Juno News - Phantom honking, microaggression, and government incompetence： Emergencies Act hearings are underway

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

00:00:05.100 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.660 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.200 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:17.740 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:21.540 It is Tuesday, October 18th, just after 4 o'clock Eastern Time here.

00:00:27.120 and I thank you so much for tuning into the program today.

00:00:30.240 I want to talk for pretty much the entirety of the show

00:00:34.020 about the Public Order Emergency Commission,

00:00:36.900 which right now is underway in Ottawa.

00:00:40.140 And all day we've been hearing from Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson,

00:00:43.560 who's been testifying about a number of things,

00:00:46.640 which we'll get to.

00:00:47.460 We've got lots of clips.

00:00:48.840 Last week we heard about the horror that is phantom honking

00:00:52.240 and microaggressions,

00:00:54.420 which I don't think are spelled out as justification for the Emergencies Act.

00:00:59.240 I may have to reread the act, but I actually don't think those are part and parcel of it here.

00:01:03.660 But I want to talk about some of the micro details that have come out here

00:01:07.060 and also some of the bigger picture discussions and what it is that's really at stake.

00:01:12.400 And I want to get right into the thick of it here.

00:01:14.620 I'm joined by Adam Blake-Gallupo, who is a lawyer with the Democracy Fund,

00:01:20.040 which you will actually be hearing from and have already heard from in the course of these hearings

00:01:25.140 Adam good to talk to you thank you very much for coming on today

00:01:28.120 thank you very much for having me Andrew it's great to be here let's just start right out of

00:01:35.480 the gate with a bit of a housekeeping note here what is the democracy fund's role in these hearings

00:01:41.020 and before the commission yeah so um yeah good question so we we share standing uh right now

00:01:49.920 uh with the jccf and another organization um so we we are not uh we are not we don't have full uh

00:01:58.320 uh party status uh as as many of the other you know ben miller uh is is convoy coalition has

00:02:05.920 um however we we do have a significant role here and uh as as we were discussing just before this

00:02:11.760 started um mr alan honor our litigation director was just cross-examining uh mayor watson um so

00:02:19.680 So it's a privilege to be part of this, but we're here to seek answers with respect to the invocation of the act, just like everybody else is, and I'm certain all of your viewers are as well.

00:02:36.760 the level of detail that we're coming getting out of this and I should note seven weeks of

00:02:43.540 hearings we're on day four right now some of the detail has been very granular which you want but

00:02:48.820 a lot of it I also feel is very extraneous I mean the fundamental question that this commission is

00:02:55.340 by statute supposed to assess is whether the use of the emergencies act was justified now I know

00:03:01.260 the liberal government has on top of that heaped through an order in council a number of other

00:03:05.960 goals for the commission, like to investigate the source of funding and investigate the convoy

00:03:10.700 itself. But, but really the key question here is, was the emergencies act justified? And a lot of

00:03:16.480 the testimony, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't really seem to answer that question or contribute

00:03:21.440 to an answer. No, you're, yeah, I, I, yeah, I, I, I completely agree with your, your assessment

00:03:28.340 there, Andrew. The evidence that we've seen so far, I mean, since evidence has been

00:03:35.700 presented which has just been what as of today two days uh in total uh has has been uh replete

00:03:42.980 with hearsay and uh and and sort of redundance i mean we haven't you know and and like you said

00:03:50.020 at the outset we're only on uh what is this day four so there's a lot to come um but as it stands

00:03:58.260 i mean we we don't have anything uh we can really sink our teeth into at this point i think

00:04:03.860 the most significant uh sort of telling features that the uh that have transpired to date uh have

00:04:11.620 been in the opening statements uh to be frank elaborate on that what statements particularly

00:04:18.660 did you feel were really noteworthy sure well okay so so i yeah i i you know i'll admit that um

00:04:28.340 You know, going into this, I assume there's going to be roughly speaking two sides, right?

00:04:34.260 You're going to have the sort of civil liberties oriented sides with JCCF, obviously ourselves, the protesters, and then the other side, which would include the government entities.

00:04:48.000 And I'm including the police as part of that group, right?

00:04:53.060 The competing sides are, you know, lawful invocation of the act versus, no, no, this act was unlawfully invoked in this context.

00:05:03.380 That's not what we're seeing.

00:05:05.540 What we're seeing is, and, you know, I'm the first to admit that I was kind of blindsided by this.

