Juno News - John Carpay on free speech, censorship, and the fight for civil liberties

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.760 Coming up, an in-depth discussion with Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms President John Carpe on free speech, censorship and civil liberties.

00:00:23.020 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.600 Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show on True North.

00:00:35.500 Great to have you tuned into the program. As you may have noticed, we're going to be doing things a little bit differently for a few shows.

00:00:41.960 A series that's going to take a big picture look at not just some of the bigger issues we're facing as a society and have been in the year up till now and the year ahead,

00:00:51.460 but also some of the people that we've had on the show a number of times throughout the year to talk about various things,

00:00:56.800 but not situations where we often get the opportunity to really delve into who they are and what they're doing and why it is so important.

00:01:05.380 And obviously, one of the biggest themes and the most recurring themes, sadly, on The Andrew Lawton Show in the past year has been civil liberties or what's left of them in a Canadian context.

00:01:16.260 And one of the big groups that's been at the forefront of the civil liberties fight is the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:01:23.600 Helming that is John Carpe, the president of the JCCF, who joins me on the line now.

00:01:29.840 John, it's good to have you back on the show. Thanks for your time.

00:01:32.640 Glad to be with you, Andrew.

00:01:34.340 You and I have spoken at a number of points throughout the year, and while I always enjoy talking to you,

00:01:39.200 I'd say that in the past year, I haven't wanted to have to talk to you as much as I have.

00:01:45.380 And I must say, this is probably something that you're experiencing on your end.

00:01:49.340 You love the work that you do. You probably wish for the sake of the country you didn't have so much of it, though.

00:01:54.520 I wish I could close down the Justice Centre and we could all go home,

00:01:58.060 because the spirit of freedom so permeated the culture that every elected official of every party

00:02:05.200 was firmly committed to the free society and to our fundamental charter freedoms of speech and religion

00:02:13.020 and conscience and association and bodily autonomy.

00:02:17.300 But that's just not the case.

00:02:19.740 So, yeah, it's too bad that we have to exist in a way.

00:02:23.480 Because we are taking a bigger picture look at the issue and also at you and the JCCF,

00:02:30.460 I was wondering if we could go back a bit.

00:02:32.140 How and why did this organisation start?

00:02:36.060 Well, I don't know if it was Ronald Reagan or somebody else who said that

00:02:40.280 liberty is always one generation away from extinction.

00:02:45.560 Every new generation has to learn, you know, why the free society is better than,

00:02:52.020 you know, an unfree society, of which there are many different kinds, of course,

00:02:58.440 whether it's totalitarian communism, whether it's fascism, whether it's theocracy.

00:03:05.720 So every generation needs to learn this because unless the freedom resides in our hearts and in our minds,

00:03:15.240 there's no constitution and no court that can really preserve it.

00:03:20.280 Now, constitutions are good and courts can be good, but ultimately,

00:03:26.840 so the reason the Justice Centre was started 11 years ago was to be a voice for freedom

00:03:33.320 in Canada's courtrooms, to litigate for these fundamental freedoms.

00:03:38.600 And one of the reasons the organisation is necessary is because the average citizen cannot afford $50,000 or $100,000 to hire a lawyer to defend her charter freedoms.

00:03:55.020 So when the governments do threaten, trample on one or more of the charter freedoms,

00:04:00.420 the average citizen, the average citizen, where do they go?

00:04:04.260 Your typical law firm, you might get lucky and you might get a lawyer that can do it at a discount rate,

00:04:10.640 but then maybe that lawyer is not experienced in constitutional law.

00:04:13.980 So what we have at the Justice Centre is we have a team of lawyers that are practising constitutional law all the time,

00:04:22.260 so they have the experience in it, and the services are provided free of charge to the client.

00:04:29.600 Some of the clients choose to donate if they want to, but there's no obligation.

00:04:32.820 And so that's why we exist.

00:04:35.320 It's to defend the charter freedoms in the courtrooms,

00:04:38.460 to provide people with pro bono legal representation from experienced lawyers.

00:04:46.100 You mentioned that freedom has to exist and the yearning for freedom has to exist in people's hearts and minds.

00:04:52.980 And I know that JCCF does a little bit of that when you talk to the media,

00:04:55.960 when you speak at events and explain the cases that you're working on,

00:04:59.220 but you're still, as you note there, primarily focused on championing these things through the legal system.

00:05:05.120 Have you gotten so pessimistic yet that you don't think the legal system is where these issues can be solved?

00:05:12.460 Well, I've often said in speeches that I've given at conferences and events,

00:05:20.060 or in the last two years, lots of rallies,

00:05:22.560 that the public opinion is probably more important than the court rulings.

00:05:29.560 Because if public opinion can, you know, rebel and revolt against these very unscientific and irrational laws and rules,

00:05:39.600 most of the laws and rules in the past year and eight months have been not based on science,

00:05:46.820 and just very superstitious and irrational.

00:05:50.780 But if the public rebels and revolts against that,

00:05:54.200 then the laws will change because politicians, with few exceptions,

00:05:58.020 politicians are followers, not leaders.

00:06:01.500 And so the court of public opinion ultimately is more important than the court of law.

00:06:06.480 So we do fight the battles in court, but we don't know now.

00:06:12.080 You never know ahead of time if you're going to win or lose.

00:06:15.300 So the court of public opinion is even more important.

00:06:20.260 One of the big challenges we've seen, and I think you're very keenly aware of this, John,

00:06:25.560 is that a lot of people in Canada have very willingly surrendered a lot of their civil liberties to government.

00:06:31.080 They've been very deferential on things like vaccine passports.

00:06:34.400 I'd also say, and it's not pandemic specific, on privacy rights,

00:06:37.880 that old if you have nothing to hide line, then you don't need to fear a government poking around in your business.

