Juno News - Liberal MP backtracks after calling for review of Trudeau's leadership

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.420 norton but a fly just flew in literally just dive-bombed my coffee like a second before the

00:01:32.880 show began and it appears to have killed him but now there's a fly sitting these are the first

00:01:38.960 world problems we get on the andrew lawton show i just may i hadn't even taken a sip of that thing

00:01:43.500 yet all right so let me know in the comments do i just pull the fly out and drink the coffee

00:01:48.860 or do I dump the coffee altogether?

00:01:52.500 Or I guess there's a third option,

00:01:54.320 which is do I continue to drink the coffee

00:01:56.900 and like let the fly really steep it? 0.78

00:01:59.560 That's a big ass fly in there too. 1.00

00:02:02.260 All right, yeah, I gotta move it.

00:02:04.200 I'm gonna accidentally drink from the coffee

00:02:06.160 and you're all gonna be repulsed by me.

00:02:07.920 So I'm just gonna like move it way over there.

00:02:10.320 I needed that to get through the show.

00:02:12.120 If I just like keel over by 1.15, that's why.

00:02:14.860 It's because the fly was so rude as to sully my Americano.

00:02:20.500 I am a man of the people, though, so welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:02:24.140 We call that a cold open in the business, although in this particular case, it is a hot open, especially for that fly.

00:02:30.880 May he rest in pieces.

00:02:33.060 Nevertheless, this is Thursday, January 25th, 2023.

00:02:37.120 You are tuned into Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:02:39.780 Was that a sufficiently irreverent opening to the program here?

00:02:43.480 I'm going to be talking a little bit later on about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith taking the stage with Tucker Carlson in Alberta, where he started his efforts to liberate Canada.

00:02:56.100 Has Canada been sufficiently liberated after what happened 24 hours ago? We'll find out, I guess.

00:03:00.660 But also talking later on about the fallout from the federal court's ruling on the Emergencies Act, finding that Justin Trudeau was not only not justified in invoking the Emergencies Act, but that the way he did it violated Canadians' constitutional rights.

00:03:17.540 We've been covering this all week. We will continue as the show progresses.

00:03:21.540 But I wanted to actually start off with a bit of like inside politics, inside baseball here for Canadian politics,

00:03:27.700 because there is in a majority government, a ton of members of parliament you've never heard of before.

00:03:33.940 In a minority government, not as many, but there are still some that are backbenchers in the governing party

00:03:39.000 where even someone like me who follows politics a lot, I'll hear their name and I'll be like, I have no idea.

00:03:44.640 It could have been like my doctor or something.

00:03:46.980 I have no idea who these people are.

00:03:48.800 And this is the case with the Liberals.

00:03:51.080 You've got a few people that they only kind of make news when they do something notable.

00:03:56.260 And for most Liberal back members of Parliament, they will never do anything notable in their life.

00:04:01.140 But there was one in particular that stood up and took a principled stand not that long ago

00:04:06.260 when the Conservatives were taking aim at yet another increase to the federal carbon tax.

00:04:12.860 Now, Ken McDonald is a member of parliament in Avalon, which is in Newfoundland, and Ken

00:04:19.020 McDonald decided to vote in support of a conservative motion that was calling on the

00:04:24.860 Liberals to, I forget the exact wording of it, but it was basically taking aim at the

00:04:28.660 Liberals' increase to the carbon tax.

00:04:31.060 The Liberals, you may recall, had given an exemption that applied only to Atlantic Canadians,

00:04:36.680 or not spelled out that way, but that was the implication of it because they were exempting

00:04:42.380 home heating oil which is used predominantly by people in atlantic canada now ken mcdonald

00:04:47.120 voted in favor of giving a carbon tax break to canadians this was how he defended it

00:04:54.520 in an interview later on so tell us why you decided to vote against your own government

00:04:59.720 same reason as i did it the first time it was that i felt that uh this is not the time to be

00:05:07.120 making things more expensive in our communities

00:05:10.500 and in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

00:05:12.980 I think, I've said before, I do believe in climate change

00:05:16.820 and that we need to do something about it,

00:05:18.960 but not to increase prices at this time.

00:05:21.420 I just think it's a wrong time to bring in those policies.

00:05:24.220 The Conservatives gave you a standing ovation yesterday.

00:05:27.480 I'm wondering if you're worried at all about the optics

00:05:29.580 and what your colleagues said to you afterwards.

00:05:32.360 No, nobody had anything to say, actually.

00:05:34.560 They did the same thing, I think, the first time I did it.

00:05:37.120 and they did it again yesterday,

00:05:39.060 but I guess they just wanted to recognize the fact

00:05:41.100 to say thank you for standing up on our side of the House for a change.

00:05:46.340 Has your government given you any guarantee

00:05:48.060 that they will increase the rebates for rural Canadians?

00:05:52.320 No, my understanding, they are looking at it.

00:05:55.020 Whether it will come to fruition or not, I don't know.

00:05:57.960 And part of the reason why I did this was to also support Premier Fiori.

00:06:03.240 He's asking for the same thing, for it to be stalled.

00:06:05.600 and I stand with him for that for the constituents that I represent.

00:06:10.560 So Ken Macdonald gives a very reasoned answer there.

00:06:13.860 The Conservatives, of course, did give him a standing ovation for backing their motion.

00:06:18.400 That doesn't make him a Conservative.

00:06:19.740 It just makes him a responsible Canadian and a respectful representative of his constituents

00:06:25.760 by effectively saying, yeah, I don't want these people saddled with the carbon tax.

