Juno News - Poilievre soaring in polls – so the Liberals are campaigning against Trump

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:19.700 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here on this thursday

00:01:29.640 march 7th 2024 just after one o'clock eastern time 11 a.m mountain 10 a.m in the beautiful

00:01:38.340 albeit somewhat kooky province of british columbia and no i won't leave you maritimers out it is two

00:01:44.940 o'clock in Atlantic Canada, save for Newfoundland, where you get a jump on the rest of us at 2.30.

00:01:51.720 That makes, well, Manitoba, no, no, I promise I wouldn't make fun of Manitoba anymore. It is

00:01:57.580 Manitoba noon hour, a lunchtime in Manitoba province that is the only one I have not yet

00:02:03.180 visited in the country. So if you can come up with a reason I should go there, please do. My

00:02:08.120 one colleague who is formerly of Manitoba says that I should just avoid it on principle now and

00:02:14.100 see how long I can go. But anyway, the polar bears look lovely up in Churchill. So all of that

00:02:19.320 notwithstanding, it is great to have you tuned into the show. We'll be continuing our coverage

00:02:23.460 of the Liberal Government's Online Harms Act, Bill C-63, a little bit later on with law professor

00:02:29.900 Bruce Party, who I suspect, if past interviews are an indication of future comments, will be

00:02:37.180 very, very much for this. He loves censorship. No, he doesn't. He hates, he's more of a radical

00:02:42.820 libertarian than I am. So Bruce and I, he's the only one that outflanks me on stuff like that.

00:02:47.480 So we'll have a great chat later on. And also Jamil Javani, the member of parliament elect

00:02:52.560 for Durham, he'll be joining us for his first post-election interview on True North. That will

00:02:58.860 be in, I think just after 1.30. So just about 27 minutes from now, we'll have Jamil on. But

00:03:03.940 I wanted to begin with a bit of the bigger picture on Canadian politics right now, because

00:03:08.480 you can always tell when a government or a party is beleaguered or embattled because

00:03:15.360 they tend to start being really desperate and really unhinged. Now, we have seen in polling

00:03:21.880 for several months now that the Liberals have their backs up against the wall. They are not

00:03:26.660 only facing a polling that shows Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives in majority territory,

00:03:31.280 but they are finding themselves in some cases flirting with the NDP for that coveted third

00:03:37.600 place spot the spot that the well i mean the liberals went down to fourth place in 2011 but

00:03:42.800 basically they are behind in some polls or almost behind the ndp uh sean says the block is third

00:03:49.820 right now so uh that is actually going to be quite fascinating oh in the house yeah so that's going

00:03:55.560 to be quite interesting about whether the liberals actually get uh down below the ndp and in seat

00:04:01.940 count they could actually end up as sean says uh right now below the block because of this the

00:04:07.160 distribution. The Bloc has a much more efficient vote in Quebec. So if the Liberals are polling

00:04:12.880 third overall, I don't want to get too much into the numbers, but they could still be behind the

00:04:16.720 Bloc in seats. So we'll keep an eye out for that. But I'm less interested in the poll numbers and 0.99

00:04:23.440 more interested in how the Liberals have decided to respond to them. Because we see them just

00:04:30.160 getting really desperate right now. And what are the things the Liberals love to do? They love

00:04:34.460 importing American battles. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a decision that had

00:04:40.760 zero effect whatsoever on Canada and Canadian abortion access and abortion laws, the Liberals

00:04:47.340 started campaigning against the Roe v. Wade overturning. They had their crack squad of women's 1.00

00:04:52.060 rights activists coming out to talk about this unprecedented assault on women's rights as though

00:04:56.700 it has any effect on Canada whatsoever. The purpose is solely to wedge the Conservatives to try to

00:05:03.300 debate one of the pro-life conservative MPs into speaking about this. And this is why, I mean,

00:05:08.980 I've been on the team that the election is not going to be until 2025. That's been the operating

00:05:14.040 assumption I've had. But the one exception to that is, and it's a theory that's not original,

00:05:20.060 someone else brought this idea to me, but I can't remember who it was, so I'm going to claim credit

00:05:23.860 for it. The Liberals may want to run in 2024 because they may wish to do what we're already

00:05:32.000 seeing them start to do now, which is try to link Pierre Polyev with Donald Trump. This is like the

00:05:37.700 number one playbook for the Liberals to try to link the relatively moderate Conservative Party 0.99

00:05:43.280 of Canada with the evil, scary, right-wing, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, Haiti hate-mongery 0.98

00:05:48.840 Republican Party in the United States. And if they could have a Canadian election overlapping 0.98

00:05:53.300 with an American election, that will be a lot easier for them to do. We already see them trying

00:05:58.780 to this. We'll start with this just stellar, stellar graphic. This is the far-right American

00:06:05.660 one, Sean. There we go. So Pierre Pauly, this is the Liberal Party's official comms page.

00:06:11.640 Pierre Pauly is bringing far-right American-style politics to Canada. They cite a Toronto Star

00:06:17.580 article, which as we know is the authority on all truth, the oracle of Canadian political wisdom.

00:06:22.840 Pierre Pauly wants to look tough, but bows to Donald Trump. Yeah, okay, there you go. And

00:06:28.720 You even have the scary black and white picture

00:06:30.900 of Pierre Polyev right beside Donald Trump.

00:06:33.520 It's terrifying, is it not?

00:06:35.320 And then let's throw up the other one here. 0.99

00:06:37.560 This is, again, this is Stellar Liberal Comms.

00:06:39.720 It is a screenshot from an iPhone note.

00:06:45.000 And it's Pierre Polyev, oh, no, no, no.

