Juno News - March 20, 2024


Meet the Canadians taking Justin Trudeau to court


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

203.07672

Word Count

6,310

Sentence Count

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 how can canadians attempt to hold our government accountable when that same government has
00:00:09.440 routinely displayed irreverence and contempt for even the concept of accountability well one of
00:00:14.240 the few legal ways that is still available to us as canadians for now is through the courts well
00:00:19.520 my next two guests are leading the fight against our government and our country's most powerful
00:00:23.760 institutions to hold them accountable for what they did to canadians during the freedom convoy
00:00:28.880 eddie cornell a man who served our country in uniform for over 22 years along with his lawyer
00:00:34.000 blair ector have just filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against justin trudeau several members of
00:00:39.440 his senior cabinet along with his national security staff canada's five major banks along with several
00:00:45.520 credit unions the rcmp the ottawa police and the canadian anti-hate network 20 plaintiffs are seeking
00:00:53.040 from the above-mentioned defendants over 2 million dollars in damages now each defendant in this case
00:00:58.320 had their bank account unconstitutionally frozen and several defendants are alleging that they
00:01:03.280 were victims of police brutality what justin trudeau's government did after declaring a
00:01:07.680 public order emergency against the freedom convoy impacted thousands of canadians but our next guests
00:01:13.360 are leading the charge to make sure that what happened in february of 2022 never happens to a
00:01:18.640 canadian again but we're now pleased to be joined by eddie cornell and blair ector thank you both so much
00:01:24.080 for coming on eddie i want to begin with you i want to go back to february 14th 2022 when justin
00:01:29.760 trudeau declared a public order emergency on the freedom convoy as the world was watching and you
00:01:35.840 were in the middle of ottawa you're in the middle of the freedom convoy and first i want to just go to
00:01:40.400 you and ask you what compelled you to join the protest and what happened to you when justin trudeau
00:01:46.160 invoked the emergencies act well what compelled me to join was i realized that you know what the
00:01:52.480 government was telling people didn't add up there was it didn't make sense you know that truckers for
00:01:58.640 example you know who sit all day in their own truck and really don't bother anybody had to be mandated
00:02:03.440 to take a vaccine and you know we'd been locked down long enough and things just didn't make sense to
00:02:08.720 me so i knew when i saw the trucker convoy starting to assemble um and heading to ottawa i knew i had to be
00:02:15.360 there and when when justin trudeau invoked the emergencies act take us through how you came to
00:02:22.160 realize that you no longer had access to the money you earned because of your light your your service
00:02:27.600 to our country well what happened was you know on the friday after it had been evoked i went to a cash
00:02:34.240 point and you know because you don't really carry a lot of cash most people like myself you know we
00:02:39.120 use our debit cards so i needed to take out some cash uh for a couple of things and it rejected me and
00:02:45.760 i was like you know like that can't be right and i so i thought well i'll have to deal with that in
00:02:51.280 the morning so that next morning saturday morning i decided you know i'd give the bank a call and i got
00:02:56.640 really vague information from an agent on the other end telling me to call the president and they
00:03:02.320 couldn't give me any information and my accounts just wouldn't show up and uh it got me pretty
00:03:08.960 concerned i can tell you that so you were able to actually get in contact with the bank president i
00:03:14.480 mean that that seems like they want you to go all the way up to the chain uh to the very top of the bank is
00:03:18.880 that was that a story similar to your other uh co-plaintiffs in this case well i can't speak for
00:03:25.120 them but you know in my case uh they didn't provide me with any information how i could speak to the
00:03:30.000 president um it was really vague i don't think they had a call like that in the past and uh i wasn't
00:03:36.320 getting anywhere and i i was i was like well what president do i call and they were you have to call
00:03:40.560 the president of the bank so i said well what can that do like how come i can't access my money and
00:03:45.680 they said well you know we're not able to give you that information on the telephone and
00:03:50.160 i realized it was a pointless conversation so i took some screenshots of uh you know what had
00:03:56.240 taken place um with my account and i saved those and uh they're pretty vague so yeah i i was really
00:04:05.120 concerned because i had a lot of money in there you know and everything i had was in that one bank
00:04:09.680 and uh it was gone there was there was no record of it um so all of the the other co-plaintiffs in
00:04:17.840 this case they all had their bank accounts frozen now i i imagine that when you have your bank account
00:04:24.000 frozen you know and once once it becomes unfrozen that's not the extent of the damage that that that
