Juno News - Pro-Hamas protesters are openly glorifying October 7 murders

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

00:01:19.200 by true north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here

00:01:29.040 the Andrew Lawton Show on True North on this Monday, April 22nd. Hope you are doing well.

00:01:35.180 I woke up, it was zero degrees outside when I woke up, which I, again, there's always that

00:01:40.420 weird trajectory where you believe spring has come and then you realize it hasn't.

00:01:45.500 And I believe we're in that point now. It seems to be warming up now a little bit. If you're in

00:01:49.160 Alberta, you're just like thinking right now, absolute amateur here, but good to have you

00:01:53.620 tuned into the show, we had a special request from one of my colleagues that I wanted to share

00:01:59.580 with you. So Rachel Emanuel, who is a True North Alberta correspondent, she did last week

00:02:04.300 a sit-down interview with Danielle Smith. Now, I should give you a bit of context here. I am

00:02:09.520 not an Albertan. I love Alberta. I've been to Alberta many times. I used to do some work

00:02:14.420 guest hosting at 770 CHQR in Calgary and had a grand old time doing it. And as a result,

00:02:21.400 I have a soft spot for Alberta. I like to think Alberta has a soft spot for me. 1.00

00:02:25.700 At one point, Danielle Smith, when they were in the Alberta government doing the Alberta's calling campaign

00:02:31.700 to get people from outside of Alberta to move there, Danielle Smith personally gave my wife the Alberta is calling pitch,

00:02:38.920 although she was not convinced.

00:02:40.720 But the thing was that I've had Danielle Smith on the show on a number of occasions.

00:02:45.520 I've sat down with her, and I didn't realize that this has actually rubbed my colleague Rachel Emanuel the wrong way.

00:02:52.440 And she and Premier Danielle Smith decided to throw a little bit of shade at me in their interview on Friday.

00:02:58.800 Take a look.

00:03:00.320 Funny story, I had Andrew Lawton on the show recently.

00:03:02.980 I said to him, you keep stealing my interviews, because I think I had asked to have one,

00:03:06.700 and then I went on mat leave, and then he got the interview, and then we were supposed to do this,

00:03:09.680 and then you did Canada Strong and Free.

00:03:11.660 And I was looking at it, and I'm like, hmm, Lawton again.

00:03:14.380 So I have expected him to show up and steal the show at the last minute.

00:03:17.660 Oh, yeah.

00:03:22.120 That was me making a cameo as the Kool-Aid man there.

00:03:26.120 No, I did not steal Rachel's thunder.

00:03:28.640 I did not intend to.

00:03:29.800 She did that interview, actually made some great news stories,

00:03:33.060 got some great news out of that.

00:03:34.460 So we'll have that at TNC.news if you want to check out over the course of the week.

00:03:39.260 but I do want to talk first and foremost about this horrendous display we saw over the weekend

00:03:44.700 in Ottawa now I should say that there's this old line in media which I've quoted on the show a

00:03:50.600 number of times before it's not original to me by any stretch I think it probably predates me by

00:03:54.640 like a hundred years about how when a dog bites a man that's not news when a man bites a dog that

00:04:00.860 is news which is to say that things that are so commonplace and so characteristic that we expect

00:04:05.980 them cease to be news in most people's eyes. And I'm afraid to say anti-Semitism in this country,

00:04:13.100 on campuses across the world, and in this country specifically, anti-Semitism has become

00:04:19.020 the norm. It has become a dog-bite-man story. When you have people gathering and saying horrendous

00:04:26.720 things about Israel, about Jewish people, when they are glorifying and embracing violence, 1.00

00:04:30.820 this is becoming, sadly, a dog-bite-man story.

00:04:35.440 And I think that's an important preface to this one particularly brazen display

00:04:39.820 we had in Ottawa over the weekend,

00:04:42.300 where marchers who were in front of Parliament Hill had this to say.

00:05:00.820 Your reply was, Palestine is almost free because our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free. 0.90

00:05:09.140 A pulver seventh is proof that we are almost free.

00:05:13.620 Long live a pulver seventh.

00:05:15.980 Long live the resistance.

00:05:17.560 Long live the indivisible.

00:05:19.180 Long live every form of resistance.

00:05:21.220 from the river to the sea is in and of itself a call for the eradication of the jewish state 1.00

00:05:36.480 you can't eradicate the jewish state without eradicating the jewish people who live in the 1.00

00:05:40.840 jewish state but maybe some people can be forgiven for not knowing the context of this for not knowing 0.67

00:05:45.860 basic geography that from the river refers to the Jordan River to the sea refers to the well

00:05:51.620 you're talking about the entirety of Israel here this is the point of it it's you're talking about

00:05:56.660 from the river to the sea the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River and this is I think the problem

00:06:02.200 with a lot of young people they may think oh it rhymes it's trendy great go for it but this is

00:06:07.400 something that when you hear everything else they said there is no defense for this is a case where

00:06:15.460 now they're saying, long live October 7th. October 7th is a sign that Palestine is almost free. Long 0.99

00:06:22.740 live October 7th. That's what they said. Legitimately glorifying the killing of 1,200 Israelis. There

00:06:30.400 are, I forget how many, I believe 163 hostages that are still in captivity, the health of which

00:06:36.660 we do not know. These are people who have now spent months behind bars, behind locked in rooms

00:06:43.300 in closets. Who knows? We have no idea. And this is now being glorified by anti-Israel despicable

00:06:50.040 thugs in downtown Ottawa who have free speech. This is not a free speech issue. This is a question

00:06:56.600 of whether it is reprehensible discourse that should not be accepted in society. And the reason

00:07:02.400 that they're saying it so brazenly is because this now is accepted in society. It was so bad even

00:07:09.160 Justin Trudeau condemned it. That's how you know how bad it is. This is a guy who has been

00:07:12.840 equivocating ever since October 7th on his position on Israel, on anti-Semitism, but even he has come

00:07:18.300 out and said this has no place in Canada. Well, too little, too late, Bucko. And then we look at

00:07:24.540 Columbia University, where you had a very similar rhetoric, similar tone, another rally taking place.

