Juno News - Police officer testifies he was ordered to give ＂not one inch＂ to Convoy organizers

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:01:20.380 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here the andrew lawton show

00:01:30.840 on true north on this wednesday september 6th and i will tell you i don't want to give you too too

00:01:38.220 much but i would encourage you to tune into friday's show not just because i think you should

00:01:43.780 tune into all the shows but because we're going to have a little bit of an announcement about

00:01:47.500 the future of this program and no it's not that we're like selling to ginois or that we're like

00:01:52.900 bringing ourself into full compliance with bill c11 nothing like that but i think you may like it

00:01:57.980 if you enjoy the show you like it so on friday we'll give you a bit of an announcement on some

00:02:01.520 changes that are coming up next week on the show and also i would tell you to stay tuned

00:02:06.840 to our coverage at true north this weekend because a few of us will be on the ground at the

00:02:11.740 Conservative Party of Canada Convention in Quebec City. We'll be interviewing some of the movers and

00:02:18.140 shakers of conservative politics and bringing you a lot of what's happening on the ground. And we'll

00:02:22.640 have a lot of that in the show next week as well. But it is a busy show today. The wonderful

00:02:28.480 documentarians Trish Wood and Jacqueline Bynon will be on the show in a little bit of a time

00:02:35.120 here. I think 20 minutes or so they're coming on. And they are producing a documentary called

00:02:39.340 the Trials of Tamara Leach, and that is something they're still producing right now, and they are on

00:02:45.960 the ground in Ottawa at the trial, one of the trials anyway, the criminal trial, so we'll talk

00:02:50.500 to them about what's happening there, and in a few moments time, we'll also discuss that with

00:02:54.860 Eva Chibiuk, a convoy lawyer, and one who you may recall from this interaction between her and

00:03:01.840 Justin Trudeau at the Public Order Emergency Commission a few months back. A number of people

00:03:07.600 have testified in this inquiry referencing your widely published comments and calling the

00:03:13.320 unvaccinated racists and misogynists. And we have heard testimony in this inquiry about how some of

00:03:20.360 your officials wanted to label protesters as terrorists. Would you agree with me that one of 1.00

00:03:26.120 the most important roles of a prime minister is to unite Canadians and not divide them by engaging

00:03:30.700 a name calling? I did not call people who were unvaccinated names. I highlighted there's a 0.92

00:03:42.520 difference between people who are hesitant to get vaccinated for any range of reasons

00:03:49.640 and people who deliberately spread misinformation that puts at risk that life and health of their

00:03:59.080 fellow Canadians. And my focus, every step of the way, and the primary responsibility of a

00:04:05.900 Prime Minister is to keep Canadians safe and alive. You have to feel for Eva Chibiuk there.

00:04:13.400 I can't recall the exact breakdown, but you only have so many minutes to cross-examine

00:04:19.900 the witness. In that case, the witness was the Prime Minister of Canada, who decides to use his

00:04:24.660 minutes to explain how he never, ever did the thing that everyone saw him on camera doing,

00:04:30.320 which was calling the unvaccinated any number of names. But Eva Chibiuk did a bang up job there, 1.00

00:04:35.840 and we'll talk to her in a few moments time. One of the interesting updates, and again,

00:04:39.580 just to tell you, the trial of Tamara Leach and Chris Barber is going on for 16 days. Now,

00:04:45.720 we're on day two right now. I don't think every day is going to bring some like gasp bombshell

00:04:50.920 like you get in the movies, in the courtroom dramas.

00:04:53.760 But I do think there are interesting things that are coming out of this.

00:04:56.980 One of the noteworthy ones today was testimony from Inspector Lucas Russell,

00:05:02.340 or was it Russell Lucas?

00:05:03.500 It might have been Russell Lucas.

00:05:04.480 I apologize.

00:05:05.280 That's the problem when you have two first names, four names.

00:05:07.660 But a police inspector with the Ottawa Police Service who is Russell Lucas.

00:05:13.120 Okay, I can't remember if I landed on the right one earlier,

00:05:15.560 but it's Russell Lucas anyway.

00:05:17.200 And he had testified, which was actually quite interesting,

00:05:20.100 that he was given marching orders by higher ups and he didn't really name who they were

00:05:25.700 that were to not give one inch those are his words not one inch in concessions to freedom

00:05:32.620 convoy organizers now why that's so important is because we've heard significant amounts of

00:05:38.660 testimony in the public order emergency commission and i've done work on this myself interviewing

00:05:43.600 people uh that actually shows a little bit of a different story there where police and convoy

00:05:48.440 organizers and then convoy organizers and the city of ottawa were developing a rather good

00:05:53.900 rapport and had reached that infamous agreement between uh tamara leach and jim watson of the 0.98

00:06:00.280 city of ottawa the mayor to consolidate the protest to shrink the footprint move all the

00:06:05.100 trucks onto wellington street and then away from residential areas so that the protest could be

00:06:11.500 squarely squarely focused where it belonged which is on federal lawmakers and not on ottawa residents

00:06:17.400 who Tamara Leach and other convoy organizers have been the first to say were not the target

00:06:21.900 of their ire. Now, had this agreement gone through, it would have been very inconvenient

00:06:26.820 for the federal government. Very inconvenient because what do they have if not the complaints

00:06:32.460 from Ottawa residents of horn honking and diesel fumes? What do they have? Nothing. They have a

00:06:37.500 protest on Wellington Street, which yes, blocks traffic on Wellington Street, but I'll tell you

00:06:42.840 something, blocking traffic on Wellington Street has been what the police and City of Ottawa have

00:06:48.080 done for the last 17 months. They have never reopened Wellington Street. So no one can say

00:06:54.560 that there is a national public emergency that comes when cars can't drive down Wellington Street.

