Juno News - Poilievre kicked out of Parliament for calling Trudeau a “wacko”

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

00:00:05.560 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.800 Hello and welcome to you all, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here.

00:00:17.380 This is The Andrew Lawton Show on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024.

00:00:22.020 It is hump day. Hopefully you're having a great week, or if not,

00:00:25.740 you can at least take comfort and solace in the fact that there is less of the week ahead of you

00:00:30.340 than behind you, although I guess that only works if you're on Eastern or Central Time.

00:00:33.980 If you're on Pacific Time, you're not quite at the midway point of the Wednesday,

00:00:37.740 but you'll get there. You will get through the week. I believe in you.

00:00:41.340 Meanwhile, if you don't work Monday to Friday, you're like, what the heck is this guy going on about?

00:00:44.720 So we'll move on from our weekly positional observations here

00:00:48.380 and talk about the fireworks in the House of Commons yesterday.

00:00:52.760 Now, this is not normally a place that is exciting or riveting to watch.

00:00:56.940 It's not typically primetime entertainment, but as far as daytime entertainment goes,

00:01:00.860 the House of Commons can sometimes have you covered.

00:01:03.620 This was in question period yesterday.

00:01:06.040 Now, I've got to say, I think Speaker of the House Greg Fergus just woke up on the bad side of the bed.

00:01:11.620 He was on an absolute tear.

00:01:13.440 There was a tense exchange between Conservative leader Pierre Polyev and Justin Trudeau.

00:01:18.260 Polyev was talking about the Liberal government's permissive drug policies.

00:01:21.940 Justin Trudeau is accusing the Conservatives of being extremists.

00:01:25.420 It's kind of just that old kabuki theater thing time and time again.

00:01:29.180 But then what happened was Rachel Thomas, who incident, 1.00

00:01:32.360 I ran into Rachel Thomas at the airport on Sunday when I was on my way back home.

00:01:37.340 That has nothing to do with the story.

00:01:38.360 It was just coincidental that she's now a feature in a story we are covering.

00:01:42.780 And I had the chance to chat with her very briefly the other day.

00:01:45.980 And Rachel Thomas had said something about how the Speaker of the House was behaving in a disgraceful manner

00:01:51.980 for his conduct and commentary in the way he was presiding over the House.

00:01:57.300 And, well, the Speaker didn't take too kindly to that.

00:02:03.060 I'm going to ask the Honourable Member from Lethbridge if she has problems with the chair,

00:02:06.860 that she should challenge the chair in a way.

00:02:08.620 But as she knows, as the Honourable Member from Lethbridge knows,

00:02:16.420 that by challenging the chair is against the rules of this House.

00:02:20.460 I'll ask the Honourable Member to please, to ask her to withdraw her remarks.

00:02:27.980 The chair is acting in a disgraceful manner.

00:02:30.560 I'm going to ask the Honourable Member to please, to ask her to withdraw her remarks.

00:02:36.620 I have to name you for disregarding the authority of the chair.

00:02:40.160 Pursuant to authority granted to me by Standing Order 11,

00:02:43.920 I order you to withdraw from the House and from any participation by videoconference

00:02:48.680 for the remainder of this day's sitting.

00:02:52.200 Ah, yes, as you heard there, she dared to call the Speaker a disgrace.

00:02:56.380 So he names her, which is, I mean, it sounds like less of a deal than it is.

00:03:00.480 It is actually a big deal when the Speaker of the House names someone.

00:03:03.740 And then he expels her from the chamber, one Conservative down, a hundred and some odd to go.

00:03:10.100 And then just a couple of moments later, as the exchange between Polyev and Trudeau continues,

00:03:16.220 Pierre Polyev finds that he too attracts the Speaker of the House's ire.

00:03:21.800 Mr. Speaker, it is a choice for him to implement extremist policies

00:03:27.080 that have taken the lives of 2,500 British Columbians every single year.

00:03:33.940 Since the NDP has asked him to reverse course on his and formerly their radical policy,

00:03:41.780 22 British Columbians have died of drug overdoses.

00:03:45.980 But he continues to allow those drugs to kill the people in our hospitals and on our public transit.

00:03:53.660 When will we put an end to this wacko policy by this wacko Prime Minister?

00:03:57.980 There are a couple of things which are going on here today, which is not acceptable.

00:04:13.920 And I ask all members, please, to keep themselves, to control themselves.

00:04:18.960 I'm going to ask two things.

00:04:21.620 One, I'm going to ask the Honourable Leader of the Opposition to withdraw that term,

00:04:29.900 which is not considered parliamentary.

00:04:33.680 Mr. Speaker, I replace Wacko with extremist.

00:04:37.100 He is an extremist.

00:04:37.580 The Honourable Member to please...

00:04:39.500 I'm going to ask the Leader of the Opposition once again to just withdraw that comment, please.

00:04:49.680 And I'll invite the Honourable Member...

00:04:51.960 I'm going to ask the Honourable Leader of the Opposition to please withdraw that comment

00:05:02.460 and simply withdraw that comment.

