Juno News - Our charter rights are supposed to be universal and inalienable

00:00:00.000 Most Canadians have now been homebound, stuck at home, unable to go to work, to earn a livelihood,

00:00:10.800 to send their kids to school, to attend religious services, or even to go out and enjoy the great

00:00:16.400 outdoors. At risk of being fined or even arrested, Canadians have not been able to celebrate important

00:00:23.760 milestones with our loved ones. We haven't been able to see our friends, to travel, to participate

00:00:28.960 in recreational activities and sports, and we haven't even been able to do any household shopping

00:00:33.840 aside from at the grocery store. The coronavirus lockdown measures have been unprecedented and

00:00:39.840 extreme. Even during times of great danger and uncertainty in the past, during world wars,

00:00:45.280 past pandemics, the threat of nuclear war, and even after life-altering terrorist attacks, our leaders

00:00:51.200 resisted imposing such strict and heavy-handed measures. Past leaders insisted that citizens

00:00:57.360 keep calm and carry on. Even when their lives are at risk, the only thing we have to fear is fear

00:01:02.400 itself, said Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his famous inaugural presidential address in 1933.

00:01:09.440 FDR knew that panic was counterproductive to the goal of peace and stability. Well, this time around

00:01:16.640 in 2020, our leaders are taking the opposite approach. Politicians and their friends in the media have

00:01:23.200 deliberately created a frenzy about the risks around coronavirus. The World Health Organization greatly

00:01:29.200 inflated the mortality rate, journalists shifted the 24-7 news cycle to stories exclusively about

00:01:35.600 coronavirus death and suffering, and politicians of all stripes used strict orders to stay at home.

00:01:43.200 Without any public consultation about balancing civil liberties with public safety, and without a deeper

00:01:49.360 conversation about the ramifications of unprecedented government restrictions on our rights and freedoms,

00:01:56.160 our leaders have allowed fear to set the agenda. What about the important balance of defending public

00:02:02.080 safety while also upholding civil liberties? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once talked a good game

00:02:08.960 about maintaining this balance, and insisted that the Liberal Party was the party of the Charter of Rights

00:02:14.400 and Freedom in Canada. He repeatedly emphasized this exact balance between safety and liberty when

00:02:21.200 justifying his government's lax approach towards combating terrorism. This is what he had to say

00:02:27.120 about that balance back in 2016. How was a known jihadi sympathizer able to build bombs and distribute a

00:02:37.120 martyrdom video when he was supposed to be under a court order constraining his activities,

00:02:43.600 and how did the FBI know about that before the RCMP?

00:02:49.840 Canada is a country that values its freedoms, its basic charter rights, and all Canadians expect their

00:03:00.240 governments to do two things. To keep Canadians safe and to defend and uphold the values

00:03:09.200 and rights that all Canadians hold dear, getting that balance right isn't always easy in the challenging

00:03:18.880 world and the challenging situation we now live in. But it's extremely important. Trudeau was unwilling to

00:03:25.680 disrupt the charter rights even of known terrorists because he thought that upholding our freedoms was

00:03:31.920 more important than protecting the safety of Canadians. And in 2017, when he was defending his

00:03:38.480 decision to award convicted terrorist Omar Khadar with $10.5 million and an official apology, Trudeau

00:03:45.200 insisted that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects all Canadians, every one of us, even when

00:03:51.040 it's uncomfortable. That's what Trudeau said back then. Well, over the past six weeks, has Trudeau been asked

00:03:56.640 once by the consortium of hand-picked journalists who attend his daily briefings, has even asked it

00:04:02.400 all to reflect on the balance of safety and freedom? Has Trudeau been made to explain why

00:04:08.160 upholding the rights of terrorists was sacrosanct, but defending those exact same rights and freedoms

00:04:14.000 for all Canadians today is not a priority? The Trudeau government's rationale for the lockdown

00:04:19.360 has been to, quote, protect the health and safety of Canadians. Trudeau and his officials have repeated

00:04:25.440 that over and over again. But why hasn't a journalist pressed Trudeau on the importance

00:04:30.320 of protecting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? One of Trudeau's favorite platitudes, after all,

00:04:36.880 is to say that the Liberal Party is the party of the Charter. He's said that over and over and over again.

00:04:43.040 Well, our Charter rights are being trampled on right now, including the right to a peaceful

00:04:48.160 assembly, the right to freedom of association, the right to enter and leave Canada, the right to

00:04:53.680 travel to any province, the right to pursue a livelihood, the right to a trial and to be tried

00:04:58.880 within a reasonable amount of time, and, of course, the right to life, liberty, and security of the

00:05:04.880 person. All of these rights are supposed to be universal and inalienable. Well, under Trudeau's

00:05:11.200 government, under the Liberal government, it turns out our Charter rights are in fact conditional.

00:05:17.360 And basically, they can be rescinded at any time. This is an incredibly dangerous precedent,

00:05:23.520 and Canadians need to stand up against it. For True North, I'm Candace Malcolm.

Juno News - May 02, 2020

Our charter rights are supposed to be universal and inalienable

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