00:06:59.980 So had the protests been concentrated there, which convoy organizers and the City of Ottawa

00:07:05.040 had agreed to, it would have made the Emergencies Act completely and utterly untenable. It would

00:07:11.780 have been impossible to sell and the federal government knew that which is why they wanted to

00:07:16.540 push forward with the emergencies act when they did but doing so stymied the progress that had

00:07:22.060 been made through back channels through informal unofficial negotiations between convoy leaders

00:07:27.340 and police and the city of ottawa now if you were to walk around the convoy area in ottawa as i did

00:07:34.300 at a few points you'd know that there were these liaison officers i think they were wearing red

00:07:39.280 vest. There were two in particular. And these officers were literally there to be conduits

00:07:44.020 between Ottawa police and members of the convoy. And obviously they were not there for the convoy.

00:07:50.840 They were there to represent Ottawa police and Ottawa police's interests. But they also knew

00:07:56.140 they could get stuff done. And when there was something that came up that perhaps was blocking

00:08:00.540 an emergency lane, the Ottawa police liaison officer could chat with Tom Marazzo, who's going

00:08:05.900 to be on the show on Friday, or Tamara Leach, or Keith Wilson, or Eva Chibiuk, and they know they'd

00:08:10.380 be able to get something like that done. So it was odd to hear testimony from the court. Now,

00:08:15.980 I didn't hear it firsthand because you aren't allowed to stream, but I've been following the

00:08:19.220 coverage of reporters that are there, like Trish Wood, and like Rebel News, and so on.

00:08:24.140 And it's been odd to see that the police, apparently, according to sworn testimony,

00:08:29.140 didn't actually want any of this progress to take place. Police were saying,

00:08:33.040 do not give one inch now obviously this is one particular inspector's perception of what he was

00:08:39.200 told but it raises the question of where such an order would have come from he didn't name names

00:08:44.280 but he said it would go all the way up to the executive leadership of the ottawa police service

00:08:48.800 for all we know it could have gone even above that to jim watson's office jim watson being the

00:08:53.880 former mayor of ottawa now he's been replaced by mark sutcliffe but this is where he gets a little

00:09:00.020 bit curious here. If this is an accurate reflection of what Ottawa police wanted, what does this mean

00:09:05.720 about all of these negotiations? Was it all just theater on their part or is this just incompetence

00:09:11.080 on police where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing? We'll talk about this

00:09:15.080 and other updates from the trial with lawyer Eva Chippia who joins us now. Eva, wonderful to talk

00:09:21.000 to you. Thanks so much for coming on today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. So let's talk

00:09:26.040 first off about that because i know you were literally on the ground yourself as counsel for

00:09:30.460 the convoy organizers when the convoy was in ottawa and i know you had many discussions as

00:09:36.640 did your colleague keith wilson with law enforcement you had made progress on those so

00:09:41.900 how did it feel to you to hear today that there was this directive that no concessions were to

00:09:46.760 be made not one inch as he says yeah interesting and not incredibly surprising and i think in your

00:09:52.860 opening, you were saying, what do we have left here? And if you strip away all of this other

00:09:57.680 stuff is what you have is you have Canadian citizens that went to Ottawa, our national

00:10:03.120 capital, to air their grievances to their elected officials. And that's really what it was. All this

00:10:09.400 other stuff is excess, really, if you look at it. And it's not surprising to hear what they're

00:10:17.140 saying, because it really was chaotic on the ground. I can see that it was obvious the left

00:10:23.380 hand wasn't talking to the right hand. In fact, in one particular instance, we were talking to a

00:10:28.860 number of police officers, and they're like, hold on, I'm getting a call. And then they said, okay,

00:10:35.320 so everything we were just talking about is off the table. And that it wasn't just one incident

00:10:40.220 like that. Yeah, and I remember actually reporting on this a while ago, there was an audio file that

00:10:46.540 I received of a phone call between a couple of people in the convoy group and an OPP liaison

00:10:52.640 apologizing for what Ottawa police had done, because even there, between those two divisions,

00:10:58.620 there was incredibly poor communication. So you're right that a lot of this is a distraction,

00:11:03.560 and it's easy to get caught up in, I mean, the big normative question of whether you like the

00:11:08.260 convoy or dislike and agree with it or disagree with it. When we pivot to the criminal trial

00:11:13.040 that's underway right now, the questions should be and are supposed to be very narrowly focused

00:11:18.400 on the law. And I'm wondering if you could explain a little bit. I know you're not representing

00:11:22.820 anyone in the criminal action, but just as a lawyer, what are the key criminal questions here

00:11:27.460 that are at stake in the trial? Well, not only am I not representing them in this case, but I'm also

00:11:32.580 not a criminal lawyer, so I definitely don't want to overstep. But one thing that's really clear

00:11:38.160 from the evidence that we've heard so far is a lot of the questions and the evidence is coming out

00:11:44.220 about the Freedom Convoy in general, and not at all specific to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber and

00:11:51.180 their actions. And I know the lawyers for both Tamara and Chris have said that the Freedom

00:11:57.360 Convoy is not on trial, nor should it be, because this is criminal actions by Tamara Leach and Chris

00:12:04.600 Barber that are on trial in a criminal proceeding. And today, one of the, I think it was the second

00:12:11.400 witness from the Ottawa Police Service. So, you know, you expect that they're coming out with

00:12:16.680 some good evidence to start off. And he was asked, did you ever speak to Tamara Leach or Chris

00:12:23.980 Barber? And the answer was no. And it's just very strange because as you mentioned again in your

00:12:29.780 opening there were a lot of interactions between police and uh the two accused and not to have

