Juno News - ＂Honking for Freedom＂： Convoy spokesperson Benjamin Dichter on new book

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

00:00:05.040 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.960 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.680 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show, The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:20.540 Good to have you aboard the program on this Wednesday, December 7th, 2022.

00:00:26.060 We are just a couple of weeks away from Christmas, believe it or not.

00:00:30.000 If you don't celebrate Christmas, I apologize for that microaggression.

00:00:33.880 I don't actually apologize for the microaggression,

00:00:36.500 but I feel you have to preface any reference to any holiday whatsoever now with that, just in case.

00:00:42.000 So it's good to have you tuned in.

00:00:44.340 We have some breaking news out of Iran today.

00:00:47.080 The Iranian regime intends to freeze the bank accounts of women without hijabs.

00:00:53.740 Now, this was first reported in a Farsi publication called Farda,

00:00:58.660 and it's been picked up by a couple of English language outlets around the world now and you

00:01:03.980 read this and the first thing I thought of is man I would love to see one of those legacy media

00:01:10.660 journalists ask Justin Trudeau or Chrystia Freeland to condemn this I would love to see Justin Trudeau 1.00

00:01:16.340 or Chrystia Freeland get up there and say oh this is terrible yeah the fact that people in Iran are 1.00

00:01:20.960 having their bank accounts frozen because they dare to go against the molotocracy I am not 0.94

00:01:26.040 comparing the canadian regime to the iranian regime i'm not comparing uh the two things here 0.99

00:01:32.880 they're very different uh they're very different situations but when you look at some of the themes

00:01:38.080 that exist in the tactics governments use to quell dissent it's literally an idea it's not

00:01:43.940 even similar it's literally an identical move to what happened with the emergencies act and it

00:01:49.540 actually ties in very well with a discussion i wanted to have today with benjamin dichter who's

00:01:55.100 the author of a new book called honking for freedom the trucker convoy that gave us hope

00:02:01.300 now for obvious reasons i've got a bit of a soft spot for books about the convoy i wrote one of my

00:02:06.320 own but it was written from a more of a third party view certainly my own experiences and

00:02:11.360 interviews but i wasn't a member of this protest like benjamin dichter was who joins me now ben

00:02:18.360 it's good to talk to you sir thanks for coming back on the show likewise it's good to see you

00:02:23.080 you. How are you? Good, good. Thank you very much. And congratulations on the book, by the way. I

00:02:28.040 know it's difficult to not just to like sit down and write. And I know you worked with John Goddard,

00:02:33.640 who's a very experienced writer. But it's also difficult to, as in my experience anyway,

00:02:39.560 you can tell me if this was the same for you as well, to like have to make the decision of when

00:02:45.180 to just call it because there's so much. I mean, there was so much to this movement. And at a

00:02:50.240 certain point you can't publish 7 000 words or 7 000 pages you've just got to pick the main story

00:02:55.520 and go with it yeah that was a significant challenge and uh you know yeah we could have

00:03:01.360 had canada's equivalent to war and peace but i wanted it to appeal to a broad range of readers

00:03:07.780 and maybe people who are not readers i didn't want it just to be for academics there were so

00:03:12.940 many good and positive outcomes from the freedom convoy it was it was a lovely moment in canadian

00:03:18.800 history and i thought let's focus on that let's focus on the good stories and let's make it

00:03:24.640 concise so people can get a broad sense of what it is i have a stack bjdictor.substack.com where

00:03:30.960 i expand on stuff a little bit i released another article today on my episode in the hospital so

00:03:37.600 that's where all the the additional nuance will come but the book itself we wanted to keep it

00:03:42.000 concise and thank god for john goddard the very short version of this story was we had been going

00:03:48.240 together for coffee every Saturday morning for several years. And I was thinking after the

00:03:55.380 convoy, this has got to be a book. If only I knew an experienced investigative journalist

00:04:01.700 who is a published author that I could reach out to to teach me how to write a book. And I thought,

00:04:07.880 oh, well, it's every Saturday morning with them. Let's do it. And John agreed. And this was the

00:04:13.840 result. I should just say for people that aren't aware of this, and I brought it up when we've

00:04:19.180 spoken in the past on the show, you and I have known each other since years before the convoy.

00:04:23.720 We've crossed paths just in political circles in the past. And I had no idea through any of that

00:04:28.900 that you had picked up this side business as a trucker. So when you sort of just popped up in

00:04:33.660 the midst of this thing after the convoy and the GoFundMe had started out, and I see your name on

00:04:38.360 there, and I'm like, how the heck did like Dictor get wound up in this? And you talk about that in

00:04:43.120 the book and you and i have spoken about it but for people that aren't as familiar with that story

00:04:47.480 how did that initial invitation from tamara leach come about okay well first with the trucking is is

00:04:54.600 one other thing so my uh my brother who is uh about to retire as a police officer my biological

00:05:01.180 brother by the way uh he reached out to me a few years ago and said hey listen why don't we why

00:05:07.940 you get your trucking license what are you crazy he says no no i'm going to retire maybe we can do

00:05:13.140 a business together or we just go to the across the u.s because we just met each other a few years

00:05:18.500 ago right and i wasn't convinced and then he kind of over a month or so convinced me to get my

00:05:25.060 trucking license and lo and behold covid happened and while i was going through this whole training

00:05:33.140 period and learning part-time how to drive a truck how it all operates and all that sort of stuff

00:05:38.820 he said to me listen why don't we just get he had bought a truck already and he said to me let's get

00:05:44.660 a second truck he'll come with me to uh the states we'll do tandem run when we can when you have time

00:05:50.980 and just get away from the madness is that's really was the motivating factor behind it

00:05:56.020 and what that's why i saw throughout the entire covid era the stark difference between the united

00:06:02.580 States and Canada. And that's just from going to New York State, New Jersey, like it was

00:06:07.620 a completely different world. And when we crossed over the border into Canada, it's been like a

00:06:11.320 twilight zone. And that's why I was able to comment on that. And in terms of Tamara Leach,

00:06:16.300 this is one of those things that, you know, the planets just come into alignment. We had been

00:06:21.660 friends for several years, so three, four years at that point, maybe five, I don't remember exactly.

