Juno News - Is the trucker convoy really over？

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

00:00:03.700 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.920 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.500 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:20.760 It is Tuesday, February 22nd, 0222-2022.

00:00:26.120 I should have done the show at 222 just to have some fun with it,

00:00:28.840 But I figured that would just be too many twos.

00:00:31.300 In all honesty, thank you so much for tuning into the program.

00:00:34.820 If you were in one of the provinces that had a holiday yesterday,

00:00:37.500 I hope you had a good long weekend.

00:00:39.820 My weekend was, if you are on Twitter, a little bit different than I had expected.

00:00:45.540 I ended up being pepper sprayed, which was not what I anticipated happening.

00:00:49.580 Well, doing my job as an independent journalist covering the convoy in Ottawa.

00:00:53.640 But I got off better than some others did.

00:00:55.880 one pool photographer got arrested, had the zip ties thrown on him. He was with a well-placed call

00:01:01.940 to his editor, fortunately released. We had Alexa Lavoie from Rebel, who was hit right in the leg

00:01:07.120 with a canister of some kind from police. I think earlier people thought it was tear gas. Police have

00:01:13.080 now said they didn't use tear gas, but they've admitted they shot something. We also had people

00:01:17.600 that were hit by horses, as you saw in those famous videos. So it was quite the culmination

00:01:23.920 of a peaceful protest, which was peaceful right up until the point that police moved in to take

00:01:29.080 it down. I'm going to be talking a lot this week about what it was like on the ground, but I wanted

00:01:34.540 to, on this show, take a very different approach to this discussion and talk about whether the

00:01:39.960 Freedom Convoy itself is over. Was the Freedom Convoy the protest, which virtually ended on the

00:01:46.360 weekend, or is it a bigger movement here? And I want to bring into the show Tom Marazzo, who was

00:01:51.680 one of the volunteers who has spoken in the capacity of being an organizer. And I'm being

00:01:57.440 in a way over descriptive about his title because I want to make sure I'm being very precise here,

00:02:02.480 but he had a press conference on Sunday in which he said that many people should just withdraw

00:02:08.080 peacefully. And he said he would be doing that as well. He's not been charged at this point,

00:02:12.540 so far as I can tell, or arrested. And he joins me now, Tom Morazzo, Freedom Convoy volunteer.

00:02:18.960 here. Thank you for being here today, Tom. I appreciate it.

00:02:21.780 Thank you. Thank you for, you know, always speaking the truth and, you know, allowing us

00:02:28.200 to still have a voice, even though we're not in Ottawa right now.

00:02:31.620 Well, I appreciate you saying that. Let me start with the question that I kind of danced around a

00:02:36.300 moment ago, which is basically, what are you? And I want to be precise here because this was a

00:02:41.240 grassroots movement. And I know we had people that were speaking for the convoy. We had spokespeople,

00:02:46.780 We had organizers who were involved in various capacities.

00:02:50.500 But how do you fit into this movement or operationally speaking, how do you fit into the Freedom Convoy?

00:02:56.940 Well, you know, it's a great question because I've often wondered how did I get into the center of a tornado, basically.

00:03:06.240 I went to Ottawa as a volunteer.

00:03:08.720 I was brought in through friends that were trying to support the convoy as it was traveling through Ontario.

00:03:17.260 and um you know i got a phone call one day saying hey you're you're an ex-military retired guy uh

00:03:24.300 you know you've got experience with this kind of a logistical type of event can you come to ottawa

00:03:30.300 and give us a hand and you know within i would say three hours i was i was in ottawa and just

00:03:37.180 really went as a volunteer um and very quickly realized that you know that the truckers themselves

00:03:45.180 didn't have experience with this kind of an event in their lives but it really did lend itself well

00:03:51.740 to to some of my past experiences so that's how i kind of got involved in in the background really

00:03:58.620 as a volunteer and what experiences are you talking about there um so as a as a retired

00:04:04.860 military guy uh i'm a graduate of a course called army operations course uh it's a six month long

00:04:11.260 course in uh in kingston and it deals with operational planning uh so you know you're

00:04:17.900 trying to put a brigade of your soldiers in a battle space with say five thousand fifteen

00:04:25.100 or ten or fifteen thousand soldiers of your enemy um you know in an area between let's say niagara

00:04:31.900 and toronto um so like i had experience with that and i had some experience i played a very very

00:04:38.620 minor role in the ghg20 summit in uh 2010 in in um toronto i was like a the nighttime duty officer

00:04:47.260 but i you know i saw and i participated in the exercises building up to that so and then just

00:04:54.220 throughout my career like it's just normal kind of um military logistical type of planning and

00:05:02.460 and stuff like that.

00:05:04.220 So, you know, I didn't go there with the expectation

00:05:09.820 of emerging in any way as a leader,

00:05:14.380 but my skillset through the military

00:05:17.660 just seemed to lend itself very compatible

00:05:21.180 with what needed to be done.

00:05:23.540 So that's how I ended up getting there.

00:05:25.900 We joke and say that I was here to hand out soup.

00:05:28.340 From my perspective as a journalist covering it, there were three real phases. There was the actual convoy phase of all these trucks on their way to Ottawa. And I know a lot of that was focused on the group that was coming from out west. But as you noted, we had multiple different convoys. There was a group coming from southwestern Ontario. There was a group coming from the east, from Quebec. And there were just people who showed up on their own that weren't part of these convoys that just said, yeah, I'm a supporter.

00:05:55.640 Some of the first people on the scene didn't arrive with the big group here.