00:05:12.300 We're seeing the police and sort of government branches entering into a more nuanced discussion through their cross-examination and their sort of trajectory and cross-examination has been such that they're seeking to preserve their reputations, right?

00:05:35.260 Which, of course, hindsight's 20-20, of course, this is something that they would be looking to do, right?

00:05:41.020 Right. Especially you've got a representative for for chief slowly, you know, in attendance

00:05:48.700 as well. So so reputation is something that is on the table that, you know, I probably

00:05:54.100 should have foreseen, but but admittedly didn't. So now and of course, when you've got reputation

00:05:59.480 on the table and there's arguments with respect to, OK, well, did ops do enough in this particular

00:06:04.600 context, you've got competing arguments. And if ops didn't do enough, or if they did, let's say,

00:06:13.540 well, then somebody dropped the ball over here. So the reputational argument turns into,

00:06:20.260 or sort of rather, is at odds with other interests of other government entities,

00:06:27.520 if I'm making sense. Yeah, you are. And I would point out, I sort of

00:06:32.660 saw something similar because it's sometimes more revealing than what the witnesses are saying even

00:06:37.800 to look at the questions that various lawyers are asking. And when you look at, for example,

00:06:43.100 Peter Slowly's lawyer coming up to question the Ottawa Police Service, it's almost comical how

00:06:48.220 transparent his agenda is or questioning Jim Watson, because, you know, the question that

00:06:53.140 he's asked of like pretty much every witness, it's, would you agree that your interactions with,

00:06:57.020 you know, Chief Slowly were always professional and that he was always great and he's a nice guy? 0.73

00:07:00.780 So there is a little bit of arse covering by various divisions of this.

00:07:06.460 And interestingly enough, though, that may be very revealing for people, but I still 0.66

00:07:11.940 don't think that gets to that fundamental question of was there a national emergency

00:07:15.900 at stake here?

00:07:17.220 And I want to put to you and those listening the text of Section 3 in the Emergencies Act,

00:07:23.100 that for the purposes of this act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation

00:07:27.660 of a temporary nature that seriously endangers the lives, health, or safety of Canadians

00:07:32.520 and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal

00:07:38.620 with it or seriously threatens the ability of the government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty,

00:07:44.300 security, and territorial integrity of Canada and that cannot effectively be dealt with under

00:07:51.180 any other law of Canada. And I think that's one of the critical parts of this year.

00:07:55.960 If you look at governments that are unable to solve this problem, that police not being able to do it by incompetence, does that satisfy that?

00:08:05.180 If they had the legal means available, but for political reasons, they weren't able to come up with what they needed?

00:08:12.220 Well, I mean, if you're asking me, no, no, of course it doesn't satisfy that.

00:08:17.840 I mean, you've got, you know, Windsor is case in point, right?

00:08:21.420 Windsor, the protesters were, as stated in opening statements, it's a success story according to

00:08:34.460 police services. And the last of the protesters, to my knowledge, and I can be corrected here,

00:08:41.260 the last of the protesters were removed on February 13th, which is a day before the

00:08:45.500 the Emergencies Act was invoked.

00:08:48.400 So if they were able to successfully remove the trucks

00:08:52.900 and protesters, you know, that were allegedly blocking

00:08:57.800 the Ambassador Bridge, we saw the response,

00:09:01.900 we saw the police response, there was, you know,

00:09:05.300 sufficient coverage.

00:09:09.340 Why was it then necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act

00:09:14.000 situation like ottawa um and and and this is exactly this is exactly to your point so we've

00:09:20.560 got we've got competing and again this is this this goes back to what what we were talking about

00:09:26.000 earlier we've got competing interests here we've got uh police services that are saying well look

00:09:30.960 at windsor windsor um you know was handled uh beautifully there was no uh this is not me saying

00:09:37.360 this uh this is an opening statements you know windsor is a is isn't sort of uh an ideal situation

00:09:43.520 everybody was cleared out without the invocation of the emergencies act

00:09:48.480 so then what sort of needs to be revealed i think uh in order to satisfy uh certainly in your your

00:09:55.520 viewers and certainly individuals watching this but also this should be uh prevalent on the mind

00:10:00.640 of the commissioner is why was it not necessary uh in windsor but it is necessary in ottawa and

00:10:08.320 hopefully uh through the course of the next what we have here five and a half weeks we can we can

00:10:14.240 get some answers with respect to that question i i just want to for context here put a a clip