00:12:36.180 those officers come to the stand is strange to say the least well that was i found an interesting

00:12:43.460 just to bounce around in our timeline here an interesting aspect of the public order emergency

00:12:47.700 commission where of all of the evidence that was presented and all of the witness after witness

00:12:53.060 after witness the actual liaison officers were not called to testify and you know the people

00:12:59.220 that were on the ground that were talking to you and keith and tamara and tom and all of like they

00:13:04.900 weren't there and it's interesting that we're seeing something very similar take place here

00:13:08.660 where the uh so far and again it's only the the second day of a 16-day trial but the evidence

00:13:14.020 that's being presented doesn't really seem to focus on the people and the charges and and i

00:13:20.420 can say i mean there's no debating that tamara and chris were leaders in the convoy there's no

00:13:24.500 debating they were there but when i saw some of the video clips that were being entered as evidence

00:13:28.740 they're like clips that had like Tamara's not even in the clip and Chris isn't even in the

00:13:32.340 clip it doesn't have anything to do with them yeah and I'm just taking notes because this always

00:13:37.120 happens I have a thought and then goes in a hundred different directions so you're right

00:13:42.540 about um at the public order emergency commission not one of the witnesses ever spoke directly to

00:13:50.180 anyone except for the one person and now his name is escaping me it was the city manager for the

00:13:56.500 Ottawa City Police. Yes, Steve, Steve Kanellakis, yes, or Steve K, as he was called, yeah. Yes,

00:14:02.520 because of the last name. And if you recall his evidence, which is the only real first-hand

00:14:08.180 evidence of, you know, Tamara and Chris, they were very reasonable, and they were agreeable to make

00:14:14.680 moves and work with the City of Ottawa. That's the evidence they had. Everything else was all

00:14:20.780 this hearsay, and in the Public Order Emergency Commission, there was a lot more leeway for that

00:14:25.700 because it wasn't a criminal trial,

00:14:27.340 but from what I'm hearing as well,

00:14:29.020 secondhand through posts about the case,

00:14:33.000 the trial is that there is no room for any hearsay

00:14:36.840 and that's the way it should be in this type of trial.

00:14:39.940 So that's good to see and hear.

00:14:41.660 I trust that you're not a criminal lawyer,

00:14:44.300 but your knowledge of the law, I think in general,

00:14:46.340 is very valuable here.

00:14:47.880 And I was wondering if you could just explain

00:14:49.860 a little bit about the threshold aspect

00:14:51.720 because criminal law,

00:14:53.360 the one thing that even non-lawyers know

00:14:54.920 is that, you know, proof beyond a reasonable doubt here. So that is a much higher bar that

00:15:00.520 has to be met by the crown than in most of the other legal cases we've seen about the convoy

00:15:06.700 that are all governed by the balance of probabilities, as it's called. Yeah. So again,

00:15:12.160 I won't get too far down the line there because I'm not as familiar. But what I can say for sure

00:15:17.580 is the crown is the the party that needs to prove the aspects of the charges that they've laid so

00:15:26.940 it's all on the crown and so they have the obligation not and in a civil case it's very

00:15:33.340 different so and a lot of criminal charges stemming from the freedom convoy have already

00:15:39.660 um gone through the courts but you've got a very different case here in in the case of tamara and

00:15:46.460 And Chris, in that when a lot of those cases had to do with when the police were trying to evacuate people, that's my understanding.

00:15:55.940 At least, again, I haven't been privy to all of these cases.

00:15:58.500 Yeah, I believe that's where the obstruction charge is based, that they basically were telling people not to leave when the police were saying leave.

00:16:05.360 Yes. And ask yourselves now, where was Tamara Leach and Chris Barber when that was happening?

00:16:10.720 What were their illegal actions? One was already in jail, Tamara, and Chris Barber was in jail and released on bail. So up until that point, they were communicating and cooperating, not only with the police, but the city of Ottawa.

00:16:29.180 And this is the question I've had since the Freedom Convoy is what was illegal and when did

00:16:35.580 it become illegal? And those obstruction charges are one thing with the Emergencies Act and police

00:16:42.860 interactions. Tamara was in jail. What was her crime? And when did it become a crime? And same

00:16:51.180 with Chris Barber. I like this is where I'm very interested to hear where the Crown is drawing the

00:16:58.140 line. What was illegal? What actions of there were illegal? And that's, I think, what we're

00:17:05.860 going to hear throughout this case. But so far, we haven't heard much. That's actually quite a

00:17:10.820 fascinating point that I think escapes a lot of people, which is when much of the action was

00:17:14.880 taking place, the two principal characters in this story were already off the streets. And again,

00:17:20.020 I don't want to get too much into speculation, but I know there was a lot of anger in the crowd

00:17:25.520 in Ottawa when those two people had been arrested, which probably caused some of the more

00:17:30.580 tense situations that may have happened between police and protesters. But even then, that was

00:17:35.260 after these two people were already behind bars. And it's not like the Hollywood movies where

00:17:39.680 they're smuggling out their messages from the jail cell that are getting emblazoned in the

00:17:45.280 sky or something. And again, I go back to the beginning of that week when the city of Ottawa

00:17:50.920 and Freedom Corp, the corporation established by convoy organizers, had literally agreed and they

00:17:56.880 had arranged these mutual statements from Jim Watson and from Tamara Leach of what was going

00:18:01.560 to happen. How is that obstructing or working against police and the city when that was literally

00:18:07.540 an agreement that involved working with police to move trucks? That was, I mean, just what,

00:18:13.360 four days before the arrests? Dumbfounded, completely dumbfounded with all of this. And

00:18:19.500 And that's where, again, if you go back to what I started with, is these were Canadian citizens that were escorted through the country into the nationals capital to protest.