00:05:11.080 I'll replace it with radical justice policy. 0.91

00:05:13.900 I am not asking to replace.

00:05:15.420 I'm asking the Honourable Member to just simply withdraw.

00:05:18.960 Mr. Speaker, I replace the word Wacko with extremist.

00:05:29.960 I'm going to ask the Honourable Leader of the Opposition one last time to please withdraw

00:05:36.960 that comment and simply withdraw that comment.

00:05:40.960 I simply withdraw and replace with the aforementioned adjective.

00:05:43.960 Mr. Polieff, I have to name you for disregarding the authority of the chair.

00:05:58.560 Pursue it to the authority granted to me by Standing Order 11.

00:06:01.960 I order you to withdraw from the House from the many participation by video conference for the remainder of this day's city.

00:06:09.840 He dared call Justin Trudeau a Wacko, and apparently that was sufficiently unparliamentary that Greg Fergus wants to show him the door,

00:06:20.900 kick him out of the House of Commons until the end of the session.

00:06:24.000 It was absolutely absurd.

00:06:26.040 Now, I did a little bit of research, and I found that the term Wacko is not at all foreign to the House of Commons.

00:06:32.660 Put that up, Sean.

00:06:33.920 This is on openparliament.ca, which lets you basically go through the, I think, the entirety of the Hansard,

00:06:40.140 certainly the last several decades, 21 references to the word Wacko.

00:06:45.000 Now, some of those are not directed at a person.

00:06:48.940 Here we have it being used, ironically.

00:06:51.560 We have Peter Julian calling Wacko claims by conservatives.

00:06:56.620 Peter Julian loves the word Wacko, actually.

00:06:58.520 He used it June 10th and twice on June 13th.

00:07:02.140 You have Jennifer O'Connell, the liberal, who I also saw at the airport on Sunday, by the way,

00:07:07.220 accused the conservatives of using Wacko science data.

00:07:10.540 You have another MP there talking about the three of you doing something Wacko.

00:07:15.640 So the term Wacko has been used without controversy many times, at least 21 times,

00:07:21.040 in the House of Commons and committee meetings.

00:07:22.980 But when Justin Trudeau is the subject of the term, when Pierre Polyev calls the Prime Minister a Wacko,

00:07:29.100 that is when the Speaker of the House intervenes.

00:07:32.880 Now, some people may think this stuff really doesn't matter, that this is all just theatrical,

00:07:37.400 and to some extent it is.

00:07:38.600 We know the conservatives were putting their fundraising together pretty much immediately

00:07:43.240 after this happened, because they know that they're able to show that the institutions are

00:07:47.400 stacked against them, that the liberals are more concerned with policing conservatives' tone

00:07:51.900 than engaging in good government and good policymaking.

00:07:56.120 Certainly, Justin Trudeau looks like the beneficiary of a speaker who is, well, elected a liberal,

00:08:01.280 supposed to be a nonpartisan, impartial chair, when he is sitting in that throne,

00:08:06.700 and he's presiding over what's happening in the House of Commons.

00:08:09.500 But instead, he's just like flicking away conservative MPs.

00:08:12.480 This is not a flick, but you know what I mean.

00:08:14.160 Flicking away conservative MPs.

00:08:15.800 Oh, Rachel Harder, you're done.

00:08:17.300 Oh, Pierre Polyev, you're done.

00:08:19.180 Anyone else want a piece of me?

00:08:20.300 Come on, come on, come on. 0.97

00:08:21.600 And then, of course, the conservatives do what you saw at the end of that second clip there.

00:08:26.280 Conservatives just say, what's the point of sticking around?

00:08:28.140 They get up and leave the chamber in protest.

00:08:30.940 Yes, it's an absurd development, and while you may say it doesn't matter,

00:08:35.280 it does in the sense of that indignation that the liberals have.

00:08:39.280 In question period, Justin Trudeau had been spending his time defending against all of these

00:08:44.660 very legitimate questions about his government's record.

00:08:47.520 And what does he do?

00:08:48.340 He just keeps talking about, oh, Diagelon.

00:08:50.640 Oh, Pierre Polyev is far right.

00:08:52.300 Oh, extremists.

00:08:53.220 Oh, conspiracy theory.

00:08:54.640 And he makes all of these terms.

00:08:56.280 He throws out all of these labels, all of these insults, and then Pierre Polyev says

00:09:00.500 wacko, and it's as though he has just said the unforgivable thing.

00:09:05.740 He said the name Voldemort.

00:09:07.360 He said he who must not be named, name.

00:09:09.780 That's basically what he's done.

00:09:11.420 And it's supposedly this massive affront to democracy, more so than perhaps kicking out

00:09:18.140 the leader of the opposition because you don't like the questions he's asking of the

00:09:22.680 prime minister.

00:09:23.360 This is why Canadians are fed up with the liberals.

00:09:27.100 Canadians don't want the tone policing, the wokeness, the political correctness.

00:09:31.580 Yes, there are language rules in the House of Commons, but my goodness, this is absolutely

00:09:36.440 absurd.