00:06:46.760 It's far-right American, 0.95

00:06:48.300 but they've crossed out far-right American

00:06:50.160 because Pierre Polyev for a moment

00:06:51.620 thought he was far-right American.

00:06:53.580 And then he realized he was actually Pierre Polyev.

00:06:56.220 Very, very witty and incisive here.

00:06:58.720 uh Pierre Polyev's priorities oh no put that back up deny climate change cut services to cut taxes

00:07:06.640 for the wealthy gut the middle class we can gun control now the reason I want that up still 1.00

00:07:11.680 uh they don't even get their metaphor right because you see they they've actually put

00:07:16.000 x's beside them as if to say he has not done those things so uh Pierre Polyev hasn't denied

00:07:21.120 climate change he hasn't cut services to cut taxes for the wealthy they should have done check marks

00:07:25.680 But that would just be relying on and requiring just a little bit too much sense from the liberals.

00:07:31.000 All right, we can take down the graphic now.

00:07:34.360 This is going to be the only thing they're capable of doing.

00:07:38.600 We know it because this goes back to the election that Andrew Scheer contested in 2019,

00:07:44.740 Aaron O'Toole in 2021, all of Stephen Harper's elections.

00:07:48.040 You go before that.

00:07:49.220 It was the attacks against Stockwell Day and the Canadian Alliance,

00:07:52.180 Preston Manning and the Reform Party. And the reason I'm delving into the history a little

00:07:58.120 bit here, you may recall on Monday, I shared that I have a forthcoming biography of Pierre

00:08:02.960 Polyev. It's called Pierre Polyev, A Political Life. It's the so far first and well only to which

00:08:09.440 I'm aware biography of Pierre Polyev. And you can get the details on that at Amazon or Sutherland

00:08:14.880 House. But in the course of writing that, I've had to go back through the annals of conservative

00:08:20.680 of political history in this country. And I focus specifically on 1997 to 2024, because that's the

00:08:28.600 period in which Pierre Pauliev has been involved politically. But in doing so, I was reminded of

00:08:34.020 just how the tricks are the same in every single election. The attacks are the same. The chant that

00:08:40.380 people used to use against Preston Manning in 93 and 97 was racist, sexist, anti-gay, Preston Manning, 0.97

00:08:46.740 go away. It's got a nice rhythm to it, got a nice cadence. It wasn't true then, and it's not true

00:08:51.900 now. But it's the same attacks. People are going to say, you know, racist, sexist, anti-gay,

00:08:56.700 poly-ev, go away. That's going to be the line that they use because the attacks do not change, 0.77

00:09:03.020 which is why the only way to combat that is by having a politician that's going to flip the

00:09:07.940 script and not be deferential and conciliatory and take on this appeasement approach to the

00:09:13.840 media and to the left which is what conservative leaders have tried and failed to do in the last

00:09:18.740 certainly the last two elections so that's going to be the dynamic and that will be why Pierre

00:09:24.120 Polyev I think has a very different experience in the election than his predecessors will if he

00:09:29.220 holds firm because when the attacks were thrown against Sharon O'Toole their instinct was to just

00:09:34.940 head for the hills they wanted to do the ostrich thing stick their head in the sand hope it would 0.51

00:09:39.020 go away instead of flipping that script, instead of going on the offense, which you may not like,

00:09:44.560 maybe you don't think it's prime ministerial, but certainly the approaches to date have not worked

00:09:50.440 and are unlikely to work again. In fact, I'd say it's impossible for them to work again.

00:09:55.980 So all that the liberals are left with is this desire to tone police. There was this hilarious

00:10:01.460 exchange I want to share. This was from a, I forget the name of it. It was from one of the

00:10:05.580 parliamentary committees yesterday that was looking into the Arrive Can scandal. Arrive Can,

00:10:11.080 the app that gets millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to do very little work to

00:10:15.880 basically force Canadians who are coming into the country to subject themselves to this 0.90

00:10:20.300 scrutinizing of their vaccine status, their testing status. And it's just a couple of guys

00:10:25.520 in a basement that are getting rich off of this. Well, every other Canadian was forced to go along 0.63

00:10:31.120 with this absurd thing the conservatives have taken it upon themselves to call this the arrive

00:10:36.320 scam this is part i mean you may think it's a bit lame but this is what political communications

00:10:41.060 is about arrive scam well the liberals think that is just a little bit too offensive for their

00:10:48.080 liking take a look at this exchange from committee yesterday i am very struck by the comments of my

00:10:54.660 Liberal colleague regarding lack of trust in public institutions, as if public

00:10:59.520 institutions can be, trust in public institutions can be disconnected from an

00:11:05.040 evaluation of their conduct. I think public institutions have to earn trust.

00:11:09.480 Now the Arrive Scam scandal is an earth-shattering scandal.

00:11:13.680 Point of order, Mr. Chair?

00:11:15.680 Just one second.

00:11:16.680 Point of order, Mr. Chair?

00:11:17.680 Yes, Ms. Khalid, your point of order is?

00:11:21.680 When Conservative colleagues call it an arrived scam instead of an arrived cam app, then it's impacting the public trust of what I was trying to get at.

00:11:32.020 Ms. Khalid, that is not a point of order.

00:11:35.220 That is a term we're hearing both in this committee room but also throughout Parliament Hill.

00:11:40.620 Mr. Jennings, you have the floor. Four minutes and 40 seconds, please.

00:11:44.340 Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

00:11:45.400 So, trigger warning.

00:11:46.740 My comments will use the word arrived scam.

00:11:50.540 Arrive scam is impacting public trust because it's an earth-shattering scandal.