00:18:29.800 And they were every day corresponding, communicating and working with the police and city officials.

00:18:37.020 And then all of a sudden one's in jail.

00:18:40.740 They're both in jail even, actually.

00:18:42.540 So it it still is. And I'm very interested to hear what the Crown thinks and is alleging was illegal.

00:18:51.640 So just looking at the broader legal landscape here, I know there it's difficult for someone who's observing this only casually to keep up with it because you've had, you know, constitutional challenges against the Emergencies Act and against the emergency orders.

00:19:07.120 You have people that are taking their own charges and tickets to court.

00:19:10.240 You've got the criminal trials.

00:19:12.000 You've got all of these different threads that are connected, not even to just COVID

00:19:15.320 in general, but specifically the convoy.

00:19:17.780 And I'm wondering what you think is going to be the, I guess, the culmination of all

00:19:23.640 this.

00:19:23.900 I mean, we also have the class action lawsuit, which some people forget is still ongoing.

00:19:27.960 And even people that weren't charged are finding themselves having to defend against

00:19:31.380 this class action lawsuit.

00:19:33.480 I mean, what's the big one of this, if there is a big one?

00:19:35.940 Well, you know, there is so many things going on, and I'm glad you brought up the lawsuit, because that is something that the Crown is relying on and talking about here.

00:19:46.460 Well, there was a disruption and harms to Ottawa residents from the Freedom Convoy.

00:19:52.580 And again, not specific to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber.

00:19:56.180 Tamara, who didn't even have a truck there, as I have to constantly point out to people. 1.00

00:20:00.140 Yes, and Chris Barber's was off of a downtown area in any event, but they have an ability to go to court and sue civilly for any harms that were caused.

00:20:12.900 That is their right, and they have taken that opportunity and venue.

00:20:18.060 So when the Crown is making those allegations and charges, is that now their responsibility to ensure that there are no harms to people in general, in such a general fashion?

00:20:33.120 So that's, again, it goes to what is illegal? When did it become illegal? And I think that the Crown itself is playing in this very gray area. And it'll be very interesting to see what the court decides on this one for sure.

00:20:47.400 eva chipiuk always good to get your analysis and there's a project you're involved with i wanted to

00:20:52.460 give you a chance just to speak about here for a moment thanks so much and it's because i've been

00:20:56.580 involved in this for so long and uh like we're talking there it gets complicated but overly so

00:21:02.220 what i what if you look at the freedom convoy in my opinion looking back at all of this again it

00:21:08.220 was canadian citizens looking to um get some answers from their elected officials and i think

00:21:15.100 they're owed that opportunity. And I think from what I've seen is a lot of Canadians just don't

00:21:21.120 understand the legal system, their civic responsibilities, and the political systems.

00:21:27.960 And I think that's complicated things in Canada. And it's hard to get into these more, you know,

00:21:34.000 complicated setups and established systems if we don't know the basics. So I started an

00:21:40.980 organization called empowered canadians with the goal of doing exactly that empowering canadians

00:21:46.820 so that they can feel more comfortable when they want to ask questions about what's going on

00:21:51.700 in our systems so that they feel that they're part of the democracy and especially after what i've

00:21:59.460 what's happened in this last two years people are telling me all the time we're too scared to get

00:22:04.180 involved they don't want to be made an example of like tamara leach and chris barber and that is

00:22:08.820 just terrifying to hear in what is supposed to be a free and democratic society so I think as

00:22:15.280 Canadians it's on us to get educated to learn and I encourage people to do that with me because a

00:22:22.580 few people can't stand for the rest of Canada to make sure that we're we're all in and and and we

00:22:28.720 are all in this together as well so well you say that but it always has to start with a few so

00:22:33.940 good on those who take the leadership at first but everyone else has to stand behind them

00:22:37.980 when that happens.

00:22:39.220 Eva Chiviak, always a pleasure.

00:22:40.500 Thanks for coming on today.

00:22:41.760 Thanks for having me.

00:22:43.320 All right.

00:22:43.780 Hopefully I was a better interview for her than Trudeau.

00:22:47.900 In any case, it is good to talk to Eva.

00:22:50.840 And I want to take a picture for you

00:22:53.580 outside of the legal aspect

00:22:55.320 and onto one that is near and dear to my heart,

00:22:57.340 which is the media aspect.

00:22:58.560 And I'm going to be talking about this

00:23:00.600 a little bit on Friday.

00:23:01.680 It's ended up being a convoy-themed week on the show,

00:23:04.040 which I haven't had the chance to do

00:23:05.080 for well over a year now.

00:23:06.780 so I hope you're enjoying it or tolerating it.

00:23:09.220 But the one thing I will bring up here

00:23:11.480 is that it's important to tell these stories

00:23:14.300 and it's important to have these stories told

00:23:16.960 in a way that is very respectful of exactly what happened.

00:23:20.320 And there's a bit of a funny story that I've told.

00:23:23.160 When my book about the Freedom Convoy came out

00:23:25.260 in the summer of 2022,

00:23:28.700 what was quite interesting is that at first

00:23:30.280 it was a Canadian politics book on Amazon.

00:23:32.880 Now, I actually have no idea

00:23:33.860 how any of the selling of it works.

00:23:35.800 I just sort of wrote it and sent it to my publisher and they did the rest of it.

00:23:39.260 But Amazon like does its own categorization and it was a Canadian politics book for a

00:23:43.660 couple of weeks and it was number one in there.

00:23:45.740 And then they moved it to history.

00:23:47.920 And I actually quite enjoyed that because it was the first draft of history and it was

00:23:52.800 this, the first telling of this story in history.

