Juno News - September 09, 2023


＂I was there for my kids＂： Freedom Convoy organizer speaks out in new book


Episode Stats

Length

36 minutes

Words per Minute

170.75049

Word Count

6,209

Sentence Count

340

Misogynist Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:05.460 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.540 Hello and welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:16.640 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:19.680 And I have often said on this program that anytime someone comes out with a book about the Freedom Convoy,
00:00:26.320 I'm going to welcome them onto this show.
00:00:27.860 I had the great privilege of telling part of this story myself in my own book,
00:00:33.060 which came out a little over a year ago now, The Freedom Convoy,
00:00:36.640 the inside story of three weeks that shook the world.
00:00:39.480 But I always, always, always, always admitted that this was never going to be the entirety of a story.
00:00:46.200 I could only tell the story from one particular vantage point.
00:00:49.700 I was not an insider. I was an observer.
00:00:52.120 And I did my best to do justice to the stories of the people that were a part of this fantastic.
00:00:57.260 And I would say also historical movement.
00:01:00.180 But I was really eager to hear the stories of those who were in the midst of it,
00:01:05.200 those who were on the front line.
00:01:06.600 We spoke with Tamara Leach when she wrote her own book about this,
00:01:10.600 which fortunately she was able to do,
00:01:12.760 despite some very stringent and strict bail conditions.
00:01:16.240 And I've known for a while there's another book coming out,
00:01:19.540 which is Tom Morazzo's.
00:01:21.280 It's called The People's Emergency Act.
00:01:23.300 Now, I've spoken to Tom on this show and also off this program a great many times.
00:01:27.620 He's always been a tremendously humble but a very pivotal participant,
00:01:32.280 not just in the convoy and its day-to-day logistics,
00:01:35.760 but also in the discussions that took place between the convoy and the City of Ottawa.
00:01:41.580 Discussions which could have brought about a peaceful resolution
00:01:44.640 and mitigation of the so-called harms that some of the people in the media were saying
00:01:49.840 the Freedom Convoy brought.
00:01:52.120 But those efforts were for naught when the Emergency Act came into play.
00:01:57.160 Tom testified, as you likely heard, before the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:02:01.360 And let's just show this little great clip of Tom
00:02:05.920 when the media wanted to ask him some questions
00:02:08.220 on the way out of the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:02:11.460 Mr. Morazzo, can we ask you a couple of questions?
00:02:14.420 You guys have been lying for three years.
00:02:16.400 I don't want to talk to you.
00:02:19.720 Well, fortunately, he never gives us that treatment,
00:02:22.760 and we're so grateful for it.
00:02:23.900 The book is The People's Emergency Act, Freedom Convoy 2022 by Tom Morazzo.
00:02:29.180 Tom, congratulations on the book.
00:02:30.660 It's good to talk to you again.
00:02:32.140 Thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:02:33.740 And yeah, that clip, I remember when that clip came out and you did a story on it,
00:02:40.760 and I was just about to rewind it again
00:02:43.680 because I was watching your coverage of what I had said to the media.
00:02:48.060 And I was just about to rewind it
00:02:51.420 because I even thought it was funny from looking at it from the camera.
00:02:54.200 And you're like, wait, but that's funny.
00:02:55.920 Let's watch it again.
00:02:56.920 And I'm like, I don't have to rewind it.
00:02:58.260 So, yeah, I mean, like, I had no desire to talk to the legacy media,
00:03:05.560 and I still feel that way today that, you know,
00:03:10.140 we look at all the people that are on trial or incarcerated around this country,
00:03:14.320 and I just, it's incomprehensible to me that the media are not the ones that are on trial.
00:03:21.360 And, you know, like that day when I refused to talk to them,
00:03:24.340 I feel even more strongly about their,
00:03:27.520 the harms that the media in this country have caused to ordinary Canadians,
00:03:31.860 and just everybody, not ordinary Canadians, all Canadians.
00:03:34.560 Well, I think that is a perfect segue into your book
00:03:39.940 because the whole point of the Freedom Convoy at the beginning was,
00:03:43.860 I mean, if we really go back to the genesis of it,
00:03:46.300 it was really spawned as a result of this vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers,
00:03:51.840 which is a relatively small, important,
00:03:54.500 but a relatively small percentage of the overall population.
00:03:57.360 But you compound that with general exasperation with COVID mandates
00:04:01.620 and vaccine passports and all of this,
00:04:03.580 and it becomes a movement against mandates.
00:04:06.080 And you and I have spoken about this in the past.
00:04:08.980 By the end of it, when the Emergencies Act came in,
00:04:12.240 I wouldn't even say the Freedom Convoy was about COVID anymore.