00:09:37.760 Polyev, even Polyev, who again knew what he was saying when he said it, he even offered

00:09:43.120 to revise it.

00:09:43.880 He said, okay, I'll take that word away and I'll replace it with extremist.

00:09:48.060 I don't think extremist is unparliamentary.

00:09:50.040 He also offered to replace it to radical and the House of Commons speaker, Greg Fergus,

00:09:54.580 said, no, you have to withdraw it all, withdraw everything.

00:09:57.120 You can't just replace the word.

00:09:58.500 Well, which is it?

00:09:59.540 Is the word the problem or do you just not like the fact that he's criticizing Justin Trudeau?

00:10:05.320 Hmm, sounds increasingly like the latter to me.

00:10:09.820 Justin Trudeau has been an incredibly divisive prime minister.

00:10:13.040 This has been a feature and not a bug of his premiership.

00:10:16.860 And I think we saw it in full force throughout the COVID era, but we've certainly seen it

00:10:20.940 before then and we've continued to see it since then.

00:10:23.700 I do want to take a moment though and drill down into the COVID era because it's easy to

00:10:28.880 say we want to just shove it in a box and put it away and not revisit it.

00:10:32.240 But we saw from governments over the last few years, tremendously dangerous and devastating

00:10:37.240 policies champion in the name of flattening the curve, trusting the science, saving grandma,

00:10:42.560 all of these cliches that became commonplace during the pandemic.

00:10:46.720 And lockdowns have had incredible harms on society.

00:10:50.660 They've had harms on health.

00:10:51.760 They've had harms on education.

00:10:53.400 They've certainly had harms on mental health and wellbeing and social cohesion.

00:10:56.980 And there has never been a real accounting of exactly how bad that's been.

00:11:00.880 Well, a new documentary hopes to change that.

00:11:03.980 Take a look.

00:11:05.160 The public did not know that there were prominent scientists that disagreed with the lockdown

00:11:11.440 policies.

00:11:12.560 They wanted to create an illusion of consensus.

00:11:16.240 And this was shocking to me, in a free society, to simply decree the lockdowns.

00:11:23.680 The federal government was working with social media companies, censoring and dissenting opinions.

00:11:29.360 If the government is engaging in unconstitutional acts of censorship, who has the power to stop

00:11:35.400 it?

00:11:35.740 It's just the most damning discovery.

00:11:38.240 Suddenly just boom, you're fired and no explanation.

00:11:41.200 It was more than just silencing, it was shutting me up.

00:11:44.880 That is the trailer for COVID collateral.

00:11:50.560 Part of the trailer anyway, as a new film that looks at, in a lot of ways, the dishonesty and

00:11:57.240 the misinformation that was coming, not from the corners of the internet, but much of it

00:12:00.980 from the official sources we were told to give our complete and full trust to.

00:12:07.740 Now, as we've learned in the last couple of years, much of that narrative has been shattered.

00:12:11.420 But even so, there is a section of this whole discussion, a section of this whole debate that

00:12:17.580 has never really had a full accounting.

00:12:20.000 Now, that's one of the things that's put under the microscope in this new documentary.

00:12:24.000 COVID collateral comes out this month, starts actually with a premiere in Toronto, and also

00:12:30.300 has as its filmmaker and producer, an Emmy-nominated producer, the writer and director, Vanessa

00:12:35.840 Dillon, who joins me now.

00:12:37.820 Vanessa, thank you so much for coming on today.

00:12:39.860 Good to speak with you, and congratulations on the film.

00:12:43.100 Thank you so much, Andrew.

00:12:45.160 So let me first ask the why, because every time this topic comes up, we're faced with the

00:12:50.780 fact that in some ways, the things that happened over the course of the pandemic were incredibly

00:12:56.040 disruptive, I think incredibly dangerous from a civil liberties perspective, from a truth

00:13:00.760 and trust perspective.

00:13:02.160 But there's also a part of society that I think wants to move on from these questions, that

00:13:06.140 wants to kind of just shut the door, put it in a closet, and not revisit it.

00:13:09.840 But you're opening that wide open here.

00:13:13.360 Yes, and the reason I'm opening it wide open is not to take a side.

00:13:20.540 I didn't want this film to be, oh, she's not on the side of lockdowns. 0.96

00:13:26.920 I wanted this to be more of an exploration of what happened to us.

00:13:32.960 And the fact that I believe many members of the public still don't know that there were

00:13:39.800 highly credentialed scientists who were against lockdowns.

00:13:45.680 And these scientists were censored right from early 2020.

00:13:55.000 For example, J. Bhattacharya of Stanford, Scott Atlas from the Hoover Institute,

00:14:03.480 Sunetra Gupta at Oxford, and Martin Kulldorff at Harvard, all didn't feel that there was a

00:14:17.340 scientific basis or enough of a scientific basis to lock down.

00:14:22.360 That we in the Western world already had a pandemic plan in place since 2006.

00:14:32.520 And so what I wanted to explore, because I felt as I listened to these scientists early in 2020,

00:14:42.560 2020, and then I also noticed there was there was another group of scientists who were who really

00:14:51.540 suspected that the that the that the coronavirus came from a lab, they did not buy the the natural

00:14:59.420 evolution theory that it came from a wet market.