00:05:59.620 Then there was the block party phase, which was for the first couple of weeks when you just had people there playing music, dancing, worship services, all of this.

00:06:08.580 And then I'd say last weekend was the third phase where it took a very different turn.

00:06:13.540 You had police that started to get in there, move very aggressively.

00:06:16.900 I mentioned just in the introduction of the show some of the instances that occurred to independent journalists, but there were many others of people being, I want to be careful with my language, but people having what looks on video to be very unwarranted physical assaults on them from police.

00:06:34.620 again you can only get a snapshot of this on film but this is what i've seen here when did it turn

00:06:41.020 from that second phase to the third phase in your view was it with the invocation of the federal

00:06:46.460 emergency or was there another turning point there where this became a very different situation in

00:06:51.580 ottawa well it's very interesting because um the mayor of ottawa in in the city of ottawa had a

00:06:59.580 had a role to play in this and um you know there was there was a member of the police services

00:07:06.620 board um she's an ottawa politician um she we had watched a a live stream video of the police

00:07:16.860 services board with the the first chief of police while we were there and the rhetoric that she was

00:07:22.780 using was incredibly dangerous her name is diane deans i believe um the mayor has since

00:07:30.780 tried to remove her from the uh the police services board and that was a real big deal

00:07:37.340 because in that week um things really started to change because we had worked extremely hard

00:07:45.260 as an organization to relieve some of the pressure on the city of ottawa but as a result

00:07:51.180 what they did is they removed their chief of police for not acting aggressively enough or

00:07:58.220 quickly enough and so that was a really big turning point and in what we so you know you

00:08:04.300 mentioned those three phases and we affectionately called them our weekend warriors because those

00:08:09.660 were the people that really honestly on weekends came out and supported and it was we were also

00:08:15.660 refer to it as you know canada day one canada day two canada day three and by the time the fourth

00:08:21.260 one came around we said they're not going to let us have a fourth canada day right and so when you

00:08:27.740 when you look at the fact that the weekend warriors that showed up we used that as a

00:08:32.940 protection and we knew that by sunday afternoon they would they would start taking steps towards

00:08:37.740 us and as we saw out at the uh the coventry site um the the weekend warriors had left

00:08:45.180 and sunday night they they did the raid on coventry and then you could just see that they

00:08:50.300 were angling constantly to build up um the really dialed up the rhetoric and and started talking

00:08:59.260 about putting all the places in in into play to get violent so we could see it we we could see it

00:09:06.380 coming for for quite some time uh and i remember telling this police superintendent that i had a

00:09:12.460 meeting with uh i think his name is uh superintendent rob drummond and i said you

00:09:19.340 know we did a video asking people to consider coming to ottawa don't come yet but consider

00:09:24.300 it start thinking about it um because we believe the police are going to make a move on us but

00:09:29.740 justice mclean said we could be here so there was a lot of mixed messaging there but really towards

00:09:35.500 the end uh we we worked really really hard um but we felt i i personally felt that the mayor of

00:09:44.380 ottawa was was talking at both sides of his face and um you know the the police chief resigned but

00:09:53.260 we all believe that he got pushed out it was either resign or we're gonna fire you and then

00:09:57.900 they got a new chief and then he after two days said i don't want no part of that and then the

00:10:02.380 deputy chief stepped in and he was perfectly comfortable with all the uh the violent uh

00:10:07.580 rhetoric so there was a definite turning point on the note of your discussions with this or with

00:10:14.380 police i want to delve into this if i may because we learned that the city of ottawa had tapped a

00:10:20.140 former provincial government chief of staff to doug ford dean french to negotiate with the truckers

00:10:25.340 and as i've understood it looking back this was in that period where the truckers and i believe

00:10:30.780 tamara leach was the one who had signed the letter had agreed to move the trucks

00:10:34.780 into the downtown core and i think you spoke about this at your press conference on sunday

00:10:38.460 this ended up being thrown into the lurch when the emergencies act was invoked but

00:10:42.780 who was it on the trucker side or on the convoy side that was negotiating or engaging in discussions

00:10:49.900 with police of the city and what were those discussions really doing what was the scope of

00:10:54.140 them so so those discussions um the intent of those like the reason we participated in those

00:11:02.380 discussions is because we constantly tried to work with the ottawa uh police in the city of ottawa

00:11:09.180 to remove as much pressure on the city of ottawa and the residents as we possibly could that to

00:11:16.140 make it basically parliament hill and politicians yes absolutely so so the goal was always to have

00:11:22.460 the vehicles up onto wellington and then out of any any possible way to interfere with the residents

00:11:30.060 of ottawa themselves and we worked really hard and we tried to get that message across with

00:11:34.700 uh with the city and so you know there was a there was a frustrating part in there because

00:11:40.620 um you know i received a phone call from from randy hillier um saying look tom i think you

00:11:48.540 guys need to start dealing with the city to try to get the city off your off your back a little

00:11:53.740 bit so you can put the pressure where it belongs and in the uh put it on to the parliament and and

00:12:00.060 i agreed and i had spoken to several people but the first call i got about that was was randy um

00:12:06.380 so we agreed that that was probably a smart move to try to get the police in the city kind of off

00:12:13.740 our back so that we could just keep the pressure on Parliament and stay on the front page of the

00:12:19.380 newspaper to try to get our message across. And we almost got there. We almost got there. We were

00:12:25.400 really, I would say, on like the five-yard line with the police. And then last second, the police

00:12:31.380 pulled out. And then after that moment was when we got another conversation with the city. And I

00:12:40.560 met with the city manager this inspector uh rob drummond and excuse me there was a third person

