Juno News - Nova Scotia mass casualty commission says government must ＂promote healthy masculinities＂

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:23.880 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:30.000 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:01:34.140 This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:37.340 It is Friday, March 31st, 2023, just after 4 o'clock Eastern Daylight Time.

00:01:44.240 We've now switched to the beloved summer time zone.

00:01:47.520 So welcome wherever you are tuning into the show from,

00:01:50.480 whether it's live or on the podcast or video after the fact.

00:01:54.460 This is a rare Friday show, but I am pleased to tell you

00:01:58.120 It's going to be decreasingly rare moving forward as we change around some of the scheduling here at True North.

00:02:04.200 And obviously, we're going to not necessarily stick to the same time, but we are going to do a bit of a bonus edition of the show for a while.

00:02:10.400 And that means that Fake News Friday is going to be a part of the Andrew Lawton show today.

00:02:15.800 So we will still give you your Fake News Friday dosage, but in a bit of a different delivery system.

00:02:20.860 So take from that what you will.

00:02:22.400 We're like the U.S. military.

00:02:23.440 We decide the best delivery system for the missile we're lobbying.

00:02:26.040 And in this particular case, The Andrew Lawton Show is the most destructive option for you.

00:02:31.500 A lot of stuff we're going to get to, though.

00:02:33.260 My interview from the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference with former Conservative leader Candace Bergen coming up very shortly.

00:02:41.100 And as it so happens, this morning, Aaron O'Toole, the former Conservative leader, announced that he would not be seeking re-election.

00:02:48.960 So he's getting out of politics, at least for the time being.

00:02:53.180 Also going to talk later on about some dolphins in dildo,

00:02:57.100 which is an alliterative phrase, but not a pun, not a joke.

00:03:01.720 There is a rescue attempt underway for the dildo dolphins.

00:03:05.260 The dildos and dolphins? No, the dolphins and dildos. 0.93

00:03:07.460 So that's going to be coming up a little later.

00:03:09.280 And we have musical accompaniment for the segment.

00:03:11.300 So if you don't stick around because you wonder what the heck I'm talking about,

00:03:14.220 at least stay for the tunes.

00:03:16.120 But let's start off talking about something more serious,

00:03:19.340 which I believe the government has completely trivialized,

00:03:24.160 which is the Mass Casualty Commission,

00:03:27.520 which was the body investigating the horrific,

00:03:31.560 absolutely horrific killing spree that a denturist in Nova Scotia went on,

00:03:36.940 now pushing three years ago, back in 2020.

00:03:40.820 And this was a commission that I think got no coverage, really,

00:03:45.600 as it was undergoing its process.

00:03:47.740 we got little drips and drabs such as the details about Brenda Luckey running interference for the

00:03:53.140 Liberal government and this was that story when Brenda Luckey had asked the Nova Scotia RCMP

00:03:59.080 to not mention that it was a an illegal gun that the killer used because at the time the federal

00:04:06.380 Liberal government was using this whole incident as justification to further ban guns so that was

00:04:11.600 one of the little takeaways we got with documents that were put before the report but generally

00:04:16.580 speaking i'm assuming when i mentioned the mass casualty commission a lot of you were like oh

00:04:20.000 what's that like just because it got so little coverage and i haven't spent much time talking

00:04:25.080 about it on this show so i'm part of the problem but the report has now come out the final report

00:04:30.320 it's very very very long i'm not going to lie i have not read the whole thing but what i did do

00:04:34.980 is go through the executive summary and look at the recommendation so what they do is they take

00:04:40.280 seven volumes to tell the story of this thing how it happened what happened what went wrong

00:04:45.520 They take a rather scathing look at police and what they see as profound police failings.

00:04:51.800 But then they get into this very weird terrain of social engineering.

00:04:57.460 And there are two aspects of this that I want to talk about a little bit.

00:05:00.920 One is the firearms file.

00:05:02.420 So on firearms, this looks like one of the most rabid anti-gun activists you could find in Canada was asked to write out the recommendations.

00:05:11.560 They have things like prohibiting the stockpiling of ammunition.

00:05:16.100 Now, when they say limit the stockpiling of ammunition, they're using the word stockpile

00:05:22.220 because it conjures up images of someone just like hiding out in a basement bunker with

00:05:26.220 50,000 rounds of ammunition.

