On day two of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship's first ever event of its kind, the Arc Forum in London, Canada, a bunch of people are talking about things you would never in a million years hear about in Davos. They re talking about the virtue of independence, self-sufficiency, responsibility, and the value of the individual. And they re not exactly talking about what Davos is talking about.
00:01:00.000welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true
00:01:20.360north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show here the
00:01:30.560andrew lawton show live from london in the united kingdom where i have just wrapped up day two of
00:01:38.440the arc forum the first ever event of its kind for the alliance for responsible citizenship
00:01:45.000an organization championed and in part led by jordan peterson one of significant exports i'd
00:01:52.960say as far as cultural exports go more influential than anything else in the last decade and probably
00:01:58.020longer than that unless you uh start counting like crappy canadian comedians as being great
00:02:03.040cultural exports but i shouldn't be so bad some of the comedians we've sent off are funny at least
00:02:08.460the really funny ones are the ones that we send off and the not funny ones are the ones that you
00:02:13.020get stuck with on cbc if you're still watching that but uh nevertheless jordan peterson one of
00:02:18.660many speakers here at the arc forum in london which is as i kind of joked yesterday on paper
00:02:25.460like on the surface it reads like the world economic forum because it's like oh a global
00:02:31.580collection of world leaders in various fields talking about the challenges facing the world
00:02:36.940you're like okay what's the big deal where just give me the crickets and get it over with but uh
00:02:41.780the reality, there's a t-shirt if you have just given up on life. Just give me the crickets and
00:02:46.440get it over with. But unlike the World Economic Forum, the folks here are talking about things
00:02:51.680you would never in a million years hear about in Davos. They're talking about the value of
00:02:57.340the individual. They're talking about the virtue of independence, of self-sufficiency, of
00:03:03.240responsibility, of citizenship, all of these concepts that I must say, my friends on the
00:03:09.960streets of Davos, Mr. Klaus, the fuel source is built by us, Schwab are not exactly talking about.
00:03:16.580Now, one example of this that really stood out, and I think establishes like the great fault line
00:03:22.100between the cultural left and the cultural right, was this snippet of a speech by Constantine
00:03:29.500Kissin, who you may know as one of the two hosts of the podcast Triggernometry, which is a great
00:03:35.180uk podcast and show that has very frank and open discussions with a number of people
00:03:40.940and this is what constantine had to say from the dawn of time human beings have had to work
00:03:47.500to make the world a better place we captured the mystery of fire we invented the wheel today we
00:03:54.460build buildings that would shock and awe almost every human being that has ever lived we split
00:04:00.940the atom we spliced the genome and we connected the world through microcomputers that fit in our
00:04:06.620pockets that allow us to do amazing things this morning i destroyed someone on twitter
00:04:12.060with facts and logic from the toilet it's magic remember your grandparents remember them
00:04:24.780if i could go back in time and transport the grandparents of your grandparents into
00:04:29.660this room just four generations ago they would think they'd been abducted by aliens that's the
00:04:36.300progress we've made we haven't made that progress by whining and acting like victims we've made that
00:04:43.020progress by unleashing the creativity and talents of people like us here in this room
00:04:48.780but i do think we've forgotten what adventure is being adventurous is not ordering extra spicy
00:04:54.460chicken at Nando's wrong reference for this room let me try again being adventurous is not ordering
00:05:02.580extra spicy chicken from your personal chef that was I think Nando's jab aside a great celebration
00:05:14.600of the human spirit of human ingenuity and achievement it's a celebration of humanity and
00:05:22.100if you look in a bit more detail, you can watch the whole speech online. He was celebrating
00:05:27.180Western civilization. Western civilization, which is this thing we're told to deplore
00:05:33.580and hold in contempt, but has actually been the saving grace of the universe. And that is,
00:05:41.300I think, the great difference between the left and the right. And it's one that's on full display
00:05:45.480on the ARC forum, is that these are people that believe in humanity. They have hope for the world
00:05:51.320and they believe in the very best of humans.
00:05:54.600The Davos crowd believes in the very worst.
00:05:57.680They believe that humans are disease vectors.