00:23:56.440 And I actually, an old history professor of mine, I gave him a copy and I don't know if

00:24:00.620 he agreed with the convoy or not, but he certainly enjoyed the book and conceded that it was a

00:24:05.100 historical chapter that I think will be taught in the history books. Now, how that's going to be

00:24:09.900 framed and tempered, perhaps, is a question. The word tempered came to mind. Barbara wrote a

00:24:16.060 question in the YouTube comments here. Has the regime media tempered their hatred of the convoy?

00:24:22.520 I don't think they have. I think they've started to be more dismissive of it, though, because they

00:24:26.880 really can't reconcile what Canadians saw and felt and experienced with how they really blew 0.96

00:24:33.660 what had happened out of proportion in some ways,

00:24:36.640 or just in some cases manufactured things.

00:24:39.260 And I think that has been an example

00:24:41.080 where they've just sort of avoided it altogether.

00:24:43.880 But let's talk about the telling of it

00:24:45.480 because Trish Wood and Jacqueline Bynum,

00:24:48.260 two incredibly, incredibly accomplished

00:24:50.240 and capable filmmakers,

00:24:52.280 are telling the story in a documentary they're producing

00:24:56.280 called The Trials of Tamara Leach.

00:24:59.120 Now, I want to share just a little snippet

00:25:01.340 of the trailer of this.

00:25:03.660 We made a promise.

00:25:05.340 Hold the line.

00:25:06.320 Hold the line.

00:25:07.400 I think we thought when the trucks left Ottawa,

00:25:10.140 that was going to be the end of it.

00:25:12.280 But we didn't realize that was just the beginning.

00:25:15.920 And I think me going back to Ottawa in a couple days

00:25:20.520 to this trial is kind of poetic in a way

00:25:23.540 because I'm going back to fight again

00:25:25.880 and I'll keep fighting and I'll keep fighting

00:25:28.820 and I'll keep fighting

00:25:29.820 because the people that made these decisions

00:25:32.800 and force parents to die by themselves

00:25:38.160 and force people to kill themselves need to be held accountable

00:25:45.260 that was a little bit from the trials of Tamara Leach Trish Wood and Jacqueline Bynon join me now 0.94

00:25:54.100 it's wonderful to talk to you both thanks so much for coming on

00:25:57.240 hi Andrew how you doing great to be here well it's good to have you

00:26:01.980 Let's start with the question of why this and why now, because there are some people, as I mentioned, in the media largely that, you know, they got this wrong.

00:26:12.020 And because of that, they've never really wanted to talk about it again.

00:26:15.040 And you get people that sort of say, well, COVID's over, so all discussion of anything related to the convoy is over as well.

00:26:21.660 Why do you want to tell this now?

00:26:23.080 Well, from my perspective, as you know, I've been doing a podcast called Trish Wood is Critical, which I started at the beginning of the COVID regime of the COVIDian times because I covered Tony Fauci back in the day and I was really worried about some of the decisions being made not on risk benefit data.

00:26:41.800 So I got very heavily involved very early on in this.

00:26:45.860 And I watched, as we all did, as the edicts became more and more kind of authoritarian.

00:26:51.900 And yet there was no way for us to fight back.

00:26:54.800 We were losing all the cases in the courts.

00:26:57.020 The media didn't seem to be on our side.

00:26:59.080 They weren't asking people in positions of power to, they weren't holding them to account

00:27:03.760 or asking them accountability questions.

00:27:05.580 So then you're left with this issue.

00:27:07.800 And this is where the convoy comes in.

00:27:11.060 What do you do in a democratic society when you believe to the marrow of your bones as a citizen that what the government and public health in this case is doing is wrong and not just wrong but harmful to people?

00:27:26.640 What opportunities do you have when the institutions like the courts aren't working?

00:27:32.260 And I think the convoy answered that question.

00:27:35.440 And I think it answered it for a lot of Canadians.

00:27:37.660 Jackie and I are old friends.

00:27:39.060 We were on the phone a lot during COVID times, very, very frustrated, especially over the media coverage and the inability of them to ask hard questions.

00:27:49.560 And when the condo happened, we said to each other, wow, maybe that's what has to happen now to get people to start paying attention.

00:27:56.700 Because remember, they wanted to talk to the prime minister.

00:28:00.000 They went to Ottawa not to be bad or mean, but because they wanted to open discussion on the mandates.

00:28:09.260 And he refused to talk to them after he spent a few days smearing them in the news media.

00:28:15.580 So by the time they got there, the city of Ottawa was terrified about who these big, you know, galoots were going to be. 1.00

00:28:22.020 So the question for me right now, and I'll let Jackie pick this up because she heard a lot of this.

00:28:27.400 outside, I was inside the border, she was outside with the people, is what do you do when the 0.99

00:28:33.500 institutions that you've trusted all your life have stopped working for you and you believe that

00:28:38.000 in the marrow of your bone? And if we lose the ability to protest en masse the way people did

00:28:43.820 in Ottawa, then I think we've got a real problem here. Jackie? Yes, and that's, we've talked about

00:28:49.420 this ad infinitum, locked down and locked up. And I agree with her. And I will say that I think the

00:28:55.900 the convoy in the protest is probably the single most successful human rights. Some people say

00:29:02.300 grassroots. I say human rights protest in a generation in this country. Something that

00:29:07.760 Canadians didn't normally do. It was not something we would see the average Canadian do. They're

00:29:13.340 compliant. They want government. They just want to have a nice life. And for some reason,

00:29:19.440 a group of people decided this wasn't good enough. What they were hearing on the news,

00:29:25.160 which is largely controlled by the government, was not what they were feeling or thinking a lot

00:29:30.280 of people. Now, there were a lot of people who went along with that, but there were a lot. And

00:29:35.200 Tamara Leach and Chris Barber, when we saw them, we saw those trucks, they became the face of

00:29:42.380 something we were thinking. And it gave us hope that we didn't feel powerless because we believed

00:29:48.660 in these institutions, but they weren't speaking to us or listening to us or caring for us.