00:05:28.300 But what they mean is limiting how much ammunition you're allowed to have.

00:05:32.360 And every now and then when I see crime press releases that come out from police, what will

00:05:37.380 happen is you'll see like, oh, the killer, the person was arrested with 800 rounds of ammunition.

00:05:44.400 And people that don't know guns have just like been shocked at that. They've been aghast at it.

00:05:49.900 They have no idea. Oh my goodness, 800 rounds of ammunition. And then you like go to the average

00:05:53.380 gun owner's gun captain and you open the door and you see like, oh, 15,000 rounds of ammunition. So

00:05:58.400 you do it because it's like anything else. If it's on sale, you buy it. If there are different

00:06:02.360 types you like, if you've got different guns that take different types of ammunition, you're going

00:06:06.420 to buy lots more so when i see a recommendation in here that the government limit the stockpiling

00:06:12.700 of ammunition i know that sort of stuff is catnip for people that don't understand firearms or they

00:06:18.540 want to prey on the fact that a lot of people in this country don't know a lot about firearms

00:06:24.120 and one of the other recommendations to ban all semi-automatic firearms or rifles like rifles

00:06:33.840 handguns or shotguns and to do this with a couple of caveats well only if they have detachable

00:06:42.260 magazines that take more than five rounds of ammunition or if they are centerfire so not

00:06:47.080 the really small caliber 22 but they're basically saying we think the government should prohibit

00:06:51.880 almost all semi-automatic guns now this was oddly enough the amendment that that liberal mp tried

00:06:58.960 to sneak into Bill C-21. And it's funny that something eerily similar, in fact, if I looked

00:07:03.880 at the text, probably almost identical, is now finding its way as a recommendation in the Mass

00:07:09.640 Casualty Commission report. Nowhere did I see in my cursory scan an acknowledgement in this

00:07:16.300 firearms recommendation that the prohibition wouldn't have changed anything about this event

00:07:22.960 because the guy used illegal guns that were illegally smuggled into Canada. The one gun he

00:07:28.780 had that wasn't smuggled, he illegally acquired through an estate. But either way, guns that he

00:07:34.860 did not legally have that did not come from the Canadian market. So why do we think that prohibiting

00:07:41.020 any type of firearm would have stopped this incident or any others like it? But the problem

00:07:48.340 is that this event has been used by the Liberal government as a way to justify their intent on

00:07:54.040 banning firearms. That's what they want. And even if they have to be more incremental about it,

00:07:58.540 their goals are very clear. They don't like gun owners. They don't like guns. They don't want the

00:08:03.140 type of people who are gun owners to be able to have their property rights. So they do this. They

00:08:08.900 use this event, this horrible, horrible act of evil, this tragedy, to justify their political

00:08:16.640 aims. And we've already seen through the Brenda Luckey situation, the meddling in the police

00:08:21.400 investigation to do that. And now we're seeing the Mass Casualty Commission report try to do

00:08:26.320 the same thing, to use this as a springboard for a gun ban. But there was another weird section

00:08:32.080 that I had to look at and ask who wrote this. How did this come up here? Now, let me preface this

00:08:40.600 by saying I do not seek to diminish domestic violence in the least. It is a horrible thing.

00:08:46.960 It is a tremendously dangerous thing. If you look at these statistics, you know it's a lot

00:08:52.760 more commonplace than a lot of people realize. Any domestic violence, gender-based or otherwise,

00:08:58.700 needs to be understood, and it needs to be clamped down on, and people need to pay the

00:09:03.400 stiffest penalties imaginable if they go down that road. But I don't look at the Nova Scotia

00:09:09.880 killing spree and see this as being a domestic violence issue. Obviously, the guy, if you can

00:09:17.380 read all the stuff you want about it, has had that in his life, and you may be able to look at this

00:09:22.420 and say that gender-based violence is a precursor for other things,

00:09:25.840 or domestic violence, as I'm used to calling it.

00:09:28.360 But it's amazing how prominently that features in this report.

00:09:33.540 And some of the recommendations that I want to pluck out of this here

00:09:37.440 are a little bit weird, quite frankly.

00:09:40.620 One of them is to call gender-based violence an epidemic.

00:09:46.180 They say it's an epidemic in Nova Scotia and all of Canada

00:09:48.940 and in most parts of the world.

