Juno News - Looking back at the Freedom Convoy (ft. Benjamin Dichter)

00:00:00.000 well hello everybody and welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show a very Merry Christmas happy

00:00:22.440 Hanukkah to everyone celebrating and I hope you have a great New Year and that it starts

00:00:29.880 off on a good note and I'm really excited about 2023 I hope it's a little less crazy than 2022 to be

00:00:38.720 honest with you now speaking of 2022 as it winds down I want to reflect on what I think is by far

00:00:46.000 was by far the most important news event in Canada and a very important event even in the world

00:00:52.500 and this past year and I'm of course referring to the Freedom Convoy protests which took place

00:00:58.760 right here in Ottawa steps away from where I live the Freedom Convoy as you know came to Ottawa to

00:01:05.420 protest pandemic restrictions such as lockdowns mass mandates and vaccine mandates it came here at the

00:01:14.820 end of January and lasted for about three weeks till about the middle of February and a lot of people

00:01:21.740 felt that the Freedom Convoy protests you know brought with it a sense of hope and vitality

00:01:29.060 and especially for those who had been adversely affected by pandemic measures such as the vaccine

00:01:36.860 the federal vaccine mandates and the mass mandates of course now as we all know this peaceful civil

00:01:44.520 disobedience which is what it was was brutally suppressed by the Trudeau government under the

00:01:49.960 guise of the emergencies act many of you will know that I reported quite extensively on the

00:01:55.840 protests in real time I was there every day morning till late in the evening spoke to many people over

00:02:03.140 the course of those three weeks and I also got to know a lot of people involved I made a lot of

00:02:08.140 friends some of them are very dear to me and and my guest today was literally one of the key faces of

00:02:15.820 the protests and has recently come out with a book about the protests called honking for freedom the

00:02:23.140 trucker convoy that gave us hope I am talking about Benjamin Dichter who joins me today he really needs no

00:02:29.560 introduction but if you haven't do check out his new book which has a wonderful forward by Jordan

00:02:36.540 Peterson hi Ben it's great to have you on the show at long last welcome to the show it's really hard to

00:02:43.420 believe that it was just this past winter when we first met at that first ever press conference that

00:02:50.200 you and your fellow organizers of the freedom convoy protests gave in the Swiss hotel in downtown Ottawa

00:02:58.520 in many ways I'd say that you were the face and the voice of the protests at that time a lot has happened

00:03:05.780 since then including I believe some distancing between yourself and some of the other original organizers of

00:03:11.740 the convoy I wonder if you could reflect on what took place here in Ottawa and how things have evolved

00:03:18.520 since then yeah the only thing I would I would characterize differently I don't think there's

00:03:23.980 distance between myself and other members of the convoy okay if anything were more we've become closer than

00:03:29.760 anything myself and Chad and Bridget and Chris Guerra we've all kind of found each other a number of the

00:03:35.200 truckers who I never got the chance to meet during the convoy we've all kind of found each other and

00:03:40.460 started talking so the exact opposite the only thing that there's been a rift is between myself

00:03:45.800 and my former uh legal representative that I've replaced them with and a couple of the organizers

00:03:53.160 two of the organizers are somewhat in my opinion captured by that organization but the rest of us are

00:03:59.120 all on the same um on the same team and still concerned about many of the different many of the

00:04:05.360 the same issues that we faced in the past we're worried about we want to make sure this doesn't

00:04:08.940 happen again yeah um but uh so that's that's kind of the frame that I look at because I talk to them

00:04:15.360 frequently you know at this point um but you know hearkening back to uh the convoy itself where do you

00:04:23.440 want to start there's there's so much that's going on I mean I know Russell Brand this week who would

00:04:28.960 have thought that would happen well yeah I mean my life has also changed because of the protests

00:04:33.680 yours as I think pretty much everybody even even for the protesters I mean it was um you know one of

00:04:39.640 those events that just uh you never saw it you you didn't see it coming but when it happened it was

00:04:44.820 incredible just one of the most incredible experiences of my life uh but yeah I mean where do

00:04:49.660 we begin like I remember meeting you at the Swiss Hotel and you were a little apprehensive about a

