00:00:39.740So whether uphill or downhill is the better one, I hope that's the direction you are headed as the week continues and culminates in what I hope is a much deserved rest break on the weekend.
00:00:50.640And we're going to be talking about a couple of the big picture issues of the political climate today.
00:00:55.560Joining me later on is Christine Van Gein from the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the CCF,
00:01:01.920to talk about the last legal guardrail against the government's use of the Emergencies Act.
00:01:07.740That is the legal challenges underway against this and what happened a little over a year ago in Canada.
00:01:14.180That's the CCF. We also have the CCFR, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights,
00:01:20.040well represented in today's show with Rod Giltaka standing by, as we'll discuss the
00:01:25.080Liberals' backtrack that's not really a backtrack, amendments that aren't really
00:01:30.240amending anything on Bill C-21, which is the Firearms Regulation Bill. But let me just first
00:01:36.700start off by doing something I try to avoid doing for my and your mental health, and that is
00:01:43.360liberally quoting Justin Trudeau who today decided to honor World Press Freedom Day. Now I must
00:01:50.620confess I did not know it was World Press Freedom Day. The World Press Freedom Day parade didn't
00:01:56.120pass by my house today so I didn't have World Press Freedom Day in my calendar I don't think.
00:02:03.200Let me just look because sometimes I get like really weird holidays that I don't know exist
00:02:06.920on my calendar like what's this Mother's Day or something. Anyway my mom listens that was a
00:02:12.220terrible, terrible joke. But anyway, the point of this, though, is that we are to celebrate press
00:02:18.020freedom around the world. It's great. I'm all for press freedom. I'm for freedom of speech. I don't
00:02:23.180believe that journalists are in a particularly special category. I think journalists' free
00:02:28.460speech is the same as ordinary citizens' free speech. But I realized that journalists play a
00:02:33.960rather pivotal role in democracy and in free society. So when Justin Trudeau tweets,
00:02:39.420journalists inform Canadians and hold governments accountable their work is independent and
00:02:44.940indispensable as they continue to face harassment censorship and violence simply for doing their
00:02:51.520jobs let me say this we will always support and promote the freedom of the press hashtag world
00:02:58.700press freedom day and it links to a longer statement that basically says more of the same
00:03:03.920So it's interesting to see Justin Trudeau coming out and denouncing harassment, censorship, and violence faced by journalists when his government is responsible for harassment, censorship, and violence against journalists.
00:03:20.500Yes, even violence. I would point out a few different things here that have happened.
00:03:26.640If you are an independent journalist like yours truly, you try to go to a liberal press conference, you will be told you do not belong there.
00:03:33.720You may even have police called and they may remove you.
00:03:46.740Well, just a few weeks ago, we had Lauren Gunter of the Edmonton Sun on the program.
00:03:51.500This is a veteran journalist and columnist in Canada.
00:03:55.060But the federal government actively tried to have his column on immigration policy censored.
00:04:00.720censored. They literally, as we saw in documents, went to social media companies and said, you have
00:04:05.800to take down this Lorne Gunter guy's column. And thankfully, the social media companies declined to
00:04:11.800do it. We also know that C11 is now law in Canada. This, when the regulations are cemented, will
00:04:18.500have government pulling the levers on the algorithms, which will again censor and demote
00:04:25.440some content will promote and elevate others and violence i try not to make you look at my face too
00:04:32.660too much but since you're already seeing it let's put up this graphic from february of 2022 when i
00:04:39.020was in ottawa covering the freedom convoy and the emergencies act was in effect police were trying
00:04:44.880to clear things up and i had just gotten a hefty dose of pepper spray there for doing my job as a
00:04:51.040journalist. Alexa Lavoie was hit with a canister of tear gas in her leg for doing hers. There was
1.00
00:04:57.220a photojournalist from New York who, again, with a mainstream outlet, was thrown to the ground,
00:05:02.440zip-tied, and had his camera smashed all while Justin Trudeau's enforcers were out to dismantle
00:05:09.140not just the Freedom Convoy, but also to take aim at those who dared to tell the story of the
00:05:14.940Freedom Convoy. So Justin Trudeau, if you want to take aim at harassment, censorship, and violence
00:05:21.420against journalists, perhaps, sir, you should look in the mirror first, you hypocrite. But I don't
00:05:27.480want to talk just about press freedom. It would be a little too indulgent. I want to talk about
00:05:31.940firearms rights here, which I've always said, if you're not a gun owner or you don't particularly
00:05:36.700like guns, you should still pay attention to this issue because it is a property rights issue. If
00:05:43.100The government has the right to take away your property, to reclassify things, to say you're no longer allowed to own this.