00:12:46.720 there i can't remember his name it was kim something when was this just for this chronological

00:12:52.000 um sorry about an hour after the two letters from the mayor of ottawa and the the letter from tamara

00:13:02.640 had been made public by the city okay so about a week ago yeah we were walking into the meeting

00:13:08.640 uh with sorry i just i developed this little annoying cough while i was there it's not a big

00:13:16.080 deal the ottawa weather and a few weeks ago i think a lot of dryness in those hotels and

00:13:22.160 and out on the street and everything it was really weird but anyway um so we we were walking into

00:13:28.880 the meeting with the uh the city manager and uh we learned that this had been released but

00:13:34.080 my battery died on my phone as i was trying to read the article and then there was a lot of

00:13:38.400 people saying that we sold out and this that and the other thing it's like no this was part of the

00:13:43.360 strategy to try to put the pressure onto the government where it belonged and take it off of

00:13:48.080 the city of ottawa so this was all part of the the thing and then you know i was disappointed because

00:13:54.160 immediately after uh randy hillier had tweeted that that the leadership of the convoy had made

00:13:59.840 to deal with the city and abandon the truckers and it's like you know what you were the first

00:14:04.560 person that actually called me and said i should be talking to the city so that was pretty um that

00:14:10.880 was pretty frustrating um you know but we think that the the the strategy was very sound to be up

00:14:22.320 on parliament but we recognized we recognized from the start that let's say from a tactical point of

00:14:27.440 view and i want to be careful about using words like that um we knew that we were if we had moved

00:14:33.840 up onto parliament up onto wellington we'd be in a more physically vulnerable uh position for the

00:14:39.920 police to move in and we discussed that with the police we said like we recognize that but we're

00:14:45.040 not going to leave the perimeter of ottawa so we had trucks the entire time on the outskirts of

00:14:50.640 town and we said if if you make a move at that point then then you know we're still here and

00:14:56.880 we're not going to go anywhere but i think in that original meeting there was a lot of cool heads

00:15:02.640 that were really trying to prevail but then as soon as that emergency act came out uh the opp

00:15:08.640 had said to me listen whatever deals you think you had with the city they're off the table

00:15:13.200 this is now under the emergency act and uh so the chips will fall where they may

00:15:19.840 so let's talk about that home stretch here the final few days and i must admit police moved a

00:15:25.760 lot more quickly than i thought they were going to and i think a big part of that was because the

00:15:30.560 government was able to conscript tow truck drivers who we had seen in the preceding weeks were not

00:15:35.360 as interested in playing balls with the government but even when the emergencies act was declared

00:15:40.880 hold the line was the rallying cry as tamara leach was arrested she shouted out on video hold the line

00:15:47.120 when did that change from hold the line to you coming out on sunday and saying we're calling

00:15:53.440 for a peaceful withdrawal well we we had a lot of discussion and i can see there was a lot of the

00:16:00.480 truckers um that didn't didn't want to go like they wanted to hold the line uh but but we had

00:16:08.880 discussed we said look and i and i watched an interview um a few months ago from an australian

00:16:15.280 uh person uh it was just a video i watched online and he had a guest speaker with uh ricardo rossi

00:16:21.440 I think, a former SAS commander. And he had said, you know, the people have the power,

00:16:29.360 but the government has the force. And they ultimately had physical force in violence that

00:16:37.900 they could bring upon us. We were unarmed. We had no defensive weapons. And every day we said that

00:16:44.540 we were a peaceful protest. And I think what you'll see upon reflection of that is that we

00:16:51.860 were absolutely a peaceful protest and we proved that. Because despite the violence that the police

00:16:58.780 brought to that city, we never reciprocated the violence. I watched myself a veteran with his

00:17:07.220 beret on and his medals being violently taken to the ground by a group of cops. They swarmed like

00:17:12.840 hyenas. So, you know, it's an important question for people to understand, but we had a meeting

00:17:21.380 on, on, um, with a lot of the, the leadership of the trucks themselves. And we said two things

00:17:27.800 that we are not the government. We're not going to tell people what to do. We are going to let

00:17:33.420 the truckers make a decision for themselves, whether to stay or to go. And if they chose to

00:17:39.160 go you know chin up shoulders back head up high you've done your duty uh if you choose to stay

00:17:46.640 it's a personal decision that you and your family should make together but ultimately what we

00:17:52.480 realized was the government had the force we we have some power but we're no match for um

00:18:02.860 you know the the the physical violence that the police could bring to us we were just no match

00:18:08.620 and there was no value whatsoever in being used as a as a human punching bag for the police and

00:18:17.500 you've seen the videos you've seen it live and you were there and you know what it was like

00:18:22.700 um we were no match for them and all we could do was have our assets frozen and be beaten and

00:18:29.900 arrested um like my bank accounts have all been frozen um i'm not really sure how i'm going to

00:18:37.180 pay my bills i i think we're okay for now um but i haven't there's no warrants out for my arrest i

00:18:43.580 haven't been charged with a crime yet um but the you know the banks have sorry acted on behalf of

00:18:52.380 of law enforcement because there's no laws that they can touch us until now now that the emergencies

00:18:57.900 Act is out. And we'll see what the Senate does. But ultimately, we've been punished without due

00:19:07.140 process. And if even the hardest supporters of the COVID mandates didn't wake up to that fact,

00:19:16.060 then they really need to wake up to the fact that the government now has every intention,

00:19:19.860 because Chrystia Freeland had said, we have every intention of keeping this power