00:06:27.900 And we would talk regularly, talk every couple of weeks, every month, it depends on how busy

00:06:32.440 her schedule my schedule were but we became very good friends and she just called me on january

00:06:37.560 15th and said hey listen uh we started this gofundme for this convoy and it's taking over

00:06:44.840 and she said you know i i need somebody who can help that understands media new media i've been

00:06:51.240 media trained in past i break all the rules that's why but um and she said would you mind doing it we

00:06:58.280 need to press releases a spokesperson all that sort of stuff and i said yeah for you my pleasure

00:07:03.160 because i was completely mortified by the arrive can data tracking app and what it was going to

00:07:09.080 lead to so i came on board and then i said during that conversation it was actually in my truck

00:07:14.600 and i said by the way tamara i don't even hear i'm in my truck right now and she said to me get out

00:07:20.120 what do you mean and i explained what i just told you and she knew the model of truck that i had

00:07:24.760 because her parents have a pilot company and just kind of everything worked out perfectly it was

00:07:29.160 amazing now did you know at that time how big this thing you were getting involved with was or

00:07:36.920 did you have an inkling it was going to be big because i at the time people saw it was gaining

00:07:41.080 steam but you and i have also seen various loose conservative movements pop up and kind of

00:07:46.920 dissipate right away this has happened time and time again uh yeah so it's difficult you know

00:07:54.280 we did we know that it would get to the point there would be 30 plus convos in 30 plus countries

00:07:59.800 and tens of millions of dollars coming in uh no who would have anticipated that the same time she

00:08:05.480 asked me she said you know we want to get as much attention on this as possible and i said all right

00:08:11.480 how much attention you want i know a lot of people in alternative media i know a lot of people that

00:08:16.360 i keep quiet about my relationships with who i reach out that would help and she said let's just

00:08:21.640 go as big as we can we're fed up the west is dying and we got to do something and i also knew that

00:08:27.960 it couldn't just be a conservative movement like yeah it was the base of it because it came out of

00:08:34.120 the west but we had to figure out messaging that would be inclusive of everybody and i think we

00:08:39.080 were successful in that that was why we uh we brought we we went along with these messaging of

00:08:45.240 peace love unity and freedom whether you're anti-vax you're pro-vax you don't understand

00:08:49.640 the vax doesn't matter you have a home amongst those of us who just want all of our freedoms

00:08:55.800 and you may have seen i think you were outside when i came outside of my testimony there was a

00:09:02.200 woman who's been there for the whole testimony she sees me and it's oh it's benji the terrorist

00:09:09.160 benji's a hong kong the terrorist terrorist terrorist and i went up to her i grabbed my

00:09:13.960 instagram and i flipped it around and i said the freedom convoy protected her speech as well as 0.93

00:09:22.360 the truck speech be allowed to say whatever she wants she's probably a lovely person maybe a

00:09:29.320 little maybe a little confused in my minds but that was the essence of the movement it was for

00:09:35.000 everybody i i i so i don't know if she is a lovely person i actually tried to do an interview with

00:09:41.400 her at one time because I genuinely believe, you know, she has a right to be there. And I wanted

00:09:45.900 to hear what she had to say about it. And I went up very politely, asked it, and then she just told

00:09:50.240 me to go F myself. But the pleb on Twitter has had better luck. He at the end had a little bit 1.00

00:09:55.860 of like a budding romance with her, I think. So, you know, he played the long game there.

00:10:01.360 But I agree with your point there. And I actually want to talk about the famous media strategy here

00:10:07.060 because this just infuriated so many of the legacy media types in Ottawa.

00:10:12.860 You had that first press conference on the Sunday

00:10:16.020 and you invited only independent media outlets

00:10:19.480 and journalists that you knew to be independent

00:10:21.900 in their thinking, Rupa Subramania at the time with the National Post.

00:10:25.500 And I was there, Kian Bextie with Rebel.

00:10:27.920 You had people from the Epoch Times.

00:10:29.580 You had people from the National Telegraph. 0.92

00:10:31.980 You had a ragtag group, not pictured.

00:10:34.760 global news ctv cbc the toronto star and i think this remains and when i i know you read my book

00:10:42.300 so some of the people uh including dagny polack who was one of the other folks on your media team

00:10:48.200 had sort of said in retrospect they weren't sure if that was the best way to do it and i was

00:10:53.440 wondering do you still stand by that that the decision to exclude legacy media from those that

00:10:58.980 access was correct uh yes and so much so that uh last last month and the last conversation i had

00:11:07.320 with uh jordan peterson i know we spoke a lot over the past couple of months he explained to me

00:11:13.000 that because he's been in communications he doesn't really get involved in the party politics

00:11:17.740 but he'll speak with anybody and he said to me you know your your strategy was so successful

00:11:23.260 that Pierre Polyev's campaign

00:11:26.560 and the Conservatives have decided to do the same thing.

00:11:30.220 And he gave me some specific examples

00:11:32.620 of mainstream media shows that he's gone on,

00:11:35.660 that there was a 0% increase in book sales

00:11:39.080 when he's doing his book promotion.

00:11:41.220 So what does that mean?

00:11:42.280 It means he's always watching them.