00:05:49.220If they can do it with guns, they could do it with cars.
00:05:52.140They could do it with anything else you own conceivably.
00:05:54.660Or like what we were seeing in the UK a couple of years ago, going after pointy knives because some celebrity chef decided that he should play by different rules than others.
00:06:04.340Well, yesterday, Marco Mendicino came out and discussed what the Liberals are doing on their Firearms Control Bill C-21.
00:06:12.120This is a bit of a primer that Marco Mendicino gave.
00:06:17.520I'm proud to announce a package of reforms that will strengthen both Bill C-21 and Canada's ban on AR-15 assault-style firearms.
00:06:27.600It includes amendments to the bill that will be brought forward by Liberal members,
00:06:32.900and it will also include upcoming changes that will strengthen our gun control laws.
00:06:39.280These reforms are about keeping AR-15 assault-style firearms off of our streets,
00:06:45.540while at the same time respecting gun owners.
00:06:49.380Significantly, the amendments will include a standard technical definition
00:06:54.040which contain the physical characteristics of an assault-style firearm.
00:06:59.600This definition, which would apply going forward, would be inserted into the Criminal Code.
00:07:05.220It provides the clarity that gun owners and industry leaders need
00:07:10.580and the protection that advocates have long called for.
00:08:17.520And he thinks that if he keeps saying assault-style firearms, assault-style weapons, that it'll make it more true.
00:08:24.280But it's playing off of ignorance in Canadians who don't understand guns and in many cases just haven't been exposed to them.
0.66
00:08:32.080And this little amendment is trying to deal with some of the bad press and pushback they got from their previous proclamations that they would be banning by their own admission hunting rifles and hunting shotguns.
00:09:00.940The approach has changed, but the results are the same as the withdrawn amendments and could possibly be worse.
00:09:08.100So the approach, well, the announcement that Marco made was a couple of new amendments to Bill C-21, and also he's talking about some regulations and some other things that feed into it.
00:09:21.780So I guess the most efficient and quick way to explain this is if we're talking about the actual gun bans that they have in store for Canadians, instead of having a list and having a definition, as they did in the amendments G4 and G46 that were withdrawn,
00:09:36.800They now have no list. They have a definition and they're telling Canadians, well, don't worry. Everything that you own today is fine. It's safe. It's only this definition of a prohibited firearm being semi-automatics with detachable magazines, basically, will only go forward when Bill C-21 receives royal assent.
00:09:55.040So it's just for the future. But also we're reforming CFAC, which is the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee, and they will determine what firearms that should be prohibited in the interim.
00:10:08.180And then we will prohibit those firearms using orders in council. And there's no criteria mentioned by the minister.
00:10:15.260So basically, it's a committee made up by the people that he wants on there.
00:10:19.980They could just take the list that was G46 and just go down the list and say, this is what we recommend.
00:10:25.780But they could continue past and say, well, rapid-fire firearms like lever actions or pump actions should be on the list, too.
00:10:31.640There's no telling where this will go eventually.
00:10:34.580And they're certainly not in this, I don't even want to call it a walkback because it really isn't, but they're not unbanning any firearms.
00:10:41.780I mean, the things that they banned by order and counsel in May 2020, the 1500 variants, including AR-15 style firearms and so on, like those are going to remain banned.
00:10:52.580So which I think proves the point here that they're just going to find a way to apply this new definition to whatever they don't want people to have.
00:11:02.140They're saying you're you're all so dumb that we'll say, oh, we're going to walk back all these things.
00:11:06.200We're not first it was we're not banning hunting rifles until it's like, well, here's the hunting rifles are banning.
00:11:11.780And then they're like, well, and then Justin Trudeau came out, if you remember, and said, well, yes, maybe some of these guns are on different, you know, and all while screaming about misinformation and disinformation and how terrible people like us are, the gun lobby.
00:14:09.360But, you know, gun control is a sword that cuts both ways, right?