00:29:52.460 And that's why we thought this is a very big moment in Canadian history, and we have to document it in what way of being women.

00:30:02.720 You know, we're so compelling.

00:30:04.380 Tamara Leach is such a compelling character.

00:30:07.720 Whether you like her doesn't matter.

00:30:10.740 As a woman or just as a person who really cares about their country, you have to give her due.

00:30:17.100 She, as she said, she holds the line.

00:30:19.920 she has that temerity to say this is my hill and that's what we were inspired by her one thing you

00:30:29.040 mentioned character and i actually was going to ask about this later on because a lot of your

00:30:33.360 experience as a producer jacqueline has been in in fictional work as well i know you've done

00:30:38.880 uh things that have kind of told stories in a more dramatized way and what people fail to realize

00:30:43.760 about the convoy is that i mean irrespective of the political implications of it which are vast

00:30:49.120 there's a story here. And there's quite a riveting story of this. And I'm wondering

00:30:54.860 if you're going to capture that in the story that you're telling.

00:30:59.300 Oh, we are. We are. This is very interesting you say that because Trish and I talk about this

00:31:03.120 because we've both done this. I mostly do crime, true crime series that are investigative, but

00:31:09.580 there is always some impressionistic drama, as they say in it.

00:31:12.580 Yeah, I guess fiction, I meant more dramatized than fictionalized.

00:31:15.460 But I wasn't besmirching your work.

00:31:18.280 It's usually serial killers or people who do horrible things.

00:31:21.520 Yeah.

00:31:21.760 But this is apparently that's Tamara. 1.00

00:31:23.620 If you ask the Ottawa media.

00:31:25.260 Yeah.

00:31:25.620 But this is this is still a criminal case we're following here.

00:31:30.420 And what I saw outside the courtroom, I could do a whole documentary just on what was outside the outside.

00:31:38.340 As Tricia and I were texting back because there were two groups of people.

00:31:42.800 There were the people there supporting Tamara, which were, you know, we talk about, Trish and I talk, two solitudes.

00:31:50.280 These were the working class people.

00:31:52.160 There was the tinfoil hat man who has the tinfoil hat, and he will be there outside with the Canadian flag as long as the trial goes on.

00:31:59.580 There were other people who used to work for the government or work for RCMP, and they just were incensed.

00:32:06.360 And then there was the legacy media who were in a little camp by themselves.

00:32:11.080 and we were there from about eight o'clock in the morning till the the end of the day and there were

00:32:16.500 these little skirmishes that would arise and it was a very interesting to see that there were two

00:32:21.900 different groups and we tried to capture that because I found the legacy media wasn't talking

00:32:27.560 to any of these people and you know once you get past the the look because they don't look like the

00:32:32.540 people who wear suits and go and go into work nine to five in Ottawa they don't look like them 0.88

00:32:37.820 they're just your average person and once you start talking to them they made a lot of sense

00:32:43.660 and they they have more they were more insightful than a lot of things you heard on the news and

00:32:49.400 that's what i found interesting because i know when trish was inside she was telling a different

00:32:54.320 story there was two different groups in there in the courtroom it was a real sense of your background

00:33:00.580 with investigations has been incredible and and typically the media has always relished wanting

00:33:06.880 to talk to real people and not wanting to talk to commentators. And it's amazing how that sort

00:33:12.420 of has reversed. Like I've seen stories that have been published about the Freedom Convoy that

00:33:16.680 interview a criminologist, often the same one, that interview a criminologist from here and a

00:33:21.740 professor from there and don't actually speak to anyone involved in this. Yeah, because it's a

00:33:30.160 grassroots movement, which I think it is. I think to your point, that's exactly what we're talking

00:33:34.940 about it's a little bit of anthropology when they do that because i would frame this in a sense as

00:33:41.500 a class struggle um and it's almost as if now the laptop class some of the the legacy media people

00:33:49.660 i'm not slamming them they have hard jobs but they there is a suggestion that they view

00:33:55.100 the convoy people the people who attach themselves with the convoy people who protest with the convoy

00:34:00.780 as this exotic species right in the old days and i was there in the olden days the media used to

00:34:08.300 love working class people we wrote you know songs about coal miners and we rushed to support them

00:34:13.180 against the man you know the corporate man and the bad government and now it feels very much

00:34:18.780 like the media which we all know is you know select leaning now virtually all of them uh is

00:34:25.100 not allied with the working people which is why the smears from trudeau of them being racist and

00:34:30.140 sex is homophobic and how can we tolerate them all that stuff really landed because i think there is

00:34:36.860 a huge divide between the laptop people the legacy media people we saw it in the courtroom 0.84

00:34:44.140 the the trucker people were lined up behind the defense table everybody else in suits virtually

00:34:50.300 was behind the crown table in the courtroom and it really felt like there was a massive social

00:34:56.220 divide and unless i'll say this to you andrew and jackie and i talk this about this almost every day

00:35:02.460 if we don't sort this out where we stop demonizing each other because we hold different views i sat

00:35:09.280 in the courthouse and i talked to a woman today she's an ottawa citizen hates convoy thinks the 1.00

00:35:14.180 work all kinds of terrible things none of them provable or litigatable or are true but there's

00:35:19.400 a lot of folk folk stories out here right now about the convoy from local people just not true