00:04:54.560 mainstream media journalist being in the room no no no no no no I I specifically asked maybe you

00:05:03.180 don't know this I called Anthony Fury uh um uh what's called um Anthony Fury yeah who who is now with

00:05:10.900 True North that's right so I called him yeah uh me and Tom called him and said listen because I said

00:05:16.660 I want to at least try yeah to get somebody affiliated with legacy media who is credible and honest

00:05:23.500 so we called Anthony and we're going through a couple he's listing a couple of names and then

00:05:28.880 he said uh you know who'd be good a Rupa would be good she's in Ottawa and she's an honest actor 0.93

00:05:34.160 she's not gonna you know promulgate a narrative if it's false right and uh I said okay and got your

00:05:41.200 email address and I sent you an email so I actually wanted you that's right right and at that point I

00:05:47.020 think you were writing for it was for the National Post yeah yeah I I still am I mean I'm still a

00:05:52.380 freelancer for them but uh yeah no actually you're absolutely right I think I'm uh mixing you up with

00:05:58.880 uh several of the other people who were at the Swiss Hotel and they were a little apprehensive I think

00:06:03.660 about uh um you know legacy media journalists being in the room but yes I absolutely remember

00:06:08.920 Anthony Fury emailing me and uh saying this is press conference please go to it if you can and I'm glad

00:06:14.940 I did because um I thought that was a very important um uh event in in you know in helping set sort of

00:06:23.440 this you know narrative your own narrative right um and already before the protesters that even uh you

00:06:31.200 know they even came to the capital you already had this um um establishment narrative from the

00:06:36.620 mainstream media and others that uh these guys were a bunch of far-right uh uh you know nut jobs

00:06:44.460 uh you know going to pull a January 6th style insurrection and blah blah blah and whatever you

00:06:51.280 think of the January 6th thing whether it actually you know it it was um you know if it was uh a nothing

00:06:58.500 burger or there was something to it I I don't it doesn't matter the point is that you know there was a lot

00:07:03.680 of fear-mongering at that at that point and I'm glad I um I spent that whole day walking through the

00:07:10.260 protest and then I came to the press conference and I wanted to hear you guys uh you know and I

00:07:15.540 wanted to ask you those questions and I remember asking you you know so what do you say to people

00:07:20.320 who say that this is what you're up to and you were extremely honest yeah I mean you know the the

00:07:26.920 legacy media at that point from my perspective was largely trying to ignore it so there was only a

00:07:32.800 couple of stories about it yeah of course they were trying to smear and admonish us uh it is what

00:07:39.980 it is but it really didn't seem to get a lot of traction it was still it still didn't hit like the

00:07:45.940 mainstream of legacy media it was still kind of flying under the radar you could tell they didn't

00:07:50.680 know what uh to do at that point and how to deal with it and that's why you know we did that press

00:07:56.180 conference which was two hours and 20 minutes long and then after you left we did an out me and

00:08:01.880 Tamara did an hour with rebel news and hoping that would get you know the full story out in our

00:08:07.600 context uh that never saw the light of day I still don't know to this day why still haven't gotten an

00:08:12.500 answer but um yeah I mean listen the legacy media they can say whatever they want I can say you know

00:08:19.880 Justin Trudeau kills puppy dogs uh that doesn't make it true but that's what they do and that's what 0.99

00:08:25.540 they did to us and I knew over time that if we remained peaceful we stayed in that that um aura

00:08:33.640 of positivity and you know had this community feeling about us which we really tried to work on that's

00:08:40.340 what ended up you know getting the bouncy castles and the barbecues and the the soup kitchens and all

00:08:45.720 that sort of stuff right there's one particular group in that I always remember this is the first

00:08:50.280 group I met with after the convoy in the beginning of summer and end of spring that sort of time

00:08:56.620 there's a there was a group about a hundred of them from around the um uh Brantford area they had a

00:09:03.480 barbecue just kind of a reunion barbecue and this is about a hundred people that were helping each

00:09:08.500 other because they were all parked together in Ottawa so they were getting each other food getting

00:09:13.300 each other ice and water and stuff like that and they were there for three weeks straight

00:09:16.760 and they formed very very long and strong friendships and it was just an honor to be

