Juno News - National Citizens Inquiry exposes harms of Covid measures

00:00:00.000 The reason I think this is important is that it sets a standard for a discussion that should

00:00:14.700 exist in society. And I heard from the lead counsel for the NCI, Sean Buckley, that they

00:00:21.400 sent out summons and requests to a number of public officials, I forget how many, but what

00:00:26.560 they said is that not a single one answered with a favorable response. Most of them didn't

00:00:34.740 respond at all. So no one agreed to testify under oath before this commission who didn't

00:00:41.280 want to be there, who wasn't a voluntary figure. And obviously it didn't have subpoenaing power,

00:00:46.360 but no public officials were prepared to withstand that. Now you may say, okay, well, why would they?

00:00:50.860 It doesn't have any official status. It's a citizen-led inquiry. But I'd say putting the

00:00:55.460 voices of citizens front and center is exactly what Canada and much of the world was missing

00:01:01.060 over the last three years. And hearing testimony that was very citizen-focused and citizen-oriented

00:01:09.420 was precisely what this discussion needed. So yes, the fact that Alberta and Danielle Smith

00:01:16.660 had their inquiry is good, but it was not meant to be as broad and holistic as this one. Ches Crosby

00:01:23.200 is an institution in Newfoundland politics and was the administrator for the National

00:01:28.000 Citizens' Inquiry. And is that, I should say. He joins me now. Ches, good to talk to you.

00:01:32.100 Thanks for coming on today.

00:01:34.700 Thank you, Andrew. You and I met in an elevator in Calgary just before the dinner that's held

00:01:40.840 annually to benefit the Canadian Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. I only had time to introduce

00:01:48.360 myself, but not to give you an elevator speech. So maybe I got that chance now.

00:01:54.220 Yes, you certainly do. And I know you were at that hearing and the press conference a few

00:01:58.760 moments ago. I'm glad you were able to peel away and join us. One of the things that jumped

00:02:03.340 out at me in the report, and again, I haven't read through the whole 5,300 pages yet, is a call

00:02:08.900 to have criminal and civil penalties for institutions that the commissioners say were culpable in

00:02:16.680 perpetrating these things on Canadians. Now, what are we talking about here? I mean, who

00:02:21.100 are we talking about there?

00:02:25.180 We're talking about people at various levels of responsibility. As a lawyer, it won't surprise

00:02:31.180 you that my outlook is the more civil lawsuits, the better. But also, eventually, this country

00:02:39.160 is going to have to get to the stage where criminal proceedings are taken. Usually, those proceedings

00:02:45.480 begin with people at lower levels of responsibility. And then you have people becoming whistleblowers.

00:02:54.500 You have people doing plea bargainings, and they give the receipts, and people higher up the

00:03:01.840 chain of command. And generally, you work your way up that way. But we very much do need criminal

00:03:08.240 prosecutions. What sorts of crimes am I thinking of here? This is not an exhaustive list, but criminal

00:03:15.780 negligence causing death might be one. Hate crimes could be another. And we have a very interesting

00:03:24.180 and powerful statute in this country called the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanities Act. It was

00:03:32.820 borrowed from international law. And it's sitting on the books of Parliament since the year 2000. Now,

00:03:43.540 one little problem with that is that it requires the permission of the Attorney General of Canada before

00:03:50.420 a prosecution can be brought. I don't think you can expect to get that permission as long as the people

00:03:58.580 are in office who are in office right now at this moment in Ottawa. That's the Trudeau Liberals.

00:04:04.500 But eventually, that permission will be granted should somebody want to seek it. And I happen to know of a

00:04:10.580 group of retired detectives who are hard at work on this now. So I take from your answer that you don't

00:04:16.980 buy into the idea that this was a political problem that has to be responded to in a political fashion,

00:04:24.820 as though basically, this was just bad policy. And the antidote to bad policy is to vote out

00:04:29.220 the politicians who imposed it. Well, that's certainly part of the antidote. They got to be voted out.

00:04:38.420 The tipping point is being reached, not just in Canada, but elsewhere. And that's, you can visualize

00:04:45.540 that sort of like a dump truck load of sand. And at a certain point in the tilt of the dump truck load,

00:04:53.780 some of the sand begins to run out. And then there's a cascade of more sand. And then the entire

00:04:59.540 load comes out all at once. Well, we're coming up to that point, where things that were unthinkable,

00:05:05.060 even months ago, are going to be very thinkable, and in fact, will be done. And I'm talking about,

00:05:11.300 you know, I'm talking about holding people criminally accountable, as we were just discussing.