00:09:50.240 the united nations has been calling it a global pandemic violence against women and girls is also

00:09:55.460 endemic in canada and in all societies so ergo the government needs to call it declare it an endemic

00:10:01.720 and take a public health approach so they want the health units that did such a bang-up job

00:10:06.640 getting us through covid to take the front lines to take the front seat on ending domestic violence

00:10:12.840 which is a little bit of an odd thing so i if anyone believes labeling is going to stop this

00:10:18.380 you are sorely, sorely mistaken. But then we get to the even weirder part. And I want to quote

00:10:26.640 directly here from the recommendation, because they say that it needs to be a government priority

00:10:33.400 to cultivate healthy masculinities. They say government needs to support healthy masculinity.

00:10:41.400 Healthy masculinity appears in the report 11 times, at least in the executive summary 11 times,

00:10:46.920 It appears later on, and there's a whole chapter dedicated to cultivating healthy masculinities.

00:10:52.740 And they say promoting healthier masculinities is an important strategy for improving community

00:10:58.260 safety and well-being in two ways.

00:11:00.440 It prevents gender-based violence and it improves male health and well-being.

00:11:05.720 Now, this is the inverse of toxic masculinity.

00:11:09.640 So when they say promote healthy masculinity, it's what they're saying is we need to get

00:11:13.480 rid of toxic masculinity, which is the stuff that in the Gillette commercials, they're always

00:11:17.480 preaching at men about. And it's become the flavor of the day to go after toxic masculinity. They

00:11:23.440 don't like men that are really buff and masculine and uber strong. And we also are seeing time and

00:11:30.020 time again, more examples of very woke companies, very woke companies that start to say we need to

00:11:37.240 dismantle toxic masculinity in all its forms. So it's a little bit trivializing to take the Mass

00:11:45.280 Casualty Commission's report on this, on a horrific event that killed men and women,

00:11:53.260 and to say that we need to hold this up as a gender-based violence incident. And we need to 0.58

00:11:59.880 extrapolate from this all of these things that we want to change in society to deal with gender-based

00:12:05.120 violence, which is a real thing, and it's a problem. And it's a problem warranting solutions.

00:12:10.880 But it makes it look like this entire commission report is trying to just become this weird buffet

00:12:17.220 from which people can draw whatever issues they want. Oh, you want firearm stuff? Oh, you want

00:12:22.640 gender-based violence stuff? Yeah, we'll take a little bit of that. You want police reform? Great, 0.94

00:12:26.860 we'll take a little bit of that. And obviously, complex situations require complex solutions.

00:12:32.240 But this doesn't look like it's a solution to any genuine problem because, not a genuine

00:12:38.900 problem, but a solution to any problem that was at the root of this.

00:12:42.060 There is not a single recommendation I have seen in this that would have stopped this

00:12:47.960 killer from doing what he did, except for maybe if you go way back, and I did not see

00:12:53.120 anything to do with borders, really.

00:12:55.940 they talk in a few senses about the need to streamline communications between the Canadian

00:13:02.800 Border Services Agency and police but they aren't talking about really what we need to deal with

00:13:07.340 here which is firearm smuggling so all of this is to say that genuinely looking for answers here

00:13:16.640 looking for solutions here and thinking that you're going to find those by combating toxic

00:13:22.500 masculinity by the government running PSAs about healthy masculinity by public health agencies

00:13:27.520 saying that we're going to declare violence against women or gender-based violence to be an

00:13:31.840 endemic. None of these things are going to stop this event. None of these things are going to

00:13:40.720 stop these killers. And it's funny, I wrote a column many years ago after a mass shooting in

00:13:47.220 the US in which I said there's no antidote to evil. That was the takeaway of it. And I actually

00:13:54.600 regretted a little bit because as a Christian, I believe that there is an antidote to evil and I

00:13:58.820 believe God is the antidote to evil. And I was talking about it in a political context at the

00:14:03.140 time though. There's no political remedy to evil. And what happens anytime these horrific events

00:14:08.980 take place, we all want to believe that they were preventable. We want to believe there was

00:14:12.840 something we could have done, something we needed to have done,

00:14:16.260 and something that would have made a tangible difference.

00:14:19.000 Because saying, pardon the language, I won't use the language,

00:14:22.380 because then we get like the weird flag on iTunes or whatever,

00:14:25.400 but saying that poop happens is not a satisfactory response to horrible things.