00:09:22.820 invited uh to go and meet with some of them at one of their regular barbecues and that's kind of the

00:09:28.640 whole spirit of what the convoy was you know whether it's you look at I often talk about that mood of the

00:09:35.880 Grateful Dead concerts when I was younger or we see a lot of this on the left from Burning Man in

00:09:42.060 California that was really you know if you like Burning Man then you would have loved Trudeau's

00:09:48.460 truck stop because it was exactly the same uh tone and feeling around it it was just it was absolutely

00:09:55.500 wonderful oh yeah no absolutely there was no escaping it like um you know I've said this many many times

00:10:00.780 I went there looking for the bad stuff the the Nazi flags and swastikas and 0.97

00:10:08.640 racists yelling at me but I had the opposite experience I was quite uh it was an atmosphere

00:10:16.080 of love and um you know and um and and it was extraordinary to experience that uh you know as

00:10:23.120 the pandemic pandemic uh was raging on but you know so but uh Benjamin like I want to ask you like

00:10:29.360 what drew you into this movement in the first place like what uh how did it all begin for you

00:10:35.960 I mean for me on a personal level it started long before then like I had a business on Ryerson

00:10:42.140 University's campus for many years okay so I saw the creep of uh in my interpretation extremist

00:10:49.440 post-modernism and subjectivism I saw a change in real time over the years that I was on my business

00:10:55.960 was on campus you can see that the student body and the faculty completely changed like there was

00:11:03.160 some sort of brain disease or as Dr Gad Saad calls it the parasitic mind that this brain disease was

00:11:10.220 expanding across uh the faculty and the student body you know students would come in completely normal

00:11:16.760 after high school my dad was a high school teacher by the way so I'm not you know new to uh high school

00:11:22.600 students and uh they would come out come in like completely normal students and after four years

00:11:28.600 they would walk out uh extremist subjectivist victimization uh they would have you know green

00:11:36.480 and yellow colored hair and they would have subscribed to one of the many many of the diversity cults

00:11:42.680 and they would just be angry and have nothing but vitriol and hatred at the world and it got worse

00:11:48.120 and worse every year my business was uh we did graphics and printing like you know not books but like

00:11:54.360 graphic printing and you could see the nature of the artwork that would come in uh when we first when

00:12:00.840 we were first there to how it changed over the years so you know I've been sensitive to this change

00:12:06.840 because of that uh I produce a podcast for Dr Stephen Hicks who wrote explaining post-modernism

00:12:13.160 it's one of the many conduits I had to Jordan Peterson was through Stephen and got a very good

00:12:18.900 understanding of the underlying philosophy that's been driving this change in universities and now

00:12:24.280 we're at the age where this disease has now infected our politics so now all politics is run by

00:12:30.940 these subjectivists and if you understand their philosophy the underlying philosophy Justin Trudeau

00:12:37.180 makes complete sense and he's completely predictable as is as are most of the people in the the political

00:12:43.900 class at this point and this was just a natural evolution at some point there needed to be some sort

00:12:49.340 of pushback in 2018 Tamara and a number of others tried to have a convoy in to Ottawa they got there

00:12:58.220 unfortunately they got involved with one of the political parties which always ends the movement

00:13:04.540 because of being okay now we hear you we'll take over from now and go home and it kind of it's a little

00:13:10.860 bit of that but more complicated to what happened and me and Tamara decided from the very beginning when

00:13:15.820 she called me on the 15th of January I said we can't do what you guys did in 2015 no political parties

00:13:22.700 the only political parties we want to talk to are the ones who can drop the mandates and drop the

00:13:27.900 arrive can and she said absolutely absolutely that's what we're gonna do and I said okay great

00:13:33.260 and I was on board I just happened to also own a truck I'm an owner operator and I drive you know to

00:13:39.900 the this was my my salvation during the COVID years was to be able to get out of the country and drive to

00:13:48.140 the U.S. and I wish more Canadians could see what was going on in the United States versus Canada

00:13:54.700 because it was like coming back to a different planet every time I would cross the border

00:13:58.540 come back into Canada it was a completely different world but people who are here who are still walking 0.56

00:14:03.420 around with masks they wouldn't have seen that and um so yeah that it was just a natural progression