00:11:43.600 And then the next day, an example that he gave me,

00:11:46.940 he went on a podcast that was fairly well-known,

00:11:49.520 not terribly popular,

00:11:51.140 but the book sales spiked uh significantly the next day and it goes to show what i've been trying

00:11:57.260 to tell the conservative party for now four years ignore legacy media nobody's watching it the only

00:12:04.820 people who are watching it are one of the subsects or the groups who are at home cooking for their

00:12:09.740 kids they're half paying attention to what's going on on the tv in the background and they'll notice

00:12:15.720 something for 30 seconds and move on media has changed that's joe rogan has three hour long

00:12:20.940 podcasts and it's the largest audience in all of media it's because people want to hear

00:12:26.760 individuals in their full context and that's what i did with you and everybody else at the

00:12:32.800 conference i said we're going to do independent media and we're going to be here for as long as

00:12:38.300 you want and that ended up being two hours and 20 minutes if i remember uh if i remember correctly

00:12:43.140 but a little asterisk after that was i was a little disappointed because after that meeting

00:12:49.620 i think you were still in the room or you had just left the room i got a call from alexa at rebel

00:12:55.780 media and she said we missed the press conference we had a miscommunication because i had emailed

00:13:02.980 as and said we're doing it you want to come like come so there's a miscommunication alexa lincoln

00:13:08.900 and mocha showed up i said be here in 10 minutes chris has already left but tamara and i are here 0.93

00:13:14.420 tamara and i will stay and we'll do an area for you guys because i figured i'm going to kill

00:13:19.060 multiple birds with one stone i'll be able to get ahead of the legacy media narrative

00:13:24.740 they'll be able to hear us in our full context i got the impression that rebel news was at least

00:13:30.580 supportive of the idea that everybody has the right to protest so it was perfect so we ended

00:13:36.660 up doing 50 or 51 minutes just tamara and myself now my inbox was overloaded i had tens of thousands

00:13:45.860 of messages coming in i24 dw abc australia bbc every news outlet in multiple countries although

00:13:54.580 is the biggest story on the planet i gave the exclusive interview to rebel news and spiked it

00:14:01.620 I called Alexa that night. I said, what's happening? She's all excited. I'm going to

00:14:07.140 translate it and I'll put it in French and we'll get it to Quebec. I said, great. The next morning,

00:14:12.440 nothing. I followed up with her. Where is it? We're still waiting for approval. Waiting for

00:14:16.000 approval. It's the biggest news story in the world. And then what happened later on in the day? What

00:14:20.920 happened, Alexa? I don't know. I don't know. And after two, three days, you know, I was scheduling,

00:14:25.680 you know, meetings like crazy. I was doing interview after interview after interview,

00:14:29.200 focusing on u.s media and that interview never aired although when jim kalaharios my lawyer came

00:14:36.180 out of testimony there was um he was interviewed by uh william from rebel and they put together a

00:14:43.300 little video and spliced in some b-roll i guess from that interview with myself and tamara so

00:14:47.700 never aired i don't understand why they still haven't aired it just um and listen i don't know

00:14:52.580 their production schedule i know how it all works but it just it's the biggest news story on the

00:14:57.200 planet how do you not air it i couldn't believe it yeah and i i wasn't even aware that had taken

00:15:03.020 place that there was sort of a bonus press conference after the press conference with

00:15:06.740 with rebel but even so you kind of kept that approach up until the very end i know there

00:15:12.600 was that famous video of glenn mcgregor basically being asked to leave the i think it was the

00:15:17.300 sheridan hotel uh hallway because uh there was another one of these things taking place there

00:15:22.340 Punchy McGregor. That's my name for him. Punchy McGregor.

00:15:25.320 Fair enough. But I guess the interesting thing that I would raise about this is that when the media was misrepresenting the convoy and you weren't talking to them to correct the record, you had said something when I interviewed you for my book many months ago that you really wanted to expose them, that you really wanted people to see exactly what they were all about.

00:15:48.400 And was that part of the convoy or was that your own personal project, if you will?

00:15:55.760 Well, the way we had structured it was we had, you know, three hotels.

00:16:00.280 There were different teams that were responsible for different things.

00:16:04.240 And we kept having every day.

00:16:06.380 There were people that were calling their own press conferences.

00:16:10.140 And, you know, Tara tried to explain to everybody repeatedly, all messages go through the media team.

00:16:17.620 Benjamin's run the media team.

00:16:19.500 So if you want to do any messages, any press releases, whatever, go to him, make sure him and the team vetted, because there was four of us, actually.

00:16:28.220 And that was the structure that we had.

00:16:30.340 Because if not, it could have been just chaos.

00:16:32.860 And you saw what happened when some people that really didn't speak on behalf of the convoy, but wanted their 15 minutes in fame, well, they got in front of a camera and confused the narrative amongst the public.

00:16:45.920 The other reason that I wanted to phrase out legacy media was I saw what happened during January 6th, right?

00:16:54.660 So the media in the States, the legacy media took a certain position, a certain narrative, and what did they do?

00:17:01.520 They run B-roll after B-roll after B-roll after B-roll, targeting and smearing the participants, irrespective whether you agree with what they did or not, okay?

00:17:09.940 I did not want them to have their own exclusive footage so they could run these b-rolls and attacking Tamara and myself in perpetuity forever.

00:17:23.500 And I knew if they didn't have any interviews one-on-one with us, then I would limit them in terms of their intellectual property they would use against us.

00:17:35.580 and the post-millennial actually confirmed that because they said once they were they were all

00:17:39.980 chuckling apparently their office because uh one of the press conferences it might have been the

00:17:44.940 second one uh they were laughing that the ctv cbc all the mainstream media had to log on to the

00:17:51.420 post-millennial feed and start sharing it online they didn't have their own access to it so that's

00:17:57.980 exactly yeah and i think global ended up stealing he and bexty's footage or something and ended up

00:18:02.860 there was a controversy about that if memory serves exactly so i was trying to kind of doubly

00:18:09.180 help alternative media and that's why i gave the example with rebel news i was confused because

00:18:14.380 they had the exclusive footage like they could have been i would have it should have been one

00:18:20.060 of the biggest videos in the history of that company like it was just perplexing to me let's

00:18:26.220 talk about the competing press conferences and and i guess the people jockeying to be

00:18:30.940 the one seen as in charge here, because I know this was a big issue. I was getting invitations