00:14:32.360 To look at something evil and say, well, that sucks, but that's life.

00:14:36.420 No one is satisfied with that, nor should they be.

00:14:38.540 so I'm struggling here to come up with an answer to what could have stopped this guy

00:14:47.620 and I don't have one and I don't come to you today because I have the answers figured out

00:14:53.180 and the Mass Casualty Commission doesn't I do it because I despise this trend we now see

00:14:59.580 where people just latch on to whatever tragedy of the day has taken place and use it as a springboard

00:15:06.460 for whatever they think society needed,

00:15:09.180 irrespective of the tragedy.

00:15:10.960 If you believe that society needs fewer guns

00:15:12.900 and you believe that we need more gun control,

00:15:14.860 you're going to look at anything

00:15:15.980 that remotely involves firearms

00:15:17.980 and find justification to ban guns. 1.00

00:15:21.660 The Liberal government did not give one iota of crap 0.99

00:15:25.540 about those victims in Nova Scotia. 0.99

00:15:28.240 They saw this as an opportunity to justify a gun ban.

00:15:32.620 So they almost overnight put in the handgun freeze.

00:15:36.160 Again, didn't matter, didn't have anything to do with anything or the, not the handgun

00:15:41.100 ban, but the order and counsel.

00:15:44.000 They didn't care.

00:15:45.480 They didn't care.

00:15:46.120 They just wanted to do that.

00:15:47.500 They saw their window.

00:15:48.380 They went ahead with it.

00:15:49.280 And when the facts of the case actually worked against them, they just had that little pipeline

00:15:53.720 of information from Bill Blair to Brenda Luckey down to the Nova Scotia RCMP that went against

00:15:59.200 that.

00:16:00.320 So then we look at the other side of it. 1.00

00:16:02.880 You know, violence against women is a huge issue.

00:16:05.380 You've got activist groups that want to make a difference on that. 0.99

00:16:08.240 You've got women's shelters that want to make a difference at it.

00:16:10.580 You know they were all contributing volumes and volumes of information.

00:16:14.420 And again, I am not diminishing this.

00:16:17.540 I'm saying that you cannot break this down to a failing of toxic masculinity

00:16:22.080 and say that if the government gets up there and Justin Trudeau promotes healthy masculinity

00:16:26.920 and Teresa Tam gets up there and says we need more healthy masculinity,

00:16:31.200 that that is going to do anything.

00:16:32.940 and it takes this concept that has now become this joke because a lot of the people that say

00:16:41.060 they reject toxic masculinity actually just reject masculinity in general so what on earth

00:16:46.160 is healthy masculinity that that's to say that a masculinity needs that qualifier that masculinity

00:16:51.760 needs to be labeled healthy otherwise it is unhealthy that's the implication if you really

00:16:57.020 want to go down and parse the language here. So I don't come with the answers, but I am coming

00:17:03.420 with a warning that we have to stop letting people politicize these tragedies because they

00:17:08.880 will keep doing it over and over and over again. We'll have perhaps more on this as I've had a

00:17:15.040 chance to read other parts of the report. But when I initially skimmed through and I saw both

00:17:19.560 the firearm stuff and then the masculinity stuff, I said, okay, I have to at least talk about that

00:17:24.340 today. I want to shift gears here. You may remember last week I was at the Canada Strong

00:17:29.040 and Free Networking Conference in Ottawa, and I sat down with a number of the movers and shakers

00:17:34.320 of Canada's Conservative movement, including the former leader of the Conservative. She served as

00:17:40.320 leader on an interim basis after Erin O'Toole was ousted before Pierre Polyev was elected leader,

00:17:46.740 and that is Candace Bergen, who's now taken a backseat to politics as well, like Erin O'Toole

00:17:51.940 announce he'd be doing. And she is, I believe I saw, I don't follow Manitoba politics too closely,

00:17:56.800 but I believe I saw this morning that Candace Bergen is now the co-chair of the Manitoba PC

00:18:02.640 campaign. So power to them, I guess. But this was my sit down with former interim conservative

00:18:08.520 leader, Candace Bergen. Joining me here at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference is

00:18:15.480 former conservative leader, Candace Bergen. Obviously, Candace, you had to be the interim

00:18:20.520 leader during the leadership race so you saw yourself being replaced in real time and now

00:18:25.200 you've you've left politics so what's your why are you still here why are you still immersing

00:18:29.280 yourself in this world when you don't need to it's funny Andrew because when I let Pierre our

00:18:34.040 leader know that I was going to be stepping down I said but you know Pierre I got into politics as

00:18:38.580 a volunteer and I want to go back to being a volunteer because I still love politics and I

00:18:43.500 still believe strongly in what a conservative party does and what we need to do for the country

00:18:48.260 So I said, I'm going to be retiring my official role as a member of parliament.