00:07:31.640 This is what they were calling for at Columbia.

00:07:34.940 Remember the 7th of October. Never forget the 7th of October.

00:07:40.940 That will happen.

00:07:41.720 Never forget the 7th of October.

00:07:44.100 Not one more time.

00:07:44.960 Not five more times.

00:07:46.380 Not 10 more times.

00:07:47.740 Not 100 more times.

00:07:49.220 Not 1,000 more times.

00:07:50.460 Not 1,000 more times.

00:07:51.040 Not 10,000 more times.

00:07:54.880 We missed the, there was a little bit at the end there.

00:07:58.480 I couldn't quite make out.

00:07:59.680 But the 7th of October is going to be every day for you.

00:08:05.500 Was also in that.

00:08:07.260 So here we have at Columbia people saying to Jewish girls that were walking by,

00:08:12.240 October 7th is going to be every day.

00:08:13.820 Not once more, not five times more, not 10 times more, not 100 times more.

00:08:17.740 This is going to be every day of your life.

00:08:20.160 So let's drop the pretense here.

00:08:22.500 Let's abandon this delusion that we're talking about.

00:08:25.780 Well, maybe I've got a little issue with Zionism or, oh, I'm not a big fan of G in Gaza with regards to Hamas is not optimal. 0.78

00:08:33.420 No, these are people that either have a hatred for Jews or at the very least a tolerance for the very worst of threats against Jewish people.

00:08:43.980 And these are folks who, by the way, have a home on college and university campuses.

00:08:48.480 There was a story that emerged, I saw it in the New York Post over the weekend, where there are reports that Hamas is looking for a new headquarters.

00:08:57.480 So Hamas was previously headquartered, I think it was like the Four Seasons in Doha or something.

00:09:03.680 There was a report about that.

00:09:04.840 But basically, the head of Hamas, who governs Gaza, does it from a shishi little penthouse in Doha, Qatar. 0.99

00:09:12.320 And eventually, there was a little bit too much scrutiny there, so he had to get away.

00:09:16.180 And now they're looking for another headquarters.

00:09:18.460 And I said, to be honest, it wasn't really a joke,

00:09:20.900 that they could probably get some office space from some random student union on a Canadian

00:09:26.600 university campus because that's basically where you have much more of a strong position in support

00:09:33.400 of Hamas. You're going to find a stronger position in support of Hamas from some Canadian university

00:09:38.280 student union than you are from any Arab country in the world right now. And this is actually quite

00:09:44.620 disgraceful. It's quite shameful. And if you know Jewish people in your life, I assure you, 1.00

00:09:51.180 even if they haven't been saying it, they are feeling increasingly alienated from their own

00:09:57.240 country. Now, I don't have a lot of time for Nillie Kaplan-Mirth, who's the woman who I think 1.00

00:10:02.380 wears a mask when she gets into the shower, just in case COVID might be coming through the pipes.

00:10:06.580 But Nillie Kaplan-Mirth is a Jewish woman, and she had posted on Twitter the other day, and I

00:10:11.500 I'm blocked, but someone shared it and shared it.

00:10:14.040 And I was able to see it like, you know,

00:10:15.400 fourth hand or whatever.

00:10:16.720 But Nillie Kaplan-Mirth had tweeted about how

00:10:19.180 one of her great allies in the leftist political world

00:10:23.320 had disappeared from her life as of October 7th.

00:10:27.660 That all of a sudden she is a Jewish woman 0.97

00:10:29.980 seeing increasing antisemitism.

00:10:31.980 And she was amazed that Joel Harden,

00:10:34.200 who is the NDP MPP that tends to just like

00:10:37.120 beat himself in the face with megaphones

00:10:39.420 and then claim to be the victim of assault,

00:10:40.840 everyone needs a hobby, but that Joel Harden, who was a great ally and friend of hers, just

00:10:45.220 vanished and has not spoken to her since October 7th. And, you know, I bet that's a lot more common

00:10:52.040 than Gentiles, of which I count myself one, would realize and would probably like to admit, 0.55

00:10:58.380 because this is the reality of what's happening in Canada. The Jewish people are under attack.

00:11:02.940 Now, I wouldn't say this normally had it not been reported on publicly already, but I saw a Jewish

00:11:09.460 member of parliament, Melissa Lansman. She's been a guest on this show in Ottawa a couple of weeks

00:11:14.080 back when I was there. I just, not like we didn't get together socially. I just saw her out and about

00:11:17.880 and I was astonished. And then I had remembered reading about it that she had with her

00:11:23.480 police protection, which is not at all normal in Canada. Canadian politicians, generally speaking,

00:11:31.720 get to enjoy living in obscurity. Even members of cabinet get to just walk around without issue.

00:11:37.680 Yes, Justin Trudeau has a security detail.

00:11:40.060 I don't even think Chrystia Freeland does normally. 0.87

00:11:42.560 Maybe at certain events she does.

00:11:44.440 We know that she did at that event where David Menzies was arrested in, I think it was Richmond Hill.

00:11:49.200 But generally speaking, you can just walk around, especially in Ottawa.