00:10:20.560 forward here this is a clip from your colleague uh alan honor litigation director at the democracy

00:10:27.360 fund and he puts i think in his opening statement a very fine point on why it is that we are all

00:10:34.560 here and i want to play that clip for you in the audience now good morning commissioner good

00:10:41.200 morning everyone my name is alan honor and i am the litigation director for the democracy fund

00:10:47.920 the democracy fund is a registered charity and a civil liberties organization as you've heard

00:10:54.240 we're sharing standing with the jccf and with citizens for freedom our interest in this inquiry

00:11:01.360 arises from our legal work. In February of 2022, we sent lawyers to Ottawa and to Windsor to provide

00:11:09.840 demonstrators with legal information about their rights when protesting, as well as the limitations

00:11:17.600 of those rights. Around the same time, we were granted intervener status as a friend of the court

00:11:24.240 at the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor over the Ambassador Bridge injunction proceeding.

00:11:34.000 Currently, we represent dozens of persons who have been criminally charged

00:11:38.620 in relation to the protests at Ottawa, Windsor, and Coutts,

00:11:44.060 and we represent thousands of others who have been charged under the Quarantine Act

00:11:48.900 or provincial offenses related to the pandemic.

00:11:53.460 We've also brought applications before Superior Courts and the Federal Court of Canada,

00:11:59.700 challenging laws related to the pandemic.

00:12:03.200 Our objective is to participate in the fact-finding process of this inquiry,

00:12:08.560 particularly as it relates to uncovering the truth about why the federal government invoked a public order emergency

00:12:16.500 and how they used their powers.

00:12:19.560 From our perspective, the government did not meet the requisite legal grounds to invoke a public order emergency

00:12:26.240 for the same reasons you heard from counsel for the Freedom Corps.

00:12:32.320 It follows that the extraordinary measures the government invoked were therefore inappropriate and indeed outside their jurisdiction.

00:12:41.100 Our questions and our submissions will focus on these central issues. Thank you.

00:12:48.680 So the reason I wanted to bring that up is because what your colleague points out there is that there are a number of fronts for the battles right now underway.

00:12:57.560 We have Quarantine Act charges. There are criminal charges emerging from the convoy protests.

00:13:02.480 There are constitutional challenges. There's a parliamentary inquiry.

00:13:05.720 There's there's this thing here. And I think all of them are important in some way.

00:13:09.520 But but this, to me, is the simplest of them all.

00:13:13.600 And it's the most important because really it's it's it's not about there's no section one that can save the government here.

00:13:19.940 There isn't, you know, a body of case law really behind it.

00:13:24.100 It's a new law that hasn't really been tested in this forum ever.

00:13:27.520 And it's a fundamentally simple question, is it not?

00:13:31.480 I mean, OK, so let's let's unpack that, Andrew, you know, as long as we've got the time here.

00:13:36.340 So first, upon the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and to be specific, in this case, it's a public order emergency under the Act, the government has to establish on reasonable grounds that a public order emergency exists and necessitates the taking of special temporary measures in dealing with the emergency.

00:14:03.900 So the situation's got to be, you know, to the point where it cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law in Canada.

00:14:15.820 So so if we're if we're going to the definition, if we're looking at the if we're going to look at the meat and potatoes of this and we're going to look at the definition here,

00:14:25.400 The definition of a public order emergency is an emergency that arises from, and so one, threats to the security of Canada, right, and which are so serious as to be a two national emergency, right?

00:14:41.920 So the threats to the security of Canada is defined under the Canadian Security Intelligence Services Act, okay?

00:14:49.420 There are four sort of sub points to that, subsections to that definition. Espionage or sabotage is one of them. Foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada activities that are directed towards or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving political, religious or ideological objectives.