00:18:52.700 But I said to Pierre and my caucus, I still want to help.

00:18:56.240 So, no, this is still very important to me.

00:18:58.960 I like obviously meeting fellow conservatives.

00:19:02.280 It was great to see Stephen Harper and hear Stephen and Preston last night.

00:19:06.660 And this is important.

00:19:08.080 It's important that we come together.

00:19:10.340 Our conservative party and our movement is made up of coalitions of different groups of people.

00:19:16.220 And I'm a big believer in we need to be able to disagree and still be united.

00:19:21.440 And I'll tell you, more than ever, we need to be a united conservative movement.

00:19:25.220 So even though I'm retired officially, I'm still, I care very much about the country and I'm still a conservative.

00:19:32.040 I know a lot of people here made a big deal about Stephen Harper speaking.

00:19:36.240 Joining me here at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference is former conservative leader Candice Bergen.

00:19:42.020 Obviously, Candice, you had to be the interim leader during the leadership race.

00:19:46.440 So you saw yourself being replaced in real time.

00:19:49.020 And now you've left politics.

00:19:50.820 So why are you still here?

00:19:52.860 Why are you still immersing yourself in this world when you don't need to?

00:19:55.320 It's funny, Andrew, because when I let Pierre, our leader, know that I was going to be stepping down,

00:20:00.500 I said, but, you know, Pierre, I got into politics as a volunteer and I want to go back to being a volunteer

00:20:06.040 because I still love politics and I still believe strongly in what a conservative party does

00:20:11.340 and what we need to do for the country.

00:20:12.760 So I said, I'm going to be retiring my official role as a member of parliament.

00:20:17.060 But I said to Pierre and my caucus, I still want to help.

00:20:20.600 So, no, this is still very important to me.

00:20:23.380 I like obviously meeting fellow conservatives.

00:20:26.640 It was great to see Stephen Harper and hear Stephen and Preston last night.

00:20:31.060 And this is important.

00:20:32.440 It's important that we come together.

00:20:34.720 Our conservative party and our movement is made up of coalitions of different groups of people.

00:20:40.600 And I'm a big believer in we need to be able to disagree and still be united.

00:20:45.800 And I'll tell you, more than ever, we need to be a united conservative movement.

00:20:49.580 So even though I'm retired officially, I'm still, I care very much about the country and I'm still a conservative.

00:20:56.060 I know a lot of people here made a big deal about Stephen Harper speaking

00:20:59.400 because he has kept something of a low profile in Canadian politics since he left office.

00:21:03.780 But I know from talking to you and other members of Parliament that I know, he has never disappeared.

00:21:08.940 He's always been giving advice and talking behind the scenes.

00:21:11.940 So he still maintained a very involved role.

00:21:14.940 And I'm curious what you think of his idea that he put forward in his remarks

00:21:18.940 that we're witnessing a conservative renaissance right now, to use his words.

00:21:23.940 Well, I always find it hard to believe that we just don't always have a conservative renaissance going on

00:21:28.940 because I just think any common sense person would agree with conservative policy

00:21:33.940 see, you know, if we did the good job and the best job of communicating them.

00:21:39.440 So, yes, I mean, I think that every government has a lifespan, and so we're seeing the end

00:21:44.540 of this liberal government's lifespan come to an end.

00:21:49.040 So I think there's part of that.

00:21:50.960 Is there a renaissance?

00:21:52.360 I hope he's right.

00:21:54.080 I do worry that in Preston alluded to this yesterday, even policy around balancing the

00:21:59.280 budget, that seems to be almost old school.

00:22:02.120 A lot of people, not to me, it's not to me, but to a lot of people, there are certain ideas that I would consider to be a good conservative policy that are rare.

00:22:13.300 And so I hope he's right.

00:22:15.680 I do worry the way young people are being raised and what they're taught at school, our universities, the bastion for liberal ideas.

00:22:26.580 There really is very little opportunity for young people to hear of conservative policy.