00:35:25.440 we had a really pleasant conversation but she was saying things that I if I hadn't been kind

00:35:33.020 of hanging on to my seat the way I was I would have been angry about we cannot we cannot continue

00:35:38.780 to demonize each other this way and I feel that the the convoy trial and the way the convoy has

00:35:44.980 been treated by the media and the elites if we can call them that um is a harbinger of this country

00:35:52.240 blowing apart if we do not sort it out we are canadians canadians we share canadian values we

00:35:57.920 all love hockey we cried when the humble bush crashed we put the hockey sticks out that's the

00:36:03.280 stuff that binds us together if we disagree on cultural things that's fine we can disagree

00:36:09.520 if we disagree on on covert policy we can disagree about that too but we have to stop

00:36:14.800 with the ad hominem attacks on each other and the and the convoy trial is really really showing that

00:36:20.400 And that's a bit of what Jackie was talking about outside the building yesterday.

00:36:23.520 I think whatever happens in this trial, it will go on.

00:36:28.940 There will be many books, there will be many documentaries of people doing this because we haven't figured it out yet.

00:36:36.220 This is a historic time in our country.

00:36:40.600 And this protest and this trial, I think, is sort of where it may change.

00:36:46.580 And we don't know what's going to happen.

00:36:47.980 but whatever happens, things will never be the same. And I don't know if it's going to be good

00:36:53.100 or bad, but I do think the reason why we're fixated on this is because we all know no matter

00:36:59.800 what side of the coin you're on, that this is a big moment and no one knows how it's going to end.

00:37:05.540 I hope it ends well. Like Trish said, I hope it's where we can go. Like remember the old days when

00:37:10.440 you didn't know what your politics were and you just, you would just have a beer or a glass of

00:37:14.640 I mean, when you make a documentary about a serial killer, for example, I think you can fairly safely say that 99.9% of the audience are going to line up with the serial killer is bad.

00:37:28.560 At least I hope that maybe even 100 if you're lucky.

00:37:31.420 When you make something about a topic that people aren't familiar with, and I actually love watching documentaries about things I'm not familiar with, because I can go in kind of with a blank slate and I don't have a preconceived notion.

00:37:42.860 And then afterwards, you look into it and you have to sometimes separate out the filmmaker's bias, as you should from any product.

00:37:49.060 But with something like this, I mean, anyone who knows about The Convoy now probably has a pretty strong opinion about it one way or another.

00:37:56.620 And I'm wondering how you or if you work against that in the story you're telling.

00:38:02.360 And one example I've shared on my show is that my mother, a lovely woman, very supportive of me and my work, not the Convoy demographic, not a Convoy supporter.

00:38:11.220 And I kind of knew that public opinion was turning when she had said one day, unprompted, oh, you know, what they're doing to Tamara Leach is terrible.

00:38:19.700 Because that was for her the hook.

00:38:21.440 She maybe didn't realize, she didn't agree with the convoy, but she could agree with a mom that doesn't seem like the model criminal or the poster child for criminality. 0.99

00:38:30.020 But I'm curious what your approach to this is on how you break through those preconceptions, whatever they are.

00:38:35.160 Well, the reason I like doing crime, true crime, is you don't have to do any politics. There's the bad guy and then they're victims. And I think those stories have to be told. We have to make the bad guys the bad guys.

00:38:50.800 I think in this story

00:38:52.760 but all crime boils down to good and evil

00:38:55.560 and I think this story

00:38:57.620 boils down to good and evil

00:38:58.940 and it depends, to use the words of Bill Clinton

00:39:01.740 depends on your definition

00:39:03.020 of criminal

00:39:04.660 of good and evil

00:39:06.800 and I think that's why we talk about the two solitudes

00:39:09.300 I think you're either

00:39:10.960 the convoys good

00:39:13.020 or the convoys bad

00:39:14.260 Tamara Leach bad 0.96

00:39:15.480 that's what I think this boils down to

00:39:17.620 and it's really hard to find anything in the middle

00:39:20.120 that's why it's really it's easy in a way to do true crime because you already know who the bad

00:39:25.700 guy is and you all right let's let's get the tension in here trish go ahead oh no i know she 1.00

00:39:33.640 agrees with me i would just look circle back differently because there are facts facts are

00:39:39.200 things right right and and and ray mcginnis has done a brilliant piece on the poec that blows 0.99

00:39:46.200 apart all virtually every bad smear made against the convoy right arson no uh weapon loaded weapons

00:39:55.240 no um money from the proud boys no like all of that was wrong supported by russia cbc said that

00:40:04.920 false false false and so what i think jackie and i are experiencing here in the city of ottawa even

00:40:11.240 in our hotel one of the people in the restaurant had this wild story it was completely not

00:40:16.120 true about the convoy is that the facts actually support the convoy's own narrative that they were

00:40:25.660 here to protest and things went relatively smoothly without a lot of trouble and there

00:40:30.640 were a lot of bad there were a couple of fringy type people attached as there are to every massive

00:40:35.480 protest right but the virtually all of the terrible things that made headlines about the

00:40:41.360 convoy, are demonstrably false. And the POEC found that. That is out of the mouths of the

00:40:49.460 financial crimes guys at the RCMP, the security folks. They all said, yeah, no, nothing to see

00:40:55.760 here, people, really. So what we're left with is a massive hearing that made findings of fact

00:41:03.940 that was not reported in the mainstream media the way it should have been. And why wasn't it? It

00:41:10.560 wasn't because they were complicit in pushing those fake stories, right? I mean, the arson story

00:41:15.240 was absurd on its face, only an idiot. Oh, and literally repeated on the floor of the House of 1.00

00:41:21.880 Commons by people that have never apologized, that have never admitted that it was not just

00:41:27.800 muddy or fuzzy or kind of two sides, but demonstrably fictional. That's important too,

00:41:34.000 because that part of the story that Trish is talking about didn't get covered as enthusiastically

00:41:40.220 as the actual protest with the truckers.