00:19:24.280 to start going after your assets if you have wrong think right if you don't agree with us

00:19:31.740 we are going to destroy your life financially they've gone after me they've gone after my

00:19:37.180 spouse they even sent warning letters to my my ex-wife um who was i'm presumed by you bringing

00:19:43.900 her up was not involved nothing to do with it we've been legally separated we have a great

00:19:48.120 relationship we co-parent our our child together um and and her financial institution got a warning

00:19:55.440 letter about her for money that had nothing to do with me at all so you know they've gone after my

00:20:02.420 my spouse's credit rating you know like it's ridiculous to see that without any due process

00:20:09.960 the government of canada goes on air and literally brags about the fact that uh despite the emergencies

00:20:16.840 Act. They have every intention of keeping this power. If you don't agree with them, if you have

00:20:22.040 wrong think, they're going to come for you. The fact that they're going after you, who has not

00:20:29.600 been charged, you've avoided what fate awaited Chris Barber and Tamara Leach thus far. And I

00:20:35.220 remember you said on Sunday that you even asked police specifically, and they said there were

00:20:38.380 no warrants. So it's not even like you can beat the rap because there is no rap to beat at this

00:20:43.200 point your accounts are frozen and the government has given no measure to really concretely get

00:20:49.680 those things unfrozen publicly have they privately the bank or the government told you do xyz and you

00:20:56.240 can get your money back no i i have no idea so so my spouse has contacted the bank and said okay what

00:21:02.240 do we do we can't even get an appointment until the 3rd of march yeah there's no you know press

00:21:08.560 one for small business press two for personal press three if the rcmp has had us freeze your

00:21:13.520 ass it's not on the bank menu so far as i can tell yeah and and from our understanding the banks had

00:21:18.400 a choice whether or not to participate in this and they chose to participate in this um but

00:21:24.880 interestingly enough the banks actually have immunity if they go along with what the government's

00:21:31.280 allowing them to do yeah even if they wrongfully target you if you if you know some tom morazzo

00:21:37.280 in sydney nova scotia who's never met you gets his account frozen he can't too

00:21:41.440 yeah absolutely and and it's it's just so incredibly bizarre um now even the mayor of

00:21:48.000 ottawa is saying yeah all those trucks that we confiscated we're now going to auction them auction

00:21:53.360 them off like don't you have to be convicted of a crime in this country anymore to have your assets

00:22:01.520 stolen from from the government so you know because because the the freedom convoy does not

00:22:10.640 exist in in ottawa currently at this moment um and i've been asked several times by media about uh

00:22:18.480 you know some earlier comments that maybe i made that i believe were taken right out of context

00:22:24.080 um you know as a as a as a citizen now in my own home i from my perspective i really honestly think

00:22:32.920 that that the um there needs to be an election today i really think there needs to be an election

00:22:39.340 and i know um trudeau had alluded to the fact that sorry if parliament had failed in its bid to

00:22:48.800 get the Emergencies Act passed, it could potentially trigger a vote of non-confidence

00:22:54.840 and maybe an election. And then there you see, he again, again, through his love and support from

00:23:04.320 the NDP, he has a quasi-majority government, let's just call it what it is, the NDP bailed him out

00:23:12.460 again. And he got what he wanted, but the Senate still hasn't finished their vote. So hopefully,

00:23:19.960 hopefully the Senate will strike this down and maybe it does trigger an election. I went there

00:23:25.240 with the Freedom Convoy fully prepared to talk to the government of Canada and the elected

00:23:29.880 government of Canada. But now that I'm home and this is being done to me, I'm seeing the

00:23:35.340 conservatives are fighting to stop this. And they were so disrespected, even from the Speaker of

00:23:40.980 house yesterday who cut uh cut them off like even cancelled their mic in the middle of uh

00:23:45.780 the conservative you're speaking so from from my point of view i would love nothing more than to

00:23:52.580 see a legitimate legal election in this country and i know who i'm going to vote for i know who

00:23:59.860 i'm going to vote for i voted for them in the last election um not a single one of them got elected

00:24:07.060 which is amazing because every single person i know that is awake all voted for the ppc every

00:24:13.300 single one of them i i'm i'm not even part of that party at all um but they spoke to my values

00:24:20.020 and that's why i voted for them the the conservatives under aaron o'toole just

00:24:25.300 sounded like liberal lights the ndp are basically liberals uh currently under this leader

00:24:31.940 um and the liberals are the liberals like the liberals say one thing on monday and on tuesday

00:24:39.800 they're they're acting in the opposite manner that they said they would on monday so from my

00:24:46.900 point of view um you know i i will i i will vote if there was an election today i would vote for

00:24:54.740 the ppc and that's just tom i'm not telling anyone what to do you decide for yourself who speaks to

00:25:00.620 your values. Forget about vote splitting. That's like one person can't make a difference on vote

00:25:07.900 splitting. Vote for who speaks to your values. That's all. It's simple. My prediction is that

00:25:14.060 Pierre Polyev is going to be the next prime minister of Canada. I think he's a very good

00:25:19.040 politician. He's great with the finances. But let's wait and see, honestly, what really happens

00:25:26.120 with the conservatives they've done nothing in the last two years to stop any of this stuff um

00:25:32.280 the other day i i was so disgusted when all they wanted to do was talk about one lgbtq uh federal

00:25:41.000 mp and her feelings that got hurt well we had truckers up minus 20 sleeping in cars trucks vans

00:25:47.400 and they were debating in circles because the prime minister wouldn't apologize because someone's

00:25:52.680 feelings got hurt yeah this was the the melissa lanceman uh standing was lost a good episode