00:22:31.420 So unless it's sort of intuitively in them or if their parents are raising them, you need to be responsible for yourself.

00:22:38.520 You need to make sure your finances are managed properly, less government, individual responsibility.

00:22:44.380 Unless they're raised with that kind of as part of who they are, I think it's going to be very difficult, but I hope he's right.

00:22:54.340 Just lastly, what do you think the non-negotiables are?

00:22:57.320 Because obviously conservative politics and politics changes over time.

00:23:00.080 What do you think the core values that should never change about the conservative movement are?

00:23:03.940 You know, when I was leader, I talked about fiscal, kind of the four pillars, fiscal responsibility, law and order, national unity, freedom of expression and belief.

00:23:15.460 Those are sort of the four core things that make us all conservative.

00:23:19.800 And I think any other issue, any other policy can be woven into that.

00:23:24.440 and there can be all kinds of interesting things

00:23:27.900 that come out of other types of policy and beliefs.

00:23:30.220 But I think those are four core foundations

00:23:33.540 of who we are as Conservatives.

00:23:35.080 Last year, I just remembered you had to skip it

00:23:36.900 because you had COVID.

00:23:37.920 You were going to be coming in person.

00:23:39.280 I did.

00:23:39.680 And then had to send a video.

00:23:40.640 So do you like being in person now?

00:23:42.160 I do, I do.

00:23:43.280 I was thinking about that.

00:23:44.460 I was wondering, I thought,

00:23:45.500 I wonder what it was like last year.

00:23:46.940 Because yes, I did my speech

00:23:48.180 and I was like, just feeling like,

00:23:49.880 oh no, I'm not feeling good.

00:23:51.040 And I tested positive for COVID.

00:23:53.160 But I only got it once and I survived.

00:23:57.340 All right.

00:23:57.680 Well, that's what matters. 0.98

00:23:58.740 Candice Bergen, former Conservative leader.

00:24:00.380 Thanks for your service in politics over the years.

00:24:02.360 And thanks for sitting down today.

00:24:03.500 Great to chat with you. 1.00

00:24:08.620 That was Candice Bergen, the former Conservative leader and now retreating to private life here.

00:24:15.780 But I do thank her very much for sitting down.

00:24:18.340 A lot of other former politicians just like don't care to talk anymore because they don't need to win your votes

00:24:22.940 or curry favor or anything.

00:24:24.120 So I was glad she sat down.

00:24:26.140 And we have some more of the Canada Strong

00:24:28.480 and Free Networking Conference interviews coming next week.

00:24:31.540 We have a couple left.

00:24:32.320 We didn't want to just like bombard you all in one show

00:24:34.460 with like every interview.

00:24:35.440 So we've sprinkled them out a little bit.

00:24:37.500 And I think we have, speaking of the firearms issue,

00:24:39.640 Tracy Wilson in the hopper for next show.

00:24:42.840 She is the VP of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms.

00:24:47.440 Are you right?

00:24:47.660 No, I'm getting that right.

00:24:48.460 Yeah, no, the CCFR.

00:24:50.180 I'm just, I'm blanking on the, I blank on acronyms all the time because I just call them the CCFR.

00:24:54.740 But in general, we're going to be talking about firearms, not related to the Nova Scotia shooting.

00:25:00.660 But I do want to talk a little bit about Aaron O'Toole stepping down here because he was a guy who I actually have always liked.

00:25:08.820 And I've always gotten along with him when he ran for leader of the Conservatives in 2017.

00:25:14.040 I had, you know, great interviews with him and he did well enough in the debates,

00:25:18.600 but he was never one of the front runners.

00:25:20.420 And then when 2020 came around

00:25:22.680 and there was an opening yet again,

00:25:25.120 I know everyone in the establishment thought

00:25:27.000 that it was gonna be Peter McKay just on a cakewalk.

00:25:30.640 I think everyone looked and saw,

00:25:32.260 you know what, Aaron O'Toole

00:25:33.020 is probably gonna be the winner here

00:25:34.920 because they didn't have a huge number of candidates.

00:25:37.540 And he was the guy that was appealing

00:25:39.300 to the supporters of Leslie Lewis and Derek Sloan

00:25:42.760 more than Peter McKay was.

00:25:44.200 And it's a ranked ballot.

00:25:45.520 And he ran as Mr. True Blue Conservative.