00:06:43.640 How do you break through that?

00:06:45.260 And how do you establish to people that think they are not doing anything wrong,

00:06:49.620 that think they don't have anything to hide,

00:06:51.140 that even if they may be free of the government's very draconian measures in one particular context,

00:06:56.540 they might not be the next time government does something? 0.87

00:06:59.880 It's an ongoing work of education.

00:07:02.380 People, generally speaking, most people are short-sighted.

00:07:07.560 So they tend to protest when their own ox gets gored,

00:07:13.140 when it's their own issue or something they care about,

00:07:20.020 when they're personally affected.

00:07:21.440 And it's probably always been the case that the people who see the bigger picture are probably the minority.

00:07:30.380 So you take free speech, for example.

00:07:32.800 20 years ago, 15 years ago,

00:07:35.780 the only threat to free speech that I was aware of 15 years ago was directed at campus pro-life groups.

00:07:45.000 And unless you were a pro-lifer, your freedom of speech was pretty safe.

00:07:49.620 And I warned 15 years ago, if you accept that it's okay to suppress pro-life speech,

00:07:56.960 just because you find it, you know, disagreeable or despicable or abhorrent or hateful or hurtful or offensive,

00:08:04.740 if you're okay with a governmental authority like a university suppressing pro-life speech,

00:08:12.160 there's a precedent there and it will spread like a cancer.

00:08:17.080 And like right now, today, the pro-lifers might be the only ones impacted, but you just wait.

00:08:22.060 And so here we are 15 years later,

00:08:24.280 and there's free speech left, right and center all over the place.

00:08:28.420 We've got this vicious, aggressive cancel culture

00:08:31.480 so that universities, it's not just pro-lifers now that are being targeted for their speech.

00:08:41.400 You've got anybody who disagrees with the transgender narrative,

00:08:46.380 the politically correct, you know, that we all have to buy into this notion that gender is a social construct.

00:08:53.900 If you disagree with that, like J.K. Rowling in the United Kingdom,

00:08:58.640 you're subject to cancel culture.

00:09:00.120 If you do not completely embrace one particular anti-racism narrative, right,

00:09:08.820 because there's different, it's a whole complex subject and there's different ways to be anti-racist,

00:09:14.320 there's different ways to express it.

00:09:16.100 But if you don't buy into the one correct narrative, you get cancelled.

00:09:21.360 If you don't subscribe to the dominant narrative on COVID, on lockdowns,

00:09:27.360 on mandatory vaccinations, on ivermectin, you get shut down.

00:09:33.420 So it's an ongoing work to just educate people that, you know, for example,

00:09:38.200 if you're not a firearms owner, you should be concerned about the confiscation of lawfully acquired property,

00:09:45.540 even if you have no personal enthusiasm for firearms, because there's a precedent there.

00:09:50.260 If the government can just take your firearms that are legally purchased and you haven't done anything wrong,

00:09:57.440 you've never misused them, and if government could come along and take that property away,

00:10:01.720 that's a dangerous precedent for all Canadians.

00:10:03.740 One of the big challenges I think a lot of free speech advocates have had to contend with

00:10:10.500 is that the focus was for so long simply on government censorship,

00:10:15.340 which I'd say is at the apex of censorship,

00:10:18.500 that emanating from a state where if you speak against the state or say something the state doesn't approve of,

00:10:23.280 you get thrown in jail.

00:10:24.200 But you are right that missing from a lot of the discourse was the importance of preserving that cultural support

00:10:29.740 support for free speech, because that's where deplatforming comes from.

00:10:33.000 J.K. Rowling has been no doubt censored, but she has not been censored by a state.

00:10:37.600 So a lot of people who are not actually civil libertarians,

00:10:41.460 people that don't support free speech would say,

00:10:44.540 oh, well, you know, the government hasn't censored her,

00:10:46.420 and they try to draw this parallel between, well, no free speech is consequence free speech,

00:10:52.240 and all of that.

00:10:53.640 And I would agree.

00:10:54.480 I mean, the complete libertarian utopia is that businesses should be able to say,

00:11:00.060 I'm not going to publish that book, or I'm not going to rent that lectern or that venue out,

00:11:04.500 and people can then go elsewhere.

00:11:06.360 I mean, that's the way the world is supposed to work.

00:11:09.120 But there's very much an imbalance there,

00:11:11.420 because businesses don't have the right to do that in so many contexts.

00:11:15.200 They can't say, you know, the proverbial case in Canada quite effectively,

00:11:19.680 you know, the Christian baker is not going to bake the gay wedding cake. 1.00

00:11:22.940 So we have this version of individual choice that only extends to certain people and certain groups.

00:11:30.960 Well, I think the solution there, it's got to be one of two things.

00:11:35.040 Either the government steps in and regulates, you know, Facebook, Google, Twitter,

00:11:45.720 and what's the fourth big one I'm missing?

00:11:47.960 Anyway, the big giants, either the government has to step in and pass a law and say,

00:11:54.080 look, you guys are, you're not an advocacy group.

00:11:58.020 You are kind of like a highway.

00:11:59.520 And if you're a highway, you have to let all cars use the highway.

00:12:05.960 So you have to not be biased against certain viewpoints.

00:12:11.580 You have to not censor any viewpoints.

00:12:14.760 So that would be one way to go.

00:12:16.600 I don't know how effective that would be.

00:12:18.820 The other one, which is more pragmatic,

00:12:21.440 is that the people who are censored will have to move to their own platforms.

00:12:26.600 So I can tell you with the Justice Center,

00:12:28.940 a lot of our YouTube video, a lot of our videos have been censored on YouTube.

00:12:33.480 They've been censored within minutes or within hours of going up.