00:04:15.860 I think in general, it was about the state's efforts
00:04:18.960 to control our individual civil liberties.
00:04:22.360 And I wonder if you look back on it as someone who was in the midst of it,
00:04:26.460 when did you see that change happen?
00:04:28.120 When did the mission of the Freedom Convoy, if you will,
00:04:31.320 really morph from that more targeted resistance to COVID measures
00:04:37.560 to something much bigger?
00:04:39.500 I think during the convoy, it was the buildup,
00:04:44.280 the rumours that were starting to happen
00:04:45.940 about the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
00:04:49.340 And you could see that there was this constant plea on our side
00:04:55.860 to get something going with any government official
00:04:58.480 because, you know, I wasn't really in the beginning
00:05:01.240 in favour of talking with the city.
00:05:02.960 I just thought it was kind of a waste of our time.
00:05:05.560 We weren't there for the city.
00:05:06.960 The mayor of Ottawa had no power to overturn any of the mandates.
00:05:11.100 The federal government had the power
00:05:13.200 that we were seeking to discuss with them.
00:05:17.040 But it became clear that when they stopped wanting to talk to us,
00:05:23.140 or, sorry, not wanting to talk to us,
00:05:25.260 when they just refused to talk to us,
00:05:27.140 and we finally got something going with the city,
00:05:30.040 we were getting progress, but then something shifted.
00:05:33.660 And then you saw the city disengage,
00:05:37.380 and then we went to this, the Emergency Act.
00:05:42.360 And the rumours about it were very strong just before he invoked it.
00:05:45.580 And then he actually invoked the Emergency Act,
00:05:48.940 and we said, okay, this situation has fundamentally changed now for us.
00:05:53.380 And we need to choose our steps very carefully.
00:05:56.440 And again, that's when the Board of Directors for Freedom Corps
00:05:59.620 and Keith Wilson and several others
00:06:01.860 created the Roadmap to Freedom document.
00:06:05.560 And then we put forward that in the public.
00:06:08.080 And that really was transformative in terms of the overall intent
00:06:12.280 of what the convoy was trying to achieve with where we were on the third week.
00:06:19.400 One of the things, and I don't mean this as an insult at all,
00:06:22.900 because I think, if anything, it's a compliment.
00:06:24.520 But when you first spoke up,
00:06:26.800 and you were first sort of presented in the way the media does
00:06:30.240 as being a spokesperson of the convoy,
00:06:32.300 which is, as people who have followed this closely know,
00:06:34.560 is kind of a made-up term in general,
00:06:36.480 because whoever just was quoted at a particular moment was a spokesperson.
00:06:40.080 But my first response was, who is this guy?
00:06:42.360 Because I had never heard of you,
00:06:44.580 and I had never heard of a lot of the people that had spoken up.
00:06:48.500 And I think that was the magic of it, really,
00:06:50.160 is that you had these people that were not part of the usual suspects
00:06:52.680 of political organisers and political activists.
00:06:56.160 But I know there was a bit of friction about this internally.
00:06:59.180 And I certainly, you know, Benjamin Dichter,
00:07:01.540 who, as we've discussed in the past,
00:07:03.660 wanted to really control and funnel all communications through him
00:07:07.600 and didn't really have a tremendous amount of success
00:07:10.380 the longer it went on.
00:07:11.820 But when you did sort of speak up,
00:07:14.040 it was a departure from what you had already anticipated,
00:07:16.600 because you had wanted to be a behind-the-scenes guy,
00:07:19.060 just go and, you know, the joke that you had
00:07:21.120 was just feed the soldiers, basically.
00:07:22.840 So what changed in you that made you more comfortable
00:07:26.340 or willing to have a public face here?
00:07:29.880 Well, the reality was is that I had no intention
00:07:32.420 of doing any of the media.
00:07:34.340 I didn't want to be doing any spokesman stuff.
00:07:37.140 And I remember the day I was in the back of the room
00:07:39.640 when Tamara gave the first press conference
00:07:41.580 with Joanie and Danny Bulford,
00:07:44.320 and it was kicked off by Keith Wilson.
00:07:46.220 I was at the back of the room.
00:07:47.620 My stomach was in knots.
00:07:49.660 I was literally terrified.
00:07:51.120 Just on behalf of their nerves.
00:07:53.380 You were feeling sympathy nervous.
00:07:55.260 Yeah, and I was looking at Tamara.
00:07:56.540 I'm like, oh, my God, like, we're in the house of Tamara here.
00:07:59.600 She owns that podium.
00:08:01.500 And I remember saying to a friend of mine, Jack McClellan,
00:08:04.920 saying, I'm glad that's not me.
00:08:07.080 I'd be terrified.