00:15:02.400 So I wanted to look at the film more from from from from the perspective of what happens when science is

00:15:13.540 censored in a in in a in a free society.

00:15:17.540 And what I do trace in the film is that that these dissenting voices were not only censored by their own

00:15:29.440 institutions, they were censored by the mainstream media, they were censored by by big tech, even the

00:15:36.700 Biden government got involved, and dictated to Twitter, that they they they they they ordered Twitter,

00:15:45.280 Facebook, they they said, you've got to take these guys down, or you've got to minimize their their their their

00:15:53.700 their voices. And so the the the bigger thesis in the film is what happens when science is is is censored?

00:16:07.780 It's a fascinating question, because one of the things that was so I mean, it's now become a meme and

00:16:13.700 a joke of sorts that whole trust the science line, we were being told trust the scientists that we were had

00:16:19.460 an endless stream of people with white coats and doctorates and letters after their name for miles

00:16:25.220 and miles coming out and telling us these things. And what was amazing is that it very quickly became

00:16:31.140 trust our science, trust our scientists and anyone who came up, I mean, that list of people you

00:16:36.980 mentioned, the Martin Koldorf, the Jay Bhattacharya, these are people who would have been in December of

00:16:42.100 2019, seen as just world renowned, uncontroversial mainstream experts, the kind that you could put on

00:16:49.860 CNN, you could put on stage, you could put on BBC, you could put at any academic institution, again,

00:16:56.100 Stanford, this isn't some like fringe far right school in the middle of Arkansas, this is Stanford.

00:17:01.460 And then the second that they came out with what I would call generously dissident views from the

00:17:07.300 mainstream narrative, they were cast aside, they were fringe, they were science deniers, they were

00:17:12.740 peddlers of misinformation. And there must have been and I don't know if you explore it in the film,

00:17:17.380 but some disbelief from these people that were part of the elite establishment scientific community

00:17:23.940 up until two weeks before the pandemic and then became pariahs.

00:17:28.180 Yes. And I remember Jay Bhattacharya telling us what happened to him that not only did his own

00:17:44.340 colleagues turn against him, but the institution of Stanford itself. So this was a very, very lonely

00:17:57.380 battle for him. Luckily, again, he had very trusted colleagues such as Sonetra Gupta and Scott Atlas and

00:18:09.140 Martin Kulldorff, who together they formed, they formed the Great Barrington Declaration, which was a big

00:18:19.300 science, it was a big science-based declaration that in essence said that lockdowns,

00:18:32.420 it said that the most vulnerable people should be protected, but that most able-bodied people were not

00:18:42.980 at great, great danger of getting COVID. And that the collateral damage, the societal cost, the bankruptcies,

00:18:56.740 the mental illness, the suicide ideations, they said all of this collateral damage had not been

00:19:08.020 calculated. It was not part of the risk-benefit ratio of lockdowns. I remember in Scott Atlas's book,

00:19:21.700 now Scott Atlas was appointed by President Trump to be a special advisor to the Coronavirus Task Force,

00:19:28.820 and what he mentions in his book, as I recall, was that when he met with Dr. Fauci and his

00:19:41.620 and the Coronavirus group, that amongst them, there were not people from other disciplines that you would

00:19:52.580 need, such as, you know, the social scientists, the economists, and other people that could have formed a

00:20:07.380 much bigger task force and a more balanced picture of what will happen if we lock down. So,

00:20:18.020 these are the people, those are the people on the team who were not there. So, it became like that

00:20:25.300 epidemiologist's point of view that we must save lives at any cost. Well, we don't run our society that

00:20:34.580 way. That's why we don't ban cars. There's no, so, anyway, what the Great Barrington Declaration did

00:20:42.900 follow was primarily that our pandemic plan that had been in place since 2006.

00:20:54.740 I wanted to ask about your own background in doing this, because you've also, like some of these

00:21:00.020 doctors and experts we were just talking about, have had a very mainstream career. You've been in,

00:21:04.500 I think, very established circles, and you've certainly been recognized for that work with an Emmy

00:21:08.820 nomination. And you're also sticking your neck out a fair bit by getting involved in this. And I'm

00:21:13.540 curious if you found just, you know, documentaries are, they can be made with small crews. And I know

00:21:18.500 you've got a small team here, but did you find when you were talking to your colleagues that there were

00:21:22.260 people that just wanted nothing to do with you or this, that maybe because they disagreed with it,

00:21:26.900 or maybe they agreed, but were scared of just being associated with it?

00:21:31.380 Andrew, I found tremendous hostility within my own documentary group, within broadcasters.

00:21:41.060 Most of the broadcasters who knew my work when I pitched them this concept were quite polite and just

00:21:49.380 didn't answer. Or there was a very polite, oh, not for us this time. Now, you know, like most documentary

00:21:59.460 filmmakers, I don't score ahead every time I pitch a concept.

