Juno News - LAWTON： The right to protest no longer exists

00:00:00.000 This is fun. I haven't actually seen this clip because I was like just about to go on air

00:00:04.620 and this clip came down the pipeline so I get to react in real time which I never get to do

00:00:09.360 but as I understand it this is exactly what Adam was just talking about in Jim Watson the mayor of

00:00:15.300 Ottawa again resorting to hearsay talking about violence which no one has actually seen so let's

00:00:22.940 play this clip from just under an hour ago. Mayor Watson let me just ask you um you told

00:00:29.880 us earlier today um where evidence came out that um these these protesters they were they were nasty

00:00:37.500 um they were hateful and they were they were vulgar is that right? Yes. And you said that you saw um or

00:00:46.420 you said that they had um ripped masks off of people? Yes. Did you actually see that? No I saw it reported

00:00:55.140 in the media. Okay and I think you also said that certain people were attacked is that right? Uh I

00:01:03.520 didn't say that no I I said that I had death threats but I wasn't physically attacked. No I didn't say

00:01:10.740 that you were attacked but you said that these protesters were attacking people did you not say

00:01:14.760 that? No they were disrupting people's lives that's for sure and uh they refused on at least three

00:01:22.600 occasions that I'm aware of that they refused to adhere to the provincial mandate of wearing a mask

00:01:29.240 when going into a shop or a restaurant. So you're not aware of any incidents of physical violence from

00:01:35.240 the protesters? Well you'd have to ask the police I know they arrested a couple hundred people and

00:01:41.160 charged a couple hundred people. I don't know what the charges were so I'm not privy to that

00:01:45.540 information. According to your knowledge? You don't know of any? I'm sorry I don't know any? Of any

00:01:55.320 physical attacks? Uh not to my own personal knowledge no. All right thank you those are my questions.

00:02:02.080 Interesting so it's easy to talk a big game about all the violence on the streets of Ottawa about

00:02:07.440 these protesters going out and just ripping people's masks off and all of that but but no do you know

00:02:13.120 anything about it? Yeah no the media got it from the media. Okay well what about the physical attacks?

00:02:18.220 Do you know anything about that? Well you got to talk to police and I bet when we have the police

00:02:22.700 witnesses testifying and they're asked the same question they're gonna be like I don't know talk

00:02:25.900 to Jim Watson it's just like everyone's just pointing at every other direction for this. Same as like

00:02:31.120 trying to figure out who invoked the emergencies act is like going on a fishing expedition because no one

00:02:36.620 actually asked for it. No one asked for the emergencies act it came from the government of

00:02:43.620 Canada and this is something that we saw months ago whenever police agencies were testifying before

00:02:50.480 parliament before that parliamentary committee that was investigating we'd find out that the

00:02:55.600 police which Marco Manichino and Justin Trudeau said asked for the emergencies act couldn't actually

00:03:01.100 find a single police officer that wanted it. The RCMP commissioner says no it wasn't us. The OPP

00:03:06.240 commissioner says no it wasn't us. The Ottawa police chiefs all three of them say no it wasn't us and

00:03:11.320 Jim Watson I don't know if we have the the clip of Jim Watson I think we do. Jim Watson this is from

00:03:16.500 this morning saying that he also did not request the invocation of the emergencies act. Now on February

00:03:24.320 14th we know that the emergencies act was invoked. Were you consulted on on the invocation of the

00:03:30.520 emergencies act before it was invoked? No it wasn't. Did the city request that it be invoked? No. Did the

00:03:38.340 city weigh in on whether it was required necessary or needed? Well when it was released I think like

00:03:44.500 most people uh very few people knew exactly what the emergencies act was to be perfectly honest. I

00:03:50.280 remember growing up in Quebec what the war measures act was and the implications that had for

00:03:54.680 uh the province of Quebec and the rest of the country but um no one had raised uh the emergencies act

00:04:02.420 with us uh but when it was um invoked uh and uh I was briefed on what its powers were I thought this is

00:04:12.260 a very positive step to getting this situation resolved once and for all because of the provisions

00:04:19.040 in the act so I very much uh supported it and I was um as you may recall uh the the current chair of

00:04:28.240 the police service board Eli Al Shantir and I sent a letter to the prime minister thanking him for

00:04:32.120 invoking the act because it actually acted as the catalyst for us to move forward and get that uh

00:04:38.180 whole situation uh in the downtown core resolved once and for all and give people their street and

00:04:43.700 their homes back. So what Jim Watson said there is that yeah when he learned about it when he found out

00:04:48.520 the government was already doing and he was supportive of it but he he was like no one's

00:04:52.280 even heard of this thing before how do we ask for this thing no one had ever heard of which I found

00:04:55.900 quite interesting so Ottawa didn't ask for it yesterday Ontario Premier Doug Ford reminded us all

00:05:02.500 which I I don't think he should be bragging about that uh he supported the use of it but didn't request

00:05:08.140 it in fact one of the big sources of or one of the big products of testimony this week is that the

00:05:14.160 Ontario government was just so disengaged from this process there was this record of a phone call

00:05:20.060 between Justin Trudeau and Jim Watson during the convoy where they're like they're all just like

00:05:24.640 trashing Doug Ford for like not wanting to get involved for political reasons so it's actually