00:11:52.320 Like I ran into Marco Mendicino in like a Starbucks at the Westin a couple of weeks back as well.

00:11:57.420 No police protection whatsoever.

00:11:59.080 So the fact that an opposition MP needs to travel around with a bodyguard now is not normal.

00:12:07.680 nor should this be norm. But this is becoming the new norm in Canada. And Jew hatred is not new. 0.81

00:12:16.480 Anti-Semitism is not new. But the brazenness with which people feel comfortable exhibiting 0.55

00:12:24.040 anti-Semitism is new. And that's the terrifying reality of this. And I've mentioned to a number

00:12:29.800 of people, and I've said it on the show in the past, but I think it bears repeating here,

00:12:32.700 that this is something that we now see as the new normal and for Jewish people this cannot stand 0.99

00:12:40.080 because it never ends at Jews. It never stops there. It starts there. You've all heard that 0.79

00:12:45.120 infamous poem by Martin Niemöller which tends to be overused. The first they came for the Jews and

00:12:50.520 I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew and I always forget the order of it but basically the

00:12:54.880 whole point is that when you see widespread systematized bigotry it never stops at the group

00:13:01.200 you think it's going to stop at. But at a certain point, we are standing up not just for the rights

00:13:06.040 of Jewish people in this country to exist and to be safe and be free. We're standing up for

00:13:11.920 the right of all of us to live in a country that does not import the very worst of the rest of the 1.00

00:13:17.740 world. Because in Gaza right now, it's actually an entirely popular position to say, I want to kill 0.91

00:13:23.760 Jews. And I would love to keep that in Gaza. I don't love it there. But if that sentiment is 1.00

00:13:28.940 going to exist. I certainly don't want to import it here. It's bad enough that Israelis and the 1.00

00:13:33.780 Jews living in Israel, and by the way, Arabs living in Israel as well, have to deal with this

00:13:38.020 threat on a day-to-day basis. They're actually equipped to respond to this. In Canada, we are

00:13:43.360 not. We just keep sitting in our hands thinking, oh, well, you know, this is just, oh, well, it's

00:13:47.320 just free speech. It's all of this. And look, I am an absolutist on free speech. I am not calling

00:13:51.360 for censorship here, but I'm at least calling for some solidarity with people whose only crime

00:13:57.180 is being Jewish in a country 1.00

00:13:59.220 which has become so increasingly tolerant

00:14:02.240 of Jew hatred, of anti-Semitism,

00:14:04.940 and explicit, not veiled, explicit calls 1.00

00:14:08.220 for the killing of Jews, 0.99

00:14:10.800 explicit calls of celebration 1.00

00:14:12.540 for the destruction of the Jewish state, 0.97

00:14:15.080 and yes, the targeting of Jews in Canada. 0.81

00:14:18.220 If you have a Jewish friend

00:14:19.320 you haven't reached out to in October 7th,

00:14:21.620 do it now.

00:14:22.240 The best time to do it was October 7th.

00:14:24.360 The second best time was October 8th,

00:14:26.080 but better late than never, because I assure you, these are people that need to know they have some

00:14:31.300 friends left in the country with the direction things have been going. This is something we will

00:14:36.140 certainly revisit, and actually tomorrow I've got on the show my good friend Dahlia Kurtz, who

00:14:40.200 is a former radio colleague, and again, a Jewish woman herself. I actually first met her in Israel

00:14:45.780 when we were on a media trip there, so we'll chat with Dahlia. She's got a new book out,

00:14:50.240 which has become, I think, a very important one as this issue consumes the country.

00:14:56.060 But I want to shift gears here very dramatically for a moment.

00:14:59.860 It is Monday. We'll talk in a few minutes to our, well, a few seconds, really,

00:15:03.460 to our good friend Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:15:06.660 But just to set the stage here, you remember when the Federal Court of Canada

00:15:10.680 found that Justin Trudeau had violated your and my constitutional rights

00:15:14.260 when they invoked the Emergencies Act and used it to trample on civil liberties?

00:15:18.520 Well, that lawsuit, they spent $2.2 million on in legal fees.

00:15:26.260 And by the way, tip of the iceberg, the appeal is ongoing,

00:15:29.240 but $2.2 million only to be told by a federal court judge.

00:15:33.820 Yeah, that was not constitutional.

00:15:35.720 Chris Sims, always good to talk to you.

00:15:37.160 Thanks for coming back on today.

00:15:38.700 Thanks for having us.

00:15:39.920 So $2.2 million.

00:15:42.120 I mean, in terms of the broader Canadian budget,

00:15:44.820 this isn't the hugest amount, but it's about priorities.

00:15:47.940 Instead of a government showing contrition and saying, yeah, you know what, we probably shouldn't have done that, they fought it tooth and nail and even now are continuing to fight it.

00:15:55.780 Yeah, and it's one of those things, again, that shows just how out of touch government can get when they're in power for so long.

00:16:02.440 And so to your point, it was a federal court judge that made what I would consider a pretty landmark ruling.

00:16:08.320 I'm not a lawyer, but a lot of my lawyer friends are calling it that when the justice decided, yeah, the invocation of the Emergencies Act that included things like freezing the bank accounts of people who were supporting the protesters who were in Ottawa at the time was unconstitutional.

00:16:24.340 You can't do that. So definitely hats off to our friends and colleagues over the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

00:16:29.780 I know you've spoken with them many times, Andrew, on your show. And so that was a really key ruling.

00:16:34.980 And I think a lot of people are now writing that down as precedent going forward.

00:16:39.140 And so it would be a good idea for the government to kind of read the room.