00:22:03.220 Yeah, you've dealt with the rejection, but you know when it's different than the normal

00:22:07.220 rejection you're used to getting on a project. This was hostile and people in my own industry

00:22:12.980 were hostile. So outside of my core creative team, who were very well informed on this issue and could

00:22:23.300 see that it was going to be a good journalistic film, that it was going to be right down the center,

00:22:30.260 and that it was going to appeal to the left of center people and the reasonable right of center

00:22:37.060 people. Outside of them, I could not even get business affairs people to work on this film,

00:22:45.220 because as soon as they saw that the broadcaster was New Tang Dynasty, or as soon as they read the

00:22:54.420 the concept, they were just terrified and said, not for me. I suppose I shouldn't have been stunned,

00:23:04.580 but it still shakes you when even a closed captioning technician says, no, I don't want this job.

00:23:16.100 That's how deep it went.

00:23:19.140 Even typing out the words that are being said would just be a bridge too far for them.

00:23:24.980 Oh, that's exactly it. So I made this film, I mean, I stuck my neck out and I've had a brutal,

00:23:32.580 two years trying to get this made, trying to get this financed. And it must be the most cursed project

00:23:45.460 I've ever taken on. But I think it is a film that will open dialogue, and that will appeal to reasonable

00:23:56.340 people. And it will tell us something about what we have all lived through.

00:24:02.340 The other thing in the film that I think is that I deal with, and I think that's very important,

00:24:13.380 is that we as a society bore the burden of this pandemic in a very disproportionate way. Meaning

00:24:21.380 many of us of the laptop class government workers were paid to stay home, whether you were productive

00:24:28.420 or not, you were paid. And a lot of these people had children that they were able to supervise

00:24:35.060 outside of school, or they were able to send the kids to the, to the cottage. But there was a,

00:24:42.820 there was another class of people that actually had to show up somewhere to get paid.

00:24:49.220 And if we look at the pre vaccine period, these were the truck drivers that drove trucks across

00:24:57.140 borders so that we could eat. These were the people in the grocery stores who stock shelves.

00:25:05.700 These were the people who worked in warehouses such as Amazon so that we could order.

00:25:12.180 And, and, and, and people who worked in kitchens so that we could have takeout.

00:25:17.140 So I think, I think the, the film, I think, does explore this kind of disproportionate burden

00:25:26.180 on the part of, of, of, of, of, of, of certain people.

00:25:30.660 Well, and I would just point out the film industry itself, people in that industry should

00:25:34.820 be well aware of this because they were shut down and, and went back to zero. And I recall,

00:25:39.300 I know it was different across the, the, the world in Ontario, they ended up giving a special carve

00:25:44.500 out for the film industry. And I remember there was one particular moment where they were filming

00:25:49.460 a show for Netflix. I think it was at a church in Hamilton, and it was illegal for them to have church

00:25:54.740 at the church in Hamilton, but they could film a fake church service at the church in Hamilton

00:25:59.300 because the film industry have been given their carve out. And what I found so devastating is that

00:26:03.300 a lot of people in that industry, any criticism of lockdowns they had disappeared once they were

00:26:08.820 given that exemption and, and everyone else in society, like you mentioned, the truckers,

00:26:13.060 the restaurant workers, the spa workers, all of them were still dealing with the consequences of it.

00:26:18.740 Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

00:26:22.340 So let me just ask you then about your distribution. I have a couple that I'm friends

00:26:27.060 with from the U S that do documentaries and McElhenney and Phelan McAleer, and they've done some

00:26:31.940 contentious subjects before and find they just have so much resistance. They can't get movie theaters

00:26:36.820 that are going to play it. They can't get it on the streaming services. And I'm assuming from you

00:26:40.420 nodding that you're dealing with some of these same challenges right now as you're gearing up for

00:26:44.660 release. I think the U S will be a much easier place for me to, to, to deal with simply because,

00:26:53.460 I think we're going to get some fantastic special screenings in, in, in Washington and in other

00:27:00.500 capitals. And I think that's the case because as you know, Andrew, the, the U S has a much more robust

00:27:09.140 media and it has a much more robust balance in their media. They have a very healthy

00:27:14.500 left of center and a very healthy right of center media here in Canada. We're primarily dealing

00:27:20.340 with left and far left outside of, outside of, uh, media outlets, uh, such as yours.

00:27:29.700 Well, and just to jump in, did you not have a theater that would not show this in, was it Alberta?