00:06:29.820 Now, when the Liberals gave that exemption to Atlantic Canada,

00:06:33.040 That seemed to be all it took to get Mr. McDonald there to just pipe down, shut up and fall in line because he looked after his constituents.

00:06:40.860 It didn't actually matter about the rest of Canadians when all was said and done.

00:06:46.420 So why am I talking about Ken McDonald again?

00:06:48.900 Well, this week, Ken McDonald showed once again a little glimmer of independence.

00:06:53.440 He stood up and said that Justin Trudeau should face a leadership review.

00:06:59.160 He says, every leader, every party has a best before date.

00:07:04.240 Our best before date is here.

00:07:08.100 Now, this is actually a very important thing.

00:07:10.880 Justin Trudeau has had a very ironclad grip on his caucus.

00:07:14.860 There has been very little dissent.

00:07:16.560 Joel Lightbound, who was that Quebec MP that criticized the Liberal government's pandemic

00:07:21.040 policies, he was one example of a guy who had a little bit of independence.

00:07:26.100 But we haven't heard from Joel Lightbound in quite a while.

00:07:28.760 So he effectively fell in line.

00:07:31.280 So Ken McDonald wasn't calling on Justin Trudeau to step down.

00:07:35.700 But he did an interview, and he said the party should have a leadership review

00:07:39.020 that allows for members to permit rivals for the leadership to come forward.

00:07:44.220 So he was saying that Justin Trudeau, if he's going to stay on, should have to fight for it.

00:07:48.300 He said, as a party, let's clear the air.

00:07:50.740 And if people are still intent on having the leader we have now, fine.

00:07:53.800 but let's at least give people the opportunity to have their say in what they think the direction

00:08:00.260 the party is going i decided not to do it with the accent i feel that would have been offensive

00:08:05.380 to some of the people in newfoundland i may i may slip into the accent later we'll see

00:08:09.840 but uh again maybe there's another poll question for you should andrew do his most offensive newfie

00:08:14.760 accent but i never i will say i so years ago i was on masterchef canada which was a reality

00:08:20.780 cooking show. And I was eliminated in the first episode in a montage. So if you blinked, you missed

00:08:25.880 me. But when we were filming, there were two people from Newfoundland on the show who like

00:08:31.340 the drunker they got, the heavier the Newfie accent got. And at the end of it, it was only

00:08:34.920 they could understand each other. And we were all just looking like, I think what they said was a

00:08:38.820 joke. I didn't hear the punchline or the setup. But anyway, love Newfoundland, spent only a few

00:08:44.340 hours there, but it is an absolutely lovely place. Ken McDonald does what he does best. He's trying

00:08:50.340 to be independent. He says we should have a leadership review. Well, that story came out

00:08:55.940 yesterday. Let's fast forward to the headline today. I know, so heartbreaking. Ken McDonald

00:09:04.600 walks back his comments that liberals need a leadership review. So what Ken McDonald is now

00:09:11.660 saying is that Justin Trudeau is a great campaigner, which is as backhanded a compliment

00:09:18.460 as you can give someone that's like watching some terrible movie and saying that uh well i i think

00:09:24.900 the lighting was good like you're trying to find like the weirdest strangest compliment that you

00:09:30.380 can think of to offer and it's a bit of a weird one but he says in a statement so the statement

00:09:37.080 is what you send out when you don't want to go before the press again because you know you're

00:09:41.060 going to say the wrong thing again he said the intent of my recent public comments was not to

00:09:46.760 personally call for a leadership review and I am not calling for one now and then he of course

00:09:53.240 goes on to say Justin Trudeau is a great campaigner he says the government now of today

00:09:57.980 is getting to be an old government those were his words in the interview but in the statement it's

00:10:02.780 no no I'm not saying anything of the sort I so I suspect what happened is Ken McDonald was at home

00:10:07.960 in Avalon minding his own business he got a knock at the door and then he opened the door and this

00:10:12.720 was the group that awaited him. I think he got like the Lebrano's mob squad just at his front

00:10:17.900 door, desperately telling him to get into compliance there. And so then what happened

00:10:25.660 is we had, of course, Ken McDonald do an about face in less than 24 hours and say, no, no, no,

00:10:31.580 no, no, no. I'm not calling for a leadership review at all. Never. No, no, no. I divide a

00:10:37.180 visit a boat tonight. No, sorry, I said I wouldn't do it. So here's what's happening. Anytime some

00:10:43.500 liberal dares to show just the slightest bit of independence, they get the hook, they get pulled

00:10:49.940 off stage, the music plays, the microphone goes down, and they are going to be never heard from

00:10:54.640 again. He's going to show up, you know, ball gagged and bruised when the House of Commons resumes in

00:11:00.920 just a few days time, because Ken McDonald will never make that mistake again of saying what he

00:11:06.960 thinks and look i i feel for him the liberals deserve a great deal of credit the only party

00:11:12.960 i can think of that has had as good a job as good a track record as trudeau and the liberals

00:11:21.200 of keeping caucus dissent in check would be doug ford and the progressive conservatives in ontario

00:11:26.560 anytime someone in the pc caucus of ontario has dared to be independent they have been like kicked

00:11:31.760 out of caucus it happened to randy hillier and belinda carahalios and roman babber and then you

00:11:37.840 fast forward to 2022 and what do you get no independent mpps the only people that want to

00:11:43.280 be independent end up resigning or retiring from office so here's what's happening we have the

00:11:49.200 liberals who are very much long in the tooth the poll numbers are in absolute decline they are in

00:11:55.360 In free fall, not a single person, not a single person I have spoken to,

00:12:01.260 and I have many people that I know in my life, believe it or not,

00:12:03.920 who voted for Justin Trudeau, at least in one of the past three elections,

00:12:07.960 oftentimes two of them, and not a single one of those people that I've spoken to

00:12:12.280 has said they will vote for Justin Trudeau again.

