Speaker Anthony Rota has been the target of criticism from all sides of the aisle of Parliament for his handling of a Nazi hero honouring a Canadian hero who happened to be a Ukrainian Nazi veteran. He has been attacked by both sides of politics, the Liberals and the Tories, and he has had to defend himself against them.
00:02:17.620You are probably having a better day, whoever you are and wherever you are, than Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons.
00:02:26.320We spoke about him yesterday. He was the chap who introduced and honored a Canadian hero who happened to be a Ukrainian Nazi veteran on Friday.
00:02:37.460I mean, who among us has not made that mistake at work? You know, just the other day on the show.
00:02:41.780Wait, no, I've never done anything like that. But that's what Anthony Rota did on Friday.
00:02:45.720yesterday, he had a fair bit of support from the Liberals. They were doing the finger wagging thing,
00:02:51.300the I'm disappointed in you thing. Just as a matter of protocol here, if you've ever watched
00:02:57.660House of Commons proceedings, because perhaps like me, you have no life, you'll know that all
00:03:03.040comments have to be directed to the Speaker. So if you're talking about someone on the other side
00:03:07.860of the aisle, you don't actually get to say, Justin Trudeau, I think you're a big smelly jerk.
00:03:11.960you have to say, Mr. Speaker, the right Honorable Prime Minister is a big, sticky jerk.
00:03:18.780When you're complaining about the Speaker, you actually get to talk to the Speaker,
00:03:22.740and he's just got to sit there and at the end of it go, thank you for your comment, and move on.
00:03:27.020So he has had to be bearing the slings and arrows of members of Parliament, deservedly so.
00:03:32.840But what was interesting is how the Conservatives were the ones trying to throw him a bone.
00:03:37.300We saw one such example of this from Chris Warkington, a conservative MP from Alberta, who was like, I mean, the Speaker must have wanted to leap out of his chair and give him a big old hug for this.
00:03:48.340Mr. Speaker, I know your desire to take this on, but I don't believe for a second that you went, verified each person who was invited to this place, verified that they were not a security risk, and then stood at the door and let them in.
00:05:22.900This week, it looks like he's going to come to you, Speaker,
00:05:25.880and ask you to leave and to take the garbage out with you on the way out.
00:05:29.500Is that really what this government wants to show to Canadians?
00:05:32.380Mr. Speaker, again, that Honourable colleague would have seen your statement yesterday,
00:05:43.380heard your apology in the House today, where the Speaker confirmed that this was his decision
00:05:49.980and his decision alone to invite this individual from his riding to acknowledge him in the gallery.
00:05:57.580we were all caught off guard by this we all stood and applauded because we were led to believe that
00:06:05.340this was an individual who he was not and that is something that hurts all of us and embarrasses all
00:06:12.240of us but there was no prior knowledge from the government i i was going i it would have been in
00:06:20.600poor form given the circumstances but i was kind of thinking of that old hogan's heroes bit i won't
00:06:26.200do the voice because i i'm terrible at impressions but you know i know nothing i see nothing like
00:06:30.400that's basically been the liberal government's approach on this which is that it had nothing
00:06:34.740to do with it it doesn't know who is speaker what speaker what nazi what not we we were we just got
00:06:39.820out of bed one morning and there's this whole controversy and it must have been anthony rhoda's
00:06:44.760fault and all the liberals who realize they have a bit of egg in their egg on their faces here
00:06:48.780are saying that well you know maybe people who are being partisan are the real problem so
00:06:54.860Like I predicted yesterday, it becomes a learning opportunity for all of us.
00:06:59.960Now, all of this is besides the point in some way.
00:07:03.120There was a thing that happened on Friday that was very disgraceful and very embarrassing.
00:07:08.740As True North has written about as recently as this morning, you can see it has been a headline around the world.
00:07:15.260The Prime Minister who thumped his chest and said Canada's back when he was elected has presided over yet another global laughingstock that is a made-in-Canada export.
00:07:27.920You know we're not exporting a lot of stuff, we're not exporting as much oil, but you better believe we are exporting national shame with abandon.
00:07:34.700If you could invest in national shame, you'd actually be a very rich person because that stock is getting higher and higher in value with each passing day of this government.
00:07:43.940Now, this is, for a lot of people, very challenging.
00:07:47.580Jews who were trying to commemorate and honor Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar,
00:07:53.180have instead been speaking around their dinner tables and lunch tables about this and about the shame they feel.