00:25:57.960 which again i i still think this is offside on the prime minister's part but i i take your point

00:26:02.920 there that uh there there were other issues i mean it's politics is uh sometimes uh net uh

00:26:08.920 it's a zero-sum game you know you talk at one talk about one thing and don't about another at the

00:26:13.320 same time but i want to bring it back to those truckers you mentioned tom because when the

00:26:17.880 trucker convoy started and that go fund me campaign started the very first one and ended up

00:26:23.980 just wildly wildly outperforming anyone's expectations it was originally we're going to

00:26:28.900 cover the cost of diesel and fuel to get these truckers to toronto and then of course the

00:26:33.020 campaign grew and that shifted to all of a sudden having to fight legal challenges with go fund me

00:26:38.460 and then the government tries to freeze the money with the give send go and all of this is basically

00:26:43.080 at the point where not a single donated dollar to either GoFundMe or Gibson Go has made it to

00:26:48.680 the truckers. The donations that did make it to truckers were people bringing cash. A lot of

00:26:53.420 truckers and some organizers digging into their personal savings. But these truckers right now,

00:26:58.920 a lot of them are going to be dealing with suspensions of their insurance, suspensions

00:27:02.740 of their license, freezing of their account. What's being done to support these people now

00:27:07.860 that that initial protest in Ottawa is dissipated and these challenges for a lot of people that I

00:27:13.280 don't think anticipated these challenges are still being heaped upon them. Well, it's a, it's a,

00:27:18.840 if you find an answer, let me know too, because all of my accounts are frozen as, as we've talked

00:27:24.080 about. Um, you know, I, before I had any involvement whatsoever, I also donated a hundred

00:27:31.720 dollars to the, uh, GoFundMe and I had no participation at all, no involvement in the

00:27:37.060 convoy and then then they froze the account the ottawa police chief went on and bragged about how

00:27:42.100 they they went in and disrupted the uh the supply of of money to the truckers then my money was

00:27:49.200 returned to me but i didn't i didn't give to uh give send go after that because we knew that that

00:27:57.100 was going to happen again like it worked the first time so there's no point the second time but

00:28:01.320 what we were doing is there was various organizations on the ground that were

00:28:07.720 literally collecting cash from people. I had this wonderful woman that I met in the street. She just

00:28:12.640 happened to recognize me, handed me a $10 bill and said, can you give this to a trucker? Which I did.

00:28:18.200 And so right now, and I got a message this morning saying, listen, we have a whole bunch

00:28:23.320 of trucks in this certain location. We're looking for money for fuel to get home because truck

00:28:28.640 drivers have had their accounts frozen what do i tell them like i can't dip into my own account

00:28:34.120 right and a lot of people there was like i think 200 people at least that were reported to get

00:28:38.920 their accounts frozen so so far so far so far because the the new chief the new sheriff in town

00:28:46.560 has uh gone on there and bragged about the fact that they're going to follow up with video evidence

00:28:51.780 and charges will be forthcoming and fines right fine let's have some due process let's get into

00:28:58.560 a courtroom and let's see what a judge says okay and what's going to happen what is going to happen

00:29:05.040 if the senate votes this down or they're just going to turn around and say oh well oops but

00:29:11.860 the damage will have been done to people's lives right so as far as what the what can the truckers

00:29:18.200 do i i don't really know i'm getting a ton of support from from just the international community

00:29:24.460 are saying, how can I send you money? And I'm saying, you can't. You can't. The moment it

00:29:28.800 comes into Canada, it will be frozen. So, you know, this is like banana republic kind of

00:29:36.840 behavior. Like they can't get you on a legal mechanism. So they give themselves extraordinary 0.59

00:29:41.920 powers that haven't been passed through our legal mechanisms. You can punish people now

00:29:48.220 without any due process. I don't know what to tell the truckers other than hopefully you can

00:29:53.660 find people that will uh donate some money just enough for you to get home and then reevaluate

00:30:01.180 because all the all the donations have been frozen there's no access to that money well

00:30:05.740 and even true north i mean we are a donor supported outlet we rely on people that value

00:30:10.860 our work to donate we've had so many emails i personally have had emails saying i love what

00:30:15.420 you did in ottawa i love your reporting i'm scared to donate to you because i don't want to get my

00:30:20.060 account frozen. Now, again, I can tell people, listen, we're not anticipating being caught up

00:30:26.880 in that. We're journalists. But I mean, given how the government's acted, no one can make that

00:30:30.480 guarantee now. And that's the problem here. There's a fear. People that would love to help

00:30:34.400 a trucker out that don't want some street camera that catches them giving the trucker a $20 bill

00:30:40.080 at a gas station because they don't want their life thrown into the lurch. And that's why these

00:30:43.980 measures cannot be separated from being intended to chill free speech and support for a lawful

00:30:50.320 protest movement. And I don't know how you combat that because you're right. The state has all the

00:30:54.000 force. Yes, they do. And I've got I've got I've been told that various family members of mine

00:31:00.140 that are very upset that they currently share the same last name with me right now are terrified

00:31:05.880 that just just through our, you know, association through the last name, no real substantial

00:31:11.880 relationship at all but we share the same last name they're terrified their accounts are going

00:31:15.780 to be frozen just because they have the same last name so as we move forward here let me just ask

00:31:26.400 you and i asked you this on sunday at the press conference but i want to ask you again because the

00:31:30.480 passage of a couple of days time might have given you a different answer at least made you want to

00:31:34.320 restate the initial one, but do you feel the convoy won or lost? I absolutely, without a

00:31:42.040 shadow of a doubt, feel that the convoy won. We didn't go there and get the federal mandates

00:31:49.240 you know, struck down. That didn't happen. What we did do is we woke

00:31:58.100 a sleeping bear, not just in Ontario or in Canada, but we woke up a lot of people in the world.