00:18:36.140 to things that were presented to me as being a quote unquote official, although we'll talk about

00:18:41.600 the complexities of that term. And then I'd send you a message, you know, like, this is the first

00:18:44.840 time hearing about it. What? And I know this was like constantly something you had to grapple with

00:18:49.680 here. But at the same time, I mean, one of the things that Tamara has testified to and other

00:18:54.580 people involved in the convoy have tested to is that this wasn't a, I mean, I know there was the

00:18:59.000 board formed for Freedom Corp. But this wasn't a hierarchical top-down organization. No one had

00:19:05.760 any real leverage or control over others. So it was very difficult for anyone to say that anyone

00:19:12.360 wasn't involved. So when you get someone popping up that says, you know, yes, I'm doing this thing

00:19:16.700 here and they're available to media, the media is obviously going to pounce on that. But I guess

00:19:22.540 the question is, in an organic grassroots movement, how can you effectively, or do you believe you

00:19:28.480 did effectively put out all of these, what you would say are fires or however you want to describe

00:19:33.800 them? Well, there's two different levels to this strategy. So one was having like a cohesive

00:19:41.620 message around peace, love, unity, and freedom that would go on the press releases. And that

00:19:48.440 would be for legacy media and media and yourself. I think you're more, you're more mainstream than

00:19:54.400 legacy media to be entirely honest but like yourself and your company and other companies

00:19:58.880 to contact representatives of the people who had the largest moral persuasion who are those people

00:20:05.440 the people who all who fundraised the 10 million dollars that's why i was getting so many requests

00:20:10.480 initially because it was my name and tamara's name uh on the gofund right so that's where the moral

00:20:15.360 persuasion came from but then on the other side i suggested to many of the road captains and

00:20:20.800 truckers they said listen god here you guys were all on tick tock i don't know why you're using

00:20:27.920 tick tock because i don't like the arrive can app but whatever you want to use tick tock that's great

00:20:32.960 go out and sell the message to your audience go on tick tock use it all day long get as many people

00:20:38.400 as possible or instagram which i suggested instead and so that was kind of the two-pronged approach

00:20:44.160 that when it came to because we knew there's be legal implications right especially with this

00:20:49.200 around this amount of money so there had to be some sort of loose legal structure organization

00:20:55.440 around it but then everybody else could do their own thing at the same time it's just

00:20:59.760 i said to them just try to keep it nice just don't say don't yeah i know you don't like trudeau but

00:21:05.760 let's let's dial it down a little bit and i think for the most part they did and it was successful

00:21:10.880 so i was looking a little bit towards you know how bitcoin works which is a a decentralized mechanism

00:21:18.160 and i looked at the process in terms of okay we have all these decentralized nodes those are all

00:21:24.240 the different groups that brought 300 people there 200 people a thousand people there whatever

00:21:29.360 we'll broadcast a broader message for everybody and everybody will kind of will figure out a way

00:21:35.040 to support each other for the most part it worked there was a little friction from one of the because

00:21:40.320 we had so many organizations trying to take over like big well-funded organizations and one of them

00:21:45.760 they were very uh anti-covid vaccines and i said listen great but we need to get people who are

00:21:53.200 supporting covid vaccines to support us as well we need to brought to past a wide net and if we

00:21:59.920 can bring them in then guess what you'll be able to talk to them and persuade them and conf and

00:22:06.320 you want to convince them so if we do that strategy why don't you your organization which

00:22:11.680 already functions already brand already have a following we'll say where you're here and the

00:22:17.520 freedom convoy supports your organization you support the right for for truckers to come protest

00:22:24.560 and for the people who are interested in that message they'll gravitate towards you but we'll

00:22:29.600 be able to cast a broader net to people who normally wouldn't listen i remember the first

00:22:34.320 day i'm walking up to parliament hill in front of the chateau laurier and i've said in many interviews

00:22:40.560 my inspiration for this was i went back to my days uh going to grateful dead concerts and going to

00:22:46.640 fish concerts and the almond brothers right very peaceful loving party too much drugs for me but

00:22:52.480 other than the drugs it was it was a great environment and you know one of the first few

00:22:57.040 people i saw there's a group of people with tie-dye and peace signs and we love everybody

00:23:03.120 and those were not conservatives but they were canadians and they were happy to finally be out

00:23:08.800 out of their home and meeting new people.

00:23:11.180 And this was, I know of two COVID babies, 0.99

00:23:14.760 sorry, convoy babies that have been born

00:23:17.320 in the past month and a half.

00:23:19.520 So it's been wonderful.

00:23:21.400 It is, and let's talk about some of the friction there

00:23:24.640 because I think that there were obviously signs

00:23:27.260 of this earlier on.

00:23:28.220 And certainly when you testified

00:23:29.940 before the Public Order Emergency Commission,

00:23:31.980 this became more apparent.

00:23:33.260 And just to set the stage here in the early days,

00:23:36.400 I think it's pretty much uncontested

00:23:38.120 you had Bridget Belton and Chris Barber get linked up on TikTok, build a little bit of

00:23:43.080 momentum. People like Pat King was involved in the sense of promoting it early on. James

00:23:48.900 Botter tried to be a bit more of a central organizer. James and Pat effectively out of

00:23:54.360 the picture by the time the convoy gets to Ottawa. You've got other people that are brought

00:23:58.840 in. You're certainly at the helm of media here. And there were still, though, even after those

00:24:06.700 changes, some friction. I mean, you testified to the breakdown with Tom Marazzo at one point

00:24:12.960 saying he wanted to be a ghost and then holding that press conference, which I've talked to Tom

00:24:17.520 about. And I accept it at face value that what he was accused of saying was not what he's saying.