00:14:10.620 yeah well um yeah I mean when you when you arrived in Ottawa for example did you um did you

00:14:17.820 realize that the convoy would be as momentous as it turned out to be um well when when Tamara first

00:14:26.060 reached out to me and I said to her you know how big do you want to make this thing and I was being

00:14:29.900 a little you know coy there's no question and she said well let's make it as big as it can like well

00:14:35.100 I mean I have I can run a strategy that might work because I know a lot of uh well-known people that I

00:14:41.500 usually keep quiet about and I said but I can try let me see what I can do if you wanted to be big

00:14:46.780 I'll make it as big as I can and I arrived in Ottawa I don't know well mission accomplished I guess

00:14:53.340 it was um it was absolutely amazing to see just thousands of people all over the city from all

00:15:01.100 different you could tell different political persuasions one of the first groups of people

00:15:05.100 I remember seeing they had a peace sign with the tie-dye wearing tie-dye like I was going to a

00:15:11.900 grateful dead concert it was great and then at the same time you had I took some pictures of it

00:15:16.700 actually the the line of thousands of Quebecers who had been under Legault's lockdown crossed the

00:15:23.420 border on foot and came up I've mentioned this many times came up to parliament parliament hill

00:15:28.940 and just started meeting with and talking to truckers who were many of them were from Alberta

00:15:34.060 Saskatchewan or many of them as well uh were eastern European descent and so they have uh strong

00:15:41.260 memories of what communism did to their families and that's what motivated them so it was just

00:15:47.100 absolutely amazing to see how much love was in the air and everybody was wearing Canadian flags

00:15:52.540 and uh it was the day after I arrived I think it was the day after within a couple of days the first

00:15:59.260 interview the second interview that I did uh it was with an independent journalist who was um working

00:16:06.940 for I think I-24 in France she was a Quebecer so he did his interview and she loved it all the whole vibe

00:16:13.900 about peace and love and coming together despite our differences and all that sort of stuff and after

00:16:19.900 she we ended the um the recording I said to her so you know now that I can ask you a question how

00:16:27.420 how are you effective and she said you know I um I used to be a separatist until I saw the trucks coming

00:16:36.460 across can and I realized that we're all aligned with wanting our freedom back and she said I bought my

00:16:44.700 first Canadian flag I'm no longer a separatist and that was really significant you know I think of

00:16:51.260 of our generation growing up around the angst of you know separatism and party quebecois to say here's a

00:16:58.380 journalist who was fully on board with them who it just in a couple of weeks understood what it meant

00:17:05.020 to be Canadian and for us to unify it was it was amazing moment yeah no I um I that uh that's such an

00:17:13.020 incredible story I'm reminded of this time when uh the prime minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada

00:17:18.860 was a post-national state and there are no real identities and uh and and whatnot and we're all

00:17:25.100 just doing our own thing but I think he was proven wrong and I have written about this uh during the

00:17:30.940 protests he was absolutely proven wrong on this because pretty much everybody I met and spoke to

00:17:36.060 um had a strong sense of who they were and why they were there and I was the opposite as you say and

00:17:43.180 as you know and I've said this and many others have noted this as well it actually the protests brought

00:17:48.940 the country together in a way that hadn't happened for a very very long time well I would like to quote

00:17:57.500 prime minister blackface Trudeau in saying quote I am not the intellectual my father was end quote and that's

00:18:05.900 that's one of the true statements he's made in his life he is uh and not that I'm a huge supporter of uh

00:18:13.020 Pierre Trudeau but even he was a a giant a gigantic intellectual compared to junior yeah uh we'll we'll get

00:18:22.860 to Justin Trudeau in in a bit because uh on this actually um and his uh performance at the public inquiry

00:18:30.380 into the emergencies act just in a little bit but you know just going back to those in early days of

00:18:35.980 the protests um you know one of my recollections from that time was that in the in the midst of all

00:18:42.140 of this chaos and confusion uh you know I always noticed that you were your messaging was always

00:18:47.980 very consistent it was about peace love unity um you know distance yourselves from uh those who

00:18:55.660 uh you know come here for other reasons uh and and you know and you know you always maintained