00:12:36.740 And so we have them on Rumble and BitChute. 0.97

00:12:40.960 And I think what's going to happen is that the more that the Facebook, Twitter, Google,

00:12:49.700 and again, I'm missing one of the four,

00:12:52.660 the more that these giants are biased against libertarian speech,

00:12:57.120 against conservative speech,

00:12:58.860 the more that people are going to go to other platforms.

00:13:01.920 And, you know, that people might lament that 10 years from now

00:13:08.780 where there's even more societies completely disconnected

00:13:11.560 because you're on, let's say that you're on BitChute and Rumble only, 1.00

00:13:16.520 and your next door neighbor is on YouTube only,

00:13:19.260 and there's not much crossover.

00:13:21.960 It could lead to a further splintering of society.

00:13:24.560 But I guess that's just the way that technology is dragging society

00:13:29.940 into that kind of splintering that would not have existed,

00:13:35.700 at least not anywhere close to the same extent,

00:13:38.680 in the 1980s or even the 1990s.

00:13:43.180 Yeah, and I even go back to, what are we talking about?

00:13:46.300 A decade ago when Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was repealed,

00:13:50.400 which was the section that's now trying to be brought back by the liberals

00:13:54.880 as in the previous Parliament Bill C-36.

00:13:57.500 I don't know what it's going to be called when they reintroduce it.

00:14:00.140 But around that time, you had some of those old-school liberals

00:14:03.440 that were speaking up, people like Senator Jerry Grafstein

00:14:07.740 and other voices that were very pro-free-speech liberals.

00:14:11.880 And now that is pretty much gone.

00:14:14.820 I mean, the idea of the principled pro-free-speech leftist,

00:14:17.980 I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it's a lot more elusive

00:14:20.580 than it was even a decade ago.

00:14:22.900 It's scary times for free speech.

00:14:26.440 It's very scary.

00:14:27.900 It's the same, you know, I find a certain commonality in

00:14:31.860 it's government holding itself out as your saviour and protector

00:14:37.040 and it's government fear-mongering, right?

00:14:40.100 So in the same way that government will say,

00:14:42.480 well, if you haven't gotten two injections of the COVID shot,

00:14:50.400 then, you know, we've got to protect you

00:14:53.100 from these dangerous, disease-spreading people.

00:14:55.600 So we're going to ban those people from airplanes

00:14:58.380 in order to protect you.

00:14:59.480 We're going to have vaccine passports to protect you.

00:15:02.560 We have lockdowns to protect you from the scary virus.

00:15:05.320 And now we've got forthcoming legislation

00:15:08.680 to protect you from hate speech.

00:15:12.060 And so it's this infantilization.

00:15:16.880 It's like we're all children and, you know, you and I,

00:15:20.000 we need the government to decide on our behalf

00:15:21.960 what is or is not hateful.

00:15:23.820 In a way, it's extremely degrading for the government to say

00:15:28.720 that I cannot read something and decide for myself

00:15:32.560 whether I agree with it, disagree with it,

00:15:34.660 whether it's true, whether it's false,

00:15:36.540 whether it's hateful, whether it's not hateful.

00:15:38.800 These are incredibly subjective decisions.

00:15:42.160 You and I could see the same,

00:15:44.560 you and I could both be looking at, say, a political cartoon

00:15:47.860 and you could look at it and go, it's hateful.

00:15:51.200 And I could say, oh, no, not at all.

00:15:52.940 Or I could say it's a hateful cartoon

00:15:54.720 and you could look at it and say, no, not at all.

00:15:56.940 And yet we're just giving up.

00:15:58.320 A lot of people just want to give up their freedom

00:16:02.240 and responsibility as thinking adults

00:16:05.000 to make up their own minds about what is or is not hateful.

00:16:08.380 And they're buying into this.

00:16:09.800 Oh, the government is going to protect us from hate.

00:16:12.600 It's very sad.

00:16:14.180 Yeah.

00:16:14.320 And the word you use there, infantilizing,

00:16:16.280 I think is spot on because we are creating generations now

00:16:20.220 of people who think that disagreement

00:16:22.940 is in some way an assault on their sensibilities.

00:16:25.560 And they need to be protected against something

00:16:28.240 by virtue of it being a position

00:16:30.300 that may not be all that common in their lives.

00:16:32.400 And we see the implications of this in bubbles and echo chambers

00:16:36.440 and what you indicated earlier about the siloing of society

00:16:40.040 where, OK, YouTube and Facebook and Twitter,

00:16:42.580 that's for people that view the world this way

00:16:44.780 and Rumble, Parler, BitChute 1.00

00:16:46.400 is for people that view the world this way.

00:16:48.280 And neither is engaging in, I mean, going back to John Stuart Mill,

00:16:52.040 the most important exercise in unlocking truth,

00:16:54.980 which is finding a position that is distinct from yours

00:16:58.080 to either A, perhaps expose you to the truth

00:17:01.300 or B, at least make you more strong in your resolve

00:17:03.980 and more confident and able to defend it.

00:17:06.400 But in that open exchange of ideas,

00:17:08.700 no one loses if both parties will agree to do it.

00:17:13.060 Absolutely.

00:17:14.000 And that requires a certain maturity

00:17:15.880 that certainly has been lacking on campus in the last decade.

00:17:20.240 It seems that judging on what I've seen on campus,

00:17:26.300 it just seems that in high school,

00:17:28.100 the kids are not getting taught that about debate.

00:17:32.760 I mean, maybe we need more of that in the school curriculum

00:17:35.440 where you just you really, you know,

00:17:38.900 if you make the kids have a debate on whatever,

00:17:41.300 you know, free trade, capital punishment, abortion,

00:17:43.400 immigration, you know, euthanasia, lockdown restrictions,

00:17:50.220 I mean, whatever, right, to really get people thinking.