00:24:23.340 But you've actually gone further and have used the word sabotage with Tom and also with Keith

00:24:29.720 Wilson, the lawyer that the JCCF retained. And at what point did that view emerge in your view and

00:24:36.000 and why it was an evolution like things were really unsettling in the beginning um on february

00:24:44.160 4th and you have to understand the context of the messaging it was peace love everybody come

00:24:49.280 together right uh there were some people did the f trudeau flags which was the messaging that

00:24:55.440 ironically united people from quebec and alberta like they loved it they were having a blast with

00:25:01.120 it was great uh but our messaging was all positive and then on february 4th i'm in my hotel room at

00:25:08.960 sheridan because we're all in in hotels right next to each other the swiss was a little bit farther

00:25:14.320 but the arc and the sheridan were one street across from each other basically within walking

00:25:18.720 distance that's why i saw each other all the time and somebody comes in i don't remember who came

00:25:23.920 into my hotel room because it was it was constantly in flux so many people coming in and out somebody

00:25:29.200 comes in says you're not going to believe what the lawyers just did and i said what lawyer what are

00:25:35.680 you talking about i'd met one lawyer private previously that was setting up uh the corporation

00:25:40.640 i think that was team if i'm not mistaken that's his name and it's the lawyers just went on and

00:25:45.600 did a doom and gloom video on twitter and it's going viral and i'm like oh my god what what was

00:25:51.520 so they the person i can't remember what it was really uh showed me the twitter message and uh

00:25:59.280 just got so i wanted to rip somebody's throat out because that's the exact opposite that's

00:26:05.120 that's what pat king was doing and this is keith wilson's your freedoms are under attack video

00:26:10.480 your freedoms are under attack that's not peace love and unity who told him to talk right where

00:26:14.640 do you come from uh so i went over to the uh the ark hotel and i was far more aggressive than i

00:26:22.480 depict in book um but uh just to explain that what you just undid everything that i've been working

00:26:29.920 on since january 15th who let you talk and who that bj i'm like yeah that's bj who let you talk

00:26:38.160 and it was just from there on there was um there was it was always a challenge there's always

00:26:45.200 friction you know they they came in and said well congratulations you have a five million dollar

00:26:50.560 class action suit for what what are you talking about this is what happened but it's okay

00:26:56.160 because we're here we're going to uh do your legal work for free okay so we're all kind of in the

00:27:02.880 room there were so many fires to put out and it was convincing that oh we're gonna help you and

00:27:09.280 whatever okay what do you guys think everybody thought the same thing fine and uh that's what

00:27:14.240 really started but then that was for to represent us in the class action suit but then all of a

00:27:18.960 sudden we're getting dictated to you know a couple days later oh we need to meet the city i remember 0.76

00:27:23.920 the first time i heard of this stupid idea and i said why would you meet with the city no you're 0.70

00:27:29.200 not meeting with us the city hasn't come back to come to us yet they told us where to park just 0.99

00:27:34.880 relax and cool your jets i didn't know at that time until the hearing that they already had

00:27:41.920 been speaking to the city so morazzo and keith and dean french so morazzo said he came uh that

00:27:49.200 randy hillier uh told he's fun on your show he's randy hillier uh called me and told me to come so

00:27:55.600 So Randy Hilliard's buddy, Moretso, Keith, whoever he linked to, Dean French, Doug Ford's still very good friend, all of a sudden start negotiating with the city.

00:28:07.640 Well, they weren't negotiating on behalf of any truckers.

00:28:09.720 They might have been negotiating on behalf of Doug Ford.

00:28:12.360 And it was just frustrating to see that evolve.

00:28:15.100 But we didn't know that was happening until several days later after they started talking to the city.

00:28:21.240 and it just kept being like they don't understand uh the client solicitor relationship it's like no

00:28:26.360 no we tell you what to do thank you for helping us uh come to us and we'll tell you what to do

00:28:32.200 and it was just it was constant it would and you know when i me and tamara we were always in sync

00:28:38.120 with each other but tamara she's a wonderful person and she does not like she knows everybody's

00:28:44.680 got a good heart so she's trying to accommodate everybody especially then so many people are

00:28:49.240 threatening her oh we're gonna sue you for a hundred thousand dollars and everybody was after

00:28:53.960 the money so she was put in a very very difficult position and you know so she got very weary of

00:29:00.520 saying no to people because anybody she would say no to would threaten to sue her so that was my job

00:29:06.280 so she would call me and say this person whatever anyways um and go ahead yeah so and with this case

00:29:13.800 as well it seemed to be there was a consorted effort to go out of their way to because every

00:29:19.160 day me and tamara talk like 20 times a day and constantly she would call me and say what do you

00:29:25.080 think about this idea no i don't think that's a good idea because and she said oh yeah that's a

00:29:28.440 good point okay no problem and that's how we worked we were always sympathetic the whole time

00:29:33.640 but there were people that were uh they seemed to be trying to work tamara for lack of better term

00:29:40.120 and that's why i suggested to her we need to get you a handler uh but that's she's a very one-on-one

00:29:46.680 emotional person who connects with people she didn't want to handle her and uh okay so it is

00:29:51.320 what it is but let's drill down into this a bit more because i i know that you had a very collegial

00:29:57.080 relationship with tamara and i i don't think i i don't think you would say and i certainly wouldn't

00:30:01.160 say that you were working for her in any uh meaningful capacity but she was the president

00:30:05.500 of this entity that had been set up. She was the president of what's called Freedom Corp. And I

00:30:10.860 know she's precluded by bail conditions from having conversations with you along with other people.