00:41:42.700 For example, when I was outside yesterday,

00:41:44.920 there was one guy there who obviously was a retired public service worker.

00:41:49.640 Like, I would have bet my condo on it.

00:41:53.440 He asked me why I was there, and he said,

00:41:57.960 well, they ruined Ottawa.

00:42:00.920 They were terrible. 0.98

00:42:02.280 They were horrible, and it was illegal.

00:42:03.580 I said, well, it's my understanding that the judge ruled it was a legal protest.

00:42:08.340 He goes, no, it wasn't illegal.

00:42:09.720 and I don't care what the judge said it was illegal well how do you argue with someone like

00:42:14.720 that there's that you just that and he didn't care what what the facts that we had all that

00:42:20.180 Trish is talking about that all this stuff had been largely debunked didn't matter he had it in

00:42:25.500 his set this is the way it is I hope she goes to jail for 10 years oh and then he said he asked me

00:42:31.020 a whole bunch of stuff well you seem like a logical person do you like Tucker Carlson I said

00:42:34.800 yeah i love him he goes that's it we were running away that's a good way to end the conversation

00:42:39.680 with a retired bureaucrat in ottawa yeah you can use that anyone can use that if you want to get

00:42:43.840 out of it just say you like tucker and it goes all right can i add one thing to that and that's

00:42:48.100 what she said is really important because she's describing what i call the invasion of the body

00:42:54.660 snatchers moment and we have them when we confront certain people with irrefutable facts that

00:43:01.260 completely debunk their thought process, right? It happens on COVID when you say the vaccines

00:43:07.080 don't prevent transmission. You know, these are the people writing, I got COVID. Thank God I've

00:43:12.600 got two shots and four boosters. I got COVID. I'm so grateful I've had the shot. And you're saying,

00:43:17.020 well, so it doesn't prevent transmission. Well, no, that's safe and effective, right? That's how

00:43:21.620 and so this world has been created because people in this country now have bilateral

00:43:29.220 siloed information systems they curate their social media feeds to feed their own biases

00:43:35.960 they're either watching legacy media or doing totally the indie thing and so we live in two

00:43:43.080 separate worlds and we hold on to those in the context of a moral framework so somebody

00:43:49.180 challenging with facts this happens in my own family my oldest kid was a little bit like this

00:43:54.020 few years ago he's softening but he's like mom you've always got facts stop you know stop attacking

00:43:59.780 me with facts and and and i always thought as an investigator that's a good thing right but

00:44:04.820 but we this is a dangerous world if if the truckers legacy is constructed out of these

00:44:13.300 falsehoods that have landed so heavily on this very city that i'm in right now and used to live

00:44:19.300 in and used to love, but has contaminated much of the thinking here. We've got a problem. It's

00:44:24.500 no different than the witch trials. It's no different than any of the other kind of moral

00:44:29.080 panic situations in history, where facts, McCarthyism, facts became irrelevant, and belief

00:44:37.680 systems feeding tyranny took over, right? That's, I hate to say it, but that's kind of where we are

00:44:44.640 right now here can i can i just add i want to go back to why we're doing the doc okay let's go we're

00:44:50.320 gonna wrap it up after this so let's hear it why she's talking about that is tamara leach or tamara 1.00

00:44:56.560 leach i keep calling her by the it's tamara leach and chris barber they are not your typical canadian

00:45:02.800 they are willing to despite everything despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

00:45:08.480 they're willing to take arms against that sea of fortune and sit there and take it and they are

00:45:13.440 going to hold that line and as a canadian you have got to admire their fortitude and i think that is

00:45:19.920 one of the things that i find so so hopeful and exciting about tamara and that's one of the

00:45:26.720 reasons why we we wanted to to dig deeper and do this documentary well i'm so certainly glad you

00:45:34.080 are it is called the trials of tamara leach we can put the graphic up on the screen there i know you

00:45:39.040 are uh having the trailer available we played a little bit of it and you're also doing a crowd

00:45:44.080 funding campaign which people can chip into uh not on gofundme thankfully because then they'd

00:45:49.760 freeze your bank accounts and seize the money so you've used uh give send go which has proven to be

00:45:54.480 more reliable uh trish wood and jacqueline vine and wonderful to talk to you both thank you so

00:45:59.760 much for coming on can i make one small comment before we say goodbye yes of course you two are

00:46:04.320 dangerous the take up arms was metaphorical because i know how mainstream media watches these shows

00:46:11.440 right we all know that but all right you know it's terrible that we've lost metaphor now in

00:46:19.600 this day and age with the way the media works so all right well now we have the context to add if

00:46:24.160 they uh if they take you out of context but good for the ratings anyway uh wonderful to talk to

00:46:28.480 you trish and jacqueline thank you and uh looking forward to your continued coverage in ottawa thank

00:46:33.200 All right. That does it for us. That was an absolute riot. We've got to have them back on

00:46:38.660 and certainly we'll share when news of their documentary becomes a bit more clearer in focus

00:46:43.760 as far as timeline and all of that, but they're still getting material out of it. So can't release

00:46:48.100 it just yet. We'll talk to you all on Friday with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show here

00:46:53.000 on True North. Thank you. God bless and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to the Andrew

00:46:58.080 Lawn Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:47:28.080 We'll be right back.

00:47:58.080 We'll be right back.

Juno News - September 06, 2023

Police officer testifies he was ordered to give ＂not one inch＂ to Convoy organizers

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