behalf of your clients specifically here, what is the recourse available to people

00:24:32.920 for this, even with the Emergencies Act having been in effect at that time?

00:24:36.600 Well, the recourse available, you have more recourse if you've been charged with an offense.

00:24:43.100 If you've been charged with an offense, you can apply to the court for remedy under the charter.

00:24:48.680 Your charges can be thrown out.

00:24:50.200 The court can make determinations and speak about the police's conduct.

00:24:56.080 The lack of recourse is what often exists when a person isn't charged.

00:25:00.620 We saw people as even far back as the, you know, the gas can seizures that took place earlier on in the protest where people were arrested, their property seized, and then they were released hours later.

00:25:11.700 So for those people, I know, for example, the lady who was trampled by the horse, Candace Saro, she's being represented by Matthew Wolfson in my office, and she wasn't charged with anything, but she is going to be, through the assistance of Matt Wolfson, bringing a professional standards complaint.

00:25:31.320 so that's a chance for the police to be formally disciplined for their conduct we're going to be

00:25:38.720 doing the same thing for the lady doreen that you may have seen who was a video recording on her

00:25:44.560 phone a police officer who walks up to her he walks up to her and says why are you pointing

00:25:49.760 that in my face uh stop recording and they start grilling her about where she's from

00:25:54.900 and then they start basically threatening her leave now or we're going to place you under arrest

00:25:59.500 And I've said this before, but it bears repeating. It's that the Emergency Act did give the police additional powers, but it didn't give the police unlimited powers.

00:26:10.740 And that's how the police were conducting themselves that weekend, where basically whatever the individual officer or the police force as a whole determined was necessary to do, you needed to do or face being arrested and charged with the same thing as Tamara Leach or anybody else who was there continuing to protest.

00:26:29.500 Yeah, and one of the more concerning aspects was this reverse onus that police claimed. You needed to prove that you had a lawful purpose, not just to be in front of Parliament Hill, but even as that video you just indicated, which we played on the show last week, shows to just walk down the street three or four blocks from Parliament Hill.

00:26:47.520 you had to prove to police that you had a reason. And as I understand it, and please correct me if

00:26:52.760 I'm wrong here, it happens often, but detention has a very broad meaning. It isn't just about

00:26:58.380 having handcuffs thrown on you. If police are stopping you and questioning you, that is

00:27:02.220 detainment, is it not? It is. I mean, there's psychological detention. Not every interaction

00:27:07.880 between the police and the public is a detention, but certainly where the police is taking some

00:27:13.800 degree of control over you and basically threatening you to say, you know, do as I say,

00:27:18.980 or we're going to place you under arrest. I would make the argument that the police are

00:27:22.500 detaining a person. And for all the Emergencies Act's faults, and there are many, it didn't say

00:27:27.800 you weren't allowed to film a public street. No. And Trudeau even said when announcing the

00:27:33.180 Emergency Act, he said, this is what it's not. And he said, it is not a restriction of the

00:27:38.580 Charter of Rights and Freedom. And you go into the Emergency Act, where they set out the so-called

00:27:44.620 red zone, where they can secure an area. That area, the southern area of that area specified

00:27:51.000 in the Emergency Act is Wellington Street. The Ottawa Police decided that they were going to

00:27:55.980 have an expanded red zone, and they treated the rest of that area, which wasn't specified in the

00:28:02.380 Emergencies Act as their full discretion to determine it to be a red zone and treat people

00:28:09.100 however they saw fit to treat them. Well, I'm glad you're on this and you've been doing a great job

00:28:16.080 on Twitter and you have your Twitter handle up on the screen there, David Anber, demystifying

00:28:20.760 a lot of this for the lay people out there like myself. So I appreciate it very much,

00:28:25.600 David Anber, lawyer in Toronto. Thank you, sir. Ottawa, thanks for having me.