00:16:43.920 You know, it's no longer 2021. You know, the heat has come down out of this kind of witch hunt era,

00:16:50.880 as the CCF would have put it at the time, during the pandemic and during the lockdowns.

00:16:55.440 And now it's probably a good idea for the federal government to kind of look around and say, you know what, is this really in the best interest of the public for us to continuously fight this after someone as high level as a federal judge has said, yeah, you guys crossed the line here, better back off.

00:17:11.900 And as my colleague Franco Terrazzano said, the federal director of the CTF, they should really back down off of this.

00:17:17.800 They shouldn't spend one penny more of taxpayers' money.

00:17:20.600 And if the government does want to say something, they could probably start with an apology.

00:17:25.440 Yeah, and this is the thing. And we saw in Alberta, your province, this happened. When Danielle Smith took over, she issued an apology on behalf of the Alberta government to unvaccinated people in the province who had been subjected under the previous government by Jason Kenney to some very significant restrictions, which were common across the country, but didn't actually have any sort of contrition or acknowledgement of wrongdoing from the governments.

00:17:49.140 And there are some people who would say, of course, too little, too late.

00:17:52.320 But I would also point out here that it was something.

00:17:54.780 And she certainly hasn't spent time fighting these people in court.

00:17:58.000 And that's the great thing is that the government right now federally says on one hand, oh,

00:18:01.800 yeah, we want to move on from this.

00:18:03.120 But they're still trying to defend the indefensible here, which is saying and spending, again,

00:18:08.160 millions of dollars in taxpayer money to defend their right to freeze your bank account.

00:18:13.280 Exactly.

00:18:14.100 And going on with an appeal to this ruling is not moving on.

00:18:18.080 That is continuously spending taxpayers' money.

00:18:21.620 And I think we need to really put a frame around this on what happened when they froze those bank accounts.

00:18:26.860 So not getting into the details about, you know, yay, trucker, whatever.

00:18:30.680 But when you look at it, according to police, this was a peaceful protest.

00:18:35.500 People were expressing themselves.

00:18:37.220 And then they used this draconian sort of law, this Emergencies Act, which, according to the government and according to legal experts,

00:18:45.120 is only supposed to be used in extreme emergencies, thus the term. And so putting it in a nutshell,

00:18:52.240 what the judge said, and I'm paraphrasing, is protest isn't an emergency. You know, we are not

00:18:58.220 being invaded, God forbid. You know, aliens are not coming down out of the sky. We are not suffering

00:19:03.320 a massive terrorist attack again, God forbid. That is what the Emergencies Act is supposed to be.

00:19:08.820 And yet they went and did it anyway. And so that is why the Taxpayers Federation said,

00:19:14.100 And if you suspend civil liberties, if you invoke something that used to be called the War Measures Act, it's pretty difficult for grassroots citizens organizations to hold government to account.

00:19:26.080 And when you put that into the context of, remember, a couple of years before that, they tried sneaking through this little rule that they'd be allowed to spend without any government oversight at all.

00:19:35.580 Yeah, that was pretty wild.

00:19:38.280 And now you add on how much this is costing taxpayers for things like the lockdowns.

00:19:42.600 Also, one could argue that the Trudeau government printed hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air during that entire situation.

00:19:50.280 So that has helped with the inflation crisis, as my friend, again, Franco Tarzano would point out.

00:19:55.180 So we're still financially feeling the results of this.

00:19:58.480 Probably a good idea for the government to put down the credit card and start moving on from this in their true nature.

00:20:05.300 Because keep in mind, we don't have money for this.

00:20:08.380 The government does not have money for this.

00:20:10.080 Number one, it does not create wealth.

00:20:11.540 every nickel of this is taxpayers' money.

00:20:14.480 Number two, we are so far in debt, Andrew.

00:20:17.780 We are a trillion dollars in debt.

00:20:20.040 The Trudeau government has nearly doubled it

00:20:22.020 during its time in office.

00:20:23.520 Like we have un-money.

00:20:24.940 All of this would be borrowed money

00:20:26.820 to continuously fight this thing.

00:20:29.640 Yeah, very well said.

00:20:31.240 And I think it's a natural segue into the story.

00:20:33.300 I talked about a bit last week,

00:20:34.680 but there's a bit of an update to it

00:20:36.100 in that CBC is getting in the federal budget

00:20:39.400 another 42 million in addition to the 1.4 billion dollars in addition to all of the money they've

00:20:44.840 gotten over the years plus ad revenue which I imagine is like you know four dollars given their

00:20:49.220 viewership numbers but still some people pay for advertising on CBC inexplicably and here we have

00:20:55.880 a government that is giving more money to the state broadcaster well the state broadcaster gives

00:21:02.140 millions of dollars in executive bonuses and its president doesn't even want to be interviewed by

00:21:08.300 cbc journalist this is a tweet from uh travis danraj uh now travis danraj is the guy who at

00:21:16.000 the beginning of covid like flew to rio and then you know got realized it made him look really bad

00:21:20.860 when he was writing about why everyone else needs to stay home so he flew back but travis danraj

00:21:25.020 he says at a time when the public broadcaster is under increasing scrutiny and when transparency

00:21:29.440 is needed canada tonight requested an interview with uh catherine tate we wanted to discuss new

00:21:34.980 budget funding, what it means for jobs and the corporation's strategic priorities ahead.

00:21:38.900 Our request was declined. This is unfortunate. Now, I don't begrudge anyone turning down an

00:21:43.960 interview request from Travis Danrash. They have that right. That is something you can do. But when

00:21:48.640 the CBC president doesn't even want to be interviewed by CBC, why the heck are the rest

00:21:52.200 of us supposed to take them seriously? I'm just so glad this happened because it's so funny.

