Juno News - June 21, 2022


Justin Trudeau’s authoritarian rule of Canada (Ft. Rav Arora)


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

159.799

Word Count

2,968

Sentence Count

130

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the show. For those joining me again, welcome back. And if you're
00:00:12.020 watching for the first time, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, we bring common sense
00:00:17.360 and reason to the big issues of the day and try to go beyond what is considered permissible
00:00:22.400 discourse in the mainstream media space. Today, we're focusing on what appears to many people,
00:00:28.300 including yours truly, to be an increasingly authoritarian streak in the Canada rule by
00:00:33.620 Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, now propped up by their socialist allies in the NDP.
00:00:39.120 As we talked about last week, the federal government has been way out of step when it
00:00:44.100 comes to vaccine mandates, compared to most other advanced nations, and even compared to the
00:00:49.580 provinces for that matter, who've gotten rid of vaccine and mask mandates. The Trudeau Liberals
00:00:55.680 clung on to these vaccine mandates, making it impossible for the millions of unvaccinated
00:01:00.240 Canadians. They were put on leave without pay if they work for the federal government.
00:01:04.960 They couldn't travel within or outside of Canada because they were unvaccinated.
00:01:10.260 This policy, thankfully, finally changed June 14th with the vaccine mandate for both domestic
00:01:16.060 and outbound international travel, and the vaccine mandate for federal public servants and
00:01:21.840 transportation workers who were suspended, the policy going into effect June 20th. However,
00:01:29.140 Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says that future vaccine mandates would rely on a new definition
00:01:35.160 of what it means to be fully vaccinated. Presumably, this would include boosters, or maybe more boosters
00:01:42.540 down the road, given that boosters also lose their efficacy within a few months.
00:01:46.660 And of course, we saw constitutional authoritarianism on full display with the Trudeau government
00:01:52.420 dubiously invoking the Emergencies Act and quickly scrapping it after it was already in use
00:01:58.080 because it was coming up for a possible defeat in the Senate. We've seen nothing like this in any
00:02:02.940 other advanced country, or even in any developing country for that matter. And that brings us to
00:02:08.520 today's guest. Rav Arora, like me, was born in India, but his family moved to Canada when he was
00:02:15.560 four years old. He's 21 years old, and he's chosen not to be vaccinated. As he recounts in a recent New
00:02:22.380 York Post article that was widely shared, his life and that of millions of other Canadians who've
00:02:28.640 chosen not to be vaccinated became increasingly difficult. Perhaps what upset large sections of
00:02:35.600 the liberal commentariat was not so much Rav's criticism of Canada under Trudeau, but his pointed
00:02:42.020 observation that in some ways the country that his parents left behind appears to be more liberal
00:02:48.020 than Canada. In fact, on vaccine mandates, here's something interesting. The Indian government,
00:02:54.700 the Indian Supreme Court rather, recently ruled in a remarkable judgment that the constitution and the
00:03:01.360 laws must respect bodily autonomy and ruled against federal vaccine mandates in principle, even though the
00:03:07.780 Indian government hasn't implemented any such mandates. Rav's comments created a firestorm amongst
00:03:14.540 the angst-ridden liberal commentariat and engulfed even those of us who shared his piece.
00:03:19.880 I was told by one disgruntled person that if I didn't like it here in Canada, guess what? I should
00:03:25.260 just go back to where I came from. This was just one of many such xenophobic comments, ironically coming
00:03:31.180 from those who profess to be liberal and progressive. So it is my great pleasure to have Rav on the show
00:03:38.780 to talk about his piece, his experiences, and the insane reactions that both his piece and the sharing
00:03:45.140 of it has unleashed. Hey, Rav, welcome to the show. So let me just jump into, you know, my first question.
00:03:53.620 You've obviously heard the news from June 14th that the federal government has lifted some of these
00:04:00.540 onerous vaccine mandates, and presumably like me, you welcome the news. What's your reaction? And do you
00:04:07.760 think the feds reacted partly due to pressure from people like us who've been telling them to get rid
00:04:15.060 of the vaccine mandates? What's been your general reaction to the news? Yeah, well, firstly, I'm very