00:15:19.420 objectives. And then finally, activities directed toward undermining by covered unlawful acts,

00:15:30.200 the destruction or overthrow by violence of the constitutionality of the established government

00:15:35.300 of Canada. Okay. So obviously, you know, what, you know, sort of to sort of summarize, it's

00:15:44.500 very high it's a very high threshold right um so and and then part two of that was the national

00:15:50.340 emergency so let's look at the definition of that it is an urgent and critical situation of a

00:15:55.620 temporary nature that either a seriously endangers the lives health or safety of canadians and is of

00:16:03.140 such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with

00:16:07.380 it or b seriously threatens the ability of the government of canada preserve to preserve the

00:16:13.140 sovereignty uh security and territorial integrity of canada right so this is the definition and this

00:16:20.020 is these are the definitions both need to be satisfied uh by this commission in order to

00:16:25.780 in order for the commission to arrive at a finding of the act being lawfully invoked in this context

00:16:35.060 um so that's what we need to keep coming back to this is what i think we need to keep in our minds

00:16:40.020 when we're viewing this to ask these questions and and and think to ourselves are these being

00:16:46.260 satisfied is this line of questioning answering and supporting these uh necessities by the by

00:16:56.420 the legislation as it stands i don't want you to give up any legal strategy here that would

00:17:03.220 disadvantage you in the future but are you able to give a bit of a sense of what it is that you

00:17:08.820 you think is really the fundamental narrative here that, uh, people need to understand that

00:17:13.040 really will support the position that you're laying out? I mean, look, so, um, and, and this

00:17:19.740 is just coming off of, uh, uh, you know, Alan Hunter's, uh, cross-examination and it seems to

00:17:26.320 be, I mean, look, we're at day four, so it's, it's, it's, it's tough. Um, but, um, it, it seems

00:17:33.800 to me as of as of today that there are no uh sort of uh there hasn't been any testimony that has

00:17:43.480 been a direct observations of any violence and as we heard in the definition of a national emergency

00:17:52.280 violence is something that that is is a requirement i mean unless i'm misreading this

00:17:58.760 it's, it's something that, that needs to be sort of present in order for this to be engaged

00:18:07.200 lawfully. You know, and then, but, you know, the issue obviously there is, is what, what is the

00:18:15.080 definition of, of, of violence? I mean, we've heard a lot of testimony with respect to microaggressions.

00:18:20.720 Does that amount to to violence? You know, it's it's so so so, yeah, in any event, it's that that's that's where we're at right now.

00:18:31.940 I'd be interested to see. And as this plays out, what I'd like to see from this commission is and like to hear from it is whether there are any firsthand reports of violence.

00:18:42.560 we haven't heard any to date i'd like to know more about uh the seizure of bank accounts um

00:18:48.640 and and who requested because this is another contentious issue is who requested the emergencies

00:18:53.280 act be invoked in the first place um i'd like to see more testimony uh specifically in relation to

00:18:58.560 that um so you know it's um so anyway that's that that's where we're at i i don't think i've uh i

00:19:06.800 hope i've answered your question you did and i don't think you blew your case in the process so

00:19:11.200 I appreciate it very much. We'll certainly have you and your colleagues back on as we cover this

00:19:15.900 over the next six weeks now. Adam Blake Gallupo of the Democracy Fund. And I also, in a moment,

00:19:22.600 have a clip of your colleague cross-examining Jim Watson as well, which I think speaks to that

00:19:26.880 very point. Adam, thanks so much for your time and great work on this. Thank you so much for

00:19:30.820 having me, Andrew. All right. Thanks very much. That is Adam Blake Gallupo from the Democracy

00:19:36.920 he find now this is fun i haven't actually seen this clip because i was like just about to go on

00:19:41.760 air and this clip came down the pipeline so i get to react in real time which i never get to do

00:19:46.760 but as i understand it this is exactly what adam was just talking about in jim watson the mayor of

00:19:52.700 ottawa again resorting to hearsay talking about violence which no one has actually seen so let's

00:20:00.340 play this clip from just under an hour ago mayor watson let me just ask you um you told us earlier

00:20:07.780 today um where evidence came out that um these these protesters they were they were nasty um

00:20:16.740 they were hateful and they were they were vulgar is that right yes and you said that you saw um

00:20:23.540 where you said that they had ripped masks off of people yes did you actually see that

00:20:31.460 no i saw it reported in the media okay and i think you also said that certain people were attacked

00:20:39.780 is that right uh i didn't say that no i i said that i had death threats but i wasn't physically

00:20:45.860 attacked no i didn't say that you were attacked but you said that these protesters were attacking

00:20:51.140 people did you not say that no they were disrupting people's lives that's for sure and they

00:20:58.020 refused on at least three occasions that i'm aware of that they refused to adhere to the provincial

00:21:04.500 mandate of wearing a mask when going into a shop or a restaurant so you're not aware of any

00:21:10.900 incidents of physical violence from the protesters well you'd have to ask the police i know they

00:21:16.420 arrested a couple hundred people and charged a couple hundred people i don't know what the