00:05:17.700 So let's talk about the relevance of this report, because obviously, it was quite monumental that you

00:05:23.220 had this citizen led initiative with no public funding and no official status, no royal charter,

00:05:29.780 that existed, and that carried on and that, you know, took obviously significant effort and financial

00:05:35.540 resources to have happen. At the end of it, you have this 5000 page report, but the process was

00:05:40.660 boycotted by the people who were in positions to make these decisions that were ultimately rebuked

00:05:47.540 and rejected by this report. I think it stands to reason those people will not acknowledge or if they

00:05:53.700 do will not heed the recommendations. So at the risk of sounding kind of glib about this, what's the point of

00:06:00.020 it all? Well, you know, these, the whole process of accountability always takes time. We've been

00:06:10.740 through a species of madness to, there are various terms for it, maybe it's mass hypnosis, maybe it's

00:06:17.700 mass formations, mass something, mass fear, the commissioners described it as a terror. In other words,

00:06:26.020 the authorities perpetrated a state of fear quite deliberately and knowingly. And you could use the

00:06:33.620 term a psychological operation, a psyops on the civilian population of Canada. It takes a while to

00:06:42.260 get over that and to begin to see life in a realistic way. And you probably agree with me that topics that

00:06:50.180 you couldn't have talked about even six months ago, in social situations now are no longer taboo,

00:06:57.700 you can speak about them. This will continue to change and change in a proper and right direction.

00:07:04.500 There will be accountability. And without accountability, there can't be reconciliation.

00:07:09.540 And God needs, God knows that this country, Canada needs reconciliation.

00:07:15.860 Well, that was, I mean, whenever we've talked about this in the indigenous context, we're always told

00:07:21.540 that you need truth before you can have reconciliation, hence the name of the Truth

00:07:25.140 and Reconciliation Commission. And in this context, you can't have an honest discussion about what

00:07:30.740 happened without dealing with the facts. And even still, some of the basic fundamental facts are in

00:07:36.580 dispute by some of the so-called experts on whom the government relied, and a lot of the other

00:07:42.740 experts that the government rejected. And, you know, I've often had this challenge as a journalist,

00:07:47.220 you know, how can I sort of adjudicate between two people wearing lab coats with letters after their

00:07:51.860 names? But I think the government was very quick to shut down anyone with a heterodox view. And that's

00:07:57.540 part of the reason we got into these problems. And they really just entrenched that the longer this

00:08:02.340 went on, rather than having any basic semblance of humility.

00:08:06.100 Well, there's a famous doctor, Dr. Peter McCullough, who you're probably familiar with.

00:08:13.780 And he writes a sub stack, he calls it courageous discourse. And I like that term, because there are

00:08:20.020 two things that all of us need. We need courage. But we also need the ability to engage in discourse,

00:08:28.180 and to learn from people with different viewpoints. And so what we've seen lacking in the authorities,

00:08:38.740 who have instituted the measures that we're all so familiar with from the last several years, the

00:08:45.700 repression, repressive measures, is they wouldn't turn up at the inquiry, although they are invited,

00:08:53.060 and explain themselves. What are they afraid of? They obviously, they obviously have something to

00:09:01.380 be afraid of. They know they've got things to defend that they can't defend very well.

00:09:07.700 And they're not willing to engage in discourse. And as long as people aren't willing to engage in

00:09:12.980 discourse, and I'd actually include criminal proceedings as a form of discourse as well,

00:09:19.220 then we're going to have problems, and we're not going to have reconciliation.

00:09:24.260 We lost your video there for a moment, you're frozen, but we can still hear you. So I'll ask

00:09:28.820 you one final question here, Ches. What would you like Canadians to do with this? Because there is,

00:09:33.940 I think, a call to action, whenever something like this is published for Canadians to read it

00:09:38.500 and understand and review. What would you like, if you can assign the country homework here, and certainly

00:09:43.220 this audience, what do you think Canadians should take from this and do with this document?

00:09:47.460 Well, thanks, Andrew. I think that people should have a look at it. They should turn it over in

00:09:55.460 their minds. There are going to be a spectrum of people, some who accept everything that's being

00:10:00.500 said and are totally on the same page with the commissioners. There will be some who are somewhere

00:10:07.220 in between, and there are others to be more resistant.

00:10:13.220 Just have a look at it.

00:10:21.220 Oh, I feel now we've lost the audio here. You cut out there, Ches. Oh, you seem to be moving again.

00:10:33.220 If you can try speaking, I think we have you back.

00:10:35.220 No, unfortunately, it's cutting off now. We're having a connection issue here, but I do appreciate

00:10:45.460 that we had most of the interview with functional technology, and we'll have to get you back in a

00:10:50.260 bit more detail. Ches Crosby, the administrator for the National Citizens Inquiry. Thanks for listening to

00:10:56.900 The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - December 03, 2023

National Citizens Inquiry exposes harms of Covid measures

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