00:04:22.680 happy about this, given that I have family in India, and I have family members here, including parents and
00:04:27.920 other relatives who have been dying to go to India for a very long time, but have been unable to,
00:04:33.100 and including myself as well, for doing a lot of things in the US. I've been unable to do that
00:04:38.620 because of the vaccine mandates. And so I'm just really happy and very relieved that we're doing
00:04:44.600 this now. However, I will say that it's been a long time in the coming. And it's not like some new
00:04:52.480 revelatory science has emerged showing that now we can get rid of the mandates that that's pretty
00:04:58.040 obvious. What's what I think is happening is that it's it's come to the point where keeping the
00:05:03.800 mandates is politically damaging for Trudeau. So he's picking the expedient option, which is to get rid
00:05:09.980 of them. Because so much blowback, he's gotten from even, you know, like conservatives, for sure. And
00:05:17.080 also the libertarian people, people associated with the People's Party of Canada. And also, there's a
00:05:23.320 strong coalition, I would say, of left leaning, very progressive people who are all about civil
00:05:28.920 liberties and personal autonomy. And that part of the political landscape here in Canada has been
00:05:36.600 increasingly alienated by the NDP and the Liberal Party that have been very pro vaccine mandate, which
00:05:42.540 are not really fundamentally progressive or liberal values, at least not traditionally. So at this point
00:05:49.920 so far, with with all of that's happened with the former hockey player who posted that viral video of
00:05:56.300 his horrible experience at the Toronto airport, and now Trudeau being at this event he was at, I think it
00:06:03.500 was LA, or was it somewhere else where he was unmasked? And then at a different event, he was masked. And then he
00:06:08.880 got COVID, then he reentered the country, which he probably wasn't supposed to do. And so we've seen
00:06:13.680 this again and again, of leaders breaking their own rules. We see that in the US as well. And so the
00:06:19.440 pressure has been mounting. And I think at this point, they they've wisely at least done the cost
00:06:25.120 benefit analysis, and have concluded that getting rid of the mandates is the better option to stay in
00:06:33.600 power and to appease their people. Yeah, no, I think I think I agree with you. I think it's stopped being
00:06:39.920 politically useful to the Trudeau government and the Liberals. You know, it was a useful wedge issue
00:06:46.000 during last fall's election. And, and I think now it's just, I think they're getting a lot of blowback
00:06:51.920 from keeping these mandates in place, especially when you consider the fact that Canada is really an
00:06:56.560 outlier, when it comes to enforcing vaccine mandates. So yeah, I think I think there's been
00:07:03.120 a lot of political pressure, and also pressure within the Liberal caucus, as we learned from a
00:07:07.840 few days ago, that most members in the Liberal caucus actually oppose the vaccine mandates and
00:07:12.320 have been putting pressure on the government to get rid of them. But yeah, so I completely agree with
00:07:17.360 you. So could we turn to, you know, the piece that you wrote for the New York Post recently,
00:07:24.080 which was widely shared, it went viral. And it also, you know, I want to talk about the reactions
00:07:30.560 to that piece, not just to towards you, but even towards those of us who shared the piece,
00:07:37.680 including myself. It really seemed to needle a lot of people that, you know, that Canada doesn't look
00:07:43.760 so liberal when compared to not just other Western countries, but even to a developing country like
00:07:49.360 India, I happen to be originally from India as well. Which, you know, let's face it, I mean, India
00:07:56.400 doesn't necessarily have a stellar record on individual liberties, you just have to
00:08:01.360 tune into the news today to see what's happening in the country. Were you trying to be a little
00:08:06.400 provocative with that comparison? Or do you genuinely believe that today's India may actually be more
00:08:12.640 tolerant in some respects than today's Canada? Yeah, yeah, I think the comparison that I made
00:08:20.960 appeared so incendiary, because people read a little too much into it, or extrapolated more from that
00:08:28.240 comparison than what I was actually saying. But what I actually said was was not as incendiary as people
00:08:34.240 thought it was. But what I said was, is that I, I can't remember the exact wording, but what I said,
00:08:40.320 basically, that I'm now considering the possibility that perhaps my civil liberties in India would have
00:08:50.880 been more well established and protected than here. And I'm specifically talking about vaccine mandates,