00:25:48.600 And then when he became the conservative leader was neither true nor blue nor conservative.

00:25:53.600 So it was difficult to see how he thought he would hold on in the leadership role when

00:26:01.720 that was the pivot, when he abandoned some of the core things that he campaigned on in

00:26:07.360 the leadership.

00:26:07.860 And I don't mean softening.

00:26:08.980 I just mean like completely rolling on.

00:26:11.220 So he was unpopular.

00:26:12.880 There were some caucus management issues.

00:26:14.460 When the Freedom Convoy came, it was just complete game over.

00:26:18.800 Checkmate, no way around it.

00:26:20.520 When your party and your party's members and your party's caucus members

00:26:24.420 are supporting these trucks heading to Ottawa,

00:26:27.040 and you can't say one way or another whether you'll meet with them,

00:26:30.060 whether you support them, agree with them, and that was that.

00:26:33.100 Now, I don't like defining people's careers based on their worst moments.

00:26:37.960 I think Aaron O'Toole did a very good job in the Veterans Affairs portfolio.

00:26:41.600 I think that Aaron O'Toole has a solid head on his shoulders.

00:26:44.980 I think he's a smart guy, and he served his country in the military.

00:26:48.060 I know some people on the left tried to make fun of him for bringing it up,

00:26:51.560 but he did it, and he deserves credit for that.

00:26:53.640 So I don't take this good riddance approach to Aaron O'Toole.

00:26:58.000 I say that he was the wrong choice for conservative leader,

00:27:01.080 even if he was the best choice of the options between him and Peter McKay.

00:27:04.960 And I thank him for his service, and that is that.

00:27:07.620 And I don't wish any ill will, despite how frustrated I was during his leadership with how that manifested.

00:27:14.240 But I do think that the 2021 election is still a bit of a test case in authenticity.

00:27:19.760 And it's something that I hope Pierre Polyev notes and future conservative politicians as well in this country.

00:27:26.780 It is Friday, and I know we talked about some very heavy stuff on the show.

00:27:31.140 But I kind of want to make it a bit of a resolution to not just totally depress you before I send you out into the weekend.

00:27:37.900 I feel that's the bare minimum I could do.

00:27:39.740 So we had a couple of just lighter stories.

00:27:42.440 But we also want to bring Fake News Friday into the Andrew Lawton Show fold today and take it away.

00:28:01.140 That was a fun seven seconds, wasn't it?

00:28:03.380 The Fake News Friday segment for this show is one that I think reinforces an age-old concept in Canadian politics

00:28:10.720 that all roads lead to Justin Trudeau's socks.

00:28:13.820 You may have seen this photo from Joe Biden's visit to Ottawa of Xavier Trudeau,

00:28:21.120 who is like the really, really tall son in the Trudeau family.

00:28:24.900 I think he's taller than Justin Trudeau, or at least getting there.

00:28:28.080 The whole Trudeau clan is hanging out.

00:28:30.140 you can tell it's a real Joe Biden image because Joe Biden is holding a child for inexplicable

00:28:36.220 reasons. That's how you know it's not an imposter. It's the real Joe Biden. And the one thing that

00:28:42.120 people focused on in this photo was Xavier's socks. Now, normally Justin Trudeau is the one

00:28:50.220 whose socks attract the most attention. Now, he was probably very upset that his son was usurping

00:28:55.300 him on the sock front but uh they're indoors and this was like a very weird twitter fight that then

00:29:01.340 emerged where you had people saying that he should be wearing shoes and then other people said well

00:29:05.820 actually no everyone else should have taken their shoes off uh joe biden it's not advisable to take

00:29:10.120 your shoes off because you'll never find them again probably uh but i don't actually have a dog

00:29:14.660 in the sock fight i think there are apparently sock houses and shoe houses i have never gotten

00:29:19.740 the whole, was it Mr. Rogers who would go inside and then change the shoes for the other shoes?

00:29:25.940 Like that just seems like a lot of work. I don't know if slippers count as shoes, but I'm okay

00:29:31.260 being in sock feet in my own home. And if the president were over, I don't know what I would

00:29:35.620 do, come to think of it. I would probably just do whatever he did. So that's one way of doing it.

00:29:39.900 But the media sees news here. People can't tweet about something without it being news.

00:29:45.400 Yahoo, photo of PM Trudeau's sock sparks hilarious.