00:21:57.200 Yeah. Right. And so I think here, this is me putting my thinking cap. So full disclosure,

00:22:02.920 I did work at the CBCs for a very short period of time. They were very nice to me. I hold no

00:22:07.520 personal grudges whatsoever. But I remember working in the newsroom in Ottawa, and I'm just

00:22:12.100 for the life of me trying to figure out how this went, like how many different layers of comms

00:22:17.580 specialists and assistants and producers this request would have had to go through. And I think

00:22:22.300 the reason why CEO of the CBC, Catherine Tate, who, by the way, is paid between $400-something

00:22:28.240 thousand dollars and 600 something thousand dollars per year with bonuses included how it is

00:22:34.720 that she denied this request I think it goes back to that national interview that anchor she used to

00:22:41.460 be a field reporter for a long time Adrian Arsenault but she's now an anchor of the national in case 0.84

00:22:45.580 people don't know she had CEO Catherine Tate on and this was just before Christmas and of course

00:22:51.180 we all remember the story of oh this is going to cause hundreds of layoffs before Christmas these

00:22:55.960 big cuts and so she went after Tate saying oh well the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has found

00:23:02.320 that we're spending between 14 and 15 million dollars on bonuses are you at least going to

00:23:07.300 cut out the gravy and the bonuses this year and Tate was lost for an answer it was like a deer

00:23:12.440 stuck on the railroad tracks and so I have a feeling that I know you've mixed your metaphors

00:23:17.160 there a deer in the headlights became a deer what sort of sadistic railroad track bondage dungeon are

00:23:23.640 you running over there in lethbridge well you know what it's like at night when that rail when

00:23:28.000 the train is coming and it's got that big spotlight and now it's added deer to it so yeah

00:23:32.220 now you've done like a deer trolley dilemma we're uh going back to first year philosophy here uh

00:23:36.740 a deer is tied down on the railroad tracks and the lights paralyzed with fear but uh

00:23:43.060 i don't blame catherine tate for not wanting to return to cbc that is yes yes and the main thing

00:23:49.200 here though is again there's constantly crying poor and the trudeau government just gave them

00:23:54.100 another 42 million dollars and again trust in media in mainstream media to be clear is just

00:24:00.420 nose diving right now and that's largely because the government is paying so many journalists you

00:24:06.700 you can't hold the government to account if you're counting on the government for your paycheck

00:24:10.260 and here they just went and gave them a big dollop more i i'm kind of of the mind that cbc should

00:24:16.260 basically just fire everyone but those french journalists that did the investigation of the

00:24:21.280 transgender youth clinic uh they're like the ones there that are doing real journalism and then you

00:24:26.020 know get rid of everyone else but uh this one i i would be remiss to point out that it is uh earth

00:24:30.940 day uh today which i didn't realize it's kind of lost its shine like earth hour i couldn't even

00:24:35.800 tell you when it is i remember when earth hour was a thing and everyone was really excited about it

00:24:40.020 and now no one cares. Earth Day, I remember when I was a kid in school, which is going back more

00:24:46.220 than I'd care to admit now. This was a thing for a little while. But Earth Day is apparently today.

00:24:51.280 Stephen Gilbeau commemorated it by announcing a federal plastics registry, which I'll be talking

00:24:56.160 about in a couple of minutes on the show. But you decided to share a video clip. This is a deep cut

00:25:02.540 from the archives. Anything you want to say before we play it? I just wanted to note that this was

00:25:09.200 just a few days after we launched from okay that tv station and yeah this is an old sun news uh an

00:25:16.080 old sun news gem which sadly the archives have been lost to history for the most part where you've got

00:25:21.360 a few gems i i played a little while ago uh the one on this show of ezra doing his like marg de la

00:25:26.960 hunt a bit uh where it was like ezra and drag uh which was like fantastic uh this one though i had

00:25:33.120 forgotten about let's take a look i shall now commit the most heinous crime imaginable to earth

00:25:39.680 worshippers they're pretty soft on real crimes you know against people but saint suzuki himself

00:25:44.640 has called for politicians to be jailed for not believing in his theory of man-made global warming

00:25:49.520 well suzuki's going to give me the death penalty for this i shall now commit first degree lumber 0.69

00:25:54.880 jacking on this poor tree. Happy Earth Day Sam, fire up the chainsaw! 0.98

00:26:24.880 how he survived that i will not know because i it doesn't look like he had ever touched one of

00:26:47.420 those things before and i i haven't asked ezra i suspect has never done it since either

00:26:52.000 he just doesn't seem like the type which is why it was smart the producer got it started for him

00:26:58.000 but he did a thorough job that poor little cedar hedge it didn't do anything to ezra but

00:27:02.080 you see how he got right down there in the roots i don't know if that thing bounced back

00:27:05.560 yeah he uh he made david suzuki cry there for sure uh any any earth day plans on your part chris

00:27:13.380 no it's business as usual here in alberta uh producing energy for the rest of the country

00:27:19.340 as best we can and trying to export it as best we can, which I will remind people. Again,

00:27:24.940 let's just for seriousness here. If global emissions are your key issue, say they keep

00:27:29.980 you up at night, they get you up in the morning, they really bother you. We can work on the big

00:27:33.780 end of the arithmetic problem, folks. We can actually ship things like our natural gas,

00:27:38.020 which is much cleaner burning fuel to places like India to replace their coal and their wood

00:27:43.900 and their animal dung that they burn indoors every single day. So if you want to actually

00:27:48.580 tackle global emissions, let's work on the big end of the arithmetic problem. And that includes

00:27:52.920 places like Alberta. Well, and also inefficient forms of fuel over the years, like going back to

00:27:58.300 the 19th century, have never been phased out or combated by regulation, but rather by innovation.