00:30:16.680 So I don't know what, if any, your relationship is with Tamara now. But I do know that Tamara is

00:30:21.780 still, it seems like, very tight with Keith Wilson and Tom Marazzo. So was that not a choice that she

00:30:28.420 was making as the spiritual leader of the convoy, that that was the direction she wanted to go and

00:30:33.460 and not the approach that you're putting forward well so for example when we registered the

00:30:38.080 corporation she was to be the president i was supposed to be the vice president and i said okay

00:30:41.820 fine go ahead and do it because we were both you know it was our combination of messages you were

00:30:46.940 the two most public faces of this thing absolutely that's right that's right and so i'm back to the

00:30:51.260 sheridan i had i think um i think it was new max i was doing an interview that night if i'm not

00:30:55.900 mistaken and i had to cancel when i broke my ankle and um the next thing i know the next day is

00:31:02.040 next day or two days later I find out oh you're not the vice president you're something else

00:31:06.300 somebody you know kicked me to the curb amongst the legal entities that were advising whatever

00:31:12.540 I really care it didn't make a difference to me sort of thing but you know what I also indicated

00:31:17.700 is Tamara and Barbara and two are both in a very difficult position because they've been put into

00:31:23.920 into a position where they were not told none of us were told that on February 17th we could have

00:31:30.860 applied uh to the court to have a percentage of the money that was donated and put into escrow

00:31:38.540 that that money we could have applied to have that released for the purpose of a legal defense

00:31:44.220 we were not told that um i found this the night before i testified in uh in ottawa so you can

00:31:51.980 imagine how uh annoyed i was to learn that solo in the game so their position now because they

00:32:00.380 were not told they could apply to have for person for the purpose of legal representation that now

00:32:07.580 beholden to the one organization that's funneling all donations into it and it's interesting that

00:32:14.380 that money the 1.7 million dollars that they've raised since the convoy uh they seem to be

00:32:21.820 strategizing to use the escrow money not using the 1.7 million and the rest of us

00:32:28.380 us have nothing you know uh chris was thrown off the board i was thrown that's chris gara correct

00:32:35.900 of adopted chad eros thrown off the board so 50 of the board over time through some legal wrangling

00:32:45.020 anybody who's been on a board knows how that works when there's certain entities who have other

00:32:50.180 interests in this case i think it was political interests that they had us kicked off the board

00:32:55.460 and now we're all left hanging so it's concerning what's going on. I just want to jump into that

00:33:01.320 because I know originally when you and I have spoken in the past you've had some criticisms

00:33:04.920 not I wouldn't say very serious ones but just criticisms about Chad Eros and about Chris Guerra

00:33:11.780 so how do you end up aligned how did you end up aligned with them on the legal

00:33:15.700 fight that you're in now? Let's say that again I missed the first half of your question. Yeah so

00:33:19.700 i just you've been critical in the past of chad eros and chris gara and now you seem to be on on

00:33:26.500 side at least with each other for the legal fight and i was just wondering how that evolution

00:33:30.220 happened chris gara i was never at odds with we uh we never had any sort of uh chad during the

00:33:37.180 it's interesting like people are trying to binary one or the other you know chad has had friction

00:33:42.680 just like any board of people who have the world's attention on them don't know what to do and are

00:33:48.800 trying to navigate this this thing and your government's attacking you it's just a stress

00:33:53.640 it's a stressful situation um but chad you know when i broke my ankle and they they carried me

00:34:00.700 onto the the couch of the ark hotel the first two people that came and sat around me and were

00:34:06.520 were bridget and chad and chad sat with me the longest like i felt bad i'm like chad you know

00:34:13.380 you don't have to stay all this time like you can if you have other stuff to do and this is somebody

00:34:17.640 we were just having friction with an hour before because you know what we can resolve our

00:34:21.720 differences we can have differences on strategy what to do what to do moving forward but uh when

00:34:27.400 things push came to shove when things were serious like we're all sympathetic though so that was

00:34:31.940 another narrative that came out of nowhere from my perspective that we're we're all there was all

00:34:36.880 this friction no it was just a lot of stress that we were dealing with so let's apply what you just

00:34:42.480 said there to the discussion that we've been having for the last few minutes what why do you

00:34:47.100 make the claim of sabotage why is it not just that there are a bunch of different strategies

00:34:52.060 on the table about how to handle this there's the jccf view there's your view there you know

00:34:57.440 maybe other people with their own what why do you what let me ask it a different way do you assume

00:35:03.440 that there is people there is a case of bad faith here and if so why uh yeah i i was you know the

00:35:11.060 Once we signed this legal retainer for the class action suit, I started getting, you know, demands from John Carpe saying, say this, go to this point person for messaging.

00:35:21.760 I'm like, okay, I don't know who this guy is. Thank you for the legal representation in the class action suit, but nobody invited you here to speak.

00:35:29.220 And in fact, I had somebody who is quite famous, who knows the JCCF, who called me and said, you know, I saw the JCCF is involved in the freedom convoys.

00:35:39.620 that true and i said yeah tell me more and this person said to me stay away from them whatever

00:35:47.700 you do and it's why i thought they have a good reputation and i was in i was explained to me that

00:35:54.020 all of their good lawyers that they had have left uh as we all know famously a couple of years ago

00:36:00.580 a little happened barbara k left you have bruce party left and since then they don't have any

00:36:05.540 lawyers they just have activists and i thought to myself well that's the language of the people that

00:36:10.580 i've been meeting who claim to be representing us legally so that was kind of a red flag in uh

00:36:16.900 in the back of my head um in terms of you know the uh strategy like the tom ratso was i remember when

00:36:24.820 i met him the first time he said uh on the i think it was the fourth or no maybe it was the fifth i

00:36:29.940 I can't remember. In that week, 4th, 5th, or 6th, one of those days. And he, when he said, I'm a ghost, I'm, nobody's going to know I'm going to be here and all that sort of stuff. And I thought, okay, great, great, perfect. So I said, I'm going to deal with messaging with my team. You can go look at some trucks or whatever that is. But I remember thinking, and I said this in my testimony, you're going to deal with logistics. What logistics? Like the trucks are parked, the government and the law enforcement is trying to figure out what to do.