00:08:08.640 And it was funny because Danny went up to the podium next,
00:08:11.200 and you could see Danny was quite nervous.
00:08:13.140 But something that's Danny Bulford, the former RCMP officer.
00:08:17.600 And so, you know, the night that the police raided Coventry,
00:08:21.680 what happened was a lot of the leadership, the board members,
00:08:28.240 they said, look, we need to do a live stream because I came back.
00:08:31.160 I went down to Coventry, and I reported that this had no impact
00:08:34.780 whatsoever on our ability to continue doing what we're doing.
00:08:38.100 It wasn't going to interrupt our sustainment whatsoever.
00:08:43.340 And so people said to me, you're going to do a live stream
00:08:45.900 and give that statement.
00:08:47.640 And so my thought was, I don't know that I really want to be out there
00:08:51.360 doing any of this statement stuff.
00:08:54.000 But then more and more people kind of jumped onto the idea,
00:08:57.040 and they were like, okay, no, we're, okay, I'm going to do the live stream.
00:09:01.260 I'm going to do it.
00:09:01.820 And I was like, okay, this is going to get out of control.
00:09:04.000 So my thought was just do a quick update, and then that'll be sort of the end of it.
00:09:11.380 I didn't realize that that was kind of like my audition.
00:09:15.080 That wasn't my intent.
00:09:16.520 It wasn't my intent at all.
00:09:18.000 But the next day, the board and several other members said,
00:09:21.240 that went well last night.
00:09:23.320 We'd like you to do a live stream.
00:09:27.140 Now, I didn't know it was a live stream at the time.
00:09:29.460 The very first thing, because I think Lincoln J was the one who was covering it
00:09:34.440 from Rebel News, and I didn't realize this was going to be live.
00:09:38.420 I actually looked over to the corner, out of the corner of my eye,
00:09:41.540 I saw a phone that was on, and it was live streaming,
00:09:44.140 and I could feel the bile coming up from my stomach.
00:09:47.780 I almost threw up on the desk when I realized it was live.
00:09:50.820 It wasn't my intention to be a spokesman of any kind for the convoy,
00:09:55.440 but I was asked to do it, and you could see the first time I spoke,
00:10:01.280 the entire board was standing behind me.
00:10:04.180 So it's not like I chose to do that all on my own.
00:10:07.800 It was I was requested to do it, and I was supported by the board.
00:10:12.760 And in fact, it's either the second time or the first time.
00:10:16.600 But you saw, you know, I was either with Chris Barber or Bridget Belton.
00:10:21.520 And in the next one, I believe I was surrounded by the entire board
00:10:25.340 and several of the other trucking captains and some of the doctors.
00:10:28.820 So it was nothing that I ever sought to do.
00:10:32.320 In fact, I really didn't have any interest in it.
00:10:35.100 I was requested to do it because of the role that I was in.
00:10:38.060 Just to turn to your book specifically here, Tom,
00:10:43.720 you had originally, I know, wanted to have this book out on the one-year anniversary,
00:10:47.740 I think it was, of the Emergencies Act coming in, so in mid-February.
00:10:52.200 And I know that you've delayed this, I believe, a couple of times.
00:10:56.900 And part of it, as I understood, was that you didn't feel you'd have the whole picture by then.
00:11:01.540 You know, you wanted to actually see through the process of the Public Order Emergency Commission
00:11:06.120 and then the final report and then, of course, get your own reflections down on paper.
00:11:10.580 And I'm curious if your perspective has actually changed in that time.
00:11:14.940 You know, if you were to have this book written and out in February of this year versus doing it now.
00:11:20.560 Yeah, I think the decision to delay was the right decision.
00:11:23.420 And when I originally started this project, it took me six months to even decide if I wanted to
00:11:30.120 because I was concerned that it wasn't my, I didn't own the story.
00:11:34.680 I felt that Canadians owned the story.
00:11:37.580 And so I wanted to be very clear about what was my intention to write this book.
00:11:42.020 And so I began really wanting to make sure that I covered only what I participated in,
00:11:53.160 that I wasn't drawing conclusions or I wasn't quoting other people.
00:11:59.040 I didn't want it to be a historical report from that perspective.
00:12:02.720 I jokingly said, I'm going to treat it like though, as if though I have a GoPro on my head.
00:12:07.600 And if the GoPro camera didn't see it, it didn't happen in my book.
00:12:10.420 So that's kind of how I approached it.
00:12:12.860 And the second thing is I didn't want to, you know, there were some things that happened in the background
00:12:18.500 that aren't very flattering to a lot of people that were involved.
00:12:22.340 I didn't want to write a book criticizing the people that I interacted with because they were doing the best
00:12:28.480 that they could given the circumstance.