00:12:14.440 Now, some of these people are not fans of Pierre Paulyev.

00:12:16.980 Maybe they'll stay home, maybe they'll vote NDP,

00:12:18.860 maybe they'll just, you know, flee Canada altogether.

00:12:21.740 But this is an incredibly important point.

00:12:25.360 that we all need to be aware of here which is that the call has to come from within

00:12:30.320 if you want anything to change before the next election the NDP is not going to pull the plug

00:12:35.660 Jagmeet Singh wants his pension the conservatives cannot pull the government down without getting

00:12:41.920 the NDP on board the Bloc Québécois are in a similar boat so if Justin Trudeau is to be gone

00:12:47.320 before 2025 the call needs to come from within the house and the number of people in that caucus that

00:12:53.240 cannot put their long-term interests front and center is actually shocking because if you're a

00:12:58.300 liberal member of parliament in, you know, let's say the GTA, you're in Vancouver, you're in

00:13:04.380 Atlantic Canada, you are not going to have a job in two years if the party continues on the path

00:13:11.140 it's on. So either these people are just complete and utter cowards, they're complete and utter 0.98

00:13:16.120 morons because they can't actually see the writing on the wall here, or they just don't care if they 1.00

00:13:20.940 go down with the ship. And to be honest, I think there's some truth to that idea that a lot of 1.00

00:13:25.020 these people genuinely do not know that things are as bad as they are. I mean, this is the

00:13:31.380 Sunnyways government, but I think a lot of liberal members of parliament, believe it or not,

00:13:35.760 are just so enamored with Justin Trudeau themselves. They don't realize just how

00:13:40.680 unpopular he is. I won't play it for you because if you've seen it before, but the liberals

00:13:45.980 recirculated Pierre Polyev's Apple video. And the text accompanying it was like about Donald Trump

00:13:52.980 winning New Hampshire. Like it was a bizarre thing. And I'm like, you don't realize Polyev 1.00

00:13:57.300 comes out looking pretty good in this exchange, but all they can do is be like, Trump, like that's

00:14:03.360 the only liberal, the liberal platform is actually just going to be a picture of Donald Trump and a

00:14:07.520 picture of Polyev. And then like 19 pages of just like, you know, Mad Libs or, you know, picture

00:14:12.780 books and crosswords or whatever like they don't even need a platform in their view they can just

00:14:16.700 say paliev is trump and that's going to be enough for them nevertheless the big news of the week has

00:14:23.100 not been the flip-flop of ken mcdonald but it's been the federal courts uh trump card if you will

00:14:29.100 on the federal government declaring that the use of the emergencies act was unlawful it did not

00:14:35.420 comply with the emergencies act and the measures employed did not comply with the canadian

00:14:40.700 constitution. We've talked a lot about what this means in terms of the legal arguments that are

00:14:46.740 being put forward. We spoke a bit yesterday on the longer term implications of this and what

00:14:51.760 it'll mean if it goes to the federal court of appeal and most likely beyond that to the Supreme

00:14:56.920 Court. But I wanted to delve into this in a bit more detail because there have been a lot of

00:15:00.880 questions. And one big one is how this has been such a divergence from a lot of the other case

00:15:07.760 law on constitutional freedoms in the last few years, which have been, as I've said on the show,

00:15:12.200 very deferential to the government and not particularly mindful of protecting people's

00:15:17.380 freedoms. James Manson is the Director of Legal Services with the Justice Center for Constitutional

00:15:23.500 Freedoms and joins me now. James, it's good to talk to you. I should say to my audience,

00:15:28.420 by way of disclosure, I sit on the board of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, but

00:15:32.760 that has no bearing on this interview. And this is not to be taken, James, as a performance review

00:15:37.020 by your board thanks very much you showed up on time so you're getting a passing grade so far but

00:15:44.060 welcome let's start there i mean we've seen a lot of dismal rulings on constitutional freedoms

00:15:49.820 in the last several years on covet era cases on free speech cases why did this one in your view

00:15:55.740 go the other way like where was the judge going with this that we haven't seen many of his

00:16:00.220 colleagues go? That's an excellent question, Andrew. And, you know, I have been struggling

00:16:07.140 with the answer to that question for a couple of years, probably like you, probably like a lot of

00:16:13.060 the viewers and listeners. Why is it that these courts have been so unwilling to, you know,

00:16:19.700 even consider the Charter of Rights or consider these very important issues dealing with all the

00:16:26.760 COVID stuff? Why were they so unwilling to do that? And yet, a couple days ago, Justice Mosley

00:16:32.640 comes right through and gives us that win that we were looking for so desperately. Why was that the

00:16:38.680 case? And I think part of it may be legal. There may be a legal answer to part of that. There also

00:16:45.220 may be a psychological answer to part of that. Now, I'm not a psychologist, of course, but

00:16:49.600 I think that back in those days, a couple, two, three, four years ago, we all remember the

00:16:56.560 the fear right that was going on in our society there was a lot of it going on and i mean i think