00:08:00.780And I am not Jewish. I know many, many Jewish people, and I have a great many Jewish friends,
00:08:05.220and I've loved my two times in Israel, and I think these people have been through a fair bit.
00:08:10.020And the historic trauma they carry about the Holocaust is certainly emblazoned when acts
00:08:16.220of Holocaust denial or Holocaust diminishment come up, or even ignorant things like this
00:08:22.620that are re-traumatizing those who have a very deep history with the Nazis for understandable
00:08:29.400reasons are upset about stuff like this.
00:14:06.260He is the Domestic Policy Director for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and it's always good to talk to him.
00:14:12.360Aaron, Nazi on the floor of the House of Commons, or I guess in the gallery, not something either of us would have had on our bingo cards, was it?
00:14:19.580No, I mean, this is just a colossal mess, and obviously the Trudeau government has no shortage of problems on its plate right now,
00:14:26.400so this is really not something that they needed today.
00:14:29.520Look, put me in the camp of saying that the Speaker needs to resign on this, right?
00:14:34.160It's not a point of principle. And this is something that's been absent from this government, because let's I mean, the speaker does have a degree of independence, but he is still a liberal MP. And this government has continually dodged what's known as ministerial responsibility. You know, you know, it used to be, Andrew, that when you wanted to take responsibility, there had to be some consequence, right? You had to pay some price, you had to resign. Now, you just say the words, I take full responsibility, and it's supposed to go away. And I think a lot of people think that's very hollow.
00:15:01.540And so the point here is, you know, I don't believe for a second that Anthony Rota deliberately, you know, found this guy or even had any idea really who he was.
00:15:11.380But that's not the point. The point is that someone needs to be held responsible.
00:15:14.880And in our system of government, whether it's the speaker, whether it's a minister, when your staff or someone below you screws up, you have to fall on your sword.
00:15:22.500That's the price you pay. It doesn't matter that it wasn't your fault directly in the sense that you didn't do something deliberately wrong.
00:15:28.620You have to pay the price. And I think, as you already mentioned, now even Liberals are coming out and saying they don't know how he can continue. So I think he will go. I don't know that's going to put an end to it because, of course, the Conservatives are going to assert that PMO knew. I don't know either way whether they did. But again, it's certainly in keeping with the pattern where this government wants to always throw someone else under the bus and say, we had nothing to do with it. It's not our fault. That's just the way they operate. And this situation is no different.
00:15:57.600Yes, and we certainly see the Liberal government here being very convenient in its detachment of the Speaker as a Liberal member of Parliament from the Liberal Party and Liberal government.
00:16:09.560I mean, yes, the Speaker of the House of Commons is an ostensibly nonpartisan role, and the Speaker is supposed to preside over debates fairly and even-handedly.
00:16:18.660But at the end of the day, this is a man elected as a Liberal member of Parliament.
00:16:21.940And when it was expedient for the Liberals to just throw him under the bus, their point was to stress the independence of the role, the independent Speaker of the House.
00:16:31.240I think it was the Prime Minister's office had called or had referred to him as in its statement.
00:16:38.000Yeah, it's very convenient now, right?
00:16:40.860So, again, but that's par for the course for this government.
00:16:44.340You know, I did want to play devil's advocate a bit on one thing, Andrew, and that is sort of people saying, how could people have missed this?
00:16:50.240because you had, you know, you have the Speaker, the real problem is that he was recognized in
00:16:55.380Parliament, right? The Speaker chose to recognize this person. And in a way, it's a really unfortunate
00:17:00.480series of events. The only reason this person is there is because he happens to be a constituent
00:17:04.580of the Speaker, right? The Speaker represents North Bay, Ontario riding. This guy lives in
00:17:09.660North Bay. Apparently, his son asked the Speaker if he could come. So, you know, it is a little
00:17:15.200bit unfortunate that nobody did their homework. But the thing is, people say, well, how could you,
00:17:19.300you know, knowingly, you know, applaud a Nazi. Well, I would say this, Andrew, in 2023, if
00:17:25.480someone said, you know, it's a, we have a veteran here who is in the Ukrainian First Division who
00:17:30.760fought the Russians, you know, that sounds kind of, if you're, if you're a young person in 2023,
00:17:36.640there's nothing offensive about that. Of course, if you say there, there were an SS member who
00:17:40.440fought the Allies in the Second World War, that is obviously a problem, but that's, that's not
00:17:45.200way it was phrased so i think the language played a big role here is that you know if if people had
00:17:49.840used the right terminology and as you said earlier if people had just done a little bit of digging
00:17:54.080saying okay ukrainian first division what is that right that that could mean something very different
00:17:58.720in 1944 than it does in 2023 and i think that was the big mistake someone did just not connect the
00:18:04.720dots and say this person was a literal you know nazi uh i i simply think that nobody bothered to
00:18:11.760check yeah and i mean and if you look up the history of it the first ukrainian division was
00:18:17.000a bit of a rebranding to as i've understood distance from the ss vafa name so yes i mean
00:18:22.620that name is itself a euphemism and i i wanted to go back to that comment you made about you know
00:18:28.640just saying you take responsibility doesn't actually amount to it uh pardon the pop culture
00:18:33.820insertion here, but it reminded me of this moment. I declare bankruptcy.