00:06:00.080They believe that humans are polluters.
00:06:01.900They believe that humans are overpopulators.
00:06:04.520They believe that humans are the source of all the problems in the world
00:06:08.660and therefore human innovation and human freedom
00:06:11.800are things that inhibit the natural world that they want,
00:06:15.720which is a very distorted and myopic view of things if ever there was one.
00:06:21.320And that's a bit of the big picture as far as takeaways go from the conference today. But I wanted to delve into an issue that I was talking about with a number of people that actually ties directly in with news on the home front, namely immigration.
00:06:36.080you may have seen this story, which I find fascinating. A new poll on immigration in Canada
00:06:41.640shows that public support for immigration has plummeted more than 40%. I think about 44%
00:06:49.420of Canadians in one recent poll say that immigration is too high. Now, this is the
00:06:55.780highest this figure has been, this figure that has a bit of a distrust towards the immigration
00:07:01.200status quo in decades according to some measures and why that's so important is because we've been
00:07:06.820told that in Canada there is this consensus and certainly among political and media and academic
00:07:12.540leaders there is but this consensus that immigration is great we want more immigration more more more
00:07:18.120we can't fit enough people in this country just like keep the doors open and carry on
00:07:22.680and if you say anything about it you are a big dirty stinking racist have I summed up the liberal
00:07:28.480position pretty accurately? Well, Canadians aren't buying it. And I think there are a number
00:07:32.180of reasons for this. I think you could look at cultural integration, especially in the wake of
00:07:37.380the pro-Hamas protests and rhetoric we see across the country. I think the affordability crisis,
00:07:43.100the housing crisis is particularly acute. One thing I find noteworthy is that when all of these
00:07:48.680things are happening and coming to a head, immigrants are among the people who suffer
00:07:53.700most. Just look at some of the stories. We've seen one study in particular showing that more
00:08:00.440and more immigrants are leaving Canada. Like imagine this land of liberty, this land of the
00:08:05.140free, the new hope. You get to Canada, you look around and say, yeah, I don't want anything to
00:08:10.040do with this. And you head back home. That is what many immigrants are doing. And I, you know,
00:08:15.520I've just heard anecdotally from people who say that they don't like what their kids are being
00:08:20.040taught in school. So they're going to go back to Poland or people that say they can't afford a
00:08:24.520house. So they go back to where they have family and maybe a bit less opportunity, but at least
00:08:29.340they have a place to live. Well, one of the big challenges we see in Canada is that we pretend we
00:08:36.220are immune from things that have happened elsewhere. Well, other countries that have
00:08:40.260tried incredibly large and drastic immigration, places like Germany, which in the span of one
00:08:46.120year brought in the same rate of immigrants proportionate to the existing population that
00:08:52.820Canada committed to several years ago. Canada has surpassed what happened in Germany. I think it was
00:08:59.0402015 when Germany had incredible, incredible challenges. Around that same time, Sweden
00:09:04.820opened the floodgates and became a hotbed of mass migration and has never been the same since. I
00:09:11.920spoke with Charlie Wymers, who is a member of the European Parliament. Now, I've actually known
00:09:16.860Charlie for many years before he was an MEP. We were at a conference together, I think, what,
00:09:21.70016 years ago or so, and kept in touch. And as I said today, we've both had a bit of a different
00:09:28.560trajectory. He's now dignified in the Belgian or in the Brussels division of the European Parliament,
00:09:35.060and I am shouting into my laptop computer at a hotel room late at night. But we are both doing
00:09:40.880our own form of service. And it was great to see Charlie again and speak to him about immigration
00:09:46.540specifically. Take a look. One of the big trends we hear a lot from several people in politics is
00:09:53.400that we need open borders, mass migration. That's the way we solve these problems. You're a
00:09:58.100representative of Sweden. You've seen what happens when that policy takes hold. So what's the warning
00:10:03.300to other countries? Well, for many years, Sweden pursued this policy and that resulted in 20%
00:10:09.540of our population being foreign born and we see the results now failing integration massive
00:10:16.220segregation outside not only our big cities but throughout the country and one bombing a week one
00:10:24.100shooting a day gangs starting to infiltrate our public institutions running health care centers
00:10:31.220to launder their money. Huge problems that it will take generations to solve.