00:19:02.140 common composure throughout that time um how did you manage to do that uh when there were so many

00:19:07.740 moving parts and so much uncertainty about the about what the authorities would do

00:19:14.700 I'm just a naturally pretty positive person and uh I don't let things rattle me

00:19:20.380 uh I I quite enjoy conflict when people try to be uh try to bring conflict to me like okay game on

00:19:29.500 like it doesn't really bother me I don't let my emotions you know yeah I'll I'll get a little bit

00:19:33.900 feisty in my conversation but I'll actually get upset and in fact there are many times throughout

00:19:40.380 the protests where you know Tamara didn't have a handler uh I put a little bit of a moat around myself

00:19:46.060 in that I went to the media room which is my hotel room and my suite with my team and focused on

00:19:52.620 anything send it to me through Tamara or some of the other organizers that we appointed because I can't

00:19:58.620 I'm already dealing with 10 000 messages an hour on twitter and online I need to have some sort of

00:20:04.220 whatever but Tamara and I suggested to her let's give you get you a handler but she didn't want to 1.00

00:20:09.020 because she's a very personal person she's a very one-on-one communicator and I can understand how

00:20:15.260 that made her uncomfortable but many times she'd come to my room and she'd be like oh I just need

00:20:21.580 to relax I'm going for a cigarette and then she comes she's like can I have a hug let's have a hug

00:20:26.220 relax calm each other down because at the end of the day um and maybe because I've lived in some very

00:20:32.380 dangerous countries and you know when you live in a neighborhood where you don't know if your 0.92

00:20:36.460 neighbor's narcotraficante or they're paramilitary you learn that there's certain things to really be

00:20:42.540 worried about and I didn't think this was one uh I thought and the fact that I saw everybody

00:20:48.860 had abandoned the the temptation to go into a state of anxiety and anger and came on board with peace

00:20:56.220 and love um once I saw chief slowly in fact on February 3rd when he made the statement to I think

00:21:04.380 it was one of the Toronto news stations or whatever it was uh he said uh this rook they've been peaceful

00:21:11.660 this requires a political solution not a policing solution I thought yes they got it they know we're

00:21:19.420 here we're peaceful we're not here to be adversarial towards the police or even the government just the

00:21:24.620 policy that we need to change of uh that gave me a lot of hope and despite the certain randlings from

00:21:32.300 people trying to get us all worried and say oh the police are going to raid tonight you know how many

00:21:37.020 times they said the police are not going to raid just chill relax just relax they're not going to

00:21:41.660 raid and um so I just tend to maintain my composure under pressure that's just how I am well yeah no it

00:21:48.380 was extraordinary I I would uh you know if that would have just really I would have had a nervous

00:21:53.580 breakdown if I were no I if I were if I'd been in your shoes but I mean it was so incredibly um so much

00:22:00.700 going on um you know the whole three weeks uh it just got more and more intense I think as time went

00:22:07.340 on but uh but tell me I mean how do you think things have evolved since then are you are you satisfied

00:22:12.540 with how things are played out I think so I think I've had the advantage of uh since the convoy having

00:22:19.980 to travel down south both to you know I spoke at the at bitcoin Miami and then I went down uh to South

00:22:26.620 America to visit friends who I used to live with uh to relearn how to walk uh which was fun you know

00:22:33.660 going in a wheelchair to Latin America isn't exactly the night and it isn't exactly the march of dimes 0.98

00:22:38.780 if you know what I mean but uh so I got to see uh the effects not just within Canada but outside of

00:22:44.940 Canada and I think it amongst the international political community it's pretty much understood that

00:22:50.940 Justin Trudeau just a lame duck uh leader he has zero legitimacy at this point and most Canadians

00:22:58.140 I think are counting the days until he's um until he's out of office right um I also you know I 0.94

00:23:05.420 mentioned on uh I think it was on Russell Brand I mentioned that my friends in in Colombia who know

00:23:10.540 nothing about Canadian politics and I really don't get into politics when I'm down there they used to

00:23:15.020 say oh yeah Justin Trudeau is a young leader and he's so handsome and so smart and now they call him

00:23:20.940 uh Cara Negra Fidelito which means blackface little Fidel uh and it's not because of anything I told 0.56