00:04:29.200 happens to it so i mean i'm sure that's just the beginning in a in a long series of events that
00:04:34.400 impacts your financial health so what happens to you when your bank account gets frozen like this
00:04:40.640 well first of all you know i i needed money to travel home i live in new brunswick and it's
00:04:45.200 about 1800 kilometers from ottawa so you know i had to count on the kindness of others to give me some
00:04:51.520 cash so i could get home and you know coming through quebec which seemed to have more draconian rules than
00:04:56.720 some of the other provinces they wouldn't take cash at a lot of the gas stations that i had to stop
00:05:01.680 so it was uh it was quite an event and when i did get home um you know i realized you know this this
00:05:11.280 is bad and um i tried to go to a couple other banks to possibly open an account there and they said it's
00:05:18.960 not really a good idea to do that so i realized i must have been on some kind of list to this day i
00:05:23.840 don't know what that list is but um i haven't been able to move anything to different banks at this point
00:05:29.360 wow well blair i want to move over to you and i want to just get a summary of this a major lawsuit
00:05:36.720 filed against several members of the cabinet and like i said police organizations um as well now
00:05:43.040 we've reported on the statement of claim in the lawsuit itself but you know for someone who's not
00:05:47.600 legally trained when they look at this document there's a lot of information so what what is it
00:05:51.360 that you want canadians to know about this about this major lawsuit filed against justin trudeau and
00:05:56.160 and uh several important institutions and figures well as we kind of had noted um early on in the
00:06:02.000 summary of the pleadings was that uh the events within this action constitutes one of the largest
00:06:06.640 and most egregious collective breaches of charter rights in the history of canada and the reason why
00:06:11.440 we've named a number of different individuals is that i have um i've been eddie's lawyer since 2020
00:06:16.560 since february 2020 when this all began uh so we have a pretty in-depth knowledge of what went on
00:06:20.880 what took place how what led to the invocation of the emergencies act what powers were granted to the
00:06:25.120 financial institutions and how that all came about and when we look at this um and how essentially
00:06:31.360 how it did come about there were a number of parties that played a number of different factors
00:06:35.920 that led into this um and one of it i i submit would be the complicitness of the banks uh involved
00:06:42.000 in this and how that they gladly went along with this uh and what what the what your audience
00:06:47.840 understand is what the economic order gave so the invocation emergencies act occurs okay so the
00:06:52.240 government invokes the emergencies act then what came out of it were uh the emergency measures
00:06:56.640 regulations and there was also the the economic order that came out and what the economic order
00:07:00.640 gave uh was the banks and the police uh essentially powers to conduct what's called a warrantless search
00:07:07.200 and seizure of people's accounts so typically if you want to see somebody's bank accounts or you want
00:07:10.640 to you know kick the door in in someone's house you need a warrant typically there's a few exceptions
00:07:15.920 but typically you would need a warrant uh and that has some neutral oversight built into the
00:07:20.480 mechanism for doing so so for example in like say a drug trafficking case you would have um someone
00:07:26.640 would swear an ito and information to obtain it would contain details then we go before a judge or
00:07:30.640 just of the peace and they would sign off on it and get the authority to go and do that there's some
00:07:34.080 neutral oversight in the process what this did the way the economic order was was built and crafted
00:07:39.840 is that usurped the power of the judiciary it removed all of that and basically you had the banks
00:07:45.280 and the police officers becoming the judge jury and execution executioner whose bank accounts get
00:07:50.240 frozen at one point we highlight in the uh the pleadings here and in the economic order itself is
00:07:55.760 that the banks had this ongoing obligation to determine whose accounts to freeze who like who
00:08:01.360 from the bank and what like what nameless faceless banking entity has the power to just seize and freeze
00:08:06.960 people's bank accounts and then also share all that information with the police so what we had is the
00:08:11.760 state become this massive apparatus over the financial institutions the police and the government of
00:08:17.200 canada all is one one massive government actor in doing so and we submit that the intelligence that
00:08:24.880 led to the invocation of the emergencies act was entirely um entirely faulty and entirely circular the
00:08:30.640 reasoning that got there because all of the um the typical intelligence networks that they would the
00:08:36.160 government candidate cabinet would usually rely upon all stated that there was nothing in the freedom
00:08:41.200 convoy or the ottawa protests which would lead to a national security concerns that would warrant