00:27:34.420 It was Alberta. And it was, uh, because, and I don't blame the, the, uh, theater owner. This was

00:27:40.340 the owner of a multiplex in Alberta. And, um, when my, uh, theater rep, uh, contacted her,

00:27:50.420 she said, sight unseen. She didn't even have to see the film. It was because it was on the subject

00:27:55.220 of COVID. She said, we can't, we can't show this. And she said it was because I think it was some weeks

00:28:01.940 before they had, um, they had hosted or rented their space to the, uh, United Conservative Party

00:28:09.940 of Alberta. And, and, uh, apparently this was like inviting Satan into your living room. So, uh, I

00:28:18.900 thought this confused me because I thought, well, Danielle Smith's party is the ruling party of Alberta. 1.00

00:28:25.780 Yeah. Whether you like them or not, they're, they're the elected government. They're clearly not,

00:28:29.380 you know, they're clearly mainstream in that sense. They're, they are mainstream in that sense,

00:28:33.860 but she said she had, she, she said her past advertisers threatened to, to, to pull that

00:28:40.900 their advertise advertising. She got a lot of haters and she said it wasn't just a tax on her,

00:28:46.820 but it was a tax on her staff. So she said, sorry, we, we, we can't show this, but you know,

00:28:52.020 I'm confident that there are, there are a lot of other outlets, uh, up, up across, uh, Canada

00:28:59.140 that will, you know, that will, uh, screen this film. What I'm hoping is that we get, uh, a new,

00:29:06.980 new Tang Dynasty is going to be, uh, streaming the, the, the film, uh, shortly after our, uh, premiere

00:29:16.420 at the, at the, um, Isabel Bader Theater in, in, uh, in, uh, Toronto, uh, next week. Um, after that,

00:29:26.340 it will be, it will be, uh, for a time being, it will be available on my website until we get more,

00:29:35.140 until we get significant distribution of the, of the film.

00:29:39.700 All right. Well, that website is covidcollateral.com. The, uh, producer and writer, uh, Vanessa Dillon

00:29:46.820 joins us now. Congratulations again, Vanessa, and thank you so much for coming on today.

00:29:50.500 Thank you, Andrew. Thank you.

00:29:52.580 All right. Thank you. Look, as I've said, there, there are a lot of people who I understand want

00:29:56.900 to just close the box on this, but I'm a big believer in the importance of precedent and posterity,

00:30:02.420 and we cannot allow so much of what passed for government policy and what passed for, uh, the way

00:30:07.780 that institutions were behaving and governing themselves. We cannot allow that to become

00:30:13.220 the norm and allow that to become the template for the future. So, uh, very grateful that we had

00:30:17.940 a, uh, film take on this done by a very reputable broadcaster. And again, a very mainstream position

00:30:24.340 of people. So one thing that I I've understood in the last little while is that a lot of people don't

00:30:29.460 like things that show both sides and, and the left and right are both, I don't want to say equally

00:30:34.740 guilty of this, but there is guilt on both sides. And I remember, for example, when my colleague,

00:30:39.860 uh, Rachel Emanuel produced a documentary with her brother called, uh, the freedom occupation. I know

00:30:44.980 people couldn't get over the name because they didn't like the idea that the freedom convoy was

00:30:48.340 being called an occupation. And I don't believe it is an occupation, but I believe they were making

00:30:52.900 a film and they can call it whatever the heck they want. Uh, but there were people that didn't like

00:30:56.500 that it had both perspectives in it. It didn't have, they had critics and it had supporters and people

00:31:01.860 didn't like that. And I think we need to, as a society, get back on board with this idea of being

00:31:06.500 willing to hear different perspectives, not being afraid of entertaining, uh, these different groups

00:31:12.420 and these different views and all of that, because if we do that, we're just completely segregating

00:31:16.740 ourselves off into these parallel societies. And then we find ourselves so shocked to learn there

00:31:21.060 are other positions because we built this little cocoon around us that doesn't have them. Uh,

00:31:25.620 absolutely befriend people that you disagree with. Maybe you'll have it out and maybe you'll become

00:31:30.580 even closer friends because you don't care about the differences. But anyway, uh, thank you for

00:31:34.820 coming to my Ted talk. I wanted to shift to speaking of posterity, a discussion that takes

00:31:40.340 an anniversary, not a particularly pleasant anniversary, but one that is relevant to me.

00:31:44.580 And I know a lot of those of you tuning in, and that is the four year anniversary of the federal

00:31:50.180 government's order and council prohibiting at first about 1500 different types of firearms. Now,

00:31:56.420 this was the infamous order and council that was supposed to take military style assault weapons

00:32:02.660 off the streets of Canada guns that Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair told us had one reason and one reason

00:32:08.340 alone. And that is to kill as many people as possible. That was what they said about these guns. 0.99

00:32:15.460 Now for things that were just absolutely horrendous and these murder machines that the government said,

00:32:21.060 you'd think that would be a real high priority to take them off the street. Well,

00:32:24.820 in fact, in the last four years, they have not taken a single one of these guns off the street.

00:32:30.020 They've been slow and not been able to get this so-called gun buyback into place. I don't mind that

00:32:37.060 they haven't, but it undermines the core premise of this. It undermines the core premise of what the

00:32:43.540 government said this was about, which was a public safety policy rather than a gun grab. Well, let's talk

00:32:49.380 about what the last four years have looked like and what the next little bit may look like.

00:32:53.140 Joining me is Rod Giltaka, who is, of course, our good friend and the CEO and Executive Director of

00:32:59.300 the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, which generously sponsored the documentary I did about

00:33:04.900 this back in 2021 called Assaulted, Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners. Rod, good to talk to you.