00:10:38.900I mean, we see rising crime in countries around the world. How much of that can you
00:10:43.220actually blame on immigration in Sweden? Well, let's just pick one example. 20 years ago,
00:10:50.660Sweden, together with Poland and Hungary, had the least amount of deadly shootings in Europe.
00:10:58.820Today, Poland and Hungary are still at the bottom, while Sweden has risen, regretfully, to the top.
00:11:11.720I mean, are these policies enjoying popular support, or are they coming from politicians and leaders who really don't care about what ordinary people think?
00:11:18.940There has never been a popular support for mass immigration to Sweden,
00:11:24.640but the mainstream parties have done it anyway and what we see now is a big backlash we have a
00:11:34.360new center-right government conservative government since last year and we are overhauling migration
00:11:43.860policy crime policy in order to deal with these problems and we have strong support for these
00:11:50.580reforms among the population to end multiculturalism basically. I don't know if it's true in Sweden but
00:11:56.280one of the challenges we certainly see in Canada is that when people start to see the challenges
00:12:00.960of immigration be they economic or social they start to turn on immigration including you know
00:12:06.740economic migrants that want to integrate and I'm curious if that's happening in Sweden as well
00:12:10.740where the problems are so acute that now people are just completely almost in whiplash form going
00:12:19.840I think that most people make a distinction between economic migrants who decided for
00:12:27.860Sweden due to our welfare system and migrants who are in Sweden to contribute.
00:12:34.960For instance, my party, the Sweden Democrats, we're the second largest party among immigrants.
00:12:40.880We're the largest party among Iranian immigrants.
00:12:45.180There's a reason for that, that they understand that if we are to deal with this problem, we need to have a cultural nationalism, not ethnic, but cultural.
00:12:56.720And this is what the Swedish voters increasingly want as well.
00:13:01.100And one of the challenges your country has to deal with is the European dimension of this.
00:13:05.700And that, you know, all of a sudden you're in Sweden a victim of Italy's immigration policy or France's immigration policy.
00:13:13.060And there really needs to be more support among other European nations to have any real change, doesn't there?
00:13:19.660Yeah, we need to stop the boats on the Mediterranean because what happens when they enter EU territory is that they can abscond.
00:13:27.640They can go to whatever country they like.
00:13:30.440That's why my party is fighting for Sweden's right to establish internal border controls at the border to Denmark so that we can stop these kind of secondary movements.
00:13:41.040And I think we're entering a new face on migration in Europe.
00:13:47.160Right now we're bound by international conventions,
00:13:51.320but I think we will find ways now to actually implement an Australian model
00:13:57.500in which you rescind your right to apply for asylum if you enter EU territory illegally.
00:14:03.680I think we will move to a system where we offer refuge to real refugees outside EU territory,
00:14:11.680like the UK and Denmark want to do with Rwanda, for instance.
00:14:15.840That is going to be the future of EU migration policy.
00:14:32.260And I think that's probably true in Sweden as well, certainly in Canada, where people that make what are pretty sensible positions like you are probably vilified by the media.
00:14:40.740Well, that's been the case for many decades, but it's finally changing.
00:14:47.500And now the Social Democrats in Sweden have basically put down their weapons over the issue of migration, just like they did in Denmark many years ago.
00:14:58.660And we see the German Chancellor, who is the Social Democrat, Schultz, calling for the expulsion of Hamas sympathizers.
00:15:13.980If Europe is a few years ahead of Canada, I think it's very important that Canadians pay attention to this debate.
00:15:22.460And I think Sweden and Germany and France are very much ground zero on this.
00:15:27.540There are very different dynamics. One is proximity to where a lot of people are fleeing. One is the European aspect, as Charlie and I were talking about. So the immigration issue in Canada does look differently. But I go back to the philosophical and ideological underpinning here, which is that there are a number of people in positions of power that believe borders should be open, that believe national identity should be afforded and issued to anyone who wants it.