00:12:30.260 So I didn't want it to be about that either.
00:12:33.380 But as I was participating in the audience at the Public Order Emergency Commission,
00:12:38.660 it became painfully clear to me that I couldn't tell this whole story accurately.
00:12:44.580 If I wasn't able to sort of, to use the term from elementary school, compare and contrast
00:12:49.720 what we were thinking versus what the government and law enforcement were thinking.
00:12:55.100 And so I thought that that was an important thing.
00:12:57.180 There are several chapters where I refer to the testimony.
00:13:00.480 And I reviewed the footage again.
00:13:02.120 I read all of the, I downloaded and read all the stuff.
00:13:05.780 So they are direct quotes from the people involved.
00:13:08.980 And it was important to me to try to match up, you know, what we were aiming to do
00:13:14.980 and what the government was aiming to do and then to illustrate what the result was.
00:13:19.460 And so I agree still with my decision to delay the book and to try to capture that.
00:13:25.100 Because some people suggested do two books.
00:13:27.340 I'm like, doing one is going to kill me.
00:13:30.340 So I thought, I'll just do the one and try to encapsulate everything into one.
00:13:35.400 One thing that I found fascinating about the convoy in general, and I think it was Keith
00:13:41.780 Wilson who first, when I was interviewing him for my book, had brought this up, is how
00:13:45.780 you had all of these people who had these skills that they had developed over careers in law
00:13:50.420 enforcement or medicine or military that were laid off.
00:13:54.940 And they had time on their hands and they had a skill set.
00:13:57.100 And it was those skills that really drove the Freedom Convoy because you had this military
00:14:01.340 like operation in some ways.
00:14:03.240 And I know you brought this with your own experience in the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:14:07.460 But the other side of that is that there were a lot of people that really looked at law enforcement
00:14:14.420 that were being called in to respond to and to reign in the Freedom Convoy with a level of
00:14:21.120 mixed emotion.
00:14:22.180 And, you know, I talked to a lot of people on the right politically that are very pro-police
00:14:27.140 and pro-law enforcement.
00:14:28.280 But they sort of expected that, you know, there were some very heartwarming encounters
00:14:34.060 where people had nice interactions with police during the convoy.
00:14:36.840 But at the end of the day, the police took their marching orders and they went in and
00:14:40.700 they did what they needed to do to contain a situation.
00:14:43.440 And I'm curious how you view that with your background in military, where you understand
00:14:50.280 chain of command, you understand authority, and you understand the natural order of things
00:14:55.120 versus this movement that you were a part of, which was about what those efforts by law
00:15:00.920 enforcement are supposed to be in pursuit of, which is the rule of law and freedom.
00:15:04.860 And how do you reconcile those two parts of your life?
00:15:08.620 It's a great question because in my military career, I have had the opportunity several times
00:15:14.280 to work with law enforcement.
00:15:15.640 In fact, in one of my postings as an army officer, I was posted to a reserve unit.
00:15:22.360 The commanding officer to the reserve unit I was with was a police officer in his full-time
00:15:26.780 job.
00:15:27.160 And so was the regimental sergeant major and a lot of the leadership of that unit.
00:15:31.760 So I've worked with police through the military and, you know, I participated low level nighttime
00:15:39.800 duty officer in the GHE 20 summit in 2010, you know, that happened in Toronto.
00:15:45.560 So I've got a lot of experience, a lot of my friends in Niagara police.
00:15:49.700 So I understood that perspective.
00:15:53.000 But when you look at what the goals of the convoy were, my, let's say my professional opinion
00:16:01.400 was that we needed to, to abide by the law to the greatest extent possible.
00:16:07.880 And I thought we had a responsibility to be responsible and to be safe, not only for the
00:16:17.380 public, for the convoy participants, the supporters, the residents of Ottawa, we had a responsibility
00:16:25.020 to be safe and responsible.
00:16:26.600 And the best way for us to have achieved that, and I do believe that until they invoked the
00:16:32.060 emergency act, the best way to achieve that was to try to align our goals with what the
00:16:37.680 responsibility of the police were to the public.
00:16:41.600 And so we worked closely with the Ottawa police every single day.
00:16:45.980 We had interactions, not just myself, but several people to always achieve a safe and responsible
00:16:52.040 environment so that everybody could get what they wanted.
00:16:55.880 And, you know, we saw during the commission, the police never asked for the emergency act.
00:17:00.520 They never needed it.
00:17:01.740 They never requested it.
00:17:02.960 They didn't want it because they knew that they had the tools at their disposal.
00:17:06.860 We were in constant communication with the police.