00:23:27.900 them it's because they all saw what he did uh in front of the entire world and the interim chief police

00:23:35.820 bell has got to be the least employable person in law enforcement that still holds I don't understand

00:23:42.060 how he holds a job he single-handedly destroyed the reputation of policing around the world I even said

00:23:49.740 in a couple of interviews I think it was on Newsmax or GB News I said this is the opportunity for the

00:23:55.820 police force to push back against all the defund police nonsense and to show that they are good

00:24:03.980 community uh advocates and they will work within the community here's their opportunity and Steve Bell

00:24:11.100 took that and flushed it down the toilet in front of the entire world so the incompetence is not just

00:24:17.180 limited to Justin Trudeau there's plenty of it to spread all over the world right so I think that's

00:24:23.660 such and then also the fact that remember we were just we had just head into hard lockdowns in Ontario

00:24:30.140 there were mask mandates if you remember when we arrived in Ottawa as the first time people weren't

00:24:33.980 wearing masks in large crowds within Canada um and look how quickly that was reversed all of a sudden

00:24:42.860 the the fears of COVID and the super spreaders and when it's amazing how that's all gone now

00:24:47.900 just immediately yeah yeah because we're following the science right so that's right trust the science

00:24:55.260 is a religious statement it's not a scientific statement no I know you know to be honest with

00:24:59.820 you at one point I couldn't tell I don't know if you know this uh one of my favorite twitter handles

00:25:04.140 out there called Ottawa Gestapo and yes yes I do I actually know him quite well I couldn't tell the

00:25:10.780 difference between what Ottawa Gestapo was tweeting and what Ottawa police were tweeting it was like

00:25:15.980 almost identical it's brilliant yeah no yeah it was it was crazy I couldn't believe the police picked a

00:25:24.220 side let's face it they picked the side of the um of the residents uh in a sense I mean they shouldn't

00:25:32.620 be picking sides for one thing the law and order should be that's their concern but what when I say

00:25:38.380 they picked a side I'm saying that they they Chief Bell was employing the same using the same language as

00:25:45.180 the people who oppose the protests right like words are violence yeah uh calling it an occupation

00:25:51.500 and the language was incredibly charged and and of course he repeated the same talking points about

00:25:56.940 violence and this and that and of course we know through the hearings none of that was uh

00:26:02.700 and none of that could be proven there was really no evidence of it they were just hearing about

00:26:07.580 these things from people you know these the this these these were not actually substantiated in any way

00:26:14.300 uh but you know let's yeah go ahead go ahead sorry just to tell you what I think in addition

00:26:18.700 to that like I have a brother who's uh in policing he was very close to retirement and a couple of nephews

00:26:25.500 that are in policing so and I have a bunch of friends who are cops who I was messaging with

00:26:30.380 during the convoy so it's just wild to ask them what do you think they're doing now tell me what

00:26:35.340 you think they're doing they're like yeah they're completely they're a bunch of I mean they all knew

00:26:38.620 slowly from metro and they think they don't like him they don't like bell like I got all the kind of

00:26:44.220 drama behind the scenes what's happening in policing but the problem is we have this politicization of our

00:26:51.420 police force and you saw it in real time in Ottawa that's what these local police service boards are

00:26:58.220 they need to be abandoned they need to be destroyed because the the immunity leftist activists are the

00:27:04.220 ones who hire the police chiefs so then it becomes an entire politicized process and I I would argue

00:27:11.820 you even saw that in the commission because what did you see you saw um what's his name uh patrick

00:27:16.860 pat brown pat morris sorry who's head of the opp intelligence which is the largest intelligence

00:27:23.020 bureau in all of canada is opp intelligence from what I understand yeah he was what did he say he's

00:27:27.820 been he's been on that's right and he's been on the force for 36 years yeah so he he's he's getting

00:27:33.260 close to retirement he's like my brother saying you know what now I'm going to say whatever I want

00:27:37.340 and what did he say he said the truth he said the lack of violence was shocking something he'd never

00:27:44.380 seen in all his years of career of policing but on the other side you see the politicized police uh

00:27:50.540 people in policing and law enforcement who are applying for jobs in real time during the commission