00:11:56.620 It's pretty rich for Liberals like Ms. Khalid to talk about the need for public 1.00

00:12:00.300 trust in institutions when they have presided over a massive decline in the effectiveness

00:12:05.740 and the trustworthiness of public institutions and done nothing about it.

00:12:09.740 Mr. Mr. Jenuous, Ms. Khalid, you are, no you're not the next speaker, but go ahead.

00:12:14.860 You have a point of order. It's a point of order, not a rebuttal.

00:12:17.420 I'd appreciate if Mr. Genuis did not try to malign me.

00:12:21.380 I've already been dealing with a lot of hate mail and a lot of threats in my office based on what the conservatives have done.

00:12:28.820 I would appreciate if he didn't put another target on my back.

00:12:31.680 Thank you.

00:12:34.940 I love it.

00:12:36.120 This is Ikra Khalid, who is, well, I mean, the second part is like calling it arrive

00:12:41.340 scam subject or no, him calling out her calling out his use of the word arrive scam subjects

00:12:47.160 her to hate and threats or something like that, which is absurd.

00:12:51.040 And then the crucial point at the beginning there, that it undermines trust in institutions

00:12:56.960 when the conservatives call it arrive scam.

00:12:59.120 That comment is many things.

00:13:00.780 It's great comedy, but as John Williamson pointed out, it is not by any stretch a point of order.

00:13:07.360 But this is what the Liberals would love to focus on.

00:13:09.840 Again, I would say let's perhaps focus on the fact that you're trying to censor what Canadians say and do online.

00:13:14.780 But instead, they're like, they're already actually policing it.

00:13:18.080 This is a perfect segue because Ickra Klin is already showing there that she thinks that arrive scam is a word that you shouldn't be able to use. 1.00

00:13:25.580 And this is the member of parliament from a party, from a government that is trying to police what you say and do online.

00:13:31.400 So maybe if she gets her way, arrive scam will be an example of hate speech that Bill C-63 will not let you discuss. 0.88

00:13:41.340 That may be the way that we go from here.

00:13:44.160 But this is exactly why I've been talking about this and why I should probably do at some point a segment on this show.

00:13:49.900 Maybe we'll do it next week where I just go through all of the things that the liberals have said are hate.

00:13:54.520 just to give a sense of the things that they may feel are within the regulatory purview of Bill

00:14:00.920 C-63. For example, officials from the Department of Justice yesterday said that, this is literally

00:14:09.360 what they said, they said that comparing people to human excrement may be in fact a violation of

00:14:18.140 online hate speech. So you could actually make a comparison of someone to human excrement, which 0.94

00:14:22.740 again, I don't believe is kind. I don't believe you should generally go after people and make

00:14:29.140 these excremental comparisons. But if you compare people to excrement, that could prompt a hate 0.87

00:14:33.600 speech probe. And also if you compare them to vermin. So if you think someone is a crappy person 0.99

00:14:39.500 or as Sean just called me a rat bastard piece of crap, I don't know if we can say rat bastard piece 1.00

00:14:45.040 of crap on the show and keep the clean tag on iTunes, but I've already said it. So a rat bastard 1.00

00:14:49.280 piece of crap. This could be hate speech. So Sean, if you want to file a human rights complaint 1.00

00:14:53.740 against me, actually I could file it against you because you said it to me. Yeah, Sean just called

00:14:58.540 me a rat bastard piece of crap in our show chat. So I am triggered and traumatized by this. So that 1.00

00:15:04.680 is, I believe I get $20,000 under C63, but he has to pay $50,000 to the receiver general. So Sean,

00:15:13.200 you're out $70,000, which means you should think twice about your language. You should have that 1.00

00:15:18.240 chill that we all hear about in the course of free speech he wants to know if he can expense it now

00:15:23.740 to to true north well uh as uh no i'm just gonna go out on a limb and say no um so anyway let's

00:15:30.360 discuss this do we have bruce bruce party we do so bruce party is a law professor and as i said

00:15:35.560 earlier uh the one who outflanks me on my libertarianism which is already too radical for 0.97

00:15:40.740 uh some of you so i don't know what you're going to make of him you'll be calling him a rat bastard 1.00

00:15:44.800 piece of crap before long. But it's always great to get his insights on this. Bruce, thank you for 0.99

00:15:49.700 coming on the show. This is something you've been warning about for years. And I've quoted a

00:15:55.400 presentation I heard you give at SAFS in London a few years ago about these sorts of things. And

00:16:00.940 one of the ones that stands out is your claim that if something is illegal offline, it's illegal

00:16:06.620 online. So this idea that we need a law to create this special category of online speech is in and

00:16:12.120 itself flawed is it not yes yes entirely now there might be a jurisdictional reason for the feds to

00:16:20.120 pursue this because they don't generally have jurisdiction over civil rights and so speech in

00:16:27.720 general is mostly a provincial matter but they have jurisdiction over telecommunications so they're

00:16:33.720 using that as a justification to cover for essentially wanting to walk into the role of

00:16:40.680 censoring our online speech which is becoming a greater proportion of our speech in general all

00:16:46.920 the time so this is this is one way in which the feds are are elbowing their way into a matter that

00:16:52.040 the provinces traditionally have have had the major role one of the things that i i find so jarring

00:16:58.600 about it and i don't know how much you read into this briefing that department of justice officials

00:17:02.680 gave which was basically because they thought journalists weren't getting it and they just

00:17:06.440 needed to be you know given some more of the the state propaganda on this but one of the things

00:17:10.920 that they that i've really taken from this is that the government's leaning very heavily on the just

00:17:15.400 trust us they're saying no no the canadian human rights commission will make sure that this isn't

00:17:19.800 abused that's the whole point of this though is that we're empowering these bureaucrats to decide 0.81