00:17:53.640 Because if people participate in a debate,

00:17:56.560 they experience themselves how enriching it is

00:18:00.040 when you have to really think through,

00:18:02.840 especially if the teacher assigns and says,

00:18:06.000 this is the position you're going to argue, you know,

00:18:08.300 and then you really have to think,

00:18:09.960 okay, I've got to get into the other guy's shoes.

00:18:13.260 You know, what are the five reasons for being against this?

00:18:17.380 Even though I'm in favor of it,

00:18:19.120 but I'm going to think about, you know,

00:18:20.900 why should I be against this?

00:18:22.700 Because it just, you get these students come onto campus

00:18:26.040 and they think they're entitled to not hear

00:18:29.460 or see anything that they disagree with.

00:18:32.660 That's just, it's appalling.

00:18:37.340 And it bodes poorly for the future

00:18:39.440 because if you want to have good laws,

00:18:42.080 I think everybody wants to have good laws.

00:18:44.540 You get there through debate, right?

00:18:48.040 And somebody comes forward with a bill

00:18:49.500 or with a motion to repeal a bill

00:18:51.540 and you have this back and forth debate

00:18:56.220 and you challenge and allow yourself to be challenged.

00:19:01.660 You come up with a better law

00:19:03.480 than if it's just a blind, I'm thinking.

00:19:05.360 Like what we saw last week,

00:19:06.620 we've got this conversion therapy bill

00:19:08.780 where the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:19:11.800 I think it was Rob Moore, I'm not sure,

00:19:13.520 one of the Conservative MPs made a motion

00:19:15.460 that this would be unanimous for all three readings.

00:19:19.360 Just completely eliminated debate in Parliament on a bill.

00:19:25.360 Very sad.

00:19:26.800 Yeah, and that committee process

00:19:28.340 whereby you find ways to really delve into these things

00:19:32.000 and challenge assumptions and hear witness testimony

00:19:34.320 and all of that.

00:19:35.400 No, that's a valid point.

00:19:37.120 And I would also add,

00:19:38.300 so I serve as a volunteer judge

00:19:40.200 at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom's

00:19:42.840 annual essay contest.

00:19:44.000 And I always enjoy when someone comes in

00:19:46.620 and gives a position that I don't think

00:19:47.980 is actually theirs in their essay.

00:19:50.220 In some cases, even arguing against civil liberties.

00:19:52.740 But I admire that exercise

00:19:54.520 because you are right.

00:19:55.720 That is a tremendously valuable process

00:19:57.880 for you as a reader

00:19:59.340 and also for you as a writer

00:20:00.900 to have to say,

00:20:01.740 well, how would I challenge against this?

00:20:03.700 Because the only way we're going to win

00:20:04.920 is if we have answers

00:20:06.240 to all of these arguments

00:20:07.320 that are being thrown in our face

00:20:08.720 to defend infringing on freedoms

00:20:11.180 and abridging freedoms.

00:20:13.020 And I want to go back

00:20:14.160 to the JCCF's work in this

00:20:15.660 because I know that you've been

00:20:17.000 on a hiring spree as of late.

00:20:18.820 And I know this returns

00:20:19.940 to what we said at the beginning,

00:20:21.080 which is that you'd love

00:20:22.180 to not be expanding

00:20:23.200 and not have a need for it.

00:20:25.000 But are you finding

00:20:25.940 there is actually

00:20:27.180 a substantive amount

00:20:29.620 in some way

00:20:30.300 of law school grads,

00:20:32.320 new lawyers

00:20:33.040 who are on side on these issues?

00:20:35.620 Well, we are getting enough applicants.

00:20:38.380 We're up to about 14 lawyers right now.

00:20:42.160 And these are...

00:20:43.240 And they're busy lawyers.

00:20:45.220 They're all very busy.

00:20:47.260 And they're talented,

00:20:49.340 competent, experienced litigators.

00:20:51.780 And they have a passion for freedom.

00:20:55.100 That's what unites all the staff.

00:20:57.000 We've got quite the diversity

00:21:00.340 of political backgrounds,

00:21:03.200 political orientations,

00:21:04.880 religions, skin colors,

00:21:07.540 vaccination status.

00:21:09.460 Not that I ask,

00:21:10.640 but sometimes people disclose

00:21:12.320 on their own.

00:21:14.500 So we've got a diverse crew

00:21:16.420 of people that are committed

00:21:18.300 to fundamental freedoms.

00:21:19.460 one of our lawyers

00:21:21.620 said,

00:21:23.240 when interviewed,

00:21:24.040 said that

00:21:24.680 two shots of the vaccine

00:21:28.160 had been received.

00:21:29.780 And yet this lawyer

00:21:30.480 believes passionately

00:21:31.520 that this should be

00:21:32.620 a voluntary choice

00:21:33.860 based on your right

00:21:35.680 to bodily autonomy

00:21:36.580 and there should not be

00:21:37.440 any state pressure,

00:21:38.980 state coercion

00:21:39.860 to take this vaccine.

00:21:41.880 And that's coming

00:21:42.480 from somebody

00:21:43.080 that voluntarily

00:21:45.120 received two shots.

00:21:46.640 So it's got a lot of work

00:21:52.260 ahead of us

00:21:53.360 and still looking

00:21:54.260 for another one

00:21:55.960 or two lawyers, 0.87

00:21:56.760 another two or three paralegals

00:21:58.000 to join us by January.

00:22:01.580 Going back to specifically

00:22:03.120 the question of newer grads

00:22:04.640 and newer lawyers,

00:22:05.480 are you finding

00:22:05.960 these attitudes there?