00:15:55.700people like Justin Trudeau who tweet out a big glib and virtue signally hashtag welcome to Canada
00:16:02.100to tell people to just march on over across Roxham Road the RCMP will help you with your bags
00:16:07.600and you'll be in the country free of charge oh well don't mind that you crossed illegally we'll
00:16:12.180still look after you so what a treat to hear a politician say we need to not allow people to
00:16:18.420seek asylum if they cross into Europe illegally I would love Charlie Weimers to have a go at
00:16:24.720running Canada's immigration department. But one thing that is similar between Canada and Europe
00:16:30.820is that changing consensus. I mentioned a few moments ago the polling that we see. Now,
00:16:37.200there have been a number of polls that have showed very similar things. And then we go to
00:16:41.380this headline from about an hour before I went on air, courtesy of Immigration Minister Mark Miller.
00:16:47.140Canada's new immigration plan to factor in need to bolster housing and services so now the federal
00:16:56.420government that accused anyone who criticized its ambitious 500,000 immigrants a year target
00:17:02.840as being a big Haiti Haiti hate monger racist is saying maybe we need to talk about immigration in
00:17:09.400the context of housing and services so they are they're a government that has said that we could
00:17:16.300sustain and absorb in Canada 1.5 million new immigrants in a span of three years. Now that's
00:17:22.800actually a lowball number because it doesn't take into account temporary workers, student visas,
00:17:28.400these other things that actually balloon the number to closer to 3 million over the span of
00:17:34.820three years. This is a government that said anyone who objected to that was divisive and xenophobic
00:17:42.500and is now itself saying, okay, maybe the numbers are not saying what we thought they were saying.
00:17:47.920Now, what they mean is they've looked at the polling.
00:17:50.040They don't actually care about responding to the housing crisis or the affordability crisis,
00:17:54.940but they do want to respond to polling.
00:17:58.400And one thing that Charlie said that I think is very much an issue in Canada
00:18:01.800is that political parties are terrified of this issue.
00:18:06.540In 2021, only one party, which was the People's Party of Canada,
00:18:10.160took a position that was skeptical of increased immigration numbers.
00:18:14.840Pierre Polyev has been incredibly timid on this file.
00:18:18.700When we've asked him, he's given answers that have not been specific.
00:18:22.520There was one, I should have pulled the clip for today from a little while ago,
00:18:26.800where I believe, one of my colleagues, I can't remember if it was Harrison or Noah,
00:18:31.200but one of them asked him a question at a press conference about immigration.
00:18:35.020And the answer he gave was not anything to do with a specific number.
00:18:39.600he just talked about well you know we're going to look at all of these different things and
00:18:43.940people kind of heard what they wanted to hear in his answer and you know some people that were
00:18:48.800very supportive of him said no he's talking about you know being responsible and respectful and
00:18:54.620probably a lower number other people said he was dodging and evading and people can decide for
00:18:59.820themselves but no leader in Canada of a major mainstream political party is coming out and
00:19:05.300saying what a lot of ordinary Canadians are saying and seeing in their own communities. And I think
00:19:10.680that's incredibly true. And it is very disheartening because this is a very real issue
00:19:16.260that communities are seeing. Canada's entire... Oh, apparently, Sean just told me I asked the
00:19:22.840question. So forget about Harrison and Noah. Don't give those guys any credit. Apparently,
00:19:26.780I asked the question. But nevertheless, the answer was, I think, accurate in some ways. He blamed
00:19:32.640Justin Trudeau for breaking the immigration system, but didn't say, listen, I think the
00:19:38.320500,000 a year target is unsustainable, which is what the numbers are bearing out. And that's the
00:19:44.220one thing he didn't say. It's like a three and a half minute clip, so we're not going to play it,
00:19:48.740but you can look it up on True North's social media feeds if you are so inclined. Canada's
00:19:54.840population growth right now, and this is the corollary to immigration. It's a population
00:20:00.280growth that's rooted entirely on immigration. Canadian families are not having children. And
00:20:05.900this is a problem the Western world deals with across the board. The only countries with high
00:20:10.980birth rates are in the undeveloped or developing world. Western shishipoo families think that
00:20:17.540babies are evidently stoking climate change, so they don't want to have their kids. And I'm not
00:20:22.700casting judgment on people. People can make their own decisions about how to raise their families.