00:14:14.820So if you think that your votes are in urban centers and the voting profile, the people
00:14:20.640that are going to support you are pro-gun control because they don't know any better, let's say,
00:14:24.320just for sake of argument, then you're going to try to get those votes and consider the
00:14:31.160law-abiding gun owners to be a smaller pool of votes for you. And somehow you'll win an election.
00:14:37.480I think it's worked reasonably well for them. But I think, and this is my fantasy that you'll
00:14:45.160just indulge me in for a minute, I think that Canadians are starting to wake up a little bit.
00:14:49.300They're realizing that our violence problem is not licensed gun owners shooting at shooting clubs like we have for 150 years in Canada, by the way, since before Canada was a country.
00:14:59.900Our issues are the opioid epidemic, which is just being made worse by liberal policies.
00:15:05.740Disasterous, prolific offender issues as made worse by the Liberal Bill C-75 that law enforcement across the country have said, you need to repeal Bill C-75.
00:15:14.940It's making our streets unsafe to even walk on.
00:15:17.920So bail reform issues and a raging gang problem.
00:15:21.740Like Canadians, I think, are starting to figure it out that they've been gaslit for seven and a half years and it's just not working for them.
00:15:27.940So now they're putting a little bit more effort into kind of walking things back and repackaging the same product and whatnot.
00:15:34.120I think they're they're dancing a little bit now.
00:15:38.180No, and I'm looking at what Marco Mendicino has said here.
00:15:43.000And again, as we've discussed, it's not really going to make a material difference if you are a gun owner.
00:15:48.660They can tweak the process or say they're tweaking the process, but we know the outcome they want.
00:15:53.880And basically, we're seeing a government, and correct me if I'm wrong, that will not stop until every semi-automatic firearm has been prohibited.
00:16:03.860and this we've been telling the the hunting community for a long time you know how how
00:16:08.080confident are you that the liberals are just going to stop just short of the firearms that you own
00:16:13.600like they're going to be like okay well we got the we got the ar-15s and even wooden you know
00:16:19.120stocked firearms that could be like the sks that we still think are assault weapons we've got those
00:16:24.240well you know what we're on a roll why would they stop there so at the end of the day they want you
00:16:29.220have a break action if at all uh or a bolt action and maybe that'll be what's left it's uh it's yeah
00:16:37.140i mean i think i think they've demonstrated as a political party after running canada for seven
00:16:43.140and a half years they can't be trusted they'll never say what they actually want it's uh it's
00:16:48.260it's a real mess and i think it has backfired on them i'd like to think so the the one thing that
00:16:52.500marco mendicino mentioned there that i i found very well i found a lot of it concerned i found
00:16:57.060all of it concerning actually but but one in particular is when he talked about effectively
00:17:00.840trying to bind future governments he he said the conservatives have already said they want to roll
00:17:05.820this back and have more uh gun rights what is he referring to there and and is he correct that a
00:17:11.080Pierre Polyev government theoretically who has been on the record as as opposing this gun control
00:17:16.220that he would actually have difficult untangle a difficulty untangling this is that the case
00:17:20.600well um when so the original way that they were going to do it with um amendments well both
00:17:26.640amendments g4 and 46 where they were going to legislate these firearms as prohibited so right
00:17:32.720now they're legislate they well they want to legislate a um a definition of what an assault
00:17:39.060style uh firearm is but which will be different from any real definition as we've known i mean
00:17:45.540the pr definition for that that the government uses is is not anything that exists in canada
00:17:50.720well if you look at paulie says if you have a press release they called everything assault
00:17:55.460weapons. They said assault weapon, I counted because I have the video, counted like eight
00:17:59.220times they called them assault weapons. But nonetheless, it's a propaganda war, first and
00:18:04.240foremost. But the firearms that they ban using an order in council can be repealed by a minority
00:18:11.840government in the future. The firearms that they ban, either by definition or by name,
00:18:16.700that are in legislation, they would need a majority government or a coalition government
00:18:20.660to repeal that. So that's, that's the difference. So, I mean, if, if I'm really searching around
00:18:26.000for something positive, it's like, it's, it would be the, you know, Marco saying, well, we're going
00:18:31.060to, we're going to ban these things by OIC because that can be reversed, but it's one thing legally.