00:22:07.160 Is it really hard

00:22:08.000 to, in the new crop

00:22:10.260 of graduates

00:22:10.940 that are entering

00:22:11.540 the legal profession,

00:22:12.600 find ones that are

00:22:13.420 really as passionate

00:22:14.640 about defending freedoms

00:22:16.080 as you are?

00:22:17.720 It seems to be,

00:22:20.100 you know,

00:22:21.880 the lawyers working for us,

00:22:23.960 we've got anywhere from,

00:22:25.500 you know,

00:22:26.220 got called to the bar

00:22:27.700 six months ago

00:22:29.100 to got called

00:22:30.540 to the bar

00:22:31.000 16 years ago.

00:22:33.500 So there's a whole,

00:22:35.700 spectrum's not the right word,

00:22:37.000 but we have people

00:22:38.100 of different ages

00:22:39.180 and different levels

00:22:40.080 of experience.

00:22:41.780 If I had to venture a guess,

00:22:43.680 I would say

00:22:44.380 that there are

00:22:45.280 more freedom-minded lawyers

00:22:47.800 amongst the older lawyers,

00:22:49.280 but that would be

00:22:49.960 for the Canadian population

00:22:51.380 generally.

00:22:52.800 I think that,

00:22:54.200 you know,

00:22:54.640 it was just more

00:22:55.340 of an entrenched ethos.

00:22:59.380 So a lot of,

00:23:00.640 you know,

00:23:00.880 generally speaking,

00:23:01.900 I think older Canadians

00:23:03.420 are more inclined

00:23:04.420 to buy into the idea

00:23:06.460 that,

00:23:07.500 well,

00:23:07.580 it's a free country,

00:23:08.260 you can say whatever you want

00:23:09.520 and if other people

00:23:10.420 find it offensive,

00:23:11.420 then that's too bad

00:23:12.360 for the other people.

00:23:13.580 They can tune you out,

00:23:14.520 they don't have to agree with you,

00:23:15.820 but you've got a right

00:23:17.020 to speak freely.

00:23:18.400 That notion,

00:23:19.660 I think,

00:23:20.420 is more deeply entrenched

00:23:22.580 in older Canadians,

00:23:23.680 including older lawyers.

00:23:25.780 But fortunately,

00:23:27.220 you know,

00:23:27.480 there are younger lawyers

00:23:28.840 who believe in that

00:23:30.520 with equal passion.

00:23:31.360 There's been a part of me

00:23:33.820 that's been wondering

00:23:34.840 for the last few years

00:23:36.520 if this is all cyclical

00:23:38.240 in nature

00:23:38.740 and it has to get worse

00:23:40.000 before it gets better.

00:23:41.800 And unfortunately,

00:23:42.680 it's just kept getting

00:23:43.880 even worse

00:23:44.360 than I thought it would be,

00:23:45.600 especially throughout

00:23:46.620 the pandemic,

00:23:47.180 which I think has exacerbated

00:23:48.840 existing challenges

00:23:49.800 and created new ones.

00:23:51.240 But I'll ask you,

00:23:52.360 do you generally speaking

00:23:53.560 have a level of optimism?

00:23:57.320 Even if it's cautious

00:23:59.080 or qualified optimism?

00:24:01.360 I've got optimism

00:24:03.540 in the sense that

00:24:04.880 I believe very strongly

00:24:06.660 that truth

00:24:07.800 always vancooshes the lie.

00:24:09.780 I believe that good

00:24:10.400 overcomes evil.

00:24:11.440 I believe that justice

00:24:12.400 will trample injustice

00:24:14.280 into the ground.

00:24:15.660 Where I'm more pessimistic

00:24:16.800 is that I have no idea

00:24:17.920 how long it's going to take.

00:24:20.060 And, you know,

00:24:21.040 you take this QR code

00:24:22.280 society right now,

00:24:24.240 there are a lot of people

00:24:25.340 are still in a state

00:24:26.940 of fear of the virus,

00:24:29.080 I would argue,

00:24:30.400 based on the government's

00:24:31.200 own data,

00:24:32.280 that, you know,

00:24:33.600 the fear is exaggerated.

00:24:35.940 I mean, yes,

00:24:36.440 there are some people

00:24:37.680 that should be afraid

00:24:38.600 of COVID

00:24:39.480 if you're older,

00:24:41.000 if you've got

00:24:41.660 serious health conditions

00:24:43.360 and so on.

00:24:44.640 But the fear is exaggerated.

00:24:46.420 However,

00:24:47.340 the fear is real

00:24:48.980 in terms of,

00:24:49.700 when you experience the fear,

00:24:50.940 you're experiencing real fear.

00:24:52.720 To the person experiencing fear,

00:24:55.040 it really doesn't matter

00:24:56.220 whether it's rational or not.

00:24:58.300 You know,

00:24:58.960 somebody could be scared

00:24:59.700 of spiders,

00:25:00.240 as many people are.

00:25:01.860 And you can argue,

00:25:03.100 you know,

00:25:04.000 rationally that in Canada,

00:25:05.660 there are not many

00:25:07.220 poisonous spiders.

00:25:08.100 I think we've got some

00:25:08.700 black widows in parts 0.90

00:25:09.880 of the country.

00:25:10.520 But by and large,

00:25:11.600 your typical Canadian

00:25:12.520 basement spider

00:25:13.300 is not poisonous

00:25:14.800 and is not capable

00:25:16.000 of harming you.

00:25:17.240 Nevertheless,

00:25:17.820 if you feel afraid,

00:25:18.780 you feel afraid.

00:25:19.900 And I think it's that way

00:25:20.640 with COVID.