00:17:24.920 what we can and can't say online oh exactly so so you know there have been many lawyers who since

00:17:34.360 the draft of the bill came out have pointed out all the flaws and and they're absolutely right

00:17:38.200 but yes so that the trust in the administration to deal with the online platforms the trust in

00:17:46.600 the human rights uh mechanisms to make the right calls about where the line's supposed to be and

00:17:53.120 even the trust in the courts in defining what falls on one side and the other side of the idea

00:18:00.320 of hate speech but so one of my concerns about bill 63 in addition to all of the very valid

00:18:08.480 criticisms that it's received i mean it's a terrible terrible draft i mean it had it it

00:18:13.840 cannot be let through but an awful lot of those problems already exist including the one that you

00:18:21.840 just referred to we already have a major portion of our law in the hands of these kinds of bodies 0.89

00:18:28.720 whether they're executive bodies or legal bodies per se the lines drawn in our laws

00:18:36.320 are terribly vague so just take the most basic one we have freedom of speech in section two of

00:18:42.240 our charter what does that mean who knows it's always up to the courts to decide so when you

00:18:50.000 think well i have freedom of speech because it says so in the charter you don't actually know

00:18:54.480 what that means and so we we've got a very basic problem in our law that this is making worse to be

00:19:02.720 sure but we haven't attacked the actual problem yeah and it's it's so difficult because the whole

00:19:10.960 point of speech regulations for example in the united kingdom they have a like in canada broadcast

00:19:16.960 regulator called ofcom and and they have to adjudicate if you use a dirty word on television

00:19:22.640 whether that word was something you could say on tv before nine o'clock which is their watershed

00:19:27.680 hour and they publish this annual list of all the words they've said are violated and it's

00:19:33.440 actually hilarious because you read through this list and you learn of like slurs and swears that

00:19:37.840 you didn't even know existed that some bureaucrat has just decided but this list gets longer and

00:19:42.400 longer every year because someone looks at it and makes a judgment call and in the end you have

00:19:47.120 these absurd boundaries and borders and you know i've been making a point on this show of talking

00:19:51.680 about this uh what what the government thinks is this uber clear delineation of it can't detest or

00:19:58.640 vilify but it can disdain offend hurt harm and and they they think that this is clarity but it

00:20:04.880 actually is no such thing no no and i don't i my guess is that they know there's there's no clear

00:20:11.840 line there that that is simply to empower the kind of discretion that you're talking about

00:20:16.400 but remember we we have these kinds of restrictions in our laws already i mean again this is adding to

00:20:26.320 them making them worse it cannot stand but we have a speech a hate speech provision in the criminal

00:20:32.820 code already that for my money shouldn't be there we have restrictions on speech and various kinds 0.68

00:20:38.400 of human rights codes across the country already they shouldn't be there and we've accepted them 1.00

00:20:43.400 and so this is just a piling on it's a bad piling on it needs to be defeated but it's a piling on

00:20:50.160 we have accepted the idea that hate speech whatever that happens to me should be restricted

00:20:57.580 that in my for my money that is incorrect if you live in a free country you're allowed to hate

00:21:07.540 other people now we don't recommend it it's not a good thing we're not going to encourage it but

00:21:13.240 if you're free you're allowed to for the reason that you're free and if that's what you think

00:21:19.540 then again if you're free you're allowed to say so because that's what you think and that I saw

00:21:26.720 yeah go ahead no I saw you post on Twitter the other day something about that which I found

00:21:32.460 interesting whereas in the U.S. they've actually specifically protected hate speech whereas in

00:21:37.940 Canada we've done the opposite so the U.S. doesn't have to deal with this question of where to draw

00:21:42.640 the line whereas in Canada we do that that's right and as a population we seem to have accepted the

00:21:50.340 idea that it's appropriate for the government to draw that line somewhere and tell us that we're

00:21:58.000 not allowed to express our our distaste for other people well now you're being managed and you know

00:22:05.260 being free includes a lot of uncomfortable ugly things it involves a bit of chaos so there's a

00:22:12.000 choice here it's been with us for a long time and i think we are failing to choose correctly but

00:22:17.980 we are choosing to be managed for the sake of of i don't know for the sake of of of you know

00:22:26.560 civilizational manners in in instead of deciding that actually yeah we are a free country right now

00:22:36.860 that's very much in doubt. One of the most, I mean, generally speaking, a win is a win and a

00:22:43.920 loss is a loss, but sometimes a win can be a loss. And by that, I'm referring to the Mike Ward case

00:22:50.040 before the Supreme Court. This is a Quebec comedian that told a joke about a disabled

00:22:55.340 teenager. Again, you may think this is incredibly in poor taste. You may think it's unfunny. You

00:22:59.400 may think it's rude. You may think that people should boycott him, but he did this. His life

00:23:03.960 was dragged through the ringer. Comedians would rather be performing and doing comedy, although

00:23:08.480 he was subjected to more of a tragedy and a drama by going before the Quebec Human Rights Commission

00:23:14.160 and all of that. And in the end, this goes to the Supreme Court of Canada. He wins. But it was a

00:23:19.100 5-4 decision. Now, the fact that it came down to one judge on whether you have a right to tell

00:23:25.720 offensive jokes in this country is incredibly dangerous. And that's why I'm not all that

00:23:30.380 pessimistic or I'm not all that optimistic about C63 because I think since the Ward case there have 0.95

00:23:36.240 been one if not two more appointments to the Supreme Court by Justin Trudeau so that case

00:23:43.000 today may end up being you know seven two or something well I totally agree with you on this

00:23:49.640 and I would go further so yes it was a it was a five four decision but even the basis of the