00:17:10.800 And so the government, the political apparatus in this country made the decision to invoke the
00:17:18.680 emergency act, not at the request of the police, but it was a political decision, pure and
00:17:23.600 simple, in fact, to the point where they ignored police recommendations to continue doing engagement.
00:17:30.400 And the OPP produced an engagement plan, and it was presented to cabinet, the IRG in Justin Trudeau's
00:17:41.820 cabinet.
00:17:42.420 It was presented to him on the 13th of February to have an engagement plan with us.
00:17:48.260 And there was people identified who the government could have us sit down and conversation with.
00:17:53.340 The government ignored it, and the next day they invoked the emergencies act.
00:17:59.180 So it was important to us to always keep safety lanes open.
00:18:04.900 And no matter what the legacy media lies about, and, you know, detractors and people that are
00:18:10.760 just nasty and want to vilify us, we always had safety lanes open.
00:18:14.660 And even the fire department testified to that, and so did the police.
00:18:18.980 You know, and the first thing I did when I got there on day one was identify vulnerable
00:18:25.940 infrastructure like old age homes or retirement homes, hospitals, the police station, fire departments.
00:18:32.260 We marked it on a map to make sure that we were not uncovering their ability to get the
00:18:37.320 citizens in need.
00:18:38.520 But that's never going to be the story in the legacy media or for the government.
00:18:43.420 But we worked really hard to make sure that we were always safe and responsible.
00:18:47.540 And we worked with the Ottawa police.
00:18:49.980 And make no mistake, the two days when the police invaded or sorry, not invaded, that's a
00:18:55.000 terrible word, but attacked the public, those were not Ottawa police.
00:18:59.140 Those were police departments from different jurisdictions.
00:19:02.260 Because the convoy participants built a rapport with the Ottawa police.
00:19:07.600 They were pulled away from the front lines.
00:19:10.620 It was other police departments like the Serté du Québec, the OPP outsiders came in and did
00:19:17.160 what they did to the public, not the Ottawa police.
00:19:21.320 But let's go down to that individual level.
00:19:24.040 Because there's a line in your book where you say, I can't comprehend how a police officer
00:19:29.180 in Canada could obey an order to attack peaceful protesters with such violence and ease.
00:19:34.940 Now, this is specifically in response to the gentleman who actually testified before the
00:19:41.380 Public Order Emergency Commission, Chris Durian.
00:19:44.320 But in general, when you look at the individual officers that were involved in this operation,
00:19:51.320 what's the view you have on them?
00:19:53.120 Do you believe that they were basically just casualties in a similar way of decisions that
00:19:59.320 were being made by the political overseers?
00:20:01.240 Or do you feel that they are complicit in what you view as being your grievance with the government?
00:20:06.180 You know, it's a very fascinating question because, you know, they brought in something
00:20:12.960 called a public order unit or, you know, traditionally called riot squads and stuff like that.
00:20:19.780 They brought people...
00:20:20.580 Well, like you would have seen at the G20 and G8, right?
00:20:22.860 Exactly.
00:20:23.400 And, you know, we're still 13 years later after the G8-G20 summit in 2010.
00:20:29.740 The lawsuits are still ongoing from that.
00:20:31.900 And, you know, the police were supposed to have learned a lot of things about how they
00:20:37.700 conduct themselves in that kind of situation.
00:20:42.020 But I think the individual police officers were trained in public order tactics.
00:20:49.980 And some of them just went a little too far.
00:20:54.880 You know, I think there's a...
00:20:59.880 Police officers have an enormous amount of individual discretion with what they're doing.
00:21:05.140 And police officers are also trained in the concept of mob mentality.
00:21:10.280 Because it doesn't just happen to the mob.
00:21:12.540 It happens to the police as well.
00:21:14.440 So there are psychological factors that do happen when you're in a riot or a protest or
00:21:20.900 when you're putting a lot of people and there's potential for violence.
00:21:23.660 Police are trained in these psychological effects that they may experience while they're on the
00:21:29.620 front line of a protest or a riot.
00:21:32.200 And I think some of them succumbed to this.
00:21:35.100 I think some of them acted absolutely unprofessionally.
00:21:41.100 The things that they did to Canadians, the things they did, for example, you mentioned Chris
00:21:45.220 Deering, who notified the police before he was beaten by them that he was an injured combat
00:21:52.240 veteran from Afghanistan.
00:21:54.560 And other veterans said, hey, this guy, this guy, and this guy, they're injured.
00:21:59.060 So...
00:21:59.300 And Chris surrendered to the police.
00:22:01.860 And for his surrender, not only did they kick him where he was injured, but they were
00:22:06.240 punching him in the head while he was on the ground.
00:22:08.300 Completely unnecessary for somebody who surrendered.
00:22:11.500 Right?