00:28:04.780 And this is the one thing that the federal government refuses to acknowledge.

00:28:08.480 Yes, I'm really glad you brought this up. Can I talk about horse manure on your show? Is that

00:28:12.620 allowed? Absolutely. Okay. It'll become a CBC broadcast when you spew too much of the manure 0.85

00:28:17.500 though this will become a heritage moment so for folks who aren't huge history nerds i heartily

00:28:23.100 encourage you to pick up a book from the last turn oh my goodness i'm old turn of the last last

00:28:28.220 century so in the late 1800s okay go look up the great horse manure crisis and i'm bringing this

00:28:35.180 up for a real reason okay think pre-automobile okay people were still getting their stuff to

00:28:41.580 the store they were still getting to school they still had to get to work people were still

00:28:45.660 transporting themselves and goods, especially in big cities like New York City and London over in

00:28:52.060 the United Kingdom. How did they get to places? How did they ship their goods? By horse and cart.

00:28:57.940 Now, horses were our main source of transportation, but their emissions were something real. Not

00:29:05.560 joking. So at one point in places like New York City, world-class cities in London, we had piles

00:29:12.800 and piles of horse manure that was so bad, Andrew, that people couldn't get through it.

00:29:19.160 There were actually jobs of men that would get out there with a shovel to shovel a tunnel for

00:29:23.800 somebody to even get across the street. Now, just imagine the flies. Just imagine the parasites and

00:29:29.500 the disease. Add to that actual horse carcasses. So this is for real, folks. You can look it up

00:29:34.880 in The New York Times. They had a summit about this. But you know what saved them? It was

00:29:40.140 innovation. The government did not suddenly grow a new arm and start trying to ban things or tax

00:29:47.180 things to death because they didn't know what to do. But problems are the mother of innovation,

00:29:54.240 okay? A crisis is the mother of innovation and government is not the solution. What happened is

00:29:59.720 human beings invented the internal combustion engine and they went to horseless cars. Car,

00:30:05.280 by the way, is short for carriage. Okay. That's why it's called a dashboard because it was

00:30:10.420 literally a board that kept all the mud and stuff from flying up when the horse was dashing in front

00:30:15.860 of you. So this is linear folks. And we have been able to solve transportation emission crises in

00:30:22.500 the past without resorting to impoverishing people for the sin of driving to work and heating their

00:30:27.860 home. I just stopped listening when you said car was short for carriage. I never knew that. I'll

00:30:35.180 say it to the smartest person in the room. Will I look foolish or is this, are you confident about 0.94

00:30:38.900 that? I'm a hundred percent confident. No, that's why it's called a glove box too, because they 0.96

00:30:43.420 literally kept their driving gloves that you're driving a horse, right? Why do we call it driving?

00:30:49.420 Why do we call it horsepower in the engine? It's actually all related. It's pretty fascinating.

00:30:53.600 and so the glove box was literally where the driver would keep his or her gloves so that way

00:30:57.980 you don't get chaps from the reins yeah now they just call it the insurance slip and driver's

00:31:02.400 manual box uh all right i did not know that i learned i learned so much from you chris this is

00:31:06.660 why we're glad to have you back every monday we will talk to you next week chris sims from the

00:31:11.120 canadian taxpayers federation always a pleasure likewise all right i i'm gonna i trust chris i'm

00:31:16.740 gonna fact check that hang on let me do this right now i want to make sure yep no she's uh 1.00

00:31:22.600 Oh, actually, hang on. Hang on. Do we have Chris? If we have, if we still have Chris,

00:31:27.700 let's put her back on here. Okay. The English word car is believed to originate from the Latin

00:31:33.480 carom, uh, which, uh, okay. I, I, this one says chariot, uh, that it comes from, but yours makes

00:31:41.120 more sense. Yeah. Well, it would have gone, so I'm not an etymologist. Uh, my husband is, so.

00:31:47.100 Oh yeah. He's a good one too. If I'm delving into this, so it would have gone chariot,

00:31:51.140 to carriage to car at all okay no yeah it originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn

00:31:55.560 vehicles such as a cart carriage or wagon so i guess it could have been cart or carriage depending

00:31:59.760 on uh which evolutionary path it took all right well you're our in-house etymologist now step

00:32:04.700 aside uh harley we got chris uh chris showing up here all right thanks for coming back on

00:32:10.280 bye all right uh glad we did that no yeah that's fantastic see this is i learned too i learned too

00:32:16.260 i don't like to be the one just with all the answers because you'd all be screwed if that

00:32:19.780 were the case. All right, let's talk plastics here. We have the federal government unveiling

00:32:24.940 a plastics registry this week. Now, the government loves registries. This comes on the eve of this

00:32:32.700 giant plastics conference taking place in Ottawa. The United Nations representatives from around

00:32:38.440 the world are descending in Ottawa. They're all pushing for a plastics treaty. And when all of

00:32:43.800 this comes up, they say they're going after plastic pollution. They don't want a plastic straw to end

00:32:48.760 up up a poor sea turtle's nose, which I'm sympathetic to. The problem is that a lot of

00:32:53.660 the regulations that tend to flow from these sorts of discussions target countries that have nothing

00:32:58.620 to do with the plastic pollution issue. The federal government in Canada championed a ban

00:33:03.740 on single-use plastics, which was, of course, overturned by the Supreme Court. But even to

00:33:08.900 this day, Stephen Gilbeau is defending it. Take a look at this clip. Does this push back against