00:18:35.940And it's another thing politically because no government, including the conservatives want to
00:18:39.920be a one-term government. So it'll be just as much work for organizations like ours to get these
00:18:45.840firearms and rights back as it will fighting the liberals for that last seven and a half years.
00:18:50.660The one thing that strikes me here is that the Liberals don't even believe their own fear mongering. And one example, you were featured and the CCFR was a very generous supporter of the documentary we reproduced a couple of years ago called Assaulted.
00:19:04.940And at the time, we did that around this time in April of 2021, and it had been about a year since this order and council came in, and we talked to a lot of gun owners and gun business owners who had said, yeah, my AR-15 inventory and all this other inventory was prohibited.
00:19:22.160The government put a freeze on it immediately.
00:19:25.660The government said it's dangerous to have these things out in the country.
00:19:28.740Well, two years have passed since then, three years since the ban, and this buyback that they've promised still hasn't materialized.
00:19:36.940And we still haven't seen this rash of so-called assault weapon crime in Canada to back up what the Liberals said was the necessary and inevitable outcome of these guns existing.
00:19:47.500So, I mean, their own fear, like if it was that urgent, they would have figured this out and collected all these things by now.
00:19:53.340Well, you would have thought they would have figured it out before they made the announcement that they were going to do this in short order. But another thing I would point out to your viewers is that all this talk about gun control. So right from the Liberals' first majority government, where they brought out Bill C-71, you had the May 2020 gun ban, that OIC, you had the handgun freeze, you've got C-21 coming down the pike at us.
00:20:18.260And it's like, well, Canada is more dangerous than it's ever been right now. And yet back in
00:20:23.740the Harper era in 2013, it was that year had the lowest level of firearm related violence
00:20:29.800since StatsCan started collecting data on firearm related violence. And we had far less gun control.
00:20:35.640We didn't have all this gun control. So it's funny, you know, you got these advocates that
00:20:39.540are like, well, less guns in a society, more firearm regulation, you know, less violence.
00:20:44.160And it's like, well, clearly, those two things don't correlate at all.
00:20:49.960So it's just kind of an interesting phenomenon in real life.
00:20:53.340Yeah, I think we need more bail control right now, not more gun control to deal with crime.
00:21:13.000I want to talk about this bigger picture story here about the Emergencies Act, which if we talk about the fallout of the Freedom Convoy, I would say that this protest back in January, February of 2022 really morphed from being about vaccine mandates to more broadly being about civil liberties.
00:21:31.960I shared with you that image of me, and not a particularly flattering one, but no image of me is, of me being pepper sprayed.
00:21:39.340And the Emergencies Act, I'd say, was something that united a lot more people than were already united in the cause of the Freedom Convoy.
00:21:47.900And I bring this up now because Christine Van Gein, who is the litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation,
00:21:55.840had a great piece in C2C Journal in which she talked about the legal challenges underway
00:22:01.820to the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act.
00:22:05.060She calls it the last guardrail of accountability.
00:22:08.320And I want to quibble with that in one sense that we'll get to,
00:22:11.360but I thought it was an important point here.
00:22:13.620And I wanted to speak to Christine about this.
00:33:30.780I didn't find that all that compelling.
00:33:33.080But I did want to just bring up the last guardrail aspect, which I think in terms of legal tools is something I would agree with.
00:33:41.080I would say that the last, if the legal avenue fails, is still the political accountability, though.
00:33:47.120I do agree there is political accountability.
00:33:52.020I think this is the last procedural guardrail.
00:33:55.660That's what I would say, that once this judicial review is done, and this could, of course, go all the way to the Supreme Court if they're interested in hearing it, this is the last procedure that we have at our disposal to hold the government accountable.
00:34:11.920Political accountability is, of course, very important, and people like you who continue to talk about this subject when it's a year past now that this happened, it's very important.
00:34:24.080it's very important that we not forget that this happened because when we forget it makes it easier
00:34:28.400for the government to do it to us again very well said the piece is a fantastic one at the c2c
00:34:35.440journal you can read it at c2c journal.ca the last guardrail of accountability the legal challenge
00:34:41.600to the trudeau government's use of the emergencies at christine van gein always an absolute delight
00:34:46.960to talk to you thanks for your insights and analysis on this as always thanks andrew it's