00:22:11.680 So I think the individual police officers have to go home and look in the mirror and say, did
00:22:17.080 I do my job today?
00:22:18.500 Did I serve and protect?
00:22:20.480 And I hope some of them reflect on it and say, I didn't have a good day today.
00:22:25.760 And others say, tomorrow I'm going to do better.
00:22:28.600 But I think individually, the police all know that police are always responsible for their
00:22:35.340 individual actions, no matter what order they're given by their supervisors.
00:22:39.840 Police that's drilled into police, that they're responsible for everything they do regarding
00:22:44.860 interactions with the public, because they're susceptible to being personally sued.
00:22:50.220 But you put them in a riot unit, and what happens?
00:22:54.380 That's how they conducted themselves, despite their training.
00:22:57.920 Well, yeah.
00:22:58.980 And again, I mean, even in military, one of the developments over international law and
00:23:04.060 military conduct has been that you can't just hide behind obeying an order.
00:23:07.760 It's obeying a lawful order, and that's a very important caveat, albeit again, it raises
00:23:13.140 important questions on if you're an individual officer, how do you decide, how do you assess,
00:23:17.480 how do you adjudicate the lawfulness of an order?
00:23:20.840 Let's talk a little bit about your goals here, because I know that at this point we have,
00:23:26.200 you know, 17, 18 months almost of canon, if you will, of people that have told versions
00:23:32.080 of the Freedom Convoy through their own eyes, through a journalistic lens, through a legal
00:23:37.380 lens, the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:23:40.200 By offering your book now, is your goal to offer just new information that's never really
00:23:46.620 been entertained before, or is it to offer a new perspective on things that are already
00:23:51.940 out there?
00:23:52.380 I think both are valuable.
00:23:53.500 I'm just wondering what your motivation was more predominantly.
00:23:56.620 Well, I was somewhat influenced by a lot of the repetitive questions that always come up
00:24:07.880 about the convoy.
00:24:09.320 You know, for example, this idea of putting all the vehicles up on Wellington, you know,
00:24:16.380 has become a very, very contentious issue.
00:24:18.600 But you have to understand, Canadians went there for a peaceful protest.
00:24:25.520 They didn't go there to conduct tactical operations, right?
00:24:31.080 They weren't there for violence.
00:24:33.220 So when we get a lot of people that say, oh, you put everybody all in a turkey shoot,
00:24:39.100 you line them up, and tactically they were weaker, and like, no, then you're missing the
00:24:44.680 point.
00:24:44.960 We weren't going to Ottawa to conduct violent tactical operations.
00:24:52.320 Putting everybody on Wellington, which I was very instrumental in that goal.
00:24:57.720 This is what I was advocating for the first day I arrived, was because that was a strategic
00:25:04.740 decision to put the pressure on the Prime Minister, to put the pressure on the government,
00:25:09.380 take the pressure off of the city police, thereby the politicians, the residents, that would
00:25:16.080 have, they would have aligned with us to put the government on Justin Trudeau to say, hey,
00:25:20.560 you've got a problem, settle this problem in our city, would you?
00:25:24.060 But in, you know, by doing this, yes, I strongly advocated for a strategic decision to put the pressure
00:25:30.640 where it was due on Justin Trudeau.
00:25:32.440 And so, you know, I did talk about that because that is a contentious issue amongst a lot of the
00:25:41.780 supporters, people that didn't really understand what we were trying to accomplish.
00:25:47.040 And I wasn't the only one who advocated for it, but I would say that I was largely responsible
00:25:51.760 for that decision-making in the very beginning, or I was advocating for it and recommending it.
00:25:56.540 I wanted more vehicles up onto Wellington.
00:25:59.580 I thought that was where they needed to be.
00:26:02.680 And there was resistance to that idea.
00:26:05.560 But, you know, overall, I'm not trying to rewrite history in any way.
00:26:12.000 What I'm trying to do is give people an understanding of why me personally, what I thought needed to
00:26:19.040 happen, and the decisions that I thought needed to be recommended to the board.
00:26:23.880 Nobody controlled the truckers.
00:26:26.080 The board didn't control the truckers.
00:26:28.460 The individual truckers made their own decisions.
00:26:31.040 We just wanted to put them in a position that was going to best accomplish the overall goal,
00:26:37.140 which was to end the vaccine mandates in Canada at the federal level.
00:26:42.180 And so these are the decisions, and these are the conversations and the stories.
00:26:48.480 And, you know, for example, there's a lot of this rhetoric about these secret meetings
00:26:52.960 that were held.
00:26:54.220 I outline all of those in the book because I think they're important because there's a lot
00:26:58.360 of lies being told about those particular discussions, complete untruths, you know,
00:27:03.260 people spreading rumors and lies of things that never took place and never happened.