00:29:49.720 No, not his sock, Sparks.

00:29:51.440 I can't even read.

00:29:52.660 Photo of PM Trudeau's son sparks hilarious debate

00:29:55.720 after Biden's visit to Rideau Cottage.

00:29:58.880 Yeah, so you can decide in the comments

00:30:01.140 whether you are on team Xavier with no shoes,

00:30:05.520 team everyone else with shoes,

00:30:07.580 or on team Andrew Lawton.

00:30:09.400 Why did you waste our time with this story

00:30:11.360 about socks in the Trudeau household?

00:30:13.260 And you know what?

00:30:14.040 The more I talk about it, I'm increasingly on Team 3 as well.

00:30:17.700 So we'll move on from this.

00:30:20.380 Here's a bit of a fun story, though, for the weekend.

00:30:23.280 A rescue...

00:30:24.300 Well, let me refresh, actually, because maybe the story has updated.

00:30:28.060 No, it sounds like the rescue is still underway.

00:30:30.400 So a rescue is underway for a pod of dolphins

00:30:33.780 that have been stranded by ice in Dildo Cove.

00:30:39.280 I'm playing this straight.

00:30:40.580 I am making no jokes.

00:30:41.860 The rescue is underway for a pod of dolphins stranded by ice in Dildo Cove.

00:30:46.860 And I'm doing this on porpoise.

00:30:50.560 No? Nothing? All right.

00:30:52.140 I need a studio audience to know if the jokes land. 0.63

00:30:54.620 But a pod of hapless white-beak dolphins, CBC says,

00:30:58.160 has been stranded by sea ice in the shallow harbor outside Dildo, Newfoundland.

00:31:02.900 They could be seen swimming in circles near worried onlookers.

00:31:07.120 Thank you, Sean.

00:31:08.160 Sean messaged me and said that was a good one.

00:31:09.920 But Team Porpoise, yes.

00:31:11.860 There was a porpoise to the joke.

00:31:13.600 People had said they haven't seen stranded dolphins in Dildo Cove for decades.

00:31:19.020 They did see a dolphin with a dildo once, but not a stranded dolphin in Dildo Cove.

00:31:23.740 And that was a regrettable moment that they don't talk about.

00:31:26.080 It was on a Friday, I believe.

00:31:27.700 But there were of the dolphins, they had pulled three of the 10 out

00:31:31.460 and were trying to get seven of the remaining dildos out of Dolphin Cove, but failed.

00:31:37.060 Wait, did I get there anyway?

00:31:38.600 So this is just all a lengthy way of saying I learned of this song recently that I had to share with you before we close things out here.

00:31:46.940 It is a song that was made by Uncle John, who hails from Dildo Newfoundland, and it suggests the people there might actually be a little in on the joke.

00:32:08.600 And I came out of my door one day, and I went out to say, I saw my friend standing there this question he asked me. He says, I have the paper here. I said, I think I know you're going around from house to house to change the name to the door.

00:32:29.480 I say now, friend, I want to sign the shameless precious name

00:32:35.620 I hope that every person here, they will feel the same

00:32:40.840 For God will travel with us wherever we might go

00:32:46.160 He will never laugh or joke about the name Deldo

00:32:51.100 He stands for our dignity, our name will never change 0.52

00:32:56.300 How can you not bop along to the dildo song? 0.82

00:33:17.360 That is a great little track. 1.00

00:33:19.040 I had never heard of Uncle John before I learned that song. 0.97

00:33:21.440 I believe the dildo song might be Uncle John's only hit. 0.61

00:33:24.620 And I did not know that Dildo Newfoundland had a Hollywood sign for Dildo.

00:33:29.720 So maybe we'll have to do the next Andrew Lawton Show live edition,

00:33:33.060 live from Dildo, and we can interview some of those stranded dolphins

00:33:36.620 that were making the news.

00:33:38.320 That is it for this week.

00:33:39.980 We hope you all have a great weekend,

00:33:41.060 and we will be back next week with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:33:45.980 This is the Andrew Lawton Show on True North.

00:33:47.980 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:33:50.780 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:54.940 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:34:20.780 We'll be right back.

00:34:50.780 We'll be right back.

00:35:20.780 Thank you.

Juno News - March 31, 2023

Nova Scotia mass casualty commission says government must ＂promote healthy masculinities＂

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