00:32:09.140 And this movement inspired me to get involved, you know, as a volunteer. And then from there,

00:32:17.200 it inspired movements all around Canada, all around the world. People have had enough of their

00:32:23.000 governments that stopped serving them and started acting like kings and queens in their little

00:32:28.480 kingdoms. And so from that point of view, did we get the mandates lifted? No, we didn't. Did we

00:32:36.160 submit a plan that was palatable to the government that maybe might be palatable for the conservatives

00:32:41.660 is if they come into power to start using some of the plan that we created. So I'm hopeful long

00:32:48.320 term that there is. But what's most important, I think, is that people are starting to wake up.

00:32:55.800 And what I'm hearing is people are taking their masks off. They're saying, what can I do? I say,

00:33:00.100 well, take that stupid mask off your face, for starters. Don't wear it in public. I haven't 1.00

00:33:03.960 worn a mask in public since last spring. I absolutely refuse because a virus is three

00:33:09.860 microns and the masks are 60. So just find your moral courage. And it's going to be uncomfortable

00:33:18.240 for the first dozen times you go into a business without a mask like it is for me. But at this

00:33:23.660 point, there's no way I'm ever going to put a muzzle on my face and signal to other people in

00:33:28.120 the store that I'm going to comply with tyranny. Because now we're dealing medical tyranny, we're

00:33:32.680 dealing with financial tyranny, we're dealing with freedom tyranny. So there's tyranny on every level

00:33:37.880 here so do i think we we won um i maybe we lost a little bit of a battle or let's say it was a draw

00:33:46.840 at the very least it was a draw but every time justin trudeau and his cronies stepped up to

00:33:52.120 microphone every time he opened his mouth we got more support every time he hurt somebody 1.00

00:33:59.240 we got more support as you know the majority of canadians every time he did something stupid 0.93

00:34:07.000 we won a little bit more ground back and so one of i i i'm there's a ton of um uh chats on the

00:34:15.320 side i can't read them because they're so fast and i'm trying to look at the camera but i read

00:34:18.760 well yeah never look though i read one right in the beginning and somebody said you know um you

00:34:24.840 know that we were winning because they had to go to the emergencies act it was one of the very first

00:34:29.560 ones i read before i was on the camera and and that person's right um we went from this fringe

00:34:36.600 minority of misogynists and wrong thinkers very quickly to being um the reason they justified the

00:34:44.760 the emergency act or the war measures act let's not pretty it up it's the war measures act and

00:34:49.720 even with the trucks gone the government still insists that you are creating an emergency which

00:34:55.560 i mean any moral high ground that the government regained or thought it regained when the protest

00:35:00.920 lasted as long as it did has been completely obliterated even to a lot of people that were

00:35:05.560 not for the convoy yeah yeah and and you know what like it's it's ironic right they're beating

00:35:10.760 people in the streets and shooting journalists in the leg with um with projectiles but it's for your 0.98

00:35:17.080 safety right you can't make this crap up like it's it's just ludicrous like it's a it's a b movie 1.00

00:35:26.080 of of of stupidity um you know i it just stuns me um anybody who supports this because i do get a 1.00

00:35:38.020 lot of hate mail right i i get threats now and stuff like that and i'm uh which is fine uh nobody 0.98

00:35:44.160 knows where i live i hope um i just recently moved so so where i am is you know not a big deal but

00:35:53.500 like i said this week we're still gonna fight for the freedoms of the people that actually hate us

00:35:59.240 and and i hope someday they wake up to that and say man i was wrong but like that guy that was

00:36:04.640 sitting beside you on sunday who was tweeting uh somebody sent me his stuff and he was a very uh

00:36:10.460 a disturbed individual who was live tweeting my words. And I, like, it's hard to believe

00:36:19.080 that there are people that are so bought into the narrative. Like, I just wish people would

00:36:25.540 stop watching mainstream media and start looking for an alternate truth. You shouldn't be in an

00:36:32.940 echo chamber. You should listen to both sides. But unfortunately, in this world,

00:36:37.300 um the taxpayers are forced to pay for propaganda and that propaganda comes right from the prime

00:36:46.940 minister's office and i want to make this point really clear um we're in a party system so it

00:36:53.520 means that in a party system if you don't agree with your party leader and we've seen it with

00:36:59.180 with uh doug ford and trudeau and the conservatives if you don't agree with your party leader that

00:37:06.760 party leader just removes you they fire you from the party instantly and so your constituents just

00:37:12.300 get screwed because that person didn't like your opinion because they're the leader of the party

00:37:17.080 so it's important to understand that the NDP and the liberals both voted really what their 0.94

00:37:24.720 their party leaders wanted so two people two people made a vote last night that screwed 38

00:37:33.400 million Canadians. Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau. One Liberal MP in particular who had been

00:37:41.900 talking earlier in the day about how he thought the Emergencies Act was bad and he didn't like

00:37:46.540 it and he thought it was an overreach, but I'm still going to vote for it. And he was a Liberal

00:37:50.260 MP in Toronto, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, because the reason you just mentioned, he didn't want to

00:37:56.200 vote against his own party's government. So we have this system. The Conservatives, I think you

00:38:03.060 made a completely valid criticism earlier about not being present on the battle lines of the