00:21:20.340 charges were so i'm not privy to that information according to your knowledge

00:21:28.340 you don't know of any so i don't know any of any physical attacks

00:21:34.340 uh not to my own personal knowledge no all right thank you those are my questions

00:21:42.260 interesting so it's easy to talk a big game about all the violence on the streets of ottawa about

00:21:48.180 these protesters going out and just ripping people's masks off and all of that but but

00:21:53.140 no do you know anything about it yeah no the media got it from the media okay well what about

00:21:57.780 the physical attacks do you know anything about that well you got to talk to police and i bet

00:22:02.180 when we have the police witnesses testifying and they're asked the same question they're going to

00:22:05.620 be like i don't know talk to jim watson it's just like everyone's just pointing at every other

00:22:09.540 direction for this same as like trying to figure out who invoked the emergencies act is like going

00:22:15.300 on a fishing expedition because no one actually asked for it no one asked for the emergencies act

00:22:21.620 it came from the government of Canada and this is something that we saw months ago whenever police

00:22:28.580 agencies were testifying before parliament before that parliamentary committee that was investigating

00:22:34.500 we'd find out that the police which Marco Manicino and Justin Trudeau said asked for the emergencies

00:22:40.820 act couldn't actually find a single police officer that wanted it the rcmp commissioner says no it

00:22:45.780 wasn't us the opp commissioner says no it wasn't us the ottawa police chiefs all three of them say no

00:22:50.740 it wasn't us and jim watson i don't know if we have the the clip of jim watson i think we do

00:22:55.860 jim watson this is from this morning saying that he also did not request the invocation of the

00:23:01.860 emergencies act now on february 14th we know that the emergencies act was invoked uh were you

00:23:08.180 consulted on on the invocation of the Emergencies Act before it was invoked?

00:23:13.100 No, it wasn't. Did the city request that it be invoked? No. Did the city weigh in on

00:23:19.580 whether it was required, necessary, or needed? Well, when it was released, I think

00:23:24.740 like most people, very few people knew exactly what the Emergencies Act was, to

00:23:29.600 be perfectly honest. I remember growing up in Quebec with the War Measures Act

00:23:33.080 was and the implications that had for the province of Quebec and the rest of

00:23:37.820 the country but no one had raised the emergencies act with us but when it was invoked and i was

00:23:49.180 briefed on what its powers were i thought this is a very positive step to getting this situation

00:23:57.340 resolved once and for all because of the provisions in the act so i very much supported it and i was

00:24:04.060 As you may recall, the current chair of the police service board, Eli Al Shantir, and I sent a letter to the prime minister thanking him for invoking the act because it actually acted as a catalyst for us to move forward and get that whole situation in the downtown core resolved once and for all and give people their street and their homes back.

00:24:25.100 so what jim watson said there is that yeah when he learned about it when he found out the government

00:24:31.560 was already doing it he was supportive of it but he he was like no one's even heard of this thing

00:24:35.740 before how do we ask for this thing no one had ever heard of which i found quite interesting so

00:24:39.980 ottawa didn't ask for it yesterday ontario premier doug ford reminded us all which i i don't think

00:24:46.140 he should be bragging about that he supported the use of it but didn't request it in fact one of the

00:24:52.560 big sources of or one of the big products of testimony this week is that the Ontario government

00:24:57.720 was just so disengaged from this process there was this record of a phone call between Justin

00:25:04.040 Trudeau and Jim Watson during the convoy where they're like they're all just like trashing Doug

00:25:08.220 Ford for like not wanting to get involved for political reasons so it's actually quite sad

00:25:13.460 because Doug Ford does this whole buddy buddy routine talking about how great Justin Trudeau

00:25:17.800 and Chrystia Freeland are and behind his back they're talking about how terrible he is and they

00:25:22.160 don't like him and don't respect what he's doing. And he's not their ally on this issue, even though

00:25:26.680 publicly Ford is saying he supports this thing. But we haven't yet found anyone who wanted this

00:25:34.440 thing and asked for it, who asked the government to do it. So we're left with this idea that the

00:25:40.840 government was the one that wanted it on its own. The government wanted to do it. And we've been

00:25:46.400 hearing all sorts of testimony for the last two days. Yesterday was particularly insightful

00:25:51.380 because we heard from Steve Kanellakis, who's the Ottawa city manager, and also Serge Arpin,