00:18:56.340Hey, I just wanted you to know that you can't just say the word bankruptcy and expect anything
00:19:01.800to happen i didn't say it i declared it still so that's basically what the speaker has done here
00:19:09.960isn't it it is but and you know i've mentioned other ministers in this government have done the
00:19:14.320same thing where they if at first they deny or deflect eventually they say well you know what
00:19:18.340i accept full responsibility and then as soon as a reporter says well what does that mean
00:19:22.040the response is well it means i accept full responsibility that's that's that's all it is
00:19:26.280and i i think that you know we talk a lot these days andrew about declining trust and cynicism
00:19:31.160in public. And I think this contributes to it, right? Like in the real world, if you make a
00:19:35.080mistake, there's usually some consequence or some punishment or something. It's not just,
00:19:39.320you know, if you're a kid, you get grounded, you know, you lose your allowance or you get fired
00:19:43.480or you get suspended, your pay dock. What is a minister in the Trudeau government or the speaker
00:19:49.240in this case, what is the price they're paying? What is the consequence? There is none. And I
00:19:53.500think that's why most people think it's a pretty hollow thing to just use the words.
00:19:57.520well and i would also point out here that the these sorts of blunders on a rather epic scale
00:20:04.060are not really out of character for this government now and i you know i mentioned when
00:20:08.780we were talking about the india stuff which was you know the biggest story in the world for a
00:20:12.860week before this thing came up there is something to this government i think about it having really
00:20:17.820surrendered the right to get the benefit of the doubt and i really think because of its conduct
00:20:22.260and its history of these sorts of things when something like this arises people are not really
00:20:27.140willing to give them that benefit of the doubt anymore. Yeah, I agree. And look, there are people
00:20:32.880that won't like this government because of the policy choices they make. I certainly have been
00:20:36.700a big critic of most of the policy decisions of this government. But more fundamentally,
00:20:40.460there's a competence issue, right? And I think, you know, and you've even heard liberals,
00:20:45.220especially ones who've parted this government, say so out loud is that, you know, the prime
00:20:49.360minister has a very small circle of people, in some cases, maybe even one person now in the form
00:20:54.120of Katie Telford that are basically trying to run the whole country. And it's a bit of a bottleneck
00:20:59.420to say the least when you have everything having to flow up this very narrow bottleneck. And that
00:21:03.860leads to these kinds of things, all kinds of decisions that aren't getting treated very
00:21:07.880seriously or in a timely way. So aside from your policy differences, if you don't like what this
00:21:13.220government's doing, there's just a basic competence issue. They're just not able to deal with things
00:30:57.320I alluded to it there, but what is the profile of a firearms business owner in Canada?
00:31:04.220Typically, you hit the nail right on the head.
00:31:06.180It's one of those things where most of them are mom-and-pop shops.
00:31:09.600Typically, you're looking at an employee base of 5 to 12 employees.
00:31:15.000In many cases, a rural business or in a non-urban area is where most of our businesses are located.
00:31:21.980one of the things i should point out when i was filming uh that documentary in which your
00:31:27.580your predecessor in your position was a featured guest one of the challenges whenever we were
00:31:32.540interviewing owners of gun stores is that every five minutes someone's walking in and they were
00:31:37.580old friends they knew each other i mean these things have actually become somewhat of community
00:31:42.460hubs as well your neighborhood gun store for people that are in sport shooting and in hunting
00:31:46.860and and that's not something that a lot of businesses in this day and age get to do
00:31:50.460No, it's a very unique situation. We always like that old hot stove league mentality where you have a lot of folks coming in on a regular basis to go ahead and chew the fat about their event and their sport, and they like to come in and talk about it.
