Juno News - March 31, 2023


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


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

165.23615

Word Count

5,846

Sentence Count

319

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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.
00:15:21.660 The Liberal government did not give one iota of crap
00:15:25.540 about those victims in Nova Scotia.
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.