00:33:11.380 Thanks for coming on today. Thank you, Andrew. So look, a little bit bittersweet, as I sort of

00:33:16.980 indicated there. On one hand, four years and they haven't managed to get a single one of these guns.

00:33:20.980 So for gun owners who bought these things legally, there's still a bit of hope. But it also undermines

00:33:26.020 just how I think really dangerous this government's agenda is that they can just with a stroke of a pen,

00:33:31.780 no real accountability, prohibit firearms that are legally owned, that are not causing any damage,

00:33:37.860 as evidenced by the fact that they've still been out in Canada for the last four years.

00:33:43.220 Yeah, it's a mess. It was an opportunity, it was a political opportunity for the Liberals,

00:33:47.460 they jumped on it. And now they have this legacy of failure and broken promises and bad ideas that

00:33:54.100 have stretched now four years, and it's going to continue to grow. The longer they wait to fulfill

00:34:00.420 their obligations that they made four years ago, the worse it's going to be politically,

00:34:04.260 and the worse it is for all the people, licensed gun owners, that haven't done anything that deserve

00:34:09.700 to be involved in any of this. You and I spoke when I was doing that documentary back in 2021,

00:34:16.500 and I quote that and share clips from that documentary from time to time, because

00:34:20.900 every problem that was addressed in that is still a problem. Usually they've gotten worse,

00:34:25.540 nothing has gotten better, everything has at least maintained or gotten worse. And you know,

00:34:31.380 from the business perspective, that's one of the most devastating effects here is that inventory

00:34:35.940 that was promised by the government to be compensated, fair market value has been just sitting like

00:34:41.460 a brick in a warehouse. And even with the government trying to work with one of the industry

00:34:45.940 groups, the CSAAA, nothing's come about there. And I'm wondering what you'd

00:34:50.740 say has happened to the morale of the firearms community in the last couple of years? Are

00:34:55.300 people throwing in the towel? Are people getting ready to fight it politically? What's the sense been?

00:35:02.260 Well, it's incredibly discouraging for a lot of people, right? I mean, remember,

00:35:06.100 we're talking about people that hadn't done a single thing to deserve any of this. They haven't

00:35:11.620 done a single thing. But of course, they're caught right in the middle of the liberals, again,

00:35:15.860 political opportunism. For businesses, it's probably devastating. I don't have a firearm

00:35:22.340 business myself. But I can imagine that some of these businesses have been sitting on

00:35:27.780 tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory for four years. And a lot of

00:35:33.060 businesses operate on a line of credit. So they're paying interest, they're paying insurance, they have

00:35:38.740 space, that's money they can't use to buy out of their inventory, four years.

00:35:42.340 And I think the most important point is the retail aspect of this, the government should be able to

00:35:51.460 go to retailers, say, give us your invoices, and we'll pay you for them, and we'll come and get the

00:35:55.940 guns. And the fact that they couldn't achieve that, because that's the easiest part of this whole buyback

00:36:01.220 idea. They couldn't even achieve that. And individual Canadians have paid the price for it. And I know

00:36:06.660 several businesses, personally, that have gone under because of all this inventory they're sitting on,

00:36:12.340 they've had to finance the whole time. So it's just, it's just a mess. And Canada's gotten more

00:36:16.820 dangerous the entire time, too. So I don't know what's going on.

00:36:20.820 What's your read on the alternative? Because I know that Aaron O'Toole, prior to the election in 2021,

00:36:26.580 was fairly supportive of firearms owners and firearms rights. But there were some points of

00:36:31.700 equivocation. And of course, during the election campaign, he infamously just flipped on his position,

00:36:36.900 which was that he was going to reverse the OIC. With Pierre Polyev, I've heard a much stronger

00:36:42.420 position on this. And I'm curious if you're fairly confident that if there is a change of government,

00:36:46.900 that a lot of the really damaging policies will be gone?

00:36:50.500 Well, in politics, you don't know 100% anything, right? There's just anyone can change course at any

00:36:58.500 time. But we've, we've really stood behind the conservatives, they are the party that has a

00:37:03.860 chance to win. And that has promised that they'll put the focus on crime and violence, not licensed

00:37:10.420 gun owners. To be honest with you, if the conservatives started backpedaling on that, then

00:37:17.620 they're no friend to law abiding Canadians either. And then I think as a Canadian, I would really lose

00:37:22.980 faith in the entire system. And I'm trying, I'm trying desperately to believe that there's a

00:37:27.780 political solution, and that there's some fairness and justice and, and just genuine

00:37:36.260 straight dealings in politics at some level. But I'll tell you, it's every year that passes,

00:37:40.500 and we see the behaviors of the people that make up the government in Canada just keeps getting

00:37:44.580 further and further away from something that's that's attainable. I don't know.