00:08:59.680 as well, broadly of bodily autonomy, free speech, and other principles,
00:09:04.800 what I wasn't saying was overall, India is perhaps has a better record on civil liberties,
00:09:11.440 human rights, free speech, etc. I've, I've heard of cases recently of comedians in India and in
00:09:18.080 various parts being censored or being even arrested for certain jokes. There's one comedian whose name
00:09:23.200 is escaping me. He was recently on Andrew Schultz's podcast talking about it. So, so I was not making as
00:09:29.680 broad or sweeping of a claim about India versus Canada as people fought and I only said I'm
00:09:35.200 considering the possibility, especially with respect to vaccine mandates, which is, which is true,
00:09:40.960 that they don't have vaccine mandates like we do here, and especially the area where I'm at,
00:09:46.640 which is Amritsar, they don't have vaccine mandates and they don't have potentially some of the
00:09:55.520 corruption issues that other places may have. Although that's, I'm not really well versed in
00:10:01.760 Indian politics as many other people are. I don't follow it as closely. But the claim I was making was
00:10:06.480 very specific and people seem to seem to have read way too much into it and were just outraged all over
00:10:12.960 people writing for Global News, Toronto Star. They were, I think, having a very good time enjoying
00:10:21.360 dunking on me for reasons that were not warranted. I think they were having a meltdown. I think that's
00:10:26.000 how I would describe it. There was a collective meltdown because you, I think you touched a nerve.
00:10:31.600 That's, that's the sense I got, because many of the reactions were also directed towards me.
00:10:37.280 And, you know, but that, that brings us to an important point here, which is, you know,
00:10:41.760 the substance of your criticism were related to the vaccine mandates. That was the context in which
00:10:47.600 you were making your, you know, your observation, observations were made in that context. But you
00:10:54.560 were also, you also referred to the Emergencies Act and you referred to the highly problematic Bill
00:10:59.680 C-36, which can censor free speech even before it's uttered, you know, sort of like the precogs
00:11:06.640 in minority report. So, you know, do you want to explain and amplify the reasons you think some
00:11:14.400 of these policies are authoritarian and illiberal? And, you know, why does it make you so uneasy about
00:11:20.160 where Canada is headed under Justin Trudeau?
00:11:24.240 Yeah, there seems to be this trend over the past few years and now as well of more and more
00:11:31.200 government regulation over things that I don't think need to be regulated. And we've seen this in the past
00:11:36.800 with the online harms bill that was rejected. And now they're bringing back another iteration
00:11:43.760 of it, it seems to be. And, and, and there's, of course, the whole media stuff too, of CBC being
00:11:50.880 funded by the liberal government. And then things like that, I understand where it's coming from. But I
00:11:56.880 think really though, those things, I think are essentially giving the liberal government a lot
00:12:05.360 of privilege in, in maintaining their power and having some kind of centralized forces that are
00:12:11.200 going to maintain the status quo and keep their power sort of unchecked. I mean, I mean, if you read
00:12:18.080 the CBC and the Toronto Star and even the Globe and Mail, sometimes though, sometimes they can be more
00:12:24.640 nuanced and, and I've written for them a couple of times before and written some more contrarian
00:12:32.080 kind of pieces. But the, those institutions, I think, aren't doing a really good job of keeping Trudeau's
00:12:39.440 power in check. And it's no wonder given that they're receiving bailouts from the government. And now
00:12:44.640 we're seeing this more with the online harms bill, which it's, as it's been advertised, it's a way to
00:12:51.520 protect minority groups from online discrimination, hate, marginalization, etc. But those very same
00:12:59.680 groups are speaking out against it and saying that, well, we shouldn't be doing this. This is
00:13:06.160 a huge overreach. I mean, you have the Canadian National Muslim Association, you have some LGBTQ
00:13:13.120 activists and some other groups as well who have not particularly supported what Trudeau is trying to
00:13:22.480 implement with the online harms bill for protecting minority groups with this broad overreach in which
00:13:29.200 possibly the government and law enforcement could have power to regularly monitor
00:13:34.640 and keep checks on various people based on civilian complaints. It's very messy. And I'm not