00:23:55.140 majority decision was not what you want so basically basically they said no this he's oh

00:24:00.620 he's okay in this instance because you know he didn't intend to target this person on the basis

00:24:06.440 of the prohibited ground so in other words if he had wanted to make fun of this person on the basis

00:24:14.080 of a prohibited ground maybe that would not have been okay you know that yeah so you're right it's

00:24:19.460 not even a it wasn't even a free speech argument that the majority gave it was uh like he he got

00:24:24.760 off on a tech. It was the Al Capone tax evasion thing. He got off on the technicality. That's

00:24:29.340 right. That's right. And so we are missing a robust endorsement of the idea that you are free

00:24:36.940 to say what you think. And the so-called perceived harm on others because of hearing your dreadful

00:24:46.320 thoughts really should be irrelevant. And we have not gotten there yet. Let me go out to the bigger

00:24:54.620 picture here because you and i have had many discussions on this show and elsewhere where

00:24:59.020 we've lamented the state of things in canada and are you and i advocating for something that is

00:25:05.020 fundamentally not what the law in canada is supposed to be and by that i mean is this an

00:25:10.460 issue where the law has been designed in a way and it's just diverged so far from that point

00:25:16.300 or are we in the wrong country has this actually been a case of canada was never meant to have

00:25:21.340 very robust freedom of expression well this is a question that that that has no clear resolution

00:25:27.580 right i mean some people would say the former and that our tradition has not been like that in the

00:25:34.020 u.s and of course you know u.s jurisprudence of freedom of speech has come in peaks and valleys

00:25:40.700 as well it's not you know black and white it was not one thing from the very beginning but

00:25:45.100 their first amendment in our section two basically both say people have freedom of

00:25:51.100 speech and the words are very vague and they in in neither case do they exactly say what that means

00:25:57.200 and it just so happens that it's played out one way in the U.S. and the other way in Canada so

00:26:02.400 there's nothing inherent in our provisions that suggest that we ought not to have free speech but

00:26:08.160 our institutions our legal institutions our courts in particular but also our governments

00:26:12.620 have insisted that that's actually not not the case in this country. Beverly McLaughlin the

00:26:19.980 the former Chief Justice did an interview the other day, and I haven't watched the whole thing,

00:26:24.040 but I read little snippets of it. And it sounds like she's generally supportive of Bill C-63 and

00:26:29.380 what it tries to do. And the issues that she flags are ones that are more like, well, you know,

00:26:33.900 I might be concerned if, and it's quite interesting because that aligns with what I expect from

00:26:38.520 Beverly McLaughlin. But if you look at some past decisions, I mean, she used to be quite strong on

00:26:43.580 freedom of expression. And it's amazing that there's been this flip where it's only freedom

00:26:48.940 of expression for certain people now and for certain groups and i i mean she i i think would

00:26:54.620 be mortified by some of the things she's said in the past about it i mean i she's defended the

00:26:59.100 right to deny the holocaust but now the right to misgender someone i don't know yes you'd think 0.89

00:27:04.860 that that that a former version of herself might be appalled with what the present version of

00:27:09.340 herself is saying maybe maybe but but it is also the case though that even at the supreme court and

00:27:14.300 even from uh from reverend mclaughlin the justification for free speech has has sometimes

00:27:21.340 run along the lines of well we need free speech because it it's it's effective it's it's important

00:27:27.660 to maintain our democracy for the for the you know free marketplace of ideas to get to the truth we

00:27:33.420 need yada yada and that's that's good that's fine that's true it's a very utilitarian argument

00:27:38.700 extremely utilitarian. And so the implication is, look, if it doesn't benefit the society

00:27:46.400 to have this, then you can't have it. And that is not what free means. Free means you can say

00:27:53.140 what you think because you think it and for no other reason. Wow. Yeah. And there was a quote

00:28:00.660 I was hoping you would talk for 10 seconds longer so I could pull up the quote. I'll paraphrase it

00:28:05.100 in the absence of that, because Beverly McLaughlin had said in a speech at some point

00:28:09.600 that her job as a judge was to take a step back and after hearing a case and decide what's best 0.89

00:28:14.620 for society, which I mean, it's entirely par for, I think, how the Supreme Court deals with these

00:28:20.440 things, but very dangerous in kind of on the back end of what you've just said there, which is that

00:28:25.460 you have judges that all of a sudden start looking at speech as a tool instead of speech as an

00:28:30.880 inherent good and free speech as an inherent good and that I think is especially concerning when you

00:28:35.500 go up against these equality rights in the charter and all of a sudden you're going to get a judge

00:28:38.860 that's saying well yes but your freedom of speech isn't good if it makes someone feel unsafe because

00:28:44.660 of their gender identity or their race or or whatever this case is yes and we should note how

00:28:51.020 that changes the idea of the nature of rights right the whole for my money the whole idea was

00:29:00.700 that these these were things these were lines in the sand where the group could not invade the

00:29:06.860 ability of the individual to do as he chose but now these rights are being interpreted through

00:29:12.940 the lens that you're describing which is well the right is okay as long as it serves society

00:29:18.140 well but that's completely the opposite of the first idea the the the an individual right has

00:29:24.460 to stand regardless of its effect upon society for the very reason that it is an individual right

00:29:30.700 and not a societal right all right we'll end on a lighter note bruce who do you think is

00:29:36.460 getting hauled before the tribunal first you or me oh geez um well you talk uh more frequently

00:29:44.540 than i do andrew so i'd have to go with you all right well i'll get you as my uh council of record

00:29:50.540 then uh when it happened uh bruce party the executive director of rights probe law professor

00:29:55.420 at queen's university always a pleasure bruce thanks for coming on thanks andrew cheers all

00:29:59.900 All right. I'm glad Bruce is always like the downer when I have him on. He was surprisingly

00:30:03.460 chipper today, which I quite like. So now that being said, the bill hasn't yet become a law.