00:17:04.800 maybe some of us felt it to a greater or lesser degree but i think a lot of people in society

00:17:10.240 were very very afraid and i think that that fear extended throughout society which would include

00:17:17.200 government the the judiciary a lot of people in positions of authority and i think a lot of this

00:17:24.800 may have come from the reticence the fear to say I can't take a position on this I can't hear this

00:17:31.980 I'm too afraid of getting COVID and getting sick and potentially dying or you know all the horrible

00:17:36.940 things that we were talking about back a few years ago I think a lot of that may have been

00:17:41.760 partly what was responsible and so the reason I say that Andrew is because now we're three years

00:17:48.220 later we're four years later we're not quite so worried anymore about COVID now COVID is a bit of

00:17:53.800 punchline i don't mean to be that glib about it but people say oh i got covered over the weekend

00:17:58.760 and it sucked and i had to stay home and no big deal that's where we are now with code right so i

00:18:03.720 think partly there's a psychological explanation but the other explanation andrew is more in my

00:18:09.400 bailiwick which is legal and so i think maybe the covet stuff was um much more scientifically driven

00:18:22.760 it was much more about you know whether there is a scientific explanation for vaccines

00:18:28.440 or whether or not staying at home is is the right thing to do medically or whatever and

00:18:32.520 there's all these scientific expert reports flying around for all that stuff and the courts were

00:18:37.160 really reticent to get involved in all that because of course expert opinions expert evidence

00:18:42.840 in the courts it's always very very tricky and in this particular case we weren't really talking so

00:18:49.720 much about any of the stuff that was really covid really hardcore covid stuff it was a totally

00:18:56.280 different question which was about the emergencies act which is a very very um you know complicated

00:19:04.040 issue but it's very legal it's very constitutional it's much more it's something that that a judge

00:19:11.080 or a court would have much easier time grappling with in the abstract than covid science medicine

00:19:18.680 all that stuff and i mean don't get me wrong andrew i totally um think that the courts should

00:19:25.560 have gone there anyway with all the science they totally should have but that's that ship has

00:19:31.000 already sailed of course yeah i mean to find a judge who is an expert in science and medicine

00:19:37.720 is is very very difficult it's incredibly rare so judges have to be deferential to the the experts

00:19:43.960 and when the government puts out you know all of these people in lab coats it's very easy to say

00:19:47.960 say, well, okay, yeah, that must be science. And your point about the legal aspects, I think,

00:19:53.640 is incredibly important. Now, I'm not a lawyer. I kind of play one on TV sometimes because I've

00:19:58.440 studied these cases and covered them. And I have people like yourself whose expertise I get to

00:20:02.780 claim credit for in later shows when I repeat it back to my audience. But the Emergencies Act is a

00:20:08.460 very well-written piece of legislation, I think, in terms of spelling out the test. And I actually

00:20:14.520 found it very easy to go kind of point by point through all of the premises and caveats that it

00:20:20.880 gives and try to line that up with the government's argument. And to be honest, there was not a lot

00:20:26.100 of subjectivity in the test for a national emergency, in the test for a threat to the

00:20:31.440 security of Canada. The only time you got into a pretty ambiguous territory was when it talks

00:20:36.960 about cabinet has to have a reasonable belief because they're carving in a bit of subjectivity

00:20:42.120 there. But that was where I thought Justice Mosley's decision was much stronger than Commissioner

00:20:49.240 Rouleau's decision in the Public Order Emergency Commission, because he was really accepting the

00:20:54.200 government's very muddied and muddled interpretation of that legal test, whereas Justice Mosley was

00:20:59.800 much stricter and more literal with it, which is, I think, how it was intended. I agree. I totally

00:21:04.860 agree i i can't improve upon your comments andrew i mean i mean i think that um i mean we're talking

00:21:14.200 about two different animals obviously the the public order commission and then this and i think

00:21:19.240 the listeners and viewers know all about what those two different animals are designed to achieve

00:21:24.140 one may be totally different than the other one is subject to appeal and one is subject to much

00:21:30.280 more rigorous cross-examinations and evidentiary requirements and the other one is not etc

00:21:34.860 all that stuff but i think really what every reasonable observer needs to um i think admit

00:21:44.120 at the end of the day is that this decision from from from the federal court is much more

00:21:49.460 authoritative shall we say with respect to the actual you know text of the of the legislation

00:21:54.860 the actual intent of the parliament in in bringing it into effect i mean remembering this all came

00:22:00.820 out andrew from the war measures act back in 1970 and the whole debacle of the flq crisis

00:22:06.800 basically parliament got together and said we have to change this it has to be much harder

00:22:12.440 to invoke these very very stringent very very um serious powers and this is what they came up with

00:22:20.760 Right. And so to say that the government suggested or maybe Justice Rouleau acquiesced in in in to suggest that it should be easy or that it should somehow fall to the executive, to cabinet, to just be able to do this whenever it basically wants to.