00:25:21.120 You can go through

00:25:23.500 the government data

00:25:24.360 and that's an exercise

00:25:25.500 that must be done.

00:25:26.900 But people are afraid.

00:25:28.880 Now,

00:25:30.120 that sounds like a side tangent.

00:25:31.700 I am getting back

00:25:32.260 to your question

00:25:32.880 about the long-term,

00:25:34.000 short-term.

00:25:35.880 I think with the QR codes

00:25:37.360 right now,

00:25:38.080 you're not seeing

00:25:38.700 a lot of opposition

00:25:39.520 because you still have

00:25:40.500 a lot of fear of COVID.

00:25:42.320 The interesting thing

00:25:43.180 about the QR code,

00:25:44.360 though,

00:25:44.740 is that it's very,

00:25:45.860 very easy for government

00:25:46.900 to expand this

00:25:48.140 to have you been a good boy

00:25:50.060 or have you been a good girl?

00:25:52.000 Right now,

00:25:52.800 it's, you know,

00:25:53.160 have you been a good boy

00:25:54.060 by getting your two shots?

00:25:56.340 But it would not be

00:25:57.840 that hard for the government

00:25:59.000 to change that into

00:26:00.200 have you been a good boy

00:26:02.100 and you have,

00:26:04.220 by not going to bad websites,

00:26:07.420 meaning not pornography

00:26:09.000 necessarily,

00:26:10.000 but that you have not gone

00:26:10.960 to any hateful websites

00:26:12.860 like, you know,

00:26:13.680 True North or The Rebel

00:26:14.820 or The Justice Center.

00:26:16.960 It wouldn't be that hard

00:26:18.100 for government to say,

00:26:19.000 well,

00:26:19.080 we got to keep everybody

00:26:19.820 safe from hate.

00:26:22.260 It's very important.

00:26:23.560 I mean,

00:26:23.780 you support safety,

00:26:25.180 don't you?

00:26:25.600 Don't you want to be safe

00:26:26.760 from hatred?

00:26:28.320 So we're going to say

00:26:29.620 that if you've been

00:26:30.700 a good citizen

00:26:31.520 by not visiting

00:26:32.420 any hateful websites,

00:26:34.180 you're going to have

00:26:35.160 a valid vaccine passport.

00:26:37.580 But if you've been

00:26:38.200 a bad boy

00:26:38.940 and you've been

00:26:39.640 to hateful websites,

00:26:41.940 your vaccine passport

00:26:43.420 will not be valid

00:26:44.340 so you can't go

00:26:45.120 to restaurants

00:26:46.000 or to the gym,

00:26:46.980 you can't get on an airplane.

00:26:48.580 That's not very hard

00:26:49.720 to do at all.

00:26:51.940 Now,

00:26:52.480 I think with the QR codes,

00:26:54.660 life, unfortunately,

00:26:56.220 will have to get uglier

00:26:57.480 before you get

00:26:59.440 a substantial revolt

00:27:00.740 against the QR code.

00:27:02.000 Yeah, and this is where

00:27:04.220 we get into this

00:27:05.920 point that I've raised

00:27:07.000 in the past,

00:27:07.640 which is that

00:27:08.100 once government

00:27:08.980 has already opened

00:27:09.900 the door to doing

00:27:10.780 a certain thing,

00:27:11.780 the details are pretty

00:27:13.120 insignificant in a lot of ways.

00:27:14.940 Once they've already

00:27:15.500 decided that

00:27:16.320 they can stratify society

00:27:17.960 in the lines of vaccination,

00:27:19.000 it doesn't matter.

00:27:19.900 They can do

00:27:20.340 based on flu shot,

00:27:21.740 based on third doses,

00:27:22.880 fourth doses.

00:27:24.040 In the case of Austria 0.54

00:27:25.380 or other places

00:27:27.160 like Greece,

00:27:28.060 once they've decided

00:27:28.860 that a vaccine

00:27:29.560 should be mandatory,

00:27:30.620 how they enforce that

00:27:31.880 is just a matter of

00:27:33.020 their own personal preference.

00:27:34.660 So you have to

00:27:35.800 start looking at

00:27:36.800 these things

00:27:37.380 that are very much

00:27:38.320 stepping stones

00:27:39.160 as stepping stones

00:27:40.300 and not just

00:27:41.200 assuming that

00:27:42.220 whenever an extreme

00:27:43.060 measure is presented

00:27:44.160 that it is

00:27:45.180 an extreme measure

00:27:46.080 and not going to be

00:27:47.220 in six months

00:27:48.080 a moderate one.

00:27:50.380 Well, we've had

00:27:51.420 what, a public health

00:27:52.240 emergency now

00:27:53.040 for a year

00:27:54.760 and eight months,

00:27:55.460 a year and nine months,

00:27:56.340 simply not supported

00:27:57.800 by government data.

00:27:59.300 You look at the

00:27:59.920 Statistics Canada

00:28:00.840 death data

00:28:01.640 from 2020,

00:28:03.300 it is in line

00:28:06.320 with the death rates

00:28:08.000 in 2019, 2018, 2017.

00:28:10.640 And of course,

00:28:11.080 it's complicated

00:28:11.760 and there's many nuances

00:28:12.860 and there's higher death rates

00:28:14.700 in 2020 amongst younger people,

00:28:16.540 which is interesting

00:28:17.640 because the COVID deaths

00:28:19.500 are overwhelmingly

00:28:20.440 amongst older people

00:28:21.640 and the death rate

00:28:22.720 amongst older people

00:28:23.700 in 2020

00:28:25.080 is in line with 2019.

00:28:26.340 That could be a whole,

00:28:27.740 that could be a three-hour show

00:28:29.160 looking at all those nuances.