00:08:46.560 invoking the emergencies act and that would that was cesis reports police reports rcmp reports on the
00:08:52.400 ground uh the normal intelligence sets that you would have none of them um indicated that the protests
00:08:59.680 were national security or a threat to national security and and i'm sure we'll get into some of this
00:09:05.280 further but cabinet took it a step further and invoked um or essentially miss thomas miss jody thomas uh
00:09:12.320 started her own open source intelligence reporting and what that what that was relied upon and predicated
00:09:18.240 upon was basically social media accounts uh using that and what we've uh uncovered and found is that a lot
00:09:25.360 of it links back to government funded um networks that were doing this so you have a completely closed circle
00:09:31.120 where the intelligence that they're relying upon is the intelligence they're creating
00:09:34.960 that creates obvious problems when you're doing intelligence gathering there's nothing neutral
00:09:38.720 about that um and so when the government couldn't get the intelligence they needed to invoke the
00:09:44.400 emergencies act they relied on their own open source project to do so as the means and the justification
00:09:49.680 for doing it uh which was using a number of sources that uh were at one point or are we don't know
00:09:56.880 we'll uncover the full truth of that funded by the government of canada uh which is obviously
00:10:01.040 problematic yeah and so that's where the canadian anti-hate network comes into this right that's why
00:10:06.480 bernie farber has been listed as a as a defendant in this case correct okay so that it was it was
00:10:13.440 canadian anti-hate network basically their their intelligence or their uh access to information that
00:10:19.600 was what jody thomas relied on because i know in the uh filing there's a there's a large section about
00:10:25.440 this jody thomas open source intelligence so that was basically that that was using anti-hate network
00:10:32.240 information uh anti-hate network information and others so we will um that's why we have left john
00:10:37.920 doe and abc corp open so when we can uncover the full true extent of it um and miss thomas admitted
00:10:43.600 herself that she was conducting these open source uh investigations um intelligence investigations
00:10:48.560 essentially uh with there's no real authorization for that and that is not representative of
00:10:53.360 um the government-wide uh intelligence at the time you look at this at the time we can't go back
00:10:58.240 and recreate the record at the time the intelligence reporting was largely consistent
00:11:02.480 this was not a threat to the national security of canada and when the government of canada
00:11:07.680 decided to embark on their own open source intelligence investigation uh to circumvent and bypass
00:11:14.400 that uh in essentially in a closed circle uh that's highly problematic that's highly
00:11:20.320 problematic because it seems like that what it appears from the knowledge that we have is that
00:11:24.480 they're trying to force the protest to look like something it necessarily wasn't or highly uh
00:11:29.360 exaggerated one-sided reporting on it uh when that wasn't the view of the intelligence on the ground
00:11:34.720 and that on people who are fully trained in this and in departments are fully trained in this and the
00:11:38.880 normal sources that you would pull from it um and we we find that that is deeply deeply troubling and
00:11:43.760 concerning to especially if the government of canada had knowledge uh specifically that the
00:11:48.560 information they were relying upon uh was grossly exaggerated one-sided um and biased and still
00:11:54.880 went ahead and invoked the emergencies act anyways on the basis of that intelligence that ran contrary to
00:11:59.920 what cesus was telling them what the rcmp was telling what the actual um government-wide uh viewpoint
00:12:05.760 was at the time and and to our mind uh that speaks to misfeasance of public office
00:12:11.920 that speaks to misfeasance of public office to do so and and elected officials represent canadians
00:12:17.040 and canadian people and need to act in good faith when they're making these decisions absolutely now
00:12:22.640 back to you eddie now you've been making the rounds on uh doing interviews and speaking engagements
00:12:26.880 that's where i met both of you in washington dc but i want to ask about the legacy media the
00:12:31.440 mainstream media in this country uh you're a lead plaintiff in this case you're a veteran you think
00:12:36.320 that your uh your story would be compelling for the mainstream media now have has uh has the mainstream
00:12:41.200 media reached out to to you to have your story told and to uh explain to canadians why you're
00:12:46.160 embarking on this on this civil suit simple answer is no not surprising i'm afraid yeah
00:12:54.560 and and and so obviously we know that the the legacy media have been taking money from the
00:12:59.680 federal government that they were uh they were extremely biased in their coverage throughout
00:13:04.160 the freedom convoy but do you think that this speaks to a larger problem and a larger
00:13:08.880 reason as to why canadians no longer trust the legacy media yeah i i think you know they they