00:22:40.900 is crazy in my view it is it is it is totally totally anathema to what parliament

00:22:49.420 did in in you know enacting this brand new piece of legislation a few years 50 years ago right

00:22:56.400 yeah and i wanted to ask a little bit about the the mechanics of the next step we know the federal

00:23:01.540 government is going to be appealing this which means it will likely go to the federal court of

00:23:06.980 appeal. I've heard several lawyers say that the federal court of appeal is almost certainly going

00:23:10.700 to take this up given the circumstances. But I'm curious, and I don't know if you can actually

00:23:15.920 drill this down into a statistical analysis, but how commonly are trial court decisions from the

00:23:23.000 federal court overturned by the federal court of appeal? Or is it really a toss up? Yeah, I don't

00:23:28.260 have that statistic. You could probably, I'm not sure if you could find it if you looked. I can tell

00:23:33.420 you though that um in this particular case um first of all just so that everybody's clear

00:23:40.580 it's not a question of whether they will take it up they have to take it up if the federal court

00:23:46.600 of appeal gets a notice of appeal from the government they they have to do the appeal

00:23:51.500 because the government and and you know anybody on our side also would have the right to an appeal

00:23:57.260 in this case the second appeal which in this case would be to the supreme court of canada

00:24:03.400 that one would need to be done by permission you would have to get what they call leave to appeal

00:24:09.020 so anyway we're in the first step this is this is a um this is an appeal as of right which means

00:24:15.700 that you can you can appeal it there will be an appeal now the question becomes what happens on

00:24:21.400 the appeal you know there's different tests and different factors and different things that

00:24:26.740 happen on an appeal based on the type of of proceeding we're talking about okay so this

00:24:33.800 isn't a trial with a jury for example this is this was what we call a judicial review

00:24:40.000 i don't need to bore everybody with it with exactly what that means it's a bit different

00:24:44.420 than just a regular case but basically when you go on appeal from this decision um from a judicial

00:24:52.420 review, the standard of review, which is what we use to say, what does the court of appeal do?

00:24:58.480 What is their function? What are they looking for? Sometimes the appeal court has got a very

00:25:05.280 narrow function. They're only looking for some place where the judge made a mistake,

00:25:09.440 screwed up, did something really, really wrong. In other cases, like this one,

00:25:15.180 Basically, it's kind of a rehearing. It's kind of a do-over. Not entirely a do-over, but kind of a do-over, which is to say that what the appeal court has to do is take a look at the lower court judge's reasons and determine if they basically applied the right standards of review to the declaration and whether or not they applied it all properly.

00:25:43.860 Now, that's all very formal language to say it's kind of a do-over. So we're going to have to see how much of a do-over we're talking about here. Are we going to literally have 11,000 pages of the record put before the Court of Appeal? Are we going to have a multi-day hearing in the Court of Appeal? Is it going to take months to get there while everybody prepares their briefs again a second time?

00:26:07.780 I don't know as I sit here. I hope not, because I don't want to have a totally, you know, second kick at the can on the part of the government.

00:26:21.040 My thinking, my hope anyway, is that this is going to be a fairly, fairly tailored process.

00:26:29.920 But nonetheless, it's possible that we get into everything all over again, that we get into the mootness again.

00:26:36.340 It's possible that we get into the national emergency finding again.

00:26:40.100 It's possible that we get into the national security threat finding.

00:26:44.420 It's possible that we get into the Charter of Rights again, because, of course, the Section 2 and Section 8 violations of, you know, with those regulations, those horrible regulations, freezing people's bank accounts.

00:26:58.000 It's possible that we have to revisit all of that.

00:27:00.600 And given the way the government is going these days, that they seem to be completely unable to recognize and respect the rule of law.

00:27:12.660 I'm sorry to be to be so spicy when I say that, but it appears like I honestly can't believe, Andrew, that a government would consider appealing a decision like this.

00:27:24.960 Well, yeah, I mean, I can't believe they would have done the first thing, which was freezing the bank accounts right in the get there.

00:27:29.540 so that's a fair point i mean they're only they're only real recourse is to just keep digging in and

00:27:34.500 hope that eventually they're going to get some seal of approval from from a court i guess well

00:27:38.420 and as you said in your last segment i mean we're not going to get help from mr singh so

00:27:42.660 yeah it's basically it's basically 2025 or bus right true yeah yeah very very well said

00:27:49.620 james manson is the director of legal services with the justice center for constitutional

00:27:53.940 freedoms thank you so much james thanks andrew cheers all right thanks here i was thinking on

00:27:58.500 the show we would have all of these like great insightful and in-depth comments about uh ken

00:28:02.820 mcdonald and avalon about justin trudeau and jagmeet singh about the constitution of canada no

00:28:08.180 everyone's commenting on the damn fly so if you want an update on flygate i i plucked it out of 0.75

00:28:13.380 the coffee his uh lifeless limp soggy corpse is sitting on my coaster and actually oh sorry no 0.95

00:28:19.060 that is uh those are justin trudeau's poll numbers uh sorry i thought it was the fly

00:28:22.980 but uh then we also had uh richard peters says man up and drink the coffee sean is just worried

00:28:29.940 about the flies family sean is a a bit of a closet hippie here and angry canadian we see this is what

00:28:36.100 i was concerned about angry canadian on youtube which is probably many of you fit that name says

00:28:40.660 it's courtesy of klaus schwab yeah this is like i spent too long in davos and now the bugs are just

00:28:45.860 like dive bombing themselves into my drink so uh this is like klaus schwab's you believe the bugs

00:28:51.220 he just like shipped it over and the fly landed uh perfectly so i don't do i do i i don't know

00:28:57.000 i'm i don't know we'll see maybe by the end of the episode i'm still awake though sean says the

00:29:01.720 fly was supporting three children so well unfortunately you can just go on a serb like 1.00

00:29:06.560 everyone else there fly and hopefully you'll be looked after all right the big news yesterday in

00:29:11.140 alberta was tucker carlson making good on his vow to liberate the country that's not just my wording

00:29:18.320 here he used that himself in a phone call to the prime minister. Thank you for your call you have

00:29:25.900 reached the media line for all urgent requests please send your request by email. Yes hi I

00:29:36.620 couldn't understand the French part but it's Tucker Carlson calling from the United States

00:29:41.180 and I'd be grateful if you pass a message on to the prime minister Justin Trudeau

00:29:45.640 we are coming to liberate Canada. We are coming to liberate Canada and we'll be there soon. Merci.