00:38:08.340 COVID restrictions for the last two years. They've deposed that leader. They've replaced him with a

00:38:12.600 leader who has been talking about the convoy and talking about these issues. So ideally there will

00:38:17.680 be some political opposition to this. But what would your message be about how to keep up the

00:38:25.340 protest without the protest? Well, like I said, first and foremost, take off the mask. There's

00:38:31.920 no there's no scientific justification and i've read it and i've talked to the scientists uh i've

00:38:37.400 a very dear friend in the area uh where i live who was an aneseologist who's no longer uh working

00:38:44.120 um you know and and i know several doctors uh that are no longer working and they're saying

00:38:50.680 masks don't work they never did they should have never been put on um so that's the first thing

00:38:56.760 you can do. I also think put the pressure on the politicians. And I also agree with

00:39:02.620 these organic grassroots protests that pop up all over the country and all over the world.

00:39:10.200 And I think they should continue. However, what I also believe is you should never interrupt

00:39:17.540 emergency services lanes. So don't do anything that's going to stop ambulances or fire or police

00:39:23.820 from getting to to helping citizens. That's just irresponsible of any protest. We worked really,

00:39:30.300 really hard to make sure we never impacted any emergency services while we were in Ottawa.

00:39:34.940 We worked very hard. But I think that, you know, there should never be one leader of this entire

00:39:44.060 movement. Every Canadian citizen is a leader of this movement. You just have to get off your butt

00:39:51.260 and go out to a protest and you know people have been protesting for two years in toronto and all 0.99

00:39:58.060 these other places and nobody listened nobody has yet to listen has there been a referendum in this

00:40:03.560 country since the 95 when when quebec was did a referendum to leave no we haven't so why don't

00:40:11.440 they start asking the people what they actually want let the people choose their destiny for

00:40:15.460 themselves on maybe a referendum. But no, they're too arrogant. They're too uneducated, ill-equipped, 0.85

00:40:23.760 and yet believe in their own self-importance that they somehow were anointed to make decisions

00:40:29.660 as opposed to representing people to make decisions. So I think the protests must continue.

00:40:37.420 I think they must grow. And I think people should take the masks off. I really do like just start

00:40:47.220 that's that's something subtle that every person can do. It's uncomfortable. I get anxiety when I

00:40:53.060 do it, except for when I was in Ottawa. Just on that note, I have to say something. Because I was

00:40:59.860 there at the very beginning, the very first weekend when the trucks rolled in. And the first

00:41:04.180 thing i noticed walking into my hotel on i think it was the friday night of that first uh convoy

00:41:11.000 arrival was that the mask mandate in ottawa had just died it was just gone and there was at the

00:41:17.040 time there was this front desk woman at the hotel that was like trying to hand people masks and i

00:41:21.520 think within about two hours she just gave up and by the end of it i even saw one of the staff

00:41:25.600 members at the hotel the same hotel that i was at this weekend as well not wearing their mask so

00:41:29.780 you are right and the mask is is fascinating because it's in some ways one of the least

00:41:34.720 intrusive restrictions yes but in a lot of ways it's one of the worst because of the symbol

00:41:39.380 of it that even something as simple as showing your face in public is illegal yes and and and

00:41:45.880 my spouse has um got a a psychology background and so she reads a lot of scientific uh papers

00:41:53.500 right now. And she's saying, like, right from the beginning, psychologists from around the world

00:42:00.140 were talking about the long-term damage that we were going to do to our children in their

00:42:04.600 developmental years. Wearing a mask actually reduces a developing mind's ability to learn

00:42:12.340 and express empathy, right? So this is the kind of stuff we're doing to our children. And I was

00:42:19.780 I was ecstatic when I saw that school, I think out in Alberta, all the students took off their masks

00:42:27.080 and said, we've had enough. That was one of the happiest days of the entire time for me or moments

00:42:32.680 while I was in Ottawa. Seeing those students say, we're not going to let you tell us what to do

00:42:38.700 anymore. We're not wearing the mask. And if you want to suspend the entire school, be my guest.

00:42:42.800 We don't care. But that was a big, big moment. And that was our children doing it, not the adults.

00:42:48.580 the children took the lead on that not the adults and to go back to your fringe to go back to your

00:42:53.860 fringe minority point well justin trudeau's fringe minority point but the point you made

00:42:57.960 about it that was far more accurate people are less likely to take a stand when they feel they're

00:43:02.660 alone and the one thing over the last month i feel has changed dramatically is a lot of canadians

00:43:08.360 that may be fed up as well that are not all politically conservative this is not a left

00:43:12.660 right thing are looking around and saying wow there are other people like me and there was

00:43:17.320 some group of activists that published a Google map with the addresses of all the give send go

00:43:23.160 don't that up and well I think that's horrible and doxing I zoomed in on it and I'm like oh wow

00:43:29.500 I've got some cool neighbors yeah it works against it because you realize in something like that like

00:43:34.700 you're not alone and I'm not going to share it because I don't want to endorse that sort of

00:43:38.260 behavior but it can work against these people's stated purpose when you realize wow there are

00:43:42.940 others like me. So I'm glad you were able to, even if you started just as a supporter and ended up

00:43:48.280 being in a position to speak for some parts of the convoy, I'm glad you did on the weekend and

00:43:53.040 I'm glad you've done so today. Tom Morazzo, thank you so much for your time, sir.