00:30:09.420 So who knows what will happen then. Nevertheless, I mentioned earlier this week, there was a big

00:30:14.240 win in Durham, not altogether unsurprising, as I said, and I put the caveat there because

00:30:19.420 it has been a conservative stronghold for 20 years. But the margin of victory by which

00:30:24.580 the conservative candidate, Jamil Javani won, was actually quite strong. And I think there is a

00:30:30.600 message in this to Justin Trudeau, either that conservatives are in fact looking beyond or

00:30:36.160 conservative voters, voters in general are looking beyond all those evil, scary conservative Trump

00:30:40.540 comparisons. And also that the liberal vote is just not motivated to show up. People that voted

00:30:45.780 for Justin Trudeau in the last three elections, and especially the last one election, are just

00:30:51.240 not motivated to show up and do it again so there's a lot to unpack there but i'd rather

00:30:55.800 focus on the guy himself we've had him on the show in the past on a number of occasions in

00:31:00.360 a number of different capacities both as a broadcaster as president of the canada strong

00:31:04.680 and free network and now as the mp elect for durham jamil javani good to talk to you thanks

00:31:10.680 for coming on and congratulations i thank you andrew it's always good to good to chat with you

00:31:16.120 and uh yeah being called an mp is still something i gotta get used to so well mp elect i don't want

00:31:22.280 to jump on too much uh formality do you know when you are going to be uh sworn in i don't know yet

00:31:27.640 no so elections canada still has to go through their process of ratification and stuff so once

00:31:33.160 that's done that's when we can schedule the swearing in so we're sort of in their hands

00:31:37.640 for the moment but it'll be soon it must be very exciting i know you've gone through in the last

00:31:42.760 few years a lot of change i mean you've had to deal with cancer you obviously got fired from

00:31:47.480 bell you turned around and tried to and i think successfully stick it to bell with a with a lawsuit

00:31:52.760 you uh you know taken over the the canada strong and free network for a time like how do you begin

00:31:58.440 to sort of decide what to do now when you get to ottawa well i mean the the good thing about this

00:32:05.240 job is that uh we were elected to accomplish the goals that we set out so that's what i think our

00:32:11.880 focus is you know it's uh it was a 12-word uh promise that we made many many times during the

00:32:18.680 campaign which is ax the tax build the homes fix the budget stop the crime that is the agenda

00:32:26.120 and uh certainly at this point where our job is to hold the current government to account

00:32:31.240 we want to focus as much as we can on pushing for ideas that we think are going to help accomplish

00:32:36.680 those objectives. And also for me locally, here in Durham, to make sure that I'm a good strong

00:32:42.740 voice for the issues that people care about. We knocked on over 111,000 doors in the last few

00:32:49.800 months. And so I've talked to as many of our voters as possible, as many of our community

00:32:55.000 members as possible. And I think I have a sense of what they want from me as the MP. And that's

00:33:00.080 what I'm out here to do. One of the questions that always comes up in politics is how much

00:33:06.420 of a candidate's performance as them and how much as the leader. And you can never quantify it,

00:33:11.380 but I'm curious if you got a sense when you were out knocking on doors, how Pierre Polyev is

00:33:16.120 perceived or if he's even perceived by people. Because obviously there's been a bit of a change.

00:33:20.560 This writing was formerly represented by Aaron O'Toole, who was the previous conservative leader.

00:33:24.800 We get from the media, no shortage of claims about, you know, Pierre Polyev being the big,

00:33:29.060 evil, scary conservative meanie. How was that actually on the ground when you were talking to

00:33:33.580 voters? Well, I think people are very happy with what they've seen from Pierre Polyev up till this

00:33:39.940 point. Since he became leader of the party, I think a lot of folks unhappy with our current

00:33:45.580 government and unhappy with our current economy in particular, see Pierre as the change leader,

00:33:51.680 that if you want something other than Trudeau, if you want an economy that, as we say, works for

00:33:57.280 those who do the work, that is actually responsive to the needs of middle class and working class

00:34:02.580 families that pierre is the guy to make that change happen so on the ground a lot of support

00:34:08.820 for pierre a growing amount of support as people get to know him better and the reality is that

00:34:14.580 you know the reason we won by the big margin that we did the biggest margin in the 20-year history

00:34:19.940 of the conservative party of canada in durham was won by us on monday and i think that is because

00:34:25.620 you know, Pierre Paglia has become a symbol of change for people. So we drew support from

00:34:32.340 neighborhoods that Conservative Party candidates in the past may not have been able to get as much

00:34:38.580 support from, because we are now seen as the change party. So that's a very exciting thing

00:34:44.080 for us, you know, nationally, but also locally. It's very exciting because I think people have

00:34:49.540 expectations for us that we're going to deliver. And now it's on us to actually hold up our end

00:34:53.980 the deal you made some waves on monday night when you took aim at liberal elites which i played the

00:35:02.140 clip on the show and i think the audience was very much on your side on that one but i was curious in

00:35:06.700 who you included in that because you weren't just talking about the capital l liberal party led by

00:35:11.580 justin trudeau you talked about uh telecom companies you even talked about i mean what i

00:35:16.460 read as the ontario pc government did you not well i specifically mentioned the ontario ministry of

00:35:22.220 Education because I mean the facts just bear it out they have upheld a policy agenda that is very

00:35:29.900 similar to what you might have seen with a liberal government in power they have focused on a lot of