00:29:57.180 And so he did. I think there were a combined like 15,000 people out at his two events yesterday,

00:30:04.460 one in Calgary and then one in Edmonton in the evening. He had a star-studded panel there,

00:30:10.660 conrad black and w brett wilson and the of course jordan peterson who is a late addition and alberta

00:30:18.180 premier danielle smith now we'll get to danielle smith in a moment i want to show she tweeted this

00:30:23.780 picture which seems to just like trigger so many people here she says free speech means you don't

00:30:28.900 just have to talk to the mainstream media finished up in calgary off to edmonton next now i i liked

00:30:35.540 the photo, I thought there was a little something missing from it. It was a je ne sais quoi that was

00:30:41.720 missing from it. So I tried my own hand at fixing the photo and came up with this.

00:30:47.300 Yeah, I think that right there is the real photo. This is a Canadian heritage moment.

00:30:52.960 From left to right, there is Jordan Peterson, Premier Danielle Smith, Tucker Carlson,

00:30:57.460 and Baron Black of Cross Harbor. Not, just to be technical here, he should never be called Lord

00:31:03.380 Lord Conrad Black. It is Conrad Lord Black or just Lord Black or just Conrad Black. But

00:31:08.460 he's often erroneously referred to as Lord Conrad Black, which is just not the proper styling. But

00:31:14.040 anyway, this is what happens when you watch too much Downton Abbey. But all of that notwithstanding,

00:31:19.120 there was one more addition to the photo that I thought was even better than that. And I saw this

00:31:22.960 one this morning. Let's put up this one. Oh, right there. We've got Baron Black of Cross Harbor.

00:31:28.300 We've got Tucker Carlson, and then we've got Lady Rachel of Emanuel. 1.00

00:31:32.760 Rachel Emanuel, who is the host of the Alberta Roundup on True North and graced the stage last night and joins us now gracing our stage here. 0.85

00:31:42.220 Rachel, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming back on the show.

00:31:44.720 Happy to be here, as always.

00:31:46.640 So, I mean, Danielle Smith got a lot of heat when she first announced she would be participating in this. 0.88

00:31:52.320 And her answer, I think, has been pretty consistent, which is, yeah, I do interviews all the time.

00:31:56.140 that doesn't mean I disagree or agree with whatever's in them. But have we seen like those

00:32:00.860 heads exploding since she took the stage more than they were initially? People are pretty upset. I

00:32:06.180 mean, of course, the radical left mainstream media had their articles coming out. I think Danielle

00:32:10.640 put it very well when she joined the stage in Calgary yesterday. She said, look, just because

00:32:16.120 I'm here doesn't mean I agree with everything that's being said by my colleagues on the stage.

00:32:22.660 of course it's ridiculous that she would even have to say that but that's just really where

00:32:27.020 we are in the times today there's not a lot of free and open debate anymore that's not welcome

00:32:31.740 but she did make that clarification whether or not the media will actually take that call is up to

00:32:36.780 them. Yeah I know that today she did an appearance she was announcing something or other and was

00:32:42.060 already facing like yet again another question from it let's roll that clip. I do want to ask

00:32:47.660 about your attendance at both of Tucker Carlson's events yesterday this is somebody who has been

00:32:51.460 accused of defending white supremacy, spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine,

00:32:55.100 as well as making disparaging remarks about women. So why did you believe that this is someone that

00:32:59.780 you should be giving time and attention to? Well, I take a wide range of media requests.

00:33:05.200 I've done, I've been told by my staff, 96 individual media events or interviews since I

00:33:10.640 got reelected, 24 press conferences. And I don't require, I don't do a screening test to make sure

00:33:17.340 that every person that interviews me matches 100% of what I believe and I

00:33:21.960 don't expect that I'm that they're going to that that that would be an

00:33:25.620 appropriate thing to do so I take a wide range of interviews from CBC all the way

00:33:30.720 through to alternative media because my job is to get our message out about

00:33:34.680 Alberta and I told everyone that I wanted to make sure that somebody who

00:33:39.060 has a very loud voice in America knew that we were a partner in being able to

00:33:45.600 provide energy security and energy affordability. And I got that message out. So a bit of a glimpse

00:33:51.700 from Premier Smith there on what that message was. But generally speaking beyond that, what did she

00:33:57.180 use that opportunity to discuss? I mean, she actually phrased it very well. I think that's

00:34:02.160 exactly why she agreed to do these events on stage is because she does want to get Alberta's message

00:34:07.980 out. And that is one of we are the place that has the cleanest energy supply and the rest of the

00:34:12.380 world should be coming to Alberta for our energy supply, and also that Ottawa is continuing to

00:34:17.240 kibosh these efforts. And if they continue to kibosh our efforts to reduce energy supply,

00:34:23.320 we're actually going to run into big issues in the province of Alberta, where tens of thousands

00:34:27.280 of people are moving from all over the country for the Alberta advantage, and operators are

00:34:31.700 unwilling to increase their baseload power out of fear that they will come into conflict with