00:28:29.660 I knew Ottawa. We were talking about you being in Ottawa. I'm from London. So they're all just

00:28:34.240 like big cities that go into an amorphous blob to me. But yes, Ottawa lawyer, David Anber. Thank you,

00:28:39.800 sir. Thanks, Andrew. All right. Well, that was very good. And again, I've had some great

00:28:45.940 interactions with David and he's been very quick to represent people that I think very much are

00:28:50.920 in need of that. I mean, that interaction with that woman on Wellington Street. And again,

00:28:55.060 I'm very pro-police. Police are oftentimes put in very difficult situations. They are very important

00:29:01.260 to our society. And the problem is when you see a situation like that, you're talking about a

00:29:08.780 police officer that is obeying an order that is itself, I'm convinced, unlawful. And with all of

00:29:15.460 the ambiguity out there, you were forced to give just so much discretion. I know I told this story

00:29:21.300 right after I got back from Ottawa. Bear with me because I think it's important here. The day after

00:29:26.460 the protest was basically dismantled. So it was a Sunday and it was, I guess, two weeks ago from

00:29:33.820 the Sunday that's coming up. The time is all just like blending together here. But what happened

00:29:39.300 was I was walking around and being questioned by police at various points. One of them was actually

00:29:46.300 at the same point that video was taken. I think it was a different officer though. I tried to walk

00:29:50.120 east on Albert Street. Police very quickly pounced on the sidewalk and told me I had to go back. I

00:29:55.540 said, but I'm a journalist. They said, prove it. I said, I mean, there is no universal journalism

00:29:59.800 credential in Canada. And they said, then turn around. And then I went to another police officer

00:30:05.280 when I tried to find another way to get to the same place. And he said, okay, can you show me

00:30:11.680 proof that you're a journalist? And I said, well, there isn't proof. And he was surprised. He said,

00:30:15.400 oh, I didn't know that. And I said, well, I could show you my Twitter profile. And I pulled up on

00:30:20.140 my phone, my Twitter profile that just proved that I was in Ottawa reporting. And he looked at it,

00:30:25.180 he said, oh, you're even verified. Then he waved me right through. And then at another point,

00:30:29.480 I tried to get into this secure area that was Wellington Street. And at one point I had actually

00:30:35.600 told them, I said, I'm a journalist. I had a letter from my editor that I was able to provide.

00:30:41.080 And I had a phone number for my editor. I said, you can call him. He can prove that I'm here.

00:30:44.780 Here's my ID. I was very transparent. They rang it up the flagpole to their boss, who rang it up

00:30:50.600 the flagpole to his boss, who said, no, you need to have a parliamentary press gallery credential.

00:30:56.300 Which again, has nothing to do with whether you're a journalist or not. That's just whether

00:31:00.120 you have been accredited to work in a very narrow space in Canadian media. And then I went around

00:31:06.020 to another entrance and I showed the letter, I showed my ID and he said, okay. And then I was in.

00:31:10.780 And that was where I took that video of police taking a selfie with their drone and just had

00:31:15.580 complete free reign over the streets. So all of this is to say that you had police that were not

00:31:21.600 being given clear direction on this. They've been told by someone that, okay, we'll let journalists

00:31:26.900 in just this once, but some of them were saying, okay, you need to be able to prove that.

00:31:32.680 So why is the onus on me to prove that I'm a journalist? And by the way, that is in and of

00:31:38.920 itself a category that is not particularly useful. If you look at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

00:31:43.820 which contrary to popular belief still does exist, it's still on the books as a law in Canada,

00:31:49.980 even if people are using it as toilet paper, it still is there. And what happens is you look at

00:31:55.100 it and section two has freedom of the press listed really as an example of freedom of expression.

00:32:03.060 There's no special category of freedom for journalists.

00:32:07.520 Freedom of the press is just one type of freedom of expression.

00:32:11.000 So that's important.

00:32:12.260 And obviously walking around, I was functionally using freedom of the press as my credential,

00:32:17.640 saying I have press freedom.

00:32:18.620 But realistically, my right, my constitutional right to be there as a journalist is no more

00:32:25.760 powerful than your constitutional right to be there as someone who wants to partake in

00:32:30.840 free expression.