00:05:30.020 quite sad because Doug Ford does this whole buddy buddy routine talking about how great Justin Trudeau and

00:05:35.220 Christia Freeland are and behind his back they're talking about how terrible he is and they don't like

00:05:39.820 him and don't respect what he's doing and he's not their ally on this issue even though publicly

00:05:44.460 uh Ford is saying he supports this thing but we haven't yet found anyone who wanted this thing and

00:05:52.120 asked for it who asked the government to do it so we're left with this idea that the government was

00:05:59.040 the one that wanted it on its own the government wanted to do it and we've been hearing all sorts of

00:06:04.880 testimony for the last two days yesterday was particularly insightful because we heard from

00:06:10.020 Steve Kanellakis who's the Ottawa city manager and also Serge Arpin who's the chief of staff to Jim

00:06:16.760 Watson and they were talking about their negotiations with the convoy leaders with the convoy organizers

00:06:23.900 negotiations that by the way resulted in a successful agreement to relocate trucks onto Wellington Street

00:06:32.400 away from residential neighborhoods an agreement we talked about on the show back in February when

00:06:38.020 it came out and they all said yeah and what we heard this morning and what we heard yesterday most

00:06:43.800 notably was that it wasn't the convoy protesters that pulled the plug on that agreement what it was

00:06:49.700 was the parliamentary protective service that didn't like it and then the Ottawa police which

00:06:54.400 moved to an enforcement posture once the emergencies act came into play so they were the ones that pulled

00:07:01.180 the plug on this deal not the members of the convoy and these things are so critical because right now

00:07:09.060 I have seen no evidence no evidence of an actual emergency no evidence of a bona fide emergency

00:07:16.420 certainly not one that would justify these unprecedented powers by the federal government

00:07:21.540 and we've just been hearing about the effect on the ground in Ottawa we haven't even been hearing

00:07:26.440 testimony yet on the bank account freezes we heard a little bit from the government in Ottawa about how they

00:07:32.440 really were having trouble getting tow truck drivers because tow truck drivers were not wanting to tow trucks

00:07:39.700 because they were sympathetic to the convoy and I did an interview that you'll see tonight with Ezra Levant

00:07:46.260 at Rebel News and Ezra pointed out that the ability to just commandeer a tow truck which the federal government

00:07:52.120 claimed it needed the emergencies act for actually exists in the criminal code as it is so it wasn't

00:07:58.820 even like needing to just conscript tow truck drivers against their will to get involved was something that

00:08:05.040 needed the emergencies act it was the bank account freezes and that's the part we haven't actually

00:08:09.920 gotten to yet and the government can try to muddle this as much as they want the government can try to

00:08:15.420 make this an inquiry into the convoy they can try to string up Tamara Leach they can try to make this 0.53

00:08:20.800 all about the protesters that were fed up with vaccine mandates but they cannot hide from their

00:08:25.760 own role in this and what they did is decide that the right to protest no longer exists the right to

00:08:33.660 peacefully assemble no longer exists that the government's refusal to engage with people

00:08:39.760 is supposedly the way you respond to a problem and then you go to the last resort despite not even

00:08:46.700 having given the courtesy of a conversation along the way and I don't know if there's going to be a

00:08:52.660 smoking gun of some kind that shows some wrongdoing by government that summary I talked to earlier I

00:08:59.340 talked about earlier of the phone call between Justin Trudeau and Jim Watson it was like a page and a

00:09:04.280 half and there were several lines redacted including some like mid-sentence where they just start

00:09:09.300 redacting something and you look at that and you say what is it that they're hiding and maybe it's nothing

00:09:14.860 maybe Jim Watson said something about his kids in there that is not supposedly for public consumption

00:09:20.060 but already you're starting to see areas where the government is just concealing little bits and pieces

00:09:26.080 the government doesn't want there to actually be the accountability that we know is required

00:09:30.640 now I'll tell people as much as I don't think the government has a leg to stand on

00:09:34.920 on this invocation of the emergencies act I also would be remiss to not point out that this is just

00:09:40.640 one of a number of battles that is right now underway constitutional challenges criminal cases

00:09:46.980 numerous numerous constitutional challenges by the way and not just by people who were charged but by

00:09:53.540 civil liberties groups like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association the Canadian Constitution

00:09:58.620 Foundation the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms the government of Alberta is engaged in that

00:10:05.340 battle as well Jason Kenney joined and now Danielle Smith the premier has decided to continue that so

00:10:11.340 these are all very important distinctions and discussions here this is just one particular battle

00:10:16.920 but I maintain it's the simplest one and has the clearest question was this a national emergency

00:10:24.600 was this a national emergency was this something that had espionage and sabotage or did it just have

00:10:32.220 phantom honking and microaggressions which sound comical it does and and I mean laugh at it it's

00:10:38.540 going to be a long seven weeks you got to have some fun with it but the fact that that was being

00:10:43.800 entertained is an example to me of the attempt by a lot of the people that apply to appear as witnesses

00:10:49.560 to really muddy the waters here and try to inject a bunch of extraneous detail that may help paint a

00:10:56.200 picture but doesn't really help the commissioner reach that fundamental finding of whether the

00:11:02.900 government's use of the emergencies act was appropriate or whether it was inappropriate

Juno News - October 19, 2022

LAWTON： The right to protest no longer exists

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