00:27:07.400 And in the book, I go through great lengths to explain every step of, you know,
00:27:12.440 those meetings that involve Dean French or Steve Kanellakis from the city manager's office.
00:27:19.380 All of that stuff was spelled out in great detail in the book.
00:27:25.260 Looking at your life post-convoy, I know that it's this tremendous high that a lot of people
00:27:30.880 went through, and I still hear people that were a part of this that were so proud to have
00:27:35.240 played a role, larger, smaller, even just to have seen it.
00:27:38.600 You've gone from a guy that, like you said, never wanted any notoriety to being one of
00:27:42.860 the most, I don't know if one of the most vocal is the way, but certainly one of the
00:27:46.140 most prominent and known participants of this.
00:27:49.760 And I'm wondering what you want to, if anything, channel that into after this book, because
00:27:55.540 you're obviously putting your story down here.
00:27:57.480 Is there a part of you that wants to keep this alive in some way, or do you feel this
00:28:01.740 was a chapter in history that's now closed and we open the next one?
00:28:05.180 Yeah, I think this is a chapter that we close the convoys over, and I would like to try to
00:28:13.160 get my life back on track.
00:28:16.220 It has cost me dearly in many personal ways.
00:28:22.560 It's also, I've also, my life has been enriched in many different ways as well.
00:28:27.480 And, you know, the convoy wasn't about Tom Mirazzo, not in the least.
00:28:33.780 I was there for my kids and for my family, and that was the motivation.
00:28:41.440 It was never about me.
00:28:44.560 I didn't intend to play a significant role in the convoy like I ended up evolving into.
00:28:50.900 And now that the convoy is over, I'm just telling the story, and I'm going to leave
00:28:58.080 it up to Canadians to decide what they, if it aligns with them or not.
00:29:02.420 But I think my goal going forward is just to end that chapter, see what happens.
00:29:08.640 I'm not really thinking about another run in politics.
00:29:12.180 I'm actually, I've already started the draft on a second book, but it's fiction.
00:29:18.540 It's terrifying because I've discussed it with a few people, and they're saying, hey,
00:29:23.180 is this a fiction book or is it a prediction book?
00:29:25.780 I'm like, you'll have to wait and see.
00:29:28.300 But I like to write.
00:29:30.500 I like to comment on current events that are happening in Canada.
00:29:36.120 But I think in overall, I'd like to just settle down, fade off into the distance, and get my
00:29:47.080 life back as best I can, or as much as the federal government will allow.
00:29:52.480 And if they don't allow it, then you might see a chapter two of Tom Marazzo.
00:29:56.440 But as far as I'm concerned, I've taken it as far as I think that I can take it.
00:30:05.000 And if there's a need for me, Canada will tell me.
00:30:07.700 If there's not, I'll be more than happy to ride off into the sunset.
00:30:13.140 The backdrop of our discussion this week is, of course, that Tamara Leach and Chris Barber
00:30:18.680 are on trial.
00:30:19.760 And I know you've maintained, as much as you're lawfully allowed to with bail conditions,
00:30:24.540 a good rapport with them.
00:30:27.840 I'll ask you, because I know that there is this, tend to be somewhat conspiratorial among
00:30:32.900 people that are in the Freedom Conduit movement, where anyone and everyone is a Fed in some
00:30:37.040 way.
00:30:37.340 It's like, oh, he's a Fed, she's a Fed, they're a Fed, I'm a Fed, you're a Fed, everyone's
00:30:41.020 a Fed.
00:30:41.700 But I know there was skepticism towards people that were not charged, or people that did not
00:30:47.780 have their bank accounts frozen.
00:30:49.740 Now, you did have the bank accounts frozen, but you actually never had, to my knowledge,
00:30:53.540 any arrest or charges against you.
00:30:56.020 Even when you were speaking at that closing press conference, you had said, to your knowledge,
00:31:01.140 there's no warrant for your arrest.
00:31:02.760 And you were fined, despite having been prominent, despite being important enough to the government
00:31:07.640 to freeze your bank account.
00:31:08.840 So why do you think that is?
00:31:10.920 Why do you think that you and some others, that there was just as much of a case as, which
00:31:16.220 is to say, not much to charge as there was for Tamara and Chris, but didn't go that way?
00:31:21.520 Yeah, that's such a perplexing question.
00:31:25.980 Sorry to stutter there.
00:31:27.660 I spoke to Danny Bulford yesterday at the first day of Chris and Tamara's trial, and
00:31:33.760 him and I had this same question, the exact same conversation we're having now about being
00:31:38.900 accused of being a Fed, and you didn't get charged, and all this stuff.
00:31:43.500 And the answer is, I don't know, but it doesn't mean I still can't be charged later.