00:43:56.180 Thank you for having me and take off your masks and don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

00:44:02.300 All right. Well, that's the enduring message of the convoy. Don't be afraid. My thanks again to

00:44:07.940 Tom Morazzo here. This is the Andrew Lawton Show. I'm going to take just a couple of moments here

00:44:11.960 because I want to read a couple of your comments and offer some closing thoughts of my own here

00:44:16.300 because the convoy has been a pivotal moment, not just in Canadian media and in Canadian politics,

00:44:23.720 I would say in Canadian history as well. And what it is going to bring in the course of debating

00:44:30.220 this in the next few days, I don't know. But what I do know is that it's not going away.

00:44:35.420 And even if the trucks are going away, the fact that Justin Trudeau still calls this an emergency,

00:44:40.640 a state of emergency, with the effective suspension of your civil liberties, tells us

00:44:45.400 why people were protesting in the first place. And it shows that the protest has itself morphed.

00:44:52.240 I have two messages here that are very similar, super chats on YouTube from Steve, who says,

00:44:57.200 the Senate needs to stop this, and if they don't, the courts do. Alison, who writes,

00:45:01.460 call or email the Senate members, vote maybe tomorrow. No masks, please. Love your reporting,

00:45:06.780 Andrew. Great guest pick. Well, thank you very much for that, Alison and Steve. Yeah, this is

00:45:12.500 in the Senate now. So senators are people that are interesting. Well, in many cases, they aren't

00:45:17.060 interesting, but the role is interesting here. And what I mean by that is that for senators,

00:45:23.160 they don't have constituents. They aren't elected. They don't have democratic accountability in the

00:45:30.500 way that members of parliament do. So I don't know if many of them are used to hearing from

00:45:36.160 constituents, but you can make your voice heard. Senators are by province. They're not by riding.

00:45:42.240 So you can look. And if you're in Alberta, you can call up your Alberta senators. You can call

00:45:46.160 up your Ontario senators. You can call up your Nova Scotia senators and you can say, hey, are

00:45:51.200 you going to vote no on this? Are you going to vote yes on this? And even though most of the

00:45:55.300 senators are liberal, loyal and Trudeau appointed, there is still a hope that some independents could

00:46:01.460 prevail. And if not, as Steve says, it falls on the courts. And while I have a great deal of

00:46:07.300 pessimism about the state of the judiciary in Canada, this is quite a significant battle.

00:46:11.660 If you've got a state of emergency that was declared to stop blockades, and you look in

00:46:16.580 Ottawa, there is no blockade except for the one that police have set up. How on earth can you say

00:46:22.000 that this is justifiable? This measure that was not necessary after 9-11, that was not necessary

00:46:29.840 during the Oka crisis that was not necessary at any other point in the pandemic, but is now still

00:46:36.840 necessary, not just to deal with truckers, but to deal with the absence of truckers, because the

00:46:43.220 government wants the power to continue going after their money. The government wants the power to

00:46:48.360 continue going after individual people's bank accounts, like Tom, like Tom's wife, his ex-wife,

00:46:54.020 who had nothing to do with the convoys, you heard him say, even got a warning letter from her

00:46:58.540 financial institution as if to say, we're watching you. That's what it is. It was like that when that

00:47:03.800 woman got a visit from the OPP a week before she went to Ottawa to support the convoy. It's them

00:47:09.400 saying, we're not charging you. We're not doing anything. We're just warning you. We're letting

00:47:13.540 you know that we know who you are. We know that you're up to, and we think you might be thinking

00:47:18.320 some dirty thoughts. Those dirty thoughts are, I support freedom. As I said on Twitter and one of

00:47:24.180 my most viral tweets ever. Freedom isn't fringe and it shouldn't be treated as such.

00:47:29.680 So I mentioned in an email that we sent to True North supporters the other day, the convoy

00:47:33.840 may be over at least in this one particular sense, but the convoy movement has been birthed

00:47:39.340 from the convoy itself. And I don't think that part of the convoy is over. I also, by extension,

00:47:44.720 can say that our coverage is not over. There are going to be legal challenges. There are going to

00:47:48.800 be political debates about this. There may be other spinoff protests that arise. So we're going

00:47:55.300 to keep on this. I'm personally going to keep on this. I was in Ottawa. I should have gotten the

00:48:00.640 picture up. If you want to see it, you can go on my Twitter. I got pepper sprayed and I took one

00:48:05.820 for the team there and I'm happy I did. Not because I'm happy I got pepper sprayed, but I'm

00:48:09.640 happy I was on the ground dealing with this and covering this. So we're going to end things there.

00:48:15.540 My lights have been flickering.

00:48:17.060 I don't know if you couldn't see.

00:48:17.880 So I'm worried the internet's going to go out

00:48:19.320 and then we'll all think the big tech is censoring.

00:48:21.320 So I'm going to go out on my terms now

00:48:22.680 because we're near the end of the show anyway.

00:48:24.340 But truly, if you can support True North's coverage,

00:48:26.840 head on over to donate.tnc.news,

00:48:30.000 donate.tnc.news, and you can contribute that way.

00:48:33.340 I thank you so very much to all of you

00:48:35.100 who sent kind messages after I was pepper sprayed

00:48:37.920 or in general, the people who came up to me

00:48:40.100 on the streets in Ottawa and said,

00:48:41.440 hey, Andrew, I love your work.

00:48:42.540 I love True North.

00:48:43.540 Thank you to all of you.

00:48:44.380 And I've got some first-time viewers, people that weren't familiar with True North that saw me covering it and said, where are you at? I want to look up your stuff. So to all of you, thank you. We will talk to you in a couple days' time with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:49:14.380 Thank you.

Juno News - February 22, 2022

Is the trucker convoy really over？

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