00:36:59.940 chief slowly had already told us said publicly that this required a political solution doesn't

00:37:07.000 require a policing solution we were golden that all of a sudden these people show up

00:37:12.200 linked to doug ford through dean french's office and then boom all of a sudden the tone changed

00:37:19.260 and part of it was you know they they know from having a brother in policing very high up

00:37:24.480 is mood and behavior that's why i lost my mind on keith because he completely changed the mood

00:37:31.680 and behavior based on what we were trying to communicate to policing so if you add all of

00:37:36.840 that stuff up and the fact that all of a sudden you know i remember when they said we're going to

00:37:41.320 you know move some trucks said no you're not leave the trucks and everybody on the board

00:37:46.200 you know there was not regular board meetings that's why when diverge media asked keith if

00:37:52.840 were all these board meetings send me the minutes there was one board meeting and he took the minute

00:37:58.680 from keith from from uh keith took the minutes from chad apparently chad can explain to this

00:38:04.200 too better and diverge media asked okay well can you give us the the minutes for the meeting

00:38:11.000 and then he refused to answer and then threatened uh asked them if they have a lawyer so that's the

00:38:15.400 kind of nonsense that we were dealing with constantly amongst a thousand other fires

00:38:21.400 to put out like this was such a small minute detail that when we suggested leave the trucks

00:38:29.640 it was kind of over and you know i i kind of insinuated i went back teeth a couple of times

00:38:35.480 just kind of joking and make funny fun of him and i said we didn't call it a deal by the way i never

00:38:40.360 heard that d that word till august so i misspoke in my testimony but i did say to him so how is

00:38:46.840 everything going with the city and he kept saying not good okay good oh i was right that's kind of

00:38:52.520 how i interpreted it and i didn't see any other indicator to that so much of this narrative that

00:38:57.960 started in august was birthed in august and is retroactively trying to rewrite history and it's

00:39:04.040 really frustrating i know one of the biggest criticisms you face and i i've seen it a couple

00:39:10.600 of times in our live chat here just uh scrolling by is your decision to get out of ottawa when the

00:39:17.880 crackdown was happening now as it turned out you hadn't actually left the city but you had left

00:39:21.480 the red zone and i just wanted to give you an opportunity you go into it in the book very early

00:39:25.480 on and i just want to give you the opportunity to explain that to people and i know that's something

00:39:28.520 that still is is brought up yeah and i also we did an interview myself and jim kalaharios with

00:39:34.120 sheila gun reed and explained all of her questions and didn't shy away from anything and this was one

00:39:39.320 of them this is the one of the smears so on february 18th the road captains came to my hotel

00:39:47.160 room in the sheridan because both media room and the hotel room two suites and uh they they came in

00:39:54.520 because tamara was arrested chris was arrested there seemed to be a vacuum in decision making

00:40:00.360 and so naturally they came to me because they saw me and tamara probably had the closest relationship

00:40:07.080 and by the way I love that woman I really do and I still do and our friendship has not been

00:40:12.660 affected it's been difficult I'm sure for her as well that we've been unable to talk this is the

00:40:16.840 longest we've ever gone without speaking anyways that aside the road captains came in on February

00:40:22.240 18th and they sat down and they explained to me that one of the truckers had guns pulled on him

00:40:28.540 last night that the police surrounded his truck broke his windows he went like he was instructed

00:40:34.020 just to hide in the back of his bunk and the cops opened the doors climbed in dragged him out of his

00:40:41.860 bunk threw him in the snow and arrested him at gunpoint and i said okay so uh police are getting

00:40:50.400 violent and they said yeah so what do you want to do and one of them said i think i i suggested that

00:40:56.740 are you saying you want to leave uh like i'll support you whatever you want to do just tell me

00:41:01.180 what messaging we need to put out because you guys got to be careful and i want people to be

00:41:05.160 safe i don't want anybody to get hurt this is getting crazy what the government's doing

00:41:08.280 and a couple of them said yeah it's time to leave the first person believe it or not was bridget the

00:41:13.120 most feisty as we know through throughout the thing she said yeah i think it's time to leave

00:41:17.680 and then joe jensen was the next person to say yeah it's time to leave because they're all sitting

00:41:22.840 on bed and johnny behind me there was maybe 20 of them in the room this wasn't what people signed

00:41:28.020 up for absolutely that's right that's right we didn't sign up for the government getting violence

00:41:31.700 on us so i said okay so if you're gonna leave then if that's the the consensus and they all said yeah

00:41:38.100 let's time to leave i said great i'm going to start putting messaging out you all call you

00:41:43.140 liaison officers i didn't have one because i was never on the ground which is also why i was never

00:41:47.220 arrested um although i got close but and you did get the account freeze well nobody was dealing

00:41:54.580 with potential warrants and stuff like that like that i haven't even gone into that too much in the

00:41:58.420 book um so they said call your liaison officers try to reach out to the tribes tell everybody

00:42:04.660 we're gonna leave the government's lost its mind getting violent we've made the point and we won

00:42:09.620 which was a conversation i had with joan peterson the night before yeah on the 17th we did the uh

00:42:15.780 podcast together so we discussed that on the 17th and he echoed that sentiment and miranda in fact 0.98

00:42:21.060 said to me who's on the board she said but Ben she's she's so adorable she stands up from the

00:42:25.940 bed she says but Ben these truckers are not going to want to leave and I said I know I know Miranda

00:42:32.020 that's why you're a leader you got to inspire them you got to encourage them that we've won this

00:42:36.020 battle and we got to leave so nobody gets hurt and uh just and if you need help communicating to them

00:42:44.020 I'm stuck in a wheelchair but I'll get on the phone with everybody with anybody who wants to

00:42:48.180 because i don't want them i know they're gonna they're gonna adopt the martyr uh sense uh the

00:42:53.860 martyr syndrome and we can't have that we can't have people getting hurt and so they left um they

00:42:59.860 so you left they said okay and everybody started you know scrambling around i'm going to call this

00:43:04.340 person whatever they went up i said go up to the boardroom on the 16th floor i think it was

00:43:09.700 and i'll meet you up there in a few minutes start calling your liaison officers let's all have a

00:43:13.780 group call tell as many people as possible and i went on to uh twitter either before that meeting