00:25:57.900 who's the chief of staff to Jim Watson. And they were talking about their negotiations with the

00:26:03.920 convoy leaders, with the convoy organizers. Negotiations that, by the way, resulted in a

00:26:10.740 successful agreement to relocate trucks onto Wellington Street away from residential

00:26:16.440 neighborhoods an agreement we talked about on the show back in february when it came out

00:26:21.320 and they all said yeah and what we heard this morning and what we heard yesterday most notably

00:26:26.920 was that it wasn't the convoy protesters that pulled the plug on that agreement what it was

00:26:32.420 was the parliamentary protective service that didn't like it and then the ottawa police which

00:26:37.100 moved to an enforcement posture once the emergencies act came into play so they were the

00:26:43.280 ones that pulled the plug on this deal, not the members of the convoy. And these things are so

00:26:49.940 critical because right now I have seen no evidence, no evidence of an actual emergency,

00:26:57.300 no evidence of a bona fide emergency, certainly not one that would justify these unprecedented

00:27:02.320 powers by the federal government. And we've just been hearing about the effect on the ground in

00:27:07.860 Ottawa. We haven't even been hearing testimony yet on the bank account freezes. We heard a little

00:27:12.500 bit from the government in Ottawa about how they really were having trouble getting tow truck

00:27:16.980 drivers because tow truck drivers were not wanting to tow trucks because they were sympathetic to the

00:27:24.220 convoy. And I did an interview that you'll see tonight with Ezra Levant at Rebel News, and Ezra

00:27:30.000 pointed out that the ability to just commandeer a tow truck, which the federal government claimed

00:27:35.220 it needed the Emergencies Act for, actually exists in the criminal code as it is. So it wasn't even

00:27:41.720 like needing to just conscript tow truck drivers against their will to get involved was something

00:27:47.540 that needed the Emergencies Act. It was the bank account freezes. And that's the part we haven't

00:27:52.300 actually gotten to yet. And the government can try to muddle this as much as they want.

00:27:56.840 The government can try to make this an inquiry into the convoy. They can try to string up Tamara

00:28:01.580 Leach. They can try to make this all about the protesters that were fed up with vaccine mandates, 0.98

00:28:06.560 but they cannot hide from their own role in this. And what they did is decide that the right to

00:28:13.240 protest no longer exists. The right to peacefully assemble no longer exists. That the government's

00:28:20.340 refusal to engage with people is supposedly the way you respond to a problem and then you go to

00:28:27.740 the last resort despite not even having given the courtesy of a conversation along the way.

00:28:32.780 and I don't know if there's going to be a smoking gun of some kind that shows some wrongdoing by

00:28:39.160 government that summary I talked to earlier I talked about earlier of the phone call between

00:28:44.040 Justin Trudeau and Jim Watson it was like a page and a half and there were several lines redacted

00:28:49.280 including some like mid-sentence where they just start redacting something and you look at that

00:28:54.500 and you say what is it that they're hiding and maybe it's nothing maybe Jim Watson said something

00:28:58.940 about its kids in there that is not supposedly for public consumption. But already, you're starting

00:29:05.080 to see areas where the government is just concealing little bits and pieces. The government

00:29:09.620 doesn't want there to actually be the accountability that we know is required. Now, I'll tell people,

00:29:14.820 as much as I don't think the government has a leg to stand on, on this invocation of the

00:29:19.880 Emergencies Act, I also would be remiss to not point out that this is just one of a number of

00:29:24.700 battles that is right now underway. Constitutional challenges, criminal cases, numerous, numerous

00:29:31.460 constitutional challenges, by the way, and not just by people who were charged, but by civil liberties

00:29:36.860 groups like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Constitution Foundation,

00:29:42.360 the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The government of Alberta is engaged in that battle

00:29:48.320 as well. Jason Kenney joined and now Danielle Smith, the Premier, has decided to continue that.

00:29:53.600 So these are all very important distinctions and discussions here. This is just one particular

00:29:59.140 battle, but I maintain it's the simplest one and has the clearest question. Was this a national

00:30:06.580 emergency? Was this a national emergency? Was this something that had espionage and sabotage,

00:30:13.660 or did it just have phantom honking and microaggressions, which sound comical? It does.

00:30:19.700 And I mean, laugh at it. It's going to be a long seven weeks. You got to have some fun with it.