00:34:36.380 Ottawa's 2035 regulations and now we're running into serious issues where we're facing potential

00:34:42.700 power outages like a couple weeks ago when we had that cold snap and people are worried if they're

00:34:46.920 going to be able to have power or whether there's going to be rolling brownouts and blackouts throughout

00:34:50.420 the province. So she delivered that message very clearly yesterday and honestly it's something that

00:34:54.900 we also saw Jason Kenney about you know for all his flaws when I covered his government he did

00:34:58.680 attend a senate committee in the U.S. and he spoke about that same message Alberta has the cleanest

00:35:03.020 energy on earth and the rest of the world should be getting our their energy from here no matter

00:35:07.440 what the federal government says yeah and I understand from the clip circulating she was

00:35:12.020 also like trying to introduce the idea of Stephen Gilbeau to Tucker Carlson and like enlist his help

00:35:16.940 in the fight against Stephen Gilbeau what was that all about that was definitely one of the best

00:35:22.040 parts of the day we all know Daniel Smith does not like Stephen Gilbeau she actually can't stand him

00:35:27.660 she said she said on multiple occasions she can't work with him and she said to Tucker yesterday

00:35:32.000 you know I think you should put Stephen Guibo in your crosshairs and later on she said I'm trying

00:35:37.160 to get him fired and I could use your help with that I thought that was absolutely hilarious

00:35:40.840 one of the best lines from the day another really good one was when Tucker Carlson he seems to

00:35:45.860 really dislike Christia Freeland he apparently knew her when she was a journalist and he says

00:35:50.460 this lady is not bright at all and he actually referred to her as a midget at one point and that

00:35:55.740 got quite a few laughs from the crowd one of the fan favorites for sure yeah but I saw that clip

00:36:00.560 He also said she had, like, the self-esteem that you could, like, hide under in the event of a nuclear attack or whatever.

00:36:05.680 Like, she's very self-assured, which is, I guess, a compliment in a roundabout way.

00:36:10.040 I think we have a clip of the Gilboa line you were just talking about.

00:36:13.820 Let's roll that.

00:36:15.440 I don't know if you know much about Stephen Gilboa.

00:36:17.200 I don't know if I've heard of him.

00:36:18.160 I'm wanting to learn less just by your introduction.

00:36:21.180 One thing I find so offensive, I mean, you talk about the disrespect to our province.

00:36:27.260 This is a guy who is an environmental advocate. He's best known for scaling the CN Tower in opposition of fossil fuels when he was working as an environmental advocate.

00:36:38.960 But he also scaled the house of our premier.

00:36:41.280 So he's a rock climber, not an engineer.

00:36:44.220 Maybe he'd be better at that. But imagine that. Imagine somebody going and taking a criminal offense, going onto the roof of a premier,

00:36:51.220 that they make that person in charge trying to dictate to us how to pull our resources out of

00:36:56.740 ground and how to manage our natural resources how to how to manage our electricity grid that's

00:37:01.620 what justin trudeau has done so i'm trying to get him fired and i would love your help on that

00:37:10.020 yeah i mean what she said they're entirely consistent with what she and minister rebecca

00:37:14.500 schultz have said about gilbo at many other occasions and affairs and i find it interesting

00:37:19.540 that the rhetoric on social media appears to be trying to like put on her things he said at other

00:37:25.800 points, either in his career or even at other points on stage, instead of like, does anyone

00:37:29.980 take issue with what she herself said at this event in front of a crowd of, I think a combined

00:37:35.220 crowd of like 15,000. And I don't know, I'm not aware so far, maybe you can correct me if I'm

00:37:39.060 wrong, Rachel, of any controversy stemming from anything she said. Of course there isn't, but

00:37:43.740 that's not what media is anymore. It's trying to associate with you with people that are perceived

00:37:49.120 to be controversial and trying to paint those people as controversial as possible by taking

00:37:53.200 clips out of context or saying that things are racist just because you're simply pointing to

00:37:57.360 the statistics of something or saying that mass immigration is a bad thing for our countries and

00:38:01.760 that it's actually making it so that our healthcare systems are failing and that we don't have enough

00:38:05.760 houses in our country and all these types of things and that's really all that media is and

00:38:09.920 it's one of the reasons why i just don't watch it anymore i don't pay attention to what the legacy

00:38:13.680 media does other than to occasionally point out major mistakes they've made because it's useless

00:38:18.800 and it's just untrue. So one thing that I think will be interesting here is that, and let me back

00:38:25.280 up. I'm sure there were many people on Daniel Smith's staff. In fact, I've heard whisperings

00:38:29.040 of it. They didn't love that she was doing this. And let's face it, there are things that I disagree

00:38:32.860 with from with Tucker Carlson on a lot of foreign policy stuff, as well as elsewhere. But it seemed

00:38:38.020 to be a win for her. I mean, she spoke to a crowd that might not even be connected to partisan

00:38:43.980 in politics because they were drawn there by an American speaker. And I think in that sense,

00:38:49.500 she was doing something that probably will help her long term. I mean, there was one guy,

00:38:53.740 I think it was Bruce Anderson, the pollster who said, oh, this is going to like hurt her in the

00:38:56.940 polls in the next election, which I'm like, yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, I agree with you. I

00:39:01.420 think that this event actually boded very well for her. And I think something we've seen the

00:39:05.540 premier really improve on, obviously, let's remember, she took a break from politics and 1.00

00:39:10.260 was a talk show host and as a talk show host you discuss controversial ideas and you sort of say