00:13:14.960 should have stepped up and told the true story of what was happening um they should have done some
00:13:20.000 reporting and some after action follow-up they just didn't do any of it i've never been spoken to by
00:13:25.200 anyone from mainstream media in any way they've not tried to engage a conversation at all and it's i
00:13:32.320 think it's to their um you know it says a lot to their integrity to get the truth of a story and they just
00:13:40.960 haven't done and i'm guessing that well it doesn't doesn't appear as though they've had they've had
00:13:45.920 much coverage on the on this uh civil lawsuit either blair it seems as though that's not something
00:13:50.800 they're they're too inclined to cover we've had a little bit of coverage on it but certainly uh not
00:13:56.080 as much as independent media uh has uh ctv took their credit their ctv national did uh do a coverage
00:14:02.800 piece of it the toronto star did as well uh to their credit for that so um but certainly not as much
00:14:07.760 as you'd expect i mean ignoring the the quantum of the dollar amount i think we've made it a very
00:14:14.000 realistic amount that we are seeking and for a number of it's not about the money for for a number
00:14:17.920 of the plaintiffs and that he'll tell you that it's about holding governments to account for their
00:14:21.600 wrongdoing um and for to my mind i would think that this should be something that mainstream media
00:14:27.200 should want to be interested in because charter rights affect all of us our values as canadians are
00:14:31.840 not political what we stand for is not a political thing it's not a left or a right thing this should
00:14:37.120 interest people from all walks of life all different backgrounds uh people we agree with
00:14:41.120 people we disagree with this is the government of the day that did this but there could be future
00:14:44.560 governments different governments in power with different leanings um that could look to this and
00:14:50.560 we want them to know that you can't do this to canadian citizens you can't do this to people this is
00:14:54.560 not what has made canada so amazing for so long and what has made our country really a bastion of light
00:15:00.880 in the world and are upholding freedom the rule of law those type of democratic values that we really
00:15:07.600 hold near and dear we are part of the western civilization and canada plays an important role
00:15:12.400 in the in western civilization and upholding those values that we really do cherish as canadians
00:15:17.840 and to my mind i would think that the mainstream media and all canadians would be interested in this
00:15:22.080 and um you know hopefully there is more coverage on it uh this is something that is about upholding the
00:15:27.040 rule of law and upholding charter rights it's not really uh about the money for doing it really if
00:15:32.320 this was solely about the money for like eddie and i we wouldn't be doing this uh the amount we've had
00:15:36.480 to enter and been through to do all of this and to be here uh it's very important um that we hold
00:15:41.840 governments to account that we hold governments to account and you know from my perspective this was
00:15:46.880 an obligation to do uh to go forward with it felt like something i absolutely had to do once i got
00:15:51.280 to know eddie story uh and vincent uh at the federal court challenge um and knowing the type of man
00:15:56.400 that eddie is i had to do it i absolutely had to do it i felt obligated to do it i like canada i love
00:16:01.440 this country i love canada i love being albert and as well um and i love what this can't what this
00:16:05.920 country has given me i you know i had a very uh humble upbringing humble roots to be able to in the
00:16:10.560 position i'm in now and it's a large credit to the society i got to grow up and live in and i want to
00:16:14.560 preserve that for my children and for the next generations and this fight between citizens and
00:16:19.440 government it feels because we are in the moment it feels like it is unprecedented and it is
00:16:24.240 in terms of using the financial tools they can but there's always that pull between governments
00:16:29.040 and its citizens and governments overreaching and and citizens need to be engaged to stand up
00:16:33.600 and fight against it and through the courts is one of the ways we can do it through our democratic
00:16:37.760 processes and through the courts are ways that we can do this as citizens that each generation
00:16:41.680 always has to do to uphold what we have in the west absolutely and i think it's uh it's of course a
00:16:47.440 worthy fight and one that is going to hopefully have some serious positive impact in our country
00:16:53.040 and and so you you spoke you spoke about your your upbringing and your uh you know what what has
00:16:58.960 motivated you to do this and eddie i want you to explain to our audience about more about yourself
00:17:04.240 and your story you were you were you served our military for 22 years i think it is and so take us
00:17:10.480 through uh why you wanted to serve this country what motivated you to do that and and maybe some of the
00:17:15.440 experiences that that you you had to go through representing our country sure i i joined the military at a very
00:17:22.400 young age i was um barely 18 i served 22 years i i did a tour overseas in cyprus um i'm a recipient of