00:32:10.640And it's a very small, close-knit community for sure.
00:32:13.940And it crosses a lot of different realms of employment.
00:32:17.360You know, there's people that are farmers and rural shooters and hunters.
00:32:22.020But then you have lots of urban gentlemen and ladies that participate in law enforcement and the military
00:32:27.800that like to practice their craft outside of their work.
00:32:30.860So there's a lot of different aspects at play.
00:32:33.880Okay. So I know that the handgun ban, when I believe we lost you, so we'll have to get Wes
00:32:41.940back there. I'm speaking to half of my, there we go. I was speaking to half of my logo there.
00:32:46.000I know that the handgun ban was actually quite a boon for gun stores. I know gun stores all of a
00:32:51.280sudden couldn't like sell handguns quickly enough because there was a bit of a phase in period. But
00:32:56.280for the order and council, this effectively locked up huge amounts of inventory that,
00:33:02.180I mean, certainly in the cases of businesses I've spoken to, they've not been able to do anything with for effectively three years now.
00:33:11.120Like, what are the effects of that if you're a gun retailer?
00:35:19.540And to be honest, the OIC is so poorly written, which is why we've had this long delay and why there's so much, you know, it's so difficult to bring this program forward.
00:35:29.220Because we're really at a spot yet where we still haven't quite determined what actually was prohibited.
00:35:35.000You know, you mentioned at the start of your segment at 1,500 makes and models.
00:35:38.220And that was what was originally listed by the government.
00:35:40.420But then they've added on 300, 354 mixing models that they found out were caught under the same net as the original prohibition.
00:35:49.020So we're still trying to determine what exactly was prohibited because it was so poorly written by the Minister Blair in his office at the time.
00:35:55.820And again, if there had been consultation back before this, there may not have been quite such a mess.
00:36:00.340But now, of course, we're stuck trying to figure out how to deal with this regulation.
00:36:05.860And we're currently going through that.
00:36:07.920now there is some consultation but uh you know the slow turning wheels of the government are
00:36:13.960very difficult to fight through especially when you have such a convoluted program one thing a
00:36:18.440lot of people don't understand about these firearms is they're so modular in nature and
00:36:22.340there's so many different moving pieces and they're kind of like a mr potato head of guns
00:36:27.160type of thing where you're putting different snapping different pieces on and some of those
00:36:30.480pieces are prohibited some of them are not but some of them can be used in other firearms some
00:36:33.740of them can't and therefore they're trying to figure out how to how to properly gather all the
00:36:38.840information that is required there yeah and i was actually going to ask about that because you know
00:36:45.500there certainly is a huge huge market for accessories for firearms and i've not been told
00:36:51.540and you may have a different perspective this but i've not been told that a gun buyback would extend
00:36:56.460to accessories so there may be a no real way to recoup that money well so again we only get to
00:37:03.620deal with the business aspect we have no interest or no communication on the uh on the individual
00:37:08.620buyback uh i mean from a business perspective if you have a bunch of accessories in your warehouse
00:37:13.480which maybe you can return to the distributor but maybe you can't i mean there may be no compensation
00:37:18.300for that and no retail market for it now yeah no there and there has been extensive consultation
00:37:23.400on the on the um on all the parts and the different components of the firearms uh there has been an
00:37:29.740extensive discussion going on about that uh obviously um uh from our dealer's perspective
00:37:35.300because so many of these things are modular nature we wouldn't be a part of anything if the parts and
00:37:40.520accessories were not included so uh we've been a large discussion on how those parts will be
00:37:45.280compensated for especially from those of uh our members that are manufacturers you know they don't
00:37:50.520want to have to take the time to assemble these firearms to be turned in it makes no sense
00:37:55.400whatsoever to put that extra expense on there. So, you know, they have bins and bins apart to
00:38:00.280these manufacturers and they need to be compensated for as well. Just in closing here, I'll ask you
00:38:06.320about what the dollar value would be. Not an individual dollar value, but in general, the
00:38:11.860approach to a dollar value would be that would take the sting out a little bit. Because if the
00:38:16.180government were to say, we'll reimburse you for the cost you purchased this at to businesses,
00:38:21.000that doesn't really take into account the warehousing the opportunity cost you know if
00:38:25.840they had to you know take out debt for example to buy the inventory in the first place but i also
00:38:30.980don't think government really wants to be enriching or in its view enriching business owners by paying
00:38:36.340a premium like what would the reasonable middle ground be well there's probably uh you know what
00:38:43.200is the current retail value of that item is probably where the current middle ground is
00:38:47.340You know, it absolutely does not compensate us for our losses. You know, whenever you have inventory tied up for three years, there should be six to 12 turns on that on that inventory. And we're not going to get compensated for that. And we're well aware of that. But at the same time, storage and insurance costs aren't being compensated either. So our losses are still going to be immense.