00:28:31.880 But what I'm saying is

00:28:33.300 there's no basis,

00:28:34.900 there's no rational,

00:28:35.960 scientific, factual basis

00:28:37.200 for saying that

00:28:37.940 we're in a public health emergency

00:28:39.740 when you look at the death data

00:28:42.680 in Canada

00:28:43.840 and other countries

00:28:44.980 and the death rates

00:28:47.080 in 2020

00:28:47.940 were very much in line

00:28:49.820 with the death rates

00:28:50.720 in 2019,

00:28:52.000 proving beyond any doubt

00:28:53.980 that COVID

00:28:54.880 is not this unusually

00:28:55.960 deadly killer

00:28:56.680 like the Spanish flu

00:28:57.980 of 1918.

00:28:59.980 And yet here we are

00:29:01.200 still in a state of emergency

00:29:03.040 a year and eight months later.

00:29:07.420 Very scary.

00:29:09.160 So let's talk about

00:29:10.480 a little bit about

00:29:11.060 what you're doing

00:29:11.700 in the year ahead.

00:29:12.720 I know we've been covering

00:29:13.720 all that you've been doing

00:29:14.440 in the past year.

00:29:15.280 What are the big battles

00:29:16.340 you have on the horizon,

00:29:17.420 at least foreseeable ones

00:29:18.600 for 2022?

00:29:21.380 One of the most important ones

00:29:23.240 is our defense

00:29:24.200 of medical doctors

00:29:25.460 who are being prosecuted

00:29:27.460 and disciplined

00:29:28.120 by their own

00:29:29.320 College of Physicians

00:29:30.660 and Surgeons.

00:29:32.100 We're defending

00:29:32.880 Dr. Charles Hoff

00:29:33.780 in British Columbia,

00:29:34.740 Dr. Francis Christian

00:29:35.680 in Saskatchewan,

00:29:37.240 Dr. Chris Milburn

00:29:38.040 in Nova Scotia,

00:29:38.920 on and on and on.

00:29:41.680 Lots of doctors.

00:29:43.140 Some of them,

00:29:44.140 they're not even court cases.

00:29:45.920 They're under the radar,

00:29:46.940 but the doctors

00:29:47.500 had a threatening letter

00:29:48.520 from the college.

00:29:49.860 So we write to the college

00:29:51.060 and remind them

00:29:51.960 that they are a government body.

00:29:54.100 They're required,

00:29:55.220 whether they like it or not,

00:29:56.700 to respect freedom of expression.

00:30:00.120 One of the rationales

00:30:01.140 for freedom of expression

00:30:02.260 in the scientific realm

00:30:05.080 is that we need

00:30:06.340 a hypothesis to,

00:30:08.720 there are no sacred cows

00:30:10.000 in science.

00:30:10.780 If you want to call yourself

00:30:11.800 a scientist,

00:30:13.060 then you put out a hypothesis

00:30:14.780 and you have enough humility

00:30:16.700 to say,

00:30:17.460 if you want to poke holes

00:30:18.760 in my hypothesis,

00:30:20.180 you go ahead and do that

00:30:21.400 and I'll join you

00:30:22.540 in attacking it

00:30:23.700 because the only way forward

00:30:25.020 in science,

00:30:26.420 I think it's true

00:30:27.080 in public policy,

00:30:28.540 in laws,

00:30:29.280 in philosophy,

00:30:30.100 in religion,

00:30:30.860 in literature,

00:30:31.680 the only way forward

00:30:33.100 is through that challenge.

00:30:36.540 So the moment you have

00:30:37.620 people talking about

00:30:38.380 settled science

00:30:39.360 and this is the truth

00:30:40.900 and thou shalt abide by it,

00:30:44.560 so this is really scary

00:30:47.240 where colleges

00:30:49.100 are shutting down debate.

00:30:52.080 They've never done this before.

00:30:54.180 About 10 years ago,

00:30:55.560 there was a very popular

00:30:57.440 new remedy

00:30:58.180 for multiple sclerosis.

00:31:02.400 And there's lots of debate.

00:31:05.560 Some doctors said

00:31:06.440 it was wonderful.

00:31:07.240 Some doctors said

00:31:07.960 it was useless.

00:31:09.380 Some doctors said 0.94

00:31:10.240 it's worse than useless.

00:31:11.580 It's harmful.

00:31:12.160 Nobody should get this therapy.

00:31:13.620 And you have this big debate

00:31:14.480 about this multiple sclerosis

00:31:15.980 therapy

00:31:16.960 that some Italian doctor

00:31:18.180 had invented.

00:31:19.180 That's how it should be.

00:31:20.860 There's been debate

00:31:21.720 in the past.

00:31:22.640 It hasn't been a hot topic

00:31:23.720 recently,

00:31:24.360 but circumcision of baby boys.

00:31:26.160 Some people argue

00:31:27.480 that this is harmful.

00:31:29.640 It's unnecessary.

00:31:30.620 Others say no.

00:31:31.420 There's health benefits.

00:31:33.880 Bring on the debate.

00:31:34.880 The college did not step in

00:31:36.940 and silence the debate

00:31:39.000 and say,

00:31:39.580 well, here is the truth.

00:31:41.220 The colleges did not interfere

00:31:42.840 in the doctor-patient relationship.

00:31:45.100 So some doctors

00:31:46.300 would prescribe certain things

00:31:48.240 off-label

00:31:48.860 and say,

00:31:49.560 I've had tremendous success

00:31:50.640 with patients.

00:31:52.340 Anti-cholesterol medication.

00:31:54.420 Some doctors are big fans.

00:31:56.640 Some doctors say it's terrible.

00:31:58.200 The side effects

00:31:59.320 are more harmful.

00:32:00.300 Other doctors say

00:32:01.220 it's very much patient by patient.