00:20:27.040I do not have kids myself. So I'm certainly not casting any blame here. But what I am saying is
00:20:33.200that it creates population challenges, which are what we're seeing in Canada, which has a very low
00:20:39.420birth rate, like other Western European nations, for example. So the only population growth comes
00:20:45.680from immigration. And I spoke about that with demographer and Professor Paul Moreland, and he
00:20:51.660had some interesting thoughts about it. Seems as though most people looking at the numbers,
00:20:56.380Anyone sensible anyway could tell you that there's a birth rate crisis going on.
00:21:00.820But there seems to also be a lot of denial about that fact.
00:21:03.960I mean, how does that even get, from a basic mathematical perspective, rationalized?
00:21:08.600I think the problem is, first of all, the world's population continues to grow.
00:21:12.600And people think, well, the population is growing, so what's the question?
00:24:37.420One of the real trends that I see in Western discourse around this is that
00:24:41.500children are bad for the climate. I mean, there seems to be this catastrophic view
00:24:44.700that climate change is a big effect. What's your take on that?
00:24:48.620Two points. First of all, if you believe in net zero, a child born today in 20, 30 years
00:24:53.100will not be emitting many carbon emissions. Secondly, if you continue to pursue a normal life,
00:25:00.620if you have the expectation of someone to drive your taxi, if you need one,
00:25:04.860someone at the doctor surgery someone fixing the road in other words you consume labor but you're
00:25:10.700too grand to produce it you're merely going to suck in people from low emissions countries to
00:25:15.820high emissions countries you're not actually helping you're merely shifting the problem
00:25:20.300and and expecting someone else to produce the labor that you're going to consume
00:25:25.740that was demographer paul moreland who i've been a big follower of for quite a while and it was
00:25:31.180good to uh run into him and chat a little bit about what's ending up becoming quite a large
00:25:35.980story in the canadian context and again uh you know you look at a global forum like the arc
00:25:41.580conference this week and this is not a place where people are promoting open borders and
00:25:46.460mass migration and why humans are evil they are doing the opposite so we are going to shift gears
00:25:52.700in a moment into a big story i've been following for quite a while which is the firearms file but
00:25:58.380Before we get there, I wanted to just take a bit of a deviation to share my chat with Leslyn Lewis,
00:26:05.220who is not only a Conservative member of Parliament who will be familiar to many of you
00:26:10.460because we've had her on the show on her leadership bids for the Conservatives notably,
00:26:14.860but she is also one of the advisors on the board of ARC.
00:26:19.240So anyone who takes issue with Chrystia Freeland being on the board of the World Economic Forum,
00:26:25.360I'll tell you that what Leslyn's doing on ARC is very different because she's not up there to try to pass policy for Canada that we all just wonder why it, how it came about.
00:26:35.660She's there because she wants to kind of benefit from this exchange of ideas, bring it back to the country and elevate Canadians.
00:26:42.760So I chatted with her a little bit about what it is that ARC is to her and why she decided to hop aboard it.
00:26:49.760So what is ARC and why are you involved in it?
00:26:52.500ARC is just an organization of people from all political persuasions and with different life views that want to tell a better story.
00:27:02.940And it's a story that deconstructs and is in opposition to the nihilistic deconstructionist approach that has been really consuming our Western society.
00:27:14.740And it's really an organization of hope, of telling a story of human perseverance and overcoming challenges and recognizing that we can overcome things like the destruction of the family.
00:27:29.140We could engage in sustainable development without putting people in energy poverty.
00:27:36.400So there are different ways of solving the problems that we have without deconstructing our Western society.
00:27:44.220One of the trends I've seen and heard so far that's really refreshing is a celebration of the individual and a family.
00:27:50.940And I think this is something that's so absent.
00:27:53.160I mean, if you look at a lot of the policies and proposals we hear from the World Economic Forum, it's the opposite of that.
00:27:58.640So how important is that in a policy context in Canada to really look at what individuals can do and what families can do to achieve that different story, as you put it?