00:37:48.980 Yeah, when you and I have spoken in the past about the legal avenue,

00:37:52.020 and I know CCFR is availing itself of the court system as it has a right to, but it's

00:37:56.340 very expensive. There's no guarantee of this court siding in the sense that freedom, as you've learned

00:38:02.340 at the lower court, the federal court. And, you know, then the one sort of bit of hope you have left

00:38:07.300 is that just as it was a stroke of the pen that brought this in, a stroke of a pen could bring it

00:38:11.540 out. You just need the right person to hold the pen. That's true. But I was very disappointed in

00:38:18.660 our experience with the judicial system. You know, you have a court that says that banning plastic

00:38:27.540 straws and plastic shopping bags is unreasonable. It's beyond the pale, unconstitutional even,

00:38:33.700 and that the government is just, it's a gross overreach. Yet, you know, the same court, it's not

00:38:39.460 the same judge, but the same court says, Oh, yeah, you can just stroke of a pen, take property,

00:38:44.500 and such important property as firearms, that people are individually licensed and receive

00:38:49.700 a criminal background check every day, for as long as they hold that license just to be able

00:38:54.180 to possess, you know, something that we've had since before Canada, you know, became a country.

00:39:00.180 And that's, that's okay, you can just take those things, make them illegal, make you keep them,

00:39:05.700 don't pay you anything for them, and slander these people left and right for eight years straight. I mean,

00:39:10.980 apparently, that's okay. So I think the judicial system is completely upside down, our political

00:39:15.860 system is, we're having a real collapse of confidence. And, you know, it's funny, it's

00:39:22.020 the gun lobby guy is the one that's trying to hold, you know, Canada together, at least in my own mind,

00:39:28.100 and not, not lose faith in the entire system. You know, there's, there's got to be a solution

00:39:32.020 where we can preserve the system.

00:39:34.340 Yeah, and the thing too, is that we are seeing across the country, and I've talked about it on

00:39:38.980 the show this week, in particular, this rise in crime, crime is becoming the new normal,

00:39:43.620 across the country, property crime, even violent crime, criminals are in a revolving door system,

00:39:48.820 and law abiding gun owners are sitting there just looking at, you know, their safe that's been locked

00:39:52.980 and dust is over it, because they haven't been able to get out what's in there anyway. And seeing

00:39:58.260 that the people who are causing all the problems are the ones that the government is not really

00:40:02.340 interested in going after. And I think on firearms crime as well, like, look, most people in this

00:40:06.820 country do not own or I would even say need a firearm for self-defense. But it is a tool available

00:40:13.140 to people. And it's a legal tool available to people. And right now, with Canada going the

00:40:17.620 direction it's going, it's quite something that this is where the government is directing its priorities.

00:40:24.340 Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's awful. It's awful. And it's a government,

00:40:29.140 you know, and it's, I don't think it's, it's, I'm not trying to just hack on the liberals because

00:40:33.940 I don't agree with them. But on so many levels, the government's just completely out of control.

00:40:40.100 They've, they've, I mean, I don't want to veer off of our topic of firearms, right,

00:40:44.260 but they've damaged Canada in so many different ways. And the, the level of propagandizing and,

00:40:50.500 and dare I say, gaslighting that's going on in the, in, in, in the political community these days,

00:40:56.900 I just, it's, it's very, very discouraging. You know, you can't believe anything anyone's

00:41:02.500 saying. And I don't know, it's, I think there's a lot going on. And I think guns is a really great

00:41:08.740 example, because despite everything that the liberals have said, and despite everything that

00:41:12.900 they've done, and the handgun ban, and the long gun ban, and they'll see 21, and everything that

00:41:19.220 they've done, Canada has become more violent, we've seen more firearm related violence. So any,

00:41:24.260 I think even just any layman can sit back, whether they, whether or not they know this topic and say,

00:41:29.780 whatever you're doing isn't working. It's not working. So stop doing what you're doing and do

00:41:34.820 something different. And for us, it's focus on crime violence, including firearm related violence,

00:41:40.900 and gun smuggling. That's what you need to do if you want to get rid of this violence. But I don't

00:41:45.700 know, it's just a strange time in Canadian history. Rod Giltaka for attorney general, you heard it here

00:41:50.660 first. Not that you would do that to yourself, but we would be in a better place. Rod from the CCFR,

00:41:57.140 always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today. And I won't say a happy anniversary, but

00:42:01.060 certainly an important anniversary. Well, thank you, Andrew. All right. Thank you, Rod. And that

00:42:06.500 does it for us, not just for today, not just for the week. I am off next week. I am off on a personal

00:42:13.460 vacation. So I have no good updates for you. I can't tease a secret mission or anything like that. But

00:42:18.740 you will be well covered by the team at True North. I think we might have some reruns and

00:42:22.580 interviews for you to keep you occupied, if that's really, really what you want. But I'm

00:42:26.180 going to be hopefully avoiding my computer as much as possible. But I will see you upon my return.

00:42:32.740 What is it? May? Let me look at it. I think it's like May 12th or something. May 13th is the Monday. So

00:42:37.300 I will see you then. But in the meantime, thank you. God bless and good day to you all.

00:42:41.940 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at

00:42:46.820 www.tnc.news.com.

00:42:49.460 www.tnc.news.com.

Juno News - May 01, 2024

Poilievre kicked out of Parliament for calling Trudeau a “wacko”

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