00:31:48.840 And as we saw in April of this year, Harold Jonker was charged with the same charges that
00:31:55.980 Tamara Leach is now facing in her trial started.
00:31:59.580 So there's no statute on this, and I confirmed that with Keith Wilson, that there's no statute
00:32:05.780 on this.
00:32:06.220 I could be charged a year and a half from now with the same things.
00:32:09.980 And I think we will see what the outcome of Chris and Tamara's trial are.
00:32:14.980 And if they are convicted, I wouldn't be surprised if a whole group of us get round up and charged
00:32:19.880 with these things.
00:32:21.940 All I can say-
00:32:23.120 Yeah, it's the test case for the overzealous prosecutors.
00:32:25.880 Yeah, yeah.
00:32:26.320 And all I can say is that I just don't know why I was charged.
00:32:35.800 And in terms of the allegations of being a Fed, I've been accused of being CIA, FBI, RCMP,
00:32:42.500 Ottawa Police, OPP, I think Mossad, and other stuff.
00:32:47.420 I mean, the allegations are all over the place.
00:32:50.120 You can go on my old YouTube channel when I was a teacher and watch all my software videos
00:32:54.500 where I was teaching at Georgian College.
00:32:56.820 Well, you were doing the long con.
00:32:58.780 That's how they get you.
00:33:00.340 Exactly, exactly.
00:33:01.580 Because I knew-
00:33:02.260 Israel planted you at that college in 1997 or whatever.
00:33:06.840 Exactly, exactly.
00:33:07.920 So, you know, I just-
00:33:12.200 If they're going to charge me, they're going to charge me, and I'll deal with it at the time.
00:33:15.540 But at this point, even I search for, you know, what's the indictable offense that I may have committed?
00:33:23.400 And I'm not a lawyer or a police officer.
00:33:27.420 Am I surprised?
00:33:28.580 Yeah, I was very surprised.
00:33:30.460 And this is why on the last five days, I called the Ottawa-
00:33:33.820 Or sorry, the OPP every day.
00:33:36.460 And I said, are there any warrants for my arrest today?
00:33:39.540 And they said, nope, there's not.
00:33:41.360 I said, okay, well, if there are, call me and I'll surrender myself.
00:33:45.500 But that call never came.
00:33:47.620 And it doesn't make any sense why 15 months later they would charge Harold Jonker.
00:33:54.020 It's still, to this day, I don't understand why they're charging Chris and Tamara
00:33:57.760 or any of the other people that have been rounded up and charged.
00:34:03.500 Especially you're seeing all these charges being dropped all over the country.
00:34:06.400 Why Chris and Tamara's trial is proceeding is just, you know, the eighth wonder of the world, I guess.
00:34:17.460 Fair enough.
00:34:18.580 Tom Marazzo has written his story of the Freedom Convoy in a fabulous new book,
00:34:24.240 The People's Emergency Act.
00:34:25.680 Tom, always a pleasure.
00:34:26.640 Thanks so much.
00:34:27.220 And congratulations with the book.
00:34:28.780 Thanks so much, Andrew.
00:34:29.760 Thank you very much.
00:34:30.880 Really appreciate the time.
00:34:31.940 That was Tom Marazzo here on The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:34:35.580 And on entirely different notes, we have a bit of an announcement to make.
00:34:40.700 This is the last show in this particular format, in this particular time slot,
00:34:45.780 because next week, The Andrew Lawton Show is going daily, Monday to Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern,
00:34:51.860 11 a.m. Mountain Time.
00:34:53.980 Now, if you can't tune in live, you can, of course, catch the podcast or catch the archive video
00:34:59.820 basically immediately after.
00:35:01.760 But we are going to change things up.
00:35:03.540 We're going to focus on the live show as much as possible because it is that much more fun.
00:35:07.780 And you get an extra show from me every week.
00:35:09.860 So hopefully that won't be too intolerable for you.
00:35:12.100 But that is kicking off on Monday at 1 p.m.
00:35:15.720 And we'll have over the course of next week footage from my coverage of the Conservative Party
00:35:21.300 of Canada convention in Quebec City, which is actually, I know I just talked about how
00:35:26.320 great live programming is, but why we've pre-taped this one, because I am actually going to be
00:35:31.860 in Quebec City by the time you see this, doing that coverage.
00:35:35.200 So if you see me tweeting away about that right now from there, I'm not in two places at once.
00:35:39.940 This I actually recorded the other day.
00:35:42.000 But we'll see you on Monday.
00:35:43.700 Thank you.
00:35:44.180 God bless.
00:35:44.700 And have a great weekend.
00:35:46.220 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:35:48.580 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:35:56.320 www.tnc.news.com
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