00:28:08.240Well, we believe that families are the foundation of any vibrant and functioning society, and it is a bedrock of the society.
00:28:17.000And so policies should be around enhancing families and supporting them.
00:28:22.620And when there are problems between parents and children, encourage parents to be involved in their children's lives.
00:28:29.820give them the tools to be able to solve those problems and create a structure that respects the family and keeps governments out of people's homes.
00:28:40.120You're a member of parliament. You're here with 1,500 people from 72 different countries.
00:28:45.660You're in a bit of a unique spot given you're on the advisory board.
00:28:48.980But what do you take away from this personally, having put all the work in to get here?
00:28:53.420When you go back home, what is it that you are really going to bring from this?
00:28:56.520Well, this is an inaugural conference. And as you can see, it's phenomenally run. I'm very proud to be a part of this board. And bringing back is just bringing back the courage of knowing that there is a better story, that there are people who are looking towards building on our society rather than tearing it down.
00:29:19.040And so I take that back knowing that there's partners and allies all over the world that are working to build a better story.
00:29:27.180And just the one thing I'll ask related to that in closing here is that everyone seems to have a role to play.
00:29:34.820I think there has not really been that I've heard any sense that the decisions are being made here that will go back and affect people.
00:29:41.360Everyone here is being asked to make their own decisions and then bring that back to their community.
00:29:45.600So what would you like other attendees to take from this this year?
00:29:49.420And what would you like Canadians moving forward to learn from some of the things that are being discussed here that are all being broadcast?
00:29:56.420Well, it's an organic ecosystem of thought leaders, of people that have influence in their various sectors,
00:30:05.820whether it's a single mom or a CEO of a corporation.
00:30:10.740We know that their life experience contributes something to that better story.
00:30:15.120And so what I want people to understand is that even though I'm an elected official, I can still gain a lot of insights from someone, an ordinary Canadian.
00:30:28.140If you take a look at something like the trucker convoy, those were ordinary people coming out and standing up for what they believed in.
00:30:37.040And then politicians really said, OK, we'll stand with you.
00:30:40.520But they were the more profound voice.
00:30:44.020And that's just the reality of where we are today in society.
00:30:49.060If we're going to build on our great achievements, then we need different voices, different perspectives.
00:30:55.720And so everybody has a role to play in building that better story.
00:31:00.720That was Leslyn Lewis, the Conservative Member of Parliament and one of the members of the Board of Advisors for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.
00:31:10.020citizenship the arc forum in london will wrap up tomorrow so i'll have one more recap show after
00:31:16.960the program well i guess on the program tomorrow but we have a few more interviews we didn't get
00:31:22.240to today but we will get to those tomorrow and in probably end up next week we'll we'll have a bit
00:31:27.500of spillover there but that's the benefit of collecting content you sometimes end up with
00:31:32.020more than you can use which is i think a good problem to have it's certainly better than the
00:31:36.320opposite. But let's go to a hobby horse of mine, which is the firearms world. Now, in 2020, you may
00:31:43.340recall, in the wake of the horrific Nova Scotia shooting, the federal government, with the stroke
00:31:47.580of a pen, prohibited more than 1,500 types of firearms that the government claimed served one
00:31:55.200purpose and one person alone, which was to kill people quickly. That was what they said, which was
00:32:00.740a bit of a shock to people like me and countless other gun owners in Canada that own these things
00:32:05.560for hunting and sport shooting and had never hurt anything with it in most cases. And we're
00:32:10.840wondering, well, hang on, how does the government view this as a killing machine? But the government
00:32:15.320has been unrepentant about this order and counsel in the last three years. They still have not made
00:32:21.700good on their promise to offer a buyback, which is, you know, a fancy way of saying a mass
00:32:26.800confiscation. But nevertheless, this was challenged in court. The Canadian Coalition for Firearm
00:32:33.200rights led a massive legal challenge which has taken quite a while and unfortunately yesterday
00:32:39.180ended up with a federal court decision that the challenge was within the government's purview. They
00:32:45.860did not strike it down. Joining me is Rod Giltaka the CEO of the CCFR. Rod it's good to talk to you
00:32:52.960thanks for coming on today. Thanks for having me Andrew. So obviously this is a disappointing
00:32:58.560decision, was it surprising to you? I mean, was your lawyer telling you this was going to be a
00:33:03.720nail-biter? Was your lawyer giving you optimism? Or did you go into this a little bit skeptical?