00:17:32.320 the sorry a recipient of the medal of bravery i you know i love this country i i signed a check
00:17:39.360 basically that i'd die for this country if it was required and you know the betrayal i felt from my
00:17:44.720 government uh that's very hard to uh put into words and you know it it's a betrayal of the highest order
00:17:54.080 in my in my opinion and you know i like i said at the beginning i i've never been charged with a crime
00:17:59.680 i i haven't committed a crime and yet they treated me as if i was a criminal because i said something
00:18:05.840 they didn't like i i don't understand that it just doesn't it doesn't resonate with me that why my
00:18:12.720 government would attack me and you know the names i've been called i've been called a white supremacist
00:18:17.680 a nazi every every name in the book for for what i've never called anybody else any names um so why
00:18:25.840 would they try to direct that type of hate towards me i don't know i i i don't think that's very uh you
00:18:32.240 know fair and um that's why i'm standing up and that's why i'm doing what i'm doing because we can't
00:18:38.000 let governments do this to citizens because they say something that's contrary to their narrative so
00:18:44.640 um i'm in this until the end that that's just my character i i i never uh surrender and i'll never
00:18:52.720 turn back absolutely now i have to ask you some of the some of the i wouldn't call it criticism but
00:19:00.480 some of the commentary on social media has been around you know uh the idea that if you sue you know
00:19:06.560 the government and you sue figures in the government that really if if they're found liable
00:19:11.360 for the damages and the money gets paid out by the taxpayer how do you guys respond to that because
00:19:15.760 i i have seen that on social media and i want you to be able to explain this process and and and how
00:19:22.080 how it works and especially you know in in reference to that criticism which is if the government is
00:19:27.840 found liable if you guys win the money comes out of the taxpayer yeah sure i can respond to that so
00:19:33.600 we have sought uh personal liability for the members of cabinet uh there is some case law that's
00:19:38.240 ongoing that that does demonstrate that members um that elected members can be held liable for
00:19:43.920 unconstitutional legislation particular ones that are of draconian nature um we are also seeking uh
00:19:48.720 from the banks as well so that but ultimately um you know the attorney general can represent a number
00:19:56.720 of the defendants um and the court may apportion liability that way we can't control that um but if you
00:20:02.240 look at it uh from a bigger perspective uh cases like this are um to hold government's account and
00:20:09.120 that's why we put a very reasonable quantum at it um is to hold government's account to account for this
00:20:16.240 um and if you look at it um you know how much we are actually seeking in damages relative to uh the
00:20:23.040 amount of government waste that we have seen uh particularly from the from the this liberal government of
00:20:27.200 canada um it's very minimal very minimal all things considered uh when you actually think about it
00:20:34.000 uh and but more importantly though is that it what a lawsuit like this does is it puts governments
00:20:40.080 on notice that we cannot just trample on people's rights and i mean that literally because that
00:20:45.360 literally happened people were literally trampled by horses here uh and these types of lawsuits are
00:20:50.400 very important whether that gets paid um by taxpayers whether that gets apportioned personal
00:20:55.600 liability as we have sought or through the banks or through uh the private corporate entities that
00:20:59.920 we are seeking damages from that's up for the that's the court's decision to ultimately make
00:21:03.360 that's ultimately the court's decision to make we have sought personal liability here
00:21:07.360 um and the reason we did so as somebody came to like when in corporate law when you have
00:21:11.680 directors acting so um abhorrently abhorrently you can do what's called piercing the corporate veil
00:21:17.840 uh where you go after them personally for their misconduct you go after the the directors
00:21:22.400 personally not the company uh and which is what we are seeking uh ultimately something akin to it
00:21:27.360 uh to that because we think it's important to have um and whether we are successful in that again
00:21:31.520 that would be for the courts to determine an apportion liability for it um but we are seeking
00:21:36.720 personal liability we are seeking indemnity from the banks and from the other individuals
00:21:40.160 that were responsible for this if ultimately uh it is it is a quote unquote paid for by the taxpayers
00:21:47.280 i wouldn't view it in that way right we pay taxes for a number of things and there's um it really is
00:21:52.720 uh relatively speaking considering you know the amount that we've seen this government waste
00:21:57.280 um it is a normal it is not a a large amount on a relative relative scale for it but again that'll
00:22:03.360 come down to the court proportion liability um more importantly uh this lawsuit should serve
00:22:08.640 for a reminder for current and future governments that you cannot abuse your power you cannot abuse your