00:35:35.340 virtue signaling they have focused on race politics meanwhile the average student in Ontario is still

00:35:41.820 struggling with math with reading with writing they have tried very hard to do in my view

00:35:47.740 superficial things, while the effects of pandemic school closures are still being felt by middle

00:35:54.780 class and working class families. You know, my job as an MP is to care about what people in Durham

00:36:00.700 care about. And I'm knocking on doors, I'm talking to parents every day, I'm talking to students

00:36:05.420 every day. And they're telling me the school system isn't working for us. So I feel it's

00:36:10.200 important to tell the truth. And when I say liberal elite, you're absolutely right, Andrew,

00:36:14.520 i'm not just talking about people who are in one political party a lot of our voters were

00:36:20.280 former liberal voters and i don't hold them in contempt because i grew up in a community where

00:36:25.240 i was taught the liberal party is where you belong and it took me a while to figure out that that

00:36:29.720 wasn't true and it might take others a while to figure out that out too so i don't hold that

00:36:33.880 against people but when i talk about liberal elites i'm talking about the people who have

00:36:37.480 abandoned the middle class and the working class and as i said whether they're big bank ceos big

00:36:43.320 telecom ceos the ministry of education the activists and academics pushing for um you know

00:36:50.040 anti-law enforcement anti-public safety policies what all of these folks have in common is that

00:36:55.880 they are serving a privileged few while turning their backs on the majority of people in this

00:37:00.360 country and i gotta tell the truth about that and if it ruffles feathers and it makes people unhappy

00:37:06.040 get used to it because my job is to get is to work for the people of durham my job is not to

00:37:10.360 worry about offending people in the halls of power who are actually making everybody's life harder

00:37:16.360 one of the things you and i have spoken about this in the past and i know you've spoken about

00:37:19.640 it in speeches when you were at bell as a radio host you there was kind of an expectation that

00:37:25.320 was put on you that because you fit a certain demographic mold you would fit an ideological

00:37:30.440 mold as well and i know that was one of the things you took aim at when you spoke out against them

00:37:35.160 and i i can't help but notice that the narrative around you and your candidacy would be different

00:37:40.120 if you had a different political view.

00:37:42.160 Like I'm convinced, and you may disagree with me, Jamil,

00:37:44.460 that if you were a liberal,

00:37:45.800 you would be getting like the New York Times style profile

00:37:48.660 of this bootstrap guy that got himself into Yale

00:37:52.380 and is now trying to change the country.

00:37:54.500 But just to give you one headline from the Globe and Mail,

00:37:57.220 Jamil Javani will fit right in

00:37:58.940 with activist populist conservatism of Polly Ev. 0.66

00:38:02.200 So you just basically get distilled down into this.

00:38:05.320 And I'm curious what you think of the media's take on you.

00:38:08.020 I mean, did they really cover you

00:38:09.160 And did they cover you fairly?

00:38:12.240 Well, I do not expect fairness from the media.

00:38:16.140 So Lex and I learned even before I worked in it, but certainly when working in it and

00:38:21.100 just seeing all the pressure put on employees by these big media corporations to serve a

00:38:26.740 certain agenda, you know, it's not easy to be fair in the media.

00:38:31.600 You do have to sometimes put your career on the line because you've got management who

00:38:35.800 doesn't want you to be fair and doesn't want you to be impartial and objective.

00:38:39.160 So I don't expect it to be fair. The truth is this. If you want to make a difference in this country right now, you have to fight for the middle class. You have to fight for the working class. You got to fight for the people who are not represented in the media.

00:38:53.820 They don't work in the media by virtue of the type of training and education and lifestyle that the media rewards.

00:39:02.440 The voices of the middle class and the working class are often not in these organizations, whether it's a radio station or a TV station.

00:39:09.600 And there are exceptions to that. But by and large, it's just not the case.

00:39:13.100 So just look at the polls. You know, in every poll that comes out, Pierre Polyev is at the top of the list because many, many Canadians, a growing number, want change.

00:39:22.800 but you don't see that reflected in news coverage because they're out of touch.

00:39:26.940 And our job is not to be beholden to out-of-touch media organizations.

00:39:31.920 They can call me names when Justin Trudeau was calling me names and a twofer and all that nonsense.

00:39:38.440 Most of these media organizations didn't cover that either.

00:39:41.140 They're not interested in providing an objective view of what's happening.

00:39:45.200 They have their own values. They have their own agenda.

00:39:47.720 When I say liberal elites, I am talking about the companies that own many of the media outlets that Canadians rely on for information.

00:39:56.020 So this is why I'm always keen to do independent media like True North to do local media like we have here in Durham.

00:40:03.520 We've got still a number of newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, because this is where you get a more accurate sense of what's going on in the country.

00:40:11.500 and I'll tell you now as the MP elect for Durham that is some that is wisdom I take into my new

00:40:17.780 job I will not be someone who's going to get pushed around by journalists who think if they

00:40:22.120 give me bad coverage I'm going to change my values I was elected because of my values and

00:40:27.180 I will continue to stand for them let me just ask you about where you have to direct your attention

00:40:32.760 now because you know unlike anyone who gets elected in a general election and has you know

00:40:37.100 two, three, four years of breathing room, you're being elected in a by-election,

00:40:40.940 which means you could see, I mean, you could theoretically find yourself campaigning in like

00:40:44.280 a month's time. It looks like it's probably going to be about a year, a year and a half until the

00:40:48.960 next election. But what pressure does that put on you to, you know, perform as an MP to navigate

00:40:55.000 this new life, this new world, like, you know, figuring out everything from where the bathrooms

00:40:58.900 are on Parliament Hill to, you know, how you can get a bill passed and then have to turn around

00:41:03.340 and do it again? Yeah. Well, it's one thing that a lot of people might not know is that

00:41:07.980 getting elected to parliament, there are things you have to do just like with any other job.