00:33:10.260Well, I don't know that it was surprising. We knew that it could go either way. And I think
00:33:15.340there's a lot of people that have lost a lot of faith in the judiciary in Canada, which caused a
00:33:22.020lot of people to say, you know, there's no way that we're ever going to win this anyway. Especially
00:33:26.040when you look at the relationship between the judicial system maybe and some other cases that
00:33:32.440have gone on in the last few years. But our team was very confident that we had a good case and
00:33:39.960that the order in council that the government wrote to ban all of these firearms, they didn't
00:33:45.780have the authority to do it. And our legal team still maintains that. So I don't know if I would
00:33:52.880say it was expected, but we're going to roll with the punches no matter what. We don't in Canada,
00:33:57.640I think you and I would probably both agree, unfortunately, have a clear-cut right to own
00:34:02.680firearms that's in our constitution that we can point to and say, you know, this infringes section
00:34:07.180whatever of the constitution. So what was, just to kind of go back to basics here,
00:34:11.860what was the core argument here about why this was not allowed in your view?
00:34:17.020Well, the core argument was that in the criminal code, I believe it's section 117,
00:34:21.160if memory serves me correctly. Basically, it says that the government can't ban any firearm
00:34:27.420that is reasonably used for hunting or sport shooting. And then there's some verbiage there
00:34:35.360as well that it has to do with the governor and council, whether or not they have the opinion
00:34:42.260that those firearms can be used for those two purposes. And it's like, well,
00:34:46.980you know i think the governor and council had the opinion for the last 30 to 60 years that all those
00:34:52.480firearms were completely appropriate for hunting and sporting use because they were used for those
00:34:56.680things this whole time and now all of a sudden the governor council is just changing their minds
00:35:00.820so the the whole point of that being in the criminal code i think was to to it was really
00:35:05.860that the crown didn't like us saying this but it was a bargain with gun owners back in the days when
00:35:10.840the firearms act came into being and basically the government as usual says we don't want your
00:35:16.340guns conspiracy theorist. We're not going to ban your guns, you know, and they just turn around
00:35:21.280and ban them. So that was put in the criminal code to protect the firearms that were legal at the
00:35:26.040time. So anyway, we were saying that the government, they just didn't have the authority to throw it in
00:35:31.680reverse after 30 to 60 years, depending on the firearm that they, you know, the individual
00:35:36.000firearms that they banned. But the judge disagreed. The judge says, well, hey, you know, the government
00:35:41.160can change their minds at any time and take whatever they want, whenever they want from
00:35:45.580whoever they want. So I think it's a ruling that hurts all Canadians.
00:35:49.960Well, I would agree. And there was an incredibly circular logic in what the judge wrote. I mean,
00:35:55.780there was one section, I'm paraphrasing here, but where the judge effectively wrote, well,
00:36:00.000the government decided that these are not guns used for hunting. Therefore, the government was
00:36:04.280justified in prohibiting them. So that's a really convenient way to get around that criminal code
00:36:09.020revision. The government just decides, I don't think that that gun should be used for that.
00:36:14.040therefore we have the authority to be it's just like basically they're just self-identifying their
00:36:18.160way into legislating this well that's interesting isn't it i mean it's the criminal code is there
00:36:23.700for a reason says yeah you can't do that and those those firearms were used the whole time
00:36:28.300for that purpose and it's like well today today we've decided that you can't no longer reasonable
00:36:32.320to do that yeah it became unreasonable all of a sudden yeah you're right so explain to me where
00:36:38.260you go from here? Have you decided to move forward with an appeal? So we did, just making sure my
00:36:45.280phone, unfortunately, I'm traveling. I'm in Ottawa to testify to the Senate on Thursday. Yeah, we've
00:36:49.680both nailed the generic hotel backdrop look for the interview. We're not on like two sides of the
00:36:53.760same room, I assure people. Yeah, I'm just making sure my phone doesn't go to sleep. So our legal
00:37:01.400team has looked at the decision and the early interpretation, I mean, we've only had for a day,
00:37:07.400Right. So the early thoughts are, yes, we are going to file an appeal and it won't be long.