00:32:31.540 and that includes freedom of protest. That includes freedom of assembly.

00:32:37.020 So that's the great irony here. The very same section that protects journalists

00:32:40.720 is also the same section that protects protest. And we oftentimes forget this. So when police

00:32:47.160 were going out and threatening journalists and threatening protesters, at least they were being

00:32:52.180 consistent. But the upshot of it is that people's constitutional rights were being infringed.

00:32:58.000 But oh, Justin Trudeau said that was never going to happen. He said this was all about press freedom. This was all about free speech. It was always about the freedom to engage in a peaceful protest. Well, why then after the vehicles were removed from Wellington Street, were people not able to assemble as people do all throughout the year on the front lawn of Parliament Hill?

00:33:17.660 Why was that form of free assembly, which is a peaceful and lawful activity, why was that not

00:33:25.080 allowed? There were all sorts of inconsistencies here. And if you watched my interview yesterday

00:33:30.580 with Candace Bergen, the conservative leader, I asked, is there still going to be accountability?

00:33:36.020 Can there even be accountability over the Emergencies Act without the emergency? And

00:33:40.340 she said they're going to keep trying. Not long after that interview, what we saw happened was

00:33:45.320 the NDP were trying to help the Liberals and are succeeding in helping the Liberals dilute

00:33:50.220 what the post-emergencies act review process is going to look like, of limiting the ability for

00:33:57.000 this committee, this special committee that's going to investigate it, to actually do its work.

00:34:01.840 So the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois can all day long talk about the need for oversight and

00:34:06.580 transparency and accountability and all of that, but basically Justin Trudeau skates by.

00:34:10.500 he skates by in the same way that the NDP backed this and he whipped his liberal votes and even

00:34:16.160 liberals like Nathaniel Erskine-Smith were like well I don't like it but uh well you know I want

00:34:20.800 to keep my job so I'm going to vote for it and it was it was remarkable how transparent he was

00:34:25.280 about that so all of this is to say that we have an issue right now where Justin Trudeau is once

00:34:31.180 again infringing on your freedoms and all of us are just supposed to go along with it

00:34:39.760 All of us are supposed to go along with it.

00:34:42.060 Now, as we wind down here,

00:34:43.640 I want to talk about some of the big challenges

00:34:45.480 that are coming up.

00:34:47.000 And the reason I want to do this

00:34:48.900 is because I've been getting bombarded

00:34:50.460 with a lot of people asking me

00:34:52.680 why I'm not covering a certain bill,

00:34:54.520 which isn't actually a bill

00:34:57.020 that is what people are saying it is.

00:34:59.580 So I want to talk about this.

00:35:01.020 The message is saying to tell senators

00:35:03.700 about Bill C-10 and 11, C-36, and Bill S-233.

00:35:09.440 C-10 and 11, this post says, this viral post says, is a media censorship bill that would

00:35:14.680 eliminate alternative media.

00:35:16.340 C-36 is a hate speech bill that includes pre-crime and the ability to be taken to court for something

00:35:21.760 you haven't said.

00:35:22.480 And Bill S-233, this thing says, is about guaranteed basic income and social credit

00:35:28.260 score.

00:35:29.660 Okay, Bill C-10 and C-36 do not exist.

00:35:33.420 They are not in this parliament.

00:35:34.980 They were bills that were introduced in the previous parliament.

00:35:37.720 The liberals have said they're reintroducing them, and they might have actually reintroduced

00:35:41.940 C10, but I have to check on that.

00:35:44.060 But they're going to have different numbers.

00:35:45.460 And we covered those, we'll cover them, we'll continue to cover them.

00:35:48.540 They are very dangerous.

00:35:49.700 They aren't going to eliminate alternative media here.

00:35:52.660 You have to be precise with language.

00:35:54.580 Otherwise, you're going to get the fake news label slapped on you here.

00:35:57.260 But what it would do is put the government's regulatory infrastructure over the internet,

00:36:04.460 over online publishers.