00:27:56.860 for me it was disgusting because I know the talking points that police officers are supposed to say

00:28:03.260 to get promoted in policing now and that's what you heard from bell and all the others so the younger

00:28:09.420 ones were jockeying and slowly as well clearly wants to be back in law enforcement or maybe politics

00:28:16.060 they were applying for jobs but the few guys that were close to retirement that's where you heard

00:28:21.180 some honesty and I think that's what was happening uh within policing during the uh during the convoy as

00:28:26.460 well so it's not that they were choosing um the residents no they were choosing their political careers

00:28:33.500 or opportunities in policing over their job of community policing and protecting people because

00:28:40.220 their job as a police officer the primary thing is they're supposed to de-escalate that's it but the

00:28:46.620 government on every opportunity the federal government provincial and municipal government escalated

00:28:53.420 at every opportunity it was quite disgusting yeah um I mean that's a very important uh distinction

00:29:01.100 an interesting distinction that you make that there was a difference between people who were trying

00:29:05.900 to still um you know climb up the um the ladder uh as far as their career was concerned versus people

00:29:14.140 who were close to retirement and the ladder was more inclined to speak the truth than the than the former

00:29:20.380 um but uh you know what let's let's go to the emergencies act what what did you did you see it coming did you

00:29:27.980 see that did you anticipate uh the trudeau government first of all using the emergencies act to break up

00:29:35.020 the protests um and and did you also see the freezing of bank accounts of some of the protesters

00:29:43.100 no no it was actually it was interesting a little concerning during some of the testimony when people

00:29:47.820 were saying that oh we knew the emergency measures act was going to come in like excuse me perhaps you

00:29:53.820 forget being there we were all shocked like what whoa wait he's trying to do what his dad did come

00:30:00.060 on he can't be serious like we were blown away yeah nobody thought because he had so many different

00:30:07.020 things that he could have done first like first you know what they could have done could have talked to

00:30:10.940 us they just could have come out like how many times through tamara leach's account i invited jerry

00:30:17.500 butts to come for coffee and it was genuine i said we're not going to attack you come just talk to us

00:30:24.220 just you know be amongst us say hello that's it we'll have coffee let's you know what i mean but no

00:30:29.820 they didn't even have the courage to come for coffee these are the hashtag leadership class right so they

00:30:37.340 didn't they didn't um they didn't look to have any mediators to reach out to us they did nothing

00:30:43.500 because most of the government as i suspected i think we saw this in the commission most layers

00:30:49.100 of government were doing this it's his fault right it's all like no that's ottawa police no that's the

00:30:55.660 plt no it's the federal government no this everybody was doing this taking zero responsibility which is

00:31:02.140 what bureaucracy does that's why i'm a small government guy by the way and um i i knew during

00:31:09.100 it that this is probably what's going to go on just give it some time until they figure out who

00:31:14.860 ultimately is going to be assigned responsibility to deal with us and then we'll deal with them

00:31:19.020 and that's it and it'll be great we'll figure something out um but it was shocking that they

00:31:24.220 would go from trying to figure out who has to do what to implementing this for the amer for the americans

00:31:31.340 watching canada's version of martial law for some parking infractions that's what we're talking

00:31:38.700 about we're talking about trucks that were parked illegally or at least in violation of a bylaw

00:31:44.780 but there were still so many laneways for emergency vehicles like you walked around you saw a couple of

00:31:51.500 the streets you know wellington was particularly busy but there were always a laneway and all the

00:31:57.100 other subsequent streets i have pictures from in front of the arc hotel from tamara's hotel room actually

00:32:03.660 i took a picture from downstairs and what do you see you see a couple of big rigs parked in the green

00:32:09.020 p parking and two open laneways and that was two streets away from wellington that was what the arc

00:32:15.100 hotel is but this fake narrative like all our media is all fake pr press releases at this point trying

00:32:22.700 to promulgate this fiction and sell it to people like use your eyes she'll show you the pictures and

00:32:28.540 videos and luckily you were there and you witnessed it in uh in real time and i'm glad you were

Juno News - December 29, 2022

Looking back at the Freedom Convoy (ft. Benjamin Dichter)

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