00:37:11.660It'll be soon. But we're going to give them, I think, another day or two to have a look at it, figure it exactly out how we're going to approach that.
00:37:21.560But the fight is not over, whether it's by appeal.
00:37:25.040If if we appeal and that struck down, we'll take it to the Supreme Court if that's where it has to go.
00:37:29.740And we're going to continue to fight the government on a, you know, from a political direction.
00:37:46.420And you and I have talked about this in the past as well.
00:37:48.920There's also always the opportunity for a political resolution on this.
00:37:52.480Now, I think it's probably going to take a miracle or some break with reality for the
00:37:58.120current government to change course on this.
00:38:00.720But a change in government could very much be a resolution that would carve out the need to have a court win.
00:38:08.040Well, all those firearms that were banned, it's still an order in council.
00:38:11.560And even a minority government, another minority government, if they're motivated to do so, they can just, with a stroke of a pen, make it like that never happened.
00:38:19.180So, you know, if we end up with a conservative government, there's another massive scandal.
00:38:26.000But maybe there's four next week and this government falls and there's an election.
00:38:31.640Chances are it will be a conservative government, either a minority or majority, probably a majority.
00:38:37.840And, you know, we're hopeful that Pierre Polyev will keep his promise and reverse those bans and then go really hard on criminal activity with guns.
00:38:54.460but we're working all angles because what's being done right now is immoral and it needs to be
00:38:59.900opposed well and the one thing that i i find to be the the most discouraging about this is just
00:39:05.860it really underlines that precariousness that's inherent in gun ownership i mean let's say there's
00:39:10.800a conservative government that decides to reverse everything justin trudeau has done so you get a
00:39:15.220reprieve for four years and then there's a liberal government or an ndp government or a green
00:39:19.680government or whatever and they do the same thing and it just becomes this whiplash where you never
00:39:24.360really have the confidence of these. This is my property. I get to own it. I'm not hurting anyone
00:39:29.760and I just want to be left alone. Well, that's how it works in Canada. Right. And, you know,
00:39:35.080it's funny. It's it brings up a really interesting point. It's people criticize the Americans. They
00:39:40.680criticize and they and they also and and they admire the United States because of their codified
00:39:47.720rights. And in Canada, we don't have anything like that. We have some some we have the the
00:39:53.320Bill of Rights and then we have the Charter and it's kind of a patchwork
00:39:57.220and I think you know people thought they had rights and I mean again kind of
00:40:03.340going back to what I said earlier what we've seen as I like to say we've all
00:40:07.240gotten a really good look at each other in the last few years but what we've
00:40:10.560seen is you really don't have any rights in Canada like you really don't have
00:40:14.380them and Canadians they never really knew that or never really cared because
00:40:20.080And before eight years ago, the reason why you didn't have to really worry about those codified rights is because, you know, your regular governments, they would never try the stuff that these people have done.
00:40:32.020And so it was never really an issue, you know.
00:40:34.020I mean, they never came for guns at the level that they are now because they would have lost elections way back in the day.
00:40:48.360It's like a wild, wounded animal. And now we're seeing what it's like when you have no codified
00:40:54.800rights, really. And when you have a malevolent government that's willing to literally do
00:40:59.780anything to hold on to power or to carry out its agenda, whatever that agenda is,
00:41:05.260then you've got nothing. And right now in Canada, we've got nothing. So it's a strange place to be.
00:41:10.940The only way to put a silver lining to that is that diagnosis is the first step to treatment.
00:41:15.740I mean, people have seen government do things.
00:41:19.020They probably would have, being very optimistic and complacent, the Canadians are, probably thought they never would have done, and here we are.
00:41:25.740So perhaps noticing that will yield a bit of necessary change.
00:41:30.260Rod Giltaka from the CCFR will keep track on how you go from here, but thank you very much for coming on today.