00:32:03.040 Some people should get it.

00:32:03.960 Some people shouldn't.

00:32:05.400 And so doctors are free

00:32:06.340 to practice medicine.

00:32:07.940 The college did not get in there

00:32:09.680 and lay down the law

00:32:11.580 on anti-cholesterol medication.

00:32:15.180 And I could go on and on and on.

00:32:16.920 Well, now we've got colleges

00:32:18.180 stepping in saying

00:32:19.320 it's illegal for a doctor

00:32:21.280 to give a medical exemption

00:32:24.220 for a vaccine

00:32:25.100 from people with serious

00:32:26.740 heart conditions.

00:32:28.980 I know a nurse in Calgary

00:32:30.920 who was told by her own doctor

00:32:33.880 when the vaccine was voluntary,

00:32:36.420 she was told by her doctor,

00:32:38.120 do not get this vaccine

00:32:39.220 based on your health conditions

00:32:40.620 and based on

00:32:41.860 there's no long-term safety testing

00:32:43.400 for all these reasons.

00:32:44.740 Do not get the vaccine.

00:32:46.600 Now, she goes back

00:32:48.440 to the very same doctor and says,

00:32:50.440 can I get an exemption

00:32:51.840 from the vaccine requirement?

00:32:53.520 And the doctor says,

00:32:55.000 sorry, not allowed.

00:32:58.020 Just frightening how these colleges

00:33:01.040 are usurping science

00:33:02.680 and preventing doctors

00:33:06.260 from practicing medicine,

00:33:08.600 shutting down debate.

00:33:09.800 Doctors who have had prescribed

00:33:10.340 Ivermectin

00:33:11.180 Ivermectin

00:33:11.900 Ivermectin

00:33:12.260 Ivermectin

00:33:12.540 Ivermectin

00:33:13.100 Ivermectin

00:33:13.540 Ivermectin

00:33:14.100 Ivermectin

00:33:14.540 Ivermectin

00:33:15.100 Ivermectin

00:33:15.540 Ivermectin

00:33:16.140 Ivermectin

00:33:16.500 It's not a horse medication

00:33:19.200 It's a people medication 0.99

00:33:20.360 It's been around

00:33:21.060 since the 1970s

00:33:22.300 It is harmless

00:33:23.740 unless you

00:33:25.100 like any drug

00:33:25.920 if you overdose on it

00:33:27.060 it can be harmful

00:33:28.400 but taken improper doses

00:33:30.000 it is harmless

00:33:31.320 and yet you've got

00:33:32.740 this aggressive

00:33:33.520 colleges

00:33:34.700 are shutting down

00:33:35.760 prohibiting doctors

00:33:36.960 from prescribing

00:33:37.660 Ivermectin

00:33:38.460 to their patients

00:33:40.840 so all of that to say

00:33:43.340 this is probably

00:33:43.920 one of our most important cases

00:33:45.300 is the defense

00:33:46.320 of these doctors

00:33:47.320 of their free expression rights

00:33:49.720 in the face of

00:33:50.700 the colleges

00:33:51.780 of physicians

00:33:52.400 and surgeons

00:33:53.100 Well we'll certainly

00:33:54.820 keep tabs on that

00:33:56.260 as it heads into

00:33:57.080 the new year

00:33:57.640 and like we've said

00:33:58.580 on the show

00:33:58.980 many times in the past

00:34:00.220 I fear a lot of these battles

00:34:01.500 will be years long

00:34:02.380 but they're very important

00:34:03.220 because as the last two years

00:34:05.000 has proven to us

00:34:06.040 we know these things

00:34:06.800 will come up

00:34:07.400 again and again

00:34:08.800 John Carpe

00:34:09.380 President of the Justice Center

00:34:10.780 for Constitutional Freedoms

00:34:11.980 very much enjoyed

00:34:13.060 the opportunity

00:34:13.660 to have a much more

00:34:15.080 lengthy discussion

00:34:16.480 than our interviews

00:34:17.340 typically are

00:34:17.940 so thanks very much

00:34:18.800 and keep up the great work

00:34:19.860 Well thanks Andrew

00:34:21.120 thanks for having me

00:34:21.800 on your show

00:34:22.220 We covered a lot

00:34:24.000 but a lot of it

00:34:24.640 is very important

00:34:25.440 and I know

00:34:25.940 we're going to have

00:34:26.680 to revisit it

00:34:27.420 in the year ahead

00:34:28.440 but really interesting

00:34:29.620 to know how

00:34:30.160 this organization

00:34:31.000 that we talk about

00:34:31.740 a lot came to be

00:34:32.640 and what that

00:34:33.720 overarching philosophy is

00:34:35.220 and yes

00:34:35.760 I agree wholeheartedly

00:34:36.840 with John

00:34:37.320 we've got to move

00:34:38.400 the culture

00:34:38.920 in the right direction

00:34:40.060 on this

00:34:40.400 so that's my

00:34:40.940 little contribution

00:34:41.880 to it here

00:34:42.580 on The Andrew Lawton Show

00:34:43.760 With that

00:34:44.620 we've got to wrap things up

00:34:45.620 my thanks to all of you

00:34:46.880 for tuning into the program

00:34:48.200 have a great rest of the day

00:34:49.820 thank you

00:34:50.300 God bless

00:34:50.880 and good day to you all

00:34:51.920 Thanks for listening

00:34:52.880 to The Andrew Lawton Show

00:34:54.060 Support the program

00:34:55.120 by donating to True North

00:34:56.360 at www.tnc.news

00:34:59.520 www.tnc.iveau.com

00:35:00.220 by

Juno News - December 28, 2021

John Carpay on free speech, censorship, and the fight for civil liberties

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