00:43:20.500 after that meeting i'd have to check the time stamp and i put a tweet out and my mistake was

00:43:25.460 i should have done a multi-thread tweet tried to squeeze everything into one tweet but so much was

00:43:30.820 going on it was a little bit chaotic that day and it said many of us are leaving ottawa i was what

00:43:37.460 should i was trying to fit in the road captains and truckers are leaving but i couldn't fit it

00:43:41.300 that's why many fit um the police are getting violent some to that that uh that messaging and

00:43:47.700 we're going to be leaving and then i see ezreal event retweets and says you looks like you ran

00:43:52.820 it's like oh my god anyways people jumping to their their own conclusions it's really frustrating

00:43:59.380 so that's how well i mean i think people have been hearing the term hold the line and i and i guess

00:44:04.580 that was why it was easy for people who were outside i mean look i was pepper sprayed covering

00:44:09.220 it. So I know it was very hairy there. I think it was easy for people outside of that to not

00:44:14.320 understand what the stakes were if you were just going to stand there. For sure. No, 100%. And then

00:44:19.340 in fact, you know, after I came down from the meeting room upstairs, the hotel room was paid

00:44:24.820 until the end of February. So I figured, okay, I'll stick around. I'll do media for the next,

00:44:31.120 you know, week, couple of weeks, whatever it was, week and a half. And everything will be,

00:44:34.960 i'll be able to button everything up i had a a podcast scheduled with barry weiss that night

00:44:40.400 that i ended up doing but never saw the light of day i'm not sure why and um then keith wilson

00:44:46.240 called me and says bj you gotta leave why are you gonna leave i gotta leave said well the police

00:44:52.800 are arresting they arrested sarah they arrested chris and i think even even keith would despite

00:44:58.000 friction would admit to this um it's actually not bad legal advice he said to me uh no you have to

00:45:03.920 leave because um the police are going to arrest you and i said keith come on they're not going

00:45:09.600 to come into the sheridan and break down the doors and arrest me my brother's police officer 0.71

00:45:14.800 they're just trying to diverse the crap i know how that works but he argued with me for 20 minutes 0.91

00:45:19.600 and he said no because if you get arrested maybe you'll be subjected to a gag order and then nobody 0.97

00:45:26.000 can speak for freedom that's how you know that talk he speaks it's exactly what he said i'm like

00:45:31.360 like oh come on keith so i said all right i'll try to call an uber i doubt i can even get out of here

00:45:37.000 but i do have a friend who lives in ottawa in orleans i'll see if i can get there at least get

00:45:41.980 out of the red zone i'll leave the hotel but i have to be in ottawa anyways to get my cast off

00:45:46.660 and who knows what else is going to happen so i can't just leave ottawa he said well leave the

00:45:52.100 hotel and let me know what happens and so i left and i was in an uber i'm listening to the radio

00:45:58.740 and then they say my name and i said to the uber guy hey can we change the radio station but it's

00:46:03.700 crazy man it was like what i imagined tayran would be in a snowfall because every street was a police

00:46:10.660 cruiser with three or four officers standing around looking inside cars and like okay i'll

00:46:16.340 put my hood on and just like i didn't know if how how serious this was and uh and that's how we all

00:46:24.020 left so we all decided together the road captains that brought everybody to ottawa uh decided this

00:46:30.900 is where people are going to get hurt and we can't have this we believe well you got out you live to

00:46:35.780 tell the tale both literally and figuratively uh the book is honking for freedom the trucker

00:46:41.780 convoy that gave us hope the author is benjamin dichter and i think you know better than anyone

00:46:46.420 else you're uh somewhat of a controversial figure in canada but i know you've always relished that

00:46:51.060 exactly well thanks very much for uh for coming on and we didn't even get a chance to talk about

00:46:57.380 the cryptocurrency stuff sorry the bitcoin stuff i was corrected and i said i would get it right

00:47:02.100 uh there's a fantastic chapter about that in the book and we'll happily talk about it

00:47:07.060 in the future as well benjamin thanks so much in jordan peters endorsement you'll notice he refers

00:47:12.260 to him as the then prime minister justin trudeau yes perhaps a bit of optimism from professor

00:47:19.300 Peterson there. All right. Thank you, Mike. Good to talk to you. All right. Thanks a lot, Benjamin.

00:47:23.860 That is Benjamin Dichter, author of the book Honking for Freedom. And just lest anyone be

00:47:29.740 unclear on this, the whole point is that I want all of these perspectives told. I mean, when I

00:47:33.660 released my book, I didn't take the view that I wanted to be the be all and end all. I said I

00:47:37.960 wanted more people telling this story. So I'm glad Ben has his book out. Tom Marazzo, who we were

00:47:44.080 speaking about has a book coming out in February as well. And I don't take, you know, I've had Tom

00:47:49.480 on the show a couple of times as well. So I'll have him on for that as well. But I think it's

00:47:54.200 important to hear all these different perspectives, because this was a watershed moment in Canadian

00:47:58.760 history. And I think a very important one. And certainly as Canadians, I think we all are invested

00:48:05.140 in this story. And I know the True North audience is as well. And we're coming up on the one year

00:48:09.240 anniversary, believe it or not.

00:48:11.280 It's been almost a whole year since

00:48:13.200 that first convoy set out from

00:48:15.180 Delta, British Columbia on

00:48:17.200 I think it was January 23rd of

00:48:19.180 2022. That does it for

00:48:21.260 us for today. We'll be back with more of

00:48:23.080 Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:48:25.240 Before you know it, this is the Andrew Lawton

00:48:27.200 Show on True North. Thank you, God bless

00:48:29.120 and good day to you all.

00:48:31.220 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:48:33.520 Support the program by donating to

00:48:35.180 True North at www.tnc.news.

00:48:39.240 We'll be right back.

Juno News - December 07, 2022

＂Honking for Freedom＂： Convoy spokesperson Benjamin Dichter on new book

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