00:33:15.120 the carbon tax and and now we see really high gas prices uh that canadians are very concerned about

00:33:22.000 does this show perhaps to you that canadians may not be embracing a green agenda sustainable agenda

00:33:29.600 as as firmly as you would like the support by canadians for what what is happening here uh is

00:33:38.400 is tremendous i mean the the announcement that our government made in 2019 on on banning single

00:33:43.360 use plastic remains if not the most popular announcement that we've done since 2015 certainly

00:33:48.560 one of the most popular announcement in terms of the public support for it so i think that the

00:33:53.280 public wants us to to take action on to fight plastic pollution so he's still defending this

00:34:01.280 even to this day and i i'm a little bit concerned about what's going to come of this uh big confab

00:34:06.960 over the next several days here i want to talk about this in a bit more detail here uh joining

00:34:11.600 me now is anya curran who is the president and ceo of the vinyl institute of canada which is

00:34:17.920 not dedicated to old records but anya it's good to talk to you thanks for coming on today it's a

00:34:22.960 pleasure thanks for having me appreciate it so well let's start with what is at stake here i mean

00:34:27.920 what are the the goals that the canadian government has and the un has coming out of this session this

00:34:33.200 week my goodness that's a huge question and there isn't just one answer but ultimately um the idea

00:34:42.240 is that uh somehow the plastics industry will come to the table they will solve all the litter

00:34:50.160 problems in the world um and uh i guess you know they're they're looking to see if they can get

00:34:56.640 some kind of a global agreement. But as you know, John, there's a lot of countries around the globe

00:35:04.820 and every country has a different social structure, different economic structure.

00:35:10.560 So it's going to be challenging to, I think, bring this agreement to a place where there

00:35:17.180 will be harmony. At least in the next several years, it's going to take a lot more than five

00:35:24.960 years or five years or less than to put something as complex as this together well and and i

00:35:30.720 mentioned in the lead-in to uh bringing you on the show here there's always been this tremendous

00:35:35.360 problem when plastic pollution issues which are significant issues in other parts of the world

00:35:39.920 there is an issue in asia in particular with this and i think there was a study a couple of years

00:35:44.240 ago that it said virtually all the plastics in the ocean came from uh like basically they could track

00:35:50.400 the rivers they came from and almost all of them were in asia a couple were in africa it's not

00:35:54.560 coming from north america it's not coming from europe but those are the jurisdictions when these

00:36:00.080 regulations uh tend to come down on they come down the hardest so we're basically paying the

00:36:05.120 price for a problem that literally has nothing to do with us well first of all i don't know that i

00:36:10.800 would i i would say that it has nothing to do with us okay as as first world countries we manufacture

00:36:16.640 a lot of a lot of materials not just plastics but a lot of materials that are then shipped one way

00:36:22.640 the other to second and third world countries. So I think that just to be fair, you don't think

00:36:29.620 it's enough to focus on our role on the disposal of it and the waste management. I think, I believe

00:36:35.620 that there is a point where you just have to acknowledge that if you are creating litter

00:36:42.020 from anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, that as a manufacturer, you're going to

00:36:47.400 step up and try to innovate because you all, we all know that in innovation, your last guest just

00:36:52.100 said, you know, from innovation comes a lot of great opportunities. And I 100% agree with that,

00:36:58.320 because we're already seeing a lot of movement in the plastics industry worldwide. We're already

00:37:04.960 seeing, you know, companies like the vinyl industry, Dow Chemical, Nova, BASF, like all of

00:37:12.580 these big organizations worldwide are innovating, and they are seeing the opportunities that are

00:37:19.100 are possible. And I think one of the things, the challenges I think that the industry has

00:37:24.240 is that there are target dates that are set to accomplish certain types of benchmarks as per

00:37:32.240 the United Nations, as per various governments around the country. But the timelines are not

00:37:37.880 reasonable. And I think that's one of the things that we're looking to do. I mean, we as the Vinyl

00:37:42.900 Institute of Canada, we are partners with Environment and Climate Change Canada. We just

00:37:48.460 launched a medical pvc recycling program with them in 2020 in the middle of covid um and just today

00:37:54.940 we're we just announced the expansion of that in toronto and we're also hoping to get that into

00:37:59.500 quebec as well so they're partners with us they've been partners with us on environmental performance

00:38:04.540 agreements what we want to see is more messaging and more uh will from the government to collaborate

00:38:12.940 with industry and i don't know that we're seeing enough of that yet we're starting but you know

00:38:18.140 the United Nations is a global body as you know and I think really it's difficult to

00:38:25.900 when you're various countries it's it's just difficult to get to that place of harmonization

00:38:31.660 where we can all sort of toe the line as it were so I don't know that the answer is just for us to

00:38:38.860 ignore all of the the litter in the world but definitely I think we as an industry we are

00:38:46.300 definitely showing um that we are moving forward we're environmentally forward and sometimes i

00:38:52.700 don't know that that's being um as communicated um as as it should be by these types of uh

00:39:00.860 conferences i was at the inc3 conference in nairobi and you know one of the challenges that

00:39:06.780 i feel that we have is um the plastics industry for example are invited to be observers at these

00:39:15.420 conferences but we're not invited to be at the table to actually be part of the negotiations and

00:39:21.100 with respect to the plastics registry that you just led with um you know we've worked with

00:39:27.340 environment climate change canada on helping them to you know identify how the supply chain works

00:39:33.420 so that you know this this particular registry can work efficiently and can work so that it's

00:39:38.940 a win-win for everybody. Again, we need to get more collaboration from the government.

00:39:46.540 Our governments are elected, our taxes are paid based on building waste management infrastructure.