00:13:44.080 particularly, I fail to understand what exactly, like how exactly that's going to work, given the fact
00:13:52.880 that the parameters are so vague and so overreaching, especially when we're talking about discrimination
00:13:59.040 against individual people or against groups. I mean, who decides what is anti-Muslim or what is anti-gay or
00:14:06.480 what is anti-trans or however these things are going to pan out. So there's a lot of subjectivity. And so
00:14:12.240 for the government to try to mandate and try to implement more strict restrictions on what can be
00:14:20.560 said online, I think is a very dangerous precedent. And I think it should be rejected right from the start.
00:14:26.320 Yeah, no, I agree. And I think those of us who value individual liberty and freedoms, you know, have to
00:14:34.560 constantly keep speaking up for them, you know, and there's so much of that, that, that, that, you know,
00:14:40.640 that that's, you know, you know, there's so much to be depressed about really, given the direction in which
00:14:46.640 things are headed. But I want to ask you, I, you know, have you, have you, have you thought about possibly
00:14:53.520 leaving Canada, given, given the illiberal and authoritarian turn this country has taken?
00:15:00.960 I ask this because, you know, this is a question that, this is something I hear quite regularly from
00:15:06.720 people that I've spoken to, especially people I met during the Freedom Convoy protests. And, and I
00:15:13.920 always ask them, do you think Canada has become, is so far down the road to authoritarianism that,
00:15:20.560 you know, the best option is to exit? My own thinking is that, you know, Canada is worth fighting
00:15:26.800 for, and that it's important to stay and fight the good fight. But do you think Canada is worth fighting
00:15:33.600 for? And do you think the Trudeau government softening its stance on vaccine mandates is a
00:15:40.480 promising sign? Or do you think it's just a tactical maneuver, which doesn't necessarily signal a
00:15:46.480 fundamental change in, in direction? Yeah, well, I'm very optimistic on these things. And I do want
00:15:53.840 to leave Canada for, for other reasons. I do want to move to a bigger city, possibly, in Los Angeles
00:16:00.800 or New York, that's always been a dream of mine to move to a big city and potentially pursue dreams in
00:16:06.080 film and television, making documentaries, etc. Currently, I live in a small rural city, a couple hours,
00:16:14.320 a couple hours away from Vancouver at the moment. So I'd love to move. But in terms of the broader
00:16:19.840 national question, I don't think I see a reason now to move because of that, especially because I
00:16:25.920 don't think Trudeau is going to stay in power for much longer. Whenever the next election will be,
00:16:32.480 I think the Conservatives have gotten an incredible amount of support, a record breaking number of
00:16:38.560 Conservative Party memberships. And Pierre Polivier is getting a lot of support. A lot of people who
00:16:46.800 were even more libertarian leading or more classically liberal seem to be now supporting
00:16:53.280 either People's Party of Canada, which is getting a bit of momentum or the Conservative Party. And given
00:16:59.680 like gas prices, given the online censorship, given the supply management issue as well, I think more and
00:17:07.040 more Canadians are going to be moving away from Trudeau and looking at other options. And so I don't think
00:17:13.680 that Trudeau will win the next election. So I think leaving at this point would be premature and fairly
00:17:20.720 pessimistic.
00:17:21.360 Okay, so Canada is worth fighting for.
00:17:24.480 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course.
00:17:28.000 Well, yeah, well, I mean, I hope you'll stay. I know Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles. And of course,
00:17:35.200 it's very exciting place to be in and probably lots more opportunities there. But you know,
00:17:40.160 I hope you'll stay in Canada because, you know, Canada certainly needs people like you
00:17:45.520 committed to the ideals of liberty and freedom. And the more people like you, we lose the harder
00:17:51.280 it'll be to make the case. So on that note, Rav, I'm going to have to leave it there. But it was great
00:17:56.640 to have you on the show. And I wish you all the best. And, and hopefully you're, you have some
00:18:03.520 great plans to celebrate the good news that the vaccine mandates have been lifted, and that hopefully
00:18:08.240 you'll be able to visit your relatives in India.
00:18:10.640 Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, from, from one Indian Canadian dissident to the next.
00:18:17.600 It's good talking to you.
00:18:18.480 Yeah, great chatting with you, Rav. Take care.
00:18:21.520 All right. Thanks.
00:18:22.400 Thanks.