00:41:13.080 There's orientation and there's the tech guy who has to explain how you use your phone and log into

00:41:18.960 your new email address. So there's a lot of those steps that I'm just figuring out now and trying

00:41:23.980 to learn how it all works as quickly as I can. But the truth is that the fact an election or

00:41:30.940 general election could be coming so quickly is, you know, this is exactly why we have to stay

00:41:36.160 close to our people, close to our voters, close to the community, because I want, I'm not going

00:41:41.920 to be surprised. I want to know what people want from their MP every step of the way. I'm not going

00:41:47.240 to be one of those politicians just comes and knocks on your door every few years. I want to

00:41:51.900 be someone who the public feels this guy has our back. He's there to do a job. He works just as

00:41:56.980 hard as we do, and we can trust him to speak for us. So that's the mentality I come into the job

00:42:02.260 with. And that's why I have the confidence I have that we can take positions that the media might

00:42:07.200 not like. We can stand for things that the liberals are going to attack us on. They can throw all

00:42:12.020 their darts and all their stones all they want. And I'm fine to take it because I really believe

00:42:17.860 I have a sense of what people want, what the majority of people in our community here want.

00:42:22.640 And that's what I'm trying to be accountable to.

00:42:25.880 Is there like a bucket list thing that you'd love to achieve in your first, I don't even

00:42:30.380 want to call it a first term because it's like a partial term, but is there, there's

00:42:33.380 something that you want to be able to get to the end of the next, you know, 12, 18 months

00:42:37.120 and be able to say, I've done this when you go to campaign for reelection?

00:42:41.900 Yeah, well, I guess there's two things I have in mind.

00:42:44.820 One is, you know, I think nuclear energy is a really, really important part of the future

00:42:49.560 of Canada.

00:42:50.040 you know we've been sort of sold this idea that you know free market economics and the climate

00:42:56.940 have to be at odds with each other that has opened the gates to a lot of bad policies like the carbon

00:43:02.420 tax I don't support any of that I mean obviously we campaign on axing the carbon tax all the time

00:43:08.220 but we do have you know lower emission options that will grow the economy especially for us here

00:43:14.280 in Ontario. And in my area in particular, there are over 3,000 people who are employed by our

00:43:20.880 local nuclear plant. So I think nuclear energy is a really big part of the future. And I want to do

00:43:25.900 my part as an MP to push for that and get us away from this sort of anti-free market, anti-economic

00:43:33.240 growth approach that the Liberals have taken. And the other issue is I want to draw attention to

00:43:38.820 some of the challenges facing boys and young men in our society. You know, Andrew, I commend you

00:43:44.020 a great deal because you've been open with some of the challenges you faced as a man. Mental health

00:43:48.860 is one of the biggest things that are going on that are happening with boys and young men. We

00:43:53.420 often don't talk about it. Often there aren't services available to a lot of us. And I think

00:43:58.560 we need to make sure that the funding that goes out to programming in our communities is accounting

00:44:04.900 for the fact that the vast majority of people who are committing suicide, the vast majority of

00:44:10.300 people who are dying from overdoses, these are men. And I think that their stories need to be

00:44:15.800 told and heard. And I know a lot of moms and grandmas who are expecting me to stand up for

00:44:20.940 their sons and their grandsons. So that's a big part of what I'd like to accomplish early on

00:44:25.400 in this part of my journey as well. Well, and I'm glad you did tremendous work as an author on that

00:44:30.320 file. And I hope you pick that up as a member of parliament. And obviously, I'm available if you

00:44:35.520 need anything, but you've got that in, you seem to have that well handled. And I look forward to

00:44:39.720 hearing what you do with that. So MP elect for Durham, Jamil Javani, it's great to talk to you

00:44:44.920 and congratulations again. Thank you very much, Andrew. And I'm very happy for your continued

00:44:49.200 success. And I'm a big fan of the show. So always happy to be here. Oh, it's a good thing you didn't

00:44:53.860 say that before the election. You never would have won with an endorsement like that. Thanks a lot,

00:44:57.440 Jamil. Take care. You can always tell if someone is true to themselves if they will talk to

00:45:05.480 independent media. That's what I always say. Well, I've said it once, but and that was right now. So

00:45:09.680 Anyway, thanks again to Jamil Javani for coming on the show.

00:45:13.420 And I seem to have a lot of fans in the comments there as well.

00:45:15.780 So hopefully we'll get him back once he's in Ottawa

00:45:17.400 and tackling all of the things he wants to tackle.

00:45:21.340 But with that, I will say farewell for today.

00:45:24.320 We are going to be back with Off the Record tomorrow,

00:45:26.740 which you won't want to miss.

00:45:27.420 I don't even know who's on Off the Record tomorrow.

00:45:28.880 It's me and Candice Malcolm.

00:45:31.140 And I don't know.

00:45:32.060 I think Rachel Emanuel is doing it.

00:45:34.000 But you'll have to tune in to figure that out.

00:45:37.260 And we'll see you then.

00:45:37.920 And of course, The Andrew Lawton Show returns on Monday.

00:45:40.480 So have a great weekend, everyone.

00:45:42.020 Thank you.

00:45:42.420 God bless and good day to you all.

00:45:44.900 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:45:47.360 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:46:07.920 We'll be right back.

00:46:37.920 We'll be right back.

00:47:07.920 We'll be right back.

Juno News - March 07, 2024

Poilievre soaring in polls – so the Liberals are campaigning against Trump

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