00:30:24.380 But the fact that that was being entertained is an example to me of the attempt by a lot of the

00:30:30.480 people that applied to appear as witnesses to really muddy the waters here and try to inject

00:30:35.820 a bunch of extraneous detail that may help paint a picture, but doesn't really help the commissioner

00:30:42.200 reach that fundamental finding of whether the government's use of the Emergencies Act was

00:30:47.580 appropriate or whether it was inappropriate? And that's a very simple question. I want to play a

00:30:54.620 clip from Brendan Miller here. He is the lawyer representing the convoy protesters appearing. He

00:31:00.880 talks about what the Emergencies Act is actually meant to be used for, and it's not protests with

00:31:06.780 bouncy castles. Good morning. My name is Brendan Miller of Foster LLP, and I am counsel to Freedom

00:31:14.160 Corp, which is an organization that represents the protesters of which attended Ottawa in January and

00:31:22.620 February of 2022. My colleague, Ms. Beth Sheba Vandenberg of Foster LLP is my co-counsel on this

00:31:29.760 matter, as well as the solicitors of record, both Mr. Keith Wilson, King's counsel, as well as Ms.

00:31:36.360 Eva Chipiuk, who is counsel to the convoy. With respect to sort of everyone's given an overview

00:31:44.120 of the theory of their case, it is our view that there was no justification whatsoever to invoke

00:31:52.980 the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act requires several things. One, it could be invoked due to

00:32:00.180 espionage, and sabotage.

00:32:02.760 Are you going to hear any evidence

00:32:04.440 about espionage and sabotage?

00:32:07.000 The answer to that is no.

00:32:09.240 Two, it could be invoked on the basis of clandestine

00:32:12.920 or deceptive foreign influence,

00:32:15.080 or foreign influence that involves a threat to a person.

00:32:18.340 Are you going to hear evidence about that?

00:32:19.940 The answer to that is no.

00:32:22.240 It also could be invoked on the basis of threats

00:32:24.980 or use of acts of serious violence

00:32:27.280 against persons or property.

00:32:29.240 Are you going to hear evidence of violence against persons or property?

00:32:33.900 The answer is no.

00:32:36.080 Lastly, it can also be invoked if there is a group or persons trying to destroy or overthrow by violence the system of government of Canada.

00:32:48.340 Are you going to hear evidence about individuals trying to do that?

00:32:53.420 The answer is no.

00:32:54.600 And the answer is, is that there was no reasonable and probable grounds to invoke the Emergencies Act, and that the government exceeded their jurisdiction, both constitutionally and legislatively, in doing so. Thank you.

00:33:11.880 I actually have to correct Brendan Miller. Now, I am not a lawyer, but if I were a lawyer, I would call him my learned friend.

00:33:20.080 My learned friend, I believe, got it wrong.

00:33:22.420 It's espionage, sabotage, inflatable hot tubs.

00:33:27.140 Yeah, again, you have to look really, really closely,

00:33:30.280 but there is a section of the Emergencies Act

00:33:32.800 that inflatable hot tubs or espionage or sabotage

00:33:37.180 or threats to the sovereignty and security of Canada.

00:33:39.440 So I guess when you look really, really closely,

00:33:41.960 you realize that the convoy doesn't have a leg to stand on.

00:33:44.940 I am kidding, of course.

00:33:46.440 You have to say that before you get like the fake news label

00:33:48.820 appended to anything you do now. Bouncy Castles, not in there. Saunas, not in there. Inflatable

00:33:55.320 hot tubs, not in there. So right now we're looking at a heavy-handed approach, so heavy-handed,

00:34:01.780 in fact, that even Paul Champ, who's the lawyer representing the Freedom Convoy

00:34:08.140 protesters, sorry, not the Freedom Convoy protesters, the residents of Ottawa that say

00:34:13.820 were put out by this. Even Paul Champ is an opponent of the use of the Emergencies Act.