00:39:15.220 your thoughts on things and during the election you know the ndp rolled their clips of daniel

00:39:19.380 smith saying all these talking about ideas and they tried to paint it as some really controversial

00:39:23.940 and crazy lady for simply wanting open and fair discussion and so i think we've seen that be a bit 1.00

00:39:29.540 of an issue for her in the early days of her politics and even still she had that willingness

00:39:33.540 early on to continue that discussion and i think that she's really kind of coming into her own as

00:39:38.180 a politician and she's really learned to finally craft into her message and so i don't notice that 0.99

00:39:43.380 we're seeing those types of blips at events that she attends as often anymore because she's just

00:39:47.300 as really focused and i think she stays really on point on message and i think she did that yesterday

00:39:52.100 so i agree that this will really bode well for her in the long run all right well we look forward

00:39:56.900 are you going to be doing any of this on your show this weekend of course so you guys on saturday for

00:40:01.620 that so keep an eye out for the alberta roundup i i kind of assume i hoped because that would

00:40:06.180 would have been a really anticlimactic end of the interview. You said, no, we're doing something

00:40:09.100 else. So that'll be on Alberta Roundup this weekend. Rachel Emanuel, as always, keeping us

00:40:13.540 connected with what's happening in my, I don't want to say my favorite province in Canada, but

00:40:17.640 your favorite province. It's my favorite province in Canada. All right. Thank you so much, Rachel.

00:40:21.660 We'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. All right. That Sean says, Sean, you're from Toronto.

00:40:26.200 You don't get to how dare you me on that. Sean is like now defending the honor of Toronto when I

00:40:31.300 say that i love alberta every time i go out to alberta uh there were i there name one good thing

00:40:36.420 about ontario sean see he can't do it he says niagara falls you don't even live in niagara

00:40:42.300 falls and i don't i couldn't even tell you the last time i went to niagara falls i i should say

00:40:46.000 i grew up in ontario i i love ontario for the familiarity of it i can't even say the weather

00:40:51.840 is all that much better because i live in the middle of the great lakes we get like ice in our

00:40:56.020 faces they just end up like uh you're basically a human icicle you're jack frost when you walk

00:41:00.440 down the street in the winter and again here the fly i've never fly has never dive bombed my coffee

00:41:05.380 in alberta uh you may get a cougar attack in a parking lot of tim hortons but you're never going

00:41:09.880 to get a fly attacking your coffee so uh now this is like my whole chat is everyone's turning on me

00:41:14.520 all the ontarians i mean i'm an ontarian i'm one of you all right all of that notwithstanding we

00:41:19.240 will uh have that fight on our show we'll do alberta versus ontario if you're one of the other

00:41:23.360 provinces i'm sorry you have to find your own fights but uh that does it for us for today we've

00:41:28.080 got something very special planned next week, which I want to give you a bit of a glimpse of

00:41:32.120 now. So my friend and colleague Mark Stein has been on trial for the last two weeks in Washington,

00:41:39.080 D.C. in a, it's again, a case 12 years in the making. He was sued for defamation by Michael

00:41:45.580 Mann, who is a big climate Scientologist, not climate Scientologist, a climate scientist,

00:41:50.420 I was going to say. And he was the guy who came up with what's called the hockey stick graph,

00:41:55.480 which shows that like there had been no warming in the earth ever.

00:41:58.560 And then just, you know, in the industrial revolution,

00:42:00.700 it just shot up and we're all going to burn and die.

00:42:03.540 And Mark Stein has viewed that graph as a fraud.

00:42:07.200 That is an allegation he has made.

00:42:08.780 And it's one that Michael Mann sees as defamatory.

00:42:12.040 And he sued Mark Stein in 2012.

00:42:14.700 Only now is this case going to trial.

00:42:17.300 So the third week of the trial is going to be next week in Washington, D.C.

00:42:21.460 And this covers free speech.

00:42:23.100 It covers climate change.

00:42:24.800 And there's certainly a Canadian connection because the Canadian government under Paul Martin, I believe it was, was using the hockey stick graph to justify a lot of what it was doing when it was going into the Kyoto Accord.

00:42:38.140 So this has been an influential figure in Canada.

00:42:41.160 So we're going to be covering that on the show.

00:42:43.400 The show is going to look a little different next week just because of scheduling.

00:42:46.380 We're still trying to fine tune that, but we're going to have some interviews and there is going to be an Andrew Lawton show, but it won't be live.

00:42:52.320 and we will have daily updates from the trial in Washington, DC.

00:42:56.900 So stay tuned for that.

00:42:58.380 We're also going to have on Monday

00:42:59.440 Anne McElhenney and Phelan McAleer

00:43:01.320 who have been covering this to bring us all up to speed.

00:43:04.180 And they're doing a fantastic project on this

00:43:06.400 where they're doing daily reenactments

00:43:09.020 with actors of key moments from the trial.

00:43:12.160 And they've got phenomenal actors.

00:43:13.820 I've been keeping up to date through that process

00:43:16.240 and that podcast.

00:43:17.340 So that's something we'll have for you next week.

00:43:19.520 I know people have been asking about it.

00:43:20.840 So that is coming soon.

00:43:22.320 thank you to all of you have a wonderful weekend god bless and good day to you all

00:43:26.280 thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:43:29.240 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:43:52.320 We'll be right back.

00:44:22.320 We'll be right back.

Juno News - January 25, 2024

Liberal MP backtracks after calling for review of Trudeau's leadership

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