00:22:14.480 power and take away the rights of canadians we will oppose it we will fight against it um the
00:22:19.280 government of the day is the one who did this and if future governments take similar actions we will
00:22:22.880 absolutely oppose it in the future and it's important that canadians do this it's very important
00:22:26.960 that canadians do this that canadians have an ability to do this and have an ability to oppose this
00:22:30.880 stuff because in other parts of the world opposing the government can get you kidnapped and shot
00:22:36.880 right and in canada we have this ability to do this to use peaceful democratic means uh to do this
00:22:42.240 and that's through court challenges through using uh or voting through uh you know municipal elections
00:22:47.200 through through that we have very peaceful means uh to do it and this is one of the peaceful means
00:22:51.760 that we can do it to hold governments to account for their wrongdoing uh and that's what we're
00:22:55.520 gonna continue to do and i see it as though the taxpayers would win if you guys win because
00:23:00.480 they get protected and there's precedent that that holds these governments to account so
00:23:04.240 i wanted your opportunity i wanted to give you the opportunity to clear that because i have seen
00:23:08.080 that in some comments on social media about these ongoing cases um now also i want to talk about
00:23:15.440 the fact that some of the co-plaintiffs in this lawsuit weren't actually supporters of the freedom
00:23:20.800 convoy but were really you know collateral damage uh due to these economic orders uh briefly blair could
00:23:26.320 you could you summarize some of those cases of people who had their bank accounts frozen who suffered
00:23:31.040 financial damage because of this but were never actually supporting the convoy to begin with
00:23:36.000 yeah so there's two in particular that we should turn to so one is kathleen marco uh and her son
00:23:40.400 timothy teeson so kathleen's um her ex um her ex common-law spouse went down to the auto protests
00:23:47.360 she opposed it she didn't even go she she so she was against the freedom convoy against the protest did
00:23:51.680 not go uh but her husband went down uh and he got his bank account frozen but there were still some
00:23:56.960 joint accounts that were ongoing so she had her bank account frozen by her credit union uh her also her
00:24:01.680 son young timothy teeson uh timmy he was 17 year old kid working in a kitchen just trying to make a
00:24:06.880 living um trying to get by uh certainly living paycheck to paycheck blue collars like normal
00:24:14.960 um canadian again opposed it opposed the freedom con but didn't even support it he had his bank
00:24:20.080 account frozen couldn't deposit the check from his work i couldn't provide for himself couldn't live
00:24:24.400 um you know and the lasting impact that that has on people like that's when you revisit this like
00:24:29.520 that how far reaching that was that impacted people that were on the other side of the country
00:24:36.160 that in british columbia that completely opposed the very movement that got their accounts frozen
00:24:42.000 um that is that should send chills up and down you know canadian spines because we talk about
00:24:48.320 you know the extrajudicial killings that can happen in other parts of the world here but in many ways if
00:24:53.040 people are so dependent on their cards they don't have cash that's kind of like an extrajudicial
00:24:56.560 financial killing in the sense like you can't access money you can't do anything you can't uh
00:25:01.920 pay for things you can't put food on the table you can't uh like in eddie situation he had to get
00:25:06.480 cash from people just to get home he's a veteran he would have froze to death it was very cold eddie
00:25:10.800 would have froze to death in ottawa uh at that time if people didn't give him some cash to get home and
00:25:15.600 and thankfully there were kind-hearted canadians and there were kind people that were willing to give
00:25:20.480 eddie cash so he could get home because that's who we are as canadians we help each other we help people
00:25:25.920 we help our neighbors we care about one another we can put aside our political differences uh to
00:25:30.960 care about one another and have values that we are are so strongly entrenched in us uh that we
00:25:37.040 uphold for everybody and even those people we disagree with and that's important about human
00:25:41.200 rights work and charter work charter of rights and freedoms work is that in particular you we should
00:25:46.560 have people with different viewpoints that are fully supportive of this you could have people who
00:25:51.200 completely oppose the freedom convoy completely oppose all of that could still support this a lot
00:25:57.920 because to say i don't want to be next i don't want this to happen to me i don't want uh my bank
00:26:02.640 accounts to be frozen uh without a warrant for something uh for me exercising my constitutional rights
00:26:09.120 when a new government of the day is in power we don't want to go down that path of doing that um
00:26:15.120 towards people that the government views as political quote-unquote enemies or not or however they want
00:26:19.120 to view them as um that that's not canada but that's not a canada that eddie fought for uh that