00:34:21.680 And I think that's actually quite an important little divide here. And he said that's not his

00:34:26.580 client's position. Lawyers sometimes take on positions that aren't their own personal views,

00:34:31.240 not suggesting there's anything wrong about that. But I'm saying that the idea that the

00:34:35.940 Emergencies Act was wrong is a pretty widespread belief that expands far beyond simple support

00:34:42.360 for or membership in the Freedom Convoy. And it's an early, early stage here. And I want to stress

00:34:49.380 this. And when I talked to Keith Wilson last week on the show, he said, sometimes it's going to be

00:34:53.680 very annoying when you're hearing testimony that is going basically unchallenged because this is

00:35:00.040 not adversarial. It's meant to be a fact-finding operation. So that is, I think, very critical

00:35:05.780 here. We're not seeing objections. We're not trying to make people cry on the stand. We're

00:35:09.960 not doing any of that what they're doing is trying to get a sense of what the truth is

00:35:14.060 and it's going to be interesting for some people like Tamara Leach and Chris Barber that have not

00:35:19.780 to this point been able to tell their stories to be able to tell their stories for the first time

00:35:25.060 and address some of these things but right now we have a protest that by the standards of the

00:35:30.580 Ottawa police and the city of Ottawa from their early communications was peaceful was always

00:35:36.520 promised to be peaceful. A little bit disjointed at times, but not actually anything that anyone

00:35:44.220 in any of these early conversations linked to violence. So the issue that's being raised

00:35:50.680 is the idea that it turned into what they call an occupation. Now that word is a very tricky one

00:35:58.260 because even then it does not appear in the Emergencies Act. No one has been able to answer

00:36:04.120 the question to this point now to be honest no one has even asked the question of when this protest

00:36:09.000 became illegal jim watson for his part said in his testimony this morning that yeah you know he

00:36:16.280 thinks this would have been unacceptable even if it lasted a day but he concedes there is a right

00:36:20.840 to protest well how magnanimous of you mayor watson but even beyond that okay if it would

00:36:26.360 have been justifiable maybe for a day maybe for two days maybe if it just went through the weekend

00:36:31.800 at what point would it have become illegal? Two days? Three days? Five days? A week? At what

00:36:40.040 point is it illegal? And that is such a critical question, so I'm going to ask it again. If the

00:36:46.040 Freedom Convoy was a legitimate protest for a time and then morphed into something illegal,

00:36:52.600 at what point did that happen and more importantly, why? Or was it always illegal but our tolerance

00:36:59.000 is a little bit more flexible for those first couple of days? These are very critical questions

00:37:04.180 because fundamentally the situation didn't change. The convoy was the same on day 22 as it was on day

00:37:11.300 one. There were still music. There was still a dance party. There were still trucks. There were

00:37:15.380 still thousands of people. The makeup of the protest didn't change. It didn't become more

00:37:20.360 violent. It didn't become more unruly. It didn't become more riotous. It didn't become more

00:37:25.400 threatening. So if you want to say that this was a peaceful protest at the outset and then became

00:37:31.060 a national emergency, you actually have to make very clear that you explain to Canadians why

00:37:37.100 that is the case. And so far, no one has done that. No one in policing has done that. No one

00:37:43.520 at the federal government, the provincial government, or the municipal government has

00:37:47.360 done that. At what point did this thing become illegal? I don't think you can answer that because

00:37:53.760 i'm not sure it ever was we will have another show tomorrow we'll give you the latest of the

00:38:00.000 public order emergency commission let me know what you think because this is going to be going on

00:38:03.960 for seven weeks so i don't know if you want every single show to be about this if you want me to do

00:38:09.500 what i did today would you share some clips share some analysis and share an interview or two with

00:38:14.540 some of the people involved or if you want me to like just confine this to a 15 20 minute segment

00:38:19.500 at the end of every show and talk about all these other things.

00:38:22.560 This is a bit of a test balloon in that sense.

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00:39:00.160 And lots of great things happening.

00:39:01.920 I have to put in a plug.

00:39:03.100 He's going to be on the show soon enough.

00:39:05.040 But Anthony Fury, the legend of Canadian media,

00:39:08.620 has just joined True North as our VP of content and editorial,

00:39:14.220 which I am so thrilled by.

00:39:15.780 I've known Anthony for many, many years.

00:39:17.460 I used to have him on my old radio show.

00:39:20.100 I have written for him when he was the editor at the Toronto Sun.

00:39:23.640 And now he is like jumping whole hog into new media.

00:39:26.340 And he's going to be our VP of editorial and content.

00:39:29.500 I think I got it backwards.

00:39:30.460 So I hope he doesn't fire me.

00:39:31.740 But Anthony is going to do some great things at True North.

00:39:34.420 He's always been a valued member of the team.

00:39:36.620 And I hope you will all give him a huge welcome to the True North team in his new and improved and expanded role.

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Juno News - October 18, 2022

Phantom honking, microaggression, and government incompetence： Emergencies Act hearings are underway

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