00:36:06.100 and the government has been back and forth all day long

00:36:09.280 about what publisher means.

00:36:10.900 At first, it was anyone that tweets or posts YouTube videos

00:36:14.040 and then it was, no, no, no,

00:36:15.160 we're not gonna go against individuals.

00:36:16.840 And then it was, well, what about online news sites?

00:36:18.880 And the government said,

00:36:19.520 well, we're not gonna go after online news sites.

00:36:22.740 But the problem with that

00:36:23.840 is that we go back to the age-old question

00:36:25.740 of government deciding who real journalists are.

00:36:29.120 Government has not recognized

00:36:30.800 that True North is a media outlet in several fora.

00:36:34.880 So they may just say, okay, we regulate True North.

00:36:37.680 And again, it doesn't shut us down.

00:36:39.340 I want to be careful here.

00:36:40.180 It doesn't shut us down, but it would regulate us.

00:36:44.240 And it would regulate other independent media,

00:36:47.080 especially those government doesn't like.

00:36:48.960 So that was the old Bill C-10.

00:36:50.680 There will be a new one.

00:36:51.900 Bill C-36, same thing.

00:36:53.440 This is restoring Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

00:36:56.980 This one is fairly well described in the viral post.

00:37:00.160 s33 this is the one that's being misrepresented this is a senate bill a senate private members

00:37:07.220 bill that would put forward a guaranteed basic income as i understand it it's not going to pass

00:37:12.620 it's not about a social credit score there's a bunch of airy fairy pie in the sky language in

00:37:17.580 there but it's not a social credit score so if we want to talk about what's happening here in

00:37:22.500 canadian society we have to do it in a way that is rooted in facts otherwise we don't actually

00:37:27.420 get anywhere with it. So read the bill for yourself because I was getting, and I have been

00:37:31.780 for days, bombarded with people asking, why are you not talking about the social credit bill? And

00:37:35.280 I'm like, trust me, I'm immersed in news every day, but I miss stuff. And then I read the bill

00:37:39.720 itself and that's not what it does. Do I oppose it? Yes, because I oppose a guaranteed basic income,

00:37:45.240 but that's not the social credit score. The problems we have are coming from the regulation

00:37:50.580 of social media. And that's something that Justin Trudeau is doing. We know is doing regulating

00:37:56.700 online speech and deputizing that's really what they're doing deputizing social media companies

00:38:02.860 to be the enforcers of the government's speech code and that's something that we know is happening

00:38:07.900 and will continue to happen but we are going to cover it here on true north as we always do so

00:38:12.140 thanks to all of you again i enjoy hearing from you i enjoy when people flag these things for me

00:38:16.460 but oftentimes all of the why aren't you covering this why aren't you covering this why aren't you

00:38:20.220 covering it stuff more often than not the answer is i have covered it and i can give people a link

00:38:24.940 or alternatively, I'm looking into it.

00:38:26.820 This one, just because it's not as it was being presented.

00:38:30.280 So that's the upshot of that.

00:38:32.480 We've got to end things here.

00:38:33.540 My thanks to all of you for tuning

00:38:35.400 into this live edition of the program.

00:38:37.340 We've got some great stuff coming up for you next week.

00:38:39.840 So don't miss that.

00:38:41.360 And if you can support our work here,

00:38:43.240 like we were talking about earlier with Franco Terrazano,

00:38:45.680 we're not getting the CBC subsidy.

00:38:48.020 We're not getting the $600 million journalism bailout.

00:38:51.120 We are getting support from people

00:38:52.560 that value the work that we do

00:38:54.240 and that donate a few bucks a month, a few hundred dollars,

00:38:57.280 whatever works for you, whatever makes sense.

00:38:59.460 We appreciate your support very much.

00:39:01.060 So thanks to all of you.

00:39:02.220 We will talk to you soon here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:39:04.560 Thank you, God bless, and good day.

00:39:08.820 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:39:10.840 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:39:24.240 We'll be right back.

Juno News - March 03, 2022

Freedom Convoy organizer is still behind bars

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