00:26:25.040 eddie fought for made sacrifices want a medal of bravery for to uphold uh that my family is a very
00:26:29.520 proud military service for the british empire um that's not they didn't make those sacrifices to do
00:26:34.400 that to live in a country where we can do that where our government can do that governments are
00:26:38.240 accountable to the people right and and that is something we we really want to uphold and eddie and i have
00:26:42.960 talked about this at length and it's something we're fully committed to absolutely and and eddie
00:26:47.840 um obviously this has shaken your confidence in government and institutions now if you are
00:26:54.480 successful uh do you think that do you think that a future government do you worry that a future
00:26:59.280 government in this country uh regardless of the outcome of this case might you know do this again
00:27:04.880 somehow i am sure that as someone who served this country you have a significant you know this is
00:27:10.480 it's taken a serious hit on on how you view the government how you view our institutions in this
00:27:15.200 country how how do you what do you see as the future of this country especially now that you've
00:27:19.920 been treated this way by the government well i've lost a lot of faith for our country i really have
00:27:25.040 um i'm hoping you know that faith will be restored through actions that uh you know come down in the
00:27:29.840 future but you know for any government uh after this government to do anything like that i think would
00:27:35.840 be a great mistake and that's why we have to do this um you know i i have very limited um trust for the
00:27:43.280 banks i don't keep money in there now other than just to pay the bills uh i'm not trusting a government
00:27:48.880 i'm very careful how i interact um i'm very careful how i interact with police after what they demonstrated
00:27:54.960 what they're willing to do and what they said uh what took place in ottawa so you know i tend to look
00:27:59.760 over my shoulder a lot more than i ever would have um and i don't think that's something that i can
00:28:05.120 quantify into you know um into words that feeling that you have that you're constantly being watched you
00:28:12.560 know are are they going to put something in in my path that will destroy my life at any moment just
00:28:20.560 because they can i'm just a regular guy i'm just a you know i'm just a retired man that you know just
00:28:25.920 wants to live his life and be free and yet my government wants to overreach and you know push you
00:28:32.480 into doing things that really in a free society should never have to experience so absolutely i hope i get
00:28:39.760 that trust back one day absolutely and and for canadians who want to help in any way they can
00:28:46.640 if that's i'm not quite sure how they can but how can canadians get involved if they want to get
00:28:51.520 involved in this and if they want to they want to help out i guess where you could answer that question
00:28:58.640 uh yeah i can pass that one off to eddie i think you've got some sort of accountability project that
00:29:02.960 might be good for you good point for you to touch on yeah sure uh the accountability project it's uh
00:29:08.640 tapcan.org t-a-p-c-a-n.org uh all of the information's on there you can see all of the uh
00:29:16.320 you know the uh documents that uh we have from the courts as well as our uh upcoming actions and it
00:29:23.600 gives uh some directions on how you can donate and if you know if you'd like to get involved we'd really
00:29:28.960 appreciate it um tap is a separate organization and it's to help with funding for these types of
00:29:35.360 lawsuits and you know it's it's an overwhelming task and you know the costs are great to pursue
00:29:42.000 this type of thing so um we're hoping canadians get involved and we'll help donate absolutely and
00:29:48.400 we'll have a link to uh tap can in the description of this video as well as a link to the filing the
00:29:53.920 the statement of claim which i encourage every canadian to read and read closely because it is something
00:29:58.560 that is extremely important uh eddie and blair thank you both so much for coming on awesome thank
00:30:04.000 you harrison and just put a final word uh out to your audiences uh please just educate yourself educate
00:30:09.440 yourself um learn about our history learn about the charter learn about the freedoms you have those
00:30:15.920 freedoms are something that are worth fighting for are we're standing up for um and really an informed
00:30:22.160 population is what makes democracies work and an informed educated population are what make
00:30:27.760 um our society what it has what it is uh what it has the potential to be and allowing us to use
00:30:33.920 peaceful democratic means to continue to uphold the values uh that eddie has served this country
00:30:39.280 very proudly for and thank you for the opportunity harrison i was really honored to meet you there in
00:30:43.280 washington you give me hope for the future of journalism you're a very bright young man and um
00:30:47.120 just keep doing what you're doing well thank you so much and eddie thank you again thank you for your
00:30:52.000 service blair thank you for what you're doing thank you harris really appreciate both of you guys coming
00:30:55.680 on really appreciate you