00:39:06.860but uh you know the middle ground that uh i am assuming we're going to hopefully end up at is
00:39:11.600is the retail value for the items um and uh you know that's um remains to be seen if that's where
00:39:17.820they go but it still won't take the sting out of it and uh especially the the biggest cost that
00:39:23.720our businesses have is the is the training of staff it's the marketing that's
00:39:29.880oh uh we i think we you muted yourself there wes oh i apologize there we go we got you now
00:39:39.520sorry about that uh some technical stuff there uh but yes we have uh so much invested in the
00:39:45.320marketing and and the training of our staff and the sting of that will never go away uh it's it's
00:39:50.060something that uh you know business has had tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of
00:39:54.520dollars invested in and that's all out the window and it's an absolute collapse of that part of the
00:39:58.780industry. Wes Winkle is the president of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association.
00:40:04.460I thank you for making your way through the tech issues there, right? You solved the better than
00:40:09.260anyone else we have on the show is usually able to. So thanks very much, Wes. Good to talk to you.
00:40:15.180All right. And of course, we end with you on mute. I jinxed it there, but in any event,
00:40:18.960it was good to talk to Wes. And let me say that, you know, I remember there was one interview.
00:40:24.200you should go back and watch Assaulted. I'm very proud of that. It's at assaulted.ca. And there
00:40:29.240was one couple I spoke to, Wyatt and Shana Singer, this, again, husband and wife couple with a
00:40:35.100beautiful, beautiful young son that lives on this great property out in rural Alberta.
00:40:39.400And they just started in their shop, a firearms manufacturing business, because they wanted to
00:40:45.140design a non-restricted firearm that would suit their needs. And it was entirely modular. They
00:40:51.820designed it to the letter of the regulation to be non-restricted and they invested their life
00:40:57.680savings in this they learned machining they bought a bunch of equipment they did so much
00:41:02.000and they made this to follow the letter of the law and the letter of the regulations and then
00:41:08.540the government just flips the switch and prohibits it it basically eliminated the only product this
00:41:14.880couple sold and I showed this to a couple of people I know that are not fans of firearms
00:41:20.200and one of them in particular had said well I don't like guns but I can't believe what they've
00:41:27.540done to that couple and that to me is a win and I think it's important for gun owners to accept
00:41:33.540that as I said in my keynote speech at the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights AGM which
00:41:38.660you can watch online a couple of months back you know people that don't like guns are not going to
00:41:43.060be wooed over by arguments about how owning guns should be a right they're going to be wooed over
00:41:47.960though by human stories. And when people see what the government's approach to this has done
00:41:52.440to ordinary people, to ordinary business owners that could own a bookstore or a gourmet food store
00:41:58.440or a firearm store or a lawnmower store, it doesn't matter, people start to realize at the
00:42:04.220very least the injustice in how it's being done and how the government has just kicked people in
00:42:10.620this industry because it's decided that it can paint for political points gun owners as villains.
00:42:15.820So we'll leave it there. My thanks to all of you for tuning in. We'll be back with more of the Andrew Lawton Show and perhaps a new Speaker of the House tomorrow. Well, we probably won't get a new Speaker until Thursday, but I will tell you also the event of the century, I'm going to be overly ambitious there, is True North Nation. It is coming to Calgary October 21st, which is a Saturday. It's going to be a full day event. I'll be there. Rupa Subramania will be there.
00:42:41.300Harrison Faulkner, Rachel Emanuel, and a very, very, very special guest that we will be announcing
00:42:48.000this week. So you might want to book your ticket now by trusting me that it's going to be a good
00:42:52.900guest before things sell out, because I think they may sell out once we announce this person. So
00:42:57.800that is coming up, and I do hope to see you all there. We will talk to you tomorrow, though.
00:43:01.800Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.
00:43:05.040Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North