00:39:51.740 And to your earlier question about second and third world countries, they simply don't have

00:39:56.620 waste management infrastructure. You're not going to see waste management infrastructure

00:40:01.180 in Africa, for example, or in India, for example, simply because their governments

00:40:05.900 really haven't prioritized that over the linear space of time. And not only that,

00:40:13.980 they just don't have the funds to really put that in place in terms of the infrastructure.

00:40:19.020 So I believe one of the things that eventually will come out of all of this discussion about

00:40:25.500 plastics is we will provide, I think, more of an education and some guidance and leadership

00:40:34.060 to help these other countries to get uh into a position where they can actually develop their

00:40:40.220 own waste management infrastructure and i think that ultimately is going to be um the outcome and

00:40:44.540 the goal of all of this you mentioned i think a very important distinction here which is that

00:40:48.860 you're allowed to observe but you're not at the table so you're you're on one hand given i i think

00:40:53.740 that token inclusion as a stakeholder but you're not actually consulted on or consulted with in in

00:40:59.660 a meaningful way it sounds like and what is it they're missing i mean if industry is leading

00:41:04.620 here and you've already got by the sounds of it through your organization anyway relationships

00:41:08.300 with the federal government why is it that they're flipping a switch when it comes to a summit like

00:41:13.420 this where they're going to ink a treaty that will at some point trickle down into domestic

00:41:18.220 to domestic policy why are you being cut out here when you do have a seat at the table in other ways

00:41:22.700 it sounds like i think so there's 4 200 delegates registered here in ottawa this week right um and

00:41:32.060 i don't think anybody has the answer to that question i mean we we uh i think many many

00:41:39.020 different organizations have uh asked for the opportunity to be at the table um certainly when

00:41:46.460 you look at global corporations like Dow and global corporations like BASF, certainly that

00:41:54.540 they are able to have direct dialogues with some of the very senior folks at the United Nations.

00:42:00.140 But at the end of the day, the folks that are on the ground are the ones that really make the

00:42:04.140 difference in terms of execution. And I think that's really where, unfortunately, I wish the

00:42:09.260 United Nations would be a little bit more broad in terms of who they're inviting and take advantage

00:42:15.340 of the expertise that's in the industry that could probably help them to achieve a really good

00:42:22.540 agreement at the end of the day. But I think that there's a lot of information that's really being

00:42:28.060 missed there, and that's unfortunate. And again, the timelines are quite short in terms of treaty

00:42:34.620 times. Most treaties, I was told in an interview that I had with one of the representatives for

00:42:41.580 canada to the united nations explained that you know most treaties can take 10 to 15 years

00:42:47.500 and so when you look at sort of some of the branding that's gone on um through this process

00:42:53.420 at the the united nations environmental program it's high ambition that's the positioning and

00:42:59.660 the high ambition means let's try to get it done in five years or less um but the complexity of it

00:43:06.940 regardless of whether it's plastics regardless of whether it's any other material in in the world

00:43:12.940 um it's just it's it's a very it's i think it's it's beyond high ambition and i don't know that

00:43:19.260 it's entirely realistic and i think what's happening is you know when when you're sort of

00:43:23.740 boots on the ground at these particular events i think one of the things that's really great about

00:43:29.180 uh these types of events is that we do as an industry have an opportunity to meet and network

00:43:35.100 with people but i i would like to see more um uh i would like to see more effort um from uh the

00:43:42.860 organizers the united nations to invite us to educate uh uh you know all of the folks that are

00:43:49.980 there and um i don't know maybe that's going to take another treaty another day but um i just see

00:43:55.900 a lot of lost opportunity and the plastics industry really um they hold all of the the

00:44:02.300 the supply chain intelligence, you know, in terms of the accuracy of how things happen.

00:44:08.980 And sometimes I look at some of the things that are being proposed and think, you know,

00:44:14.520 it's just not logistically possible with everything, the way that the infrastructure has been established,

00:44:20.420 you know, over the last, you know, 80 to 100 years.

00:44:23.840 And, you know, which raises another point.

00:44:26.040 I mean, we pay taxes, people, citizens of Canada pay taxes for the government,

00:44:31.780 whether that's federal, provincial, or municipal, to build waste management infrastructure.

00:44:39.400 And I think to, you know, 80 years later, to not have included plastic since it became a commodity

00:44:45.940 and products on the market servicing, you know, millions of people in the public and business and commercial industrial,

00:44:55.140 all of a sudden, 80 years later, we're talking about waste management infrastructure,

00:45:00.160 But we're really not getting, again, that sense of collaboration, that depth of collaboration that I think we really need to have in order to make it all come together.

00:45:10.080 All right. Well, great insights on this. We'll be keeping an eye on what happens this week.

00:45:14.180 Let's hope they get you here seat at the table sooner rather than later.

00:45:18.760 Anya Curran, President and CEO of the Vinyl Institute of Canada. Thank you very much.

00:45:22.940 Thanks, Sean. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

00:45:24.680 All right. Thank you. I think she was mixing me up with my producer, Sean, but Sean and Anya were

00:45:30.160 chatting all day. So I'm glad Sean has made his nominal cameo to The Andrew Lawton Show today.

00:45:35.900 But in any event, it is great to have you tuned into the program. We will be back tomorrow with

00:45:40.660 more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North. Thank you. God bless and good day to

00:45:45.640 you all. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True

00:45:51.120 north at www.tnc.news.

00:46:21.120 We'll be right back.

00:46:51.120 We'll be right back.

Juno News - April 22, 2024

Pro-Hamas protesters are openly glorifying October 7 murders

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