Juno News - Quebec is the most locked down place in North America

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the Andrew Lawton Show

00:00:05.880 I've been spending a fair bit of time I realize on Ontario and now again I did a great interview

00:00:14.460 I think it was great anyway before the break with Jason Kenney we cover the whole country here

00:00:18.900 one province I don't cover all that often admittedly is Quebec and part of that is because

00:00:24.120 it's very difficult to find good reporting coming out of Quebec but one person who's been doing a

00:00:30.240 tremendous amount of that is Marie Oakes with the Westphalian Times who has been doing what no other

00:00:36.440 English language journalists are in Quebec with a couple of exceptions I think Rebel does some

00:00:41.340 great work there and has a small team but again hard to compete with the Radio Canada and the

00:00:46.020 Montreal Gazettes which are doing a lot of less than stellar reporting on the pandemic Marie Oakes

00:00:51.780 joins me now good to talk to you thanks for coming on today well thank you Andrew for having me on and

00:00:57.360 yeah that was kind of my focus when I even got involved on the internet was that's exactly what

00:01:04.080 I noticed people were not really looking at what was happening in Quebec and I was pretty shocked

00:01:09.540 a lot of it is in the French media but it doesn't really make its way to English media whether it be

00:01:15.960 the we scandal and you know all the happenings in Quebec with that or like we're going to talk

00:01:21.520 about lockdowns curfews those sort of things that most Canadians and even Americans have no idea

00:01:27.140 that's even going on yeah well I think that's so key and I mean obviously we don't have time to go

00:01:33.600 through the litany of you know reasons that Quebec and the rest of Canada are distinct places but I

00:01:39.120 know we have seen a little bit of media coverage in the last few weeks about Bill 21 for example the

00:01:43.900 the religious symbols ban because that had a rearing of its head in the last little while and I think

00:01:50.860 that underscored that Quebec tends to get away with a lot in part because you have this this political

00:01:56.840 and media culture that that tends not to want to confront these issues head-on so you bring that

00:02:01.700 into a lockdown context Quebec is the only province in the country that has not just imposed a curfew but

00:02:08.020 has now as of New Year's Eve re-imposed a curfew so you can actually be fined just for walking around

00:02:15.200 outside your home in Quebec in the evening yeah and the thing that's so insane about this is the last

00:02:22.660 curfew is 8 p.m so a lot of people who are workers essential workers they couldn't do their grocery

00:02:28.520 shopping most people get off work say 5 or 6 p.m well most of the grocery stores were closing at 7 p.m

00:02:34.840 an hour before the curfew was put in place because they need to get home too because they don't want to

00:02:40.120 get stopped by police and it just became really tedious for so many people and this go around I

00:02:47.740 think a lot of people are noticing police are less likely to pull you over less likely to give you as

00:02:53.740 hard of a time because I think even they are realizing how annoying this is for them to even

00:02:59.080 enforce I mean obviously there's going to be those police officers who will be enforcing it but what I'm

00:03:05.260 hearing from people on the ground is it seems like everyone's changing their tune with this go around

00:03:12.040 with the curfew that's actually an interesting point you raise because I know last time you had Yankee 1.00

00:03:18.920 Pollack with Rebel News who I think was just on a matter of principle just walking around Quebec after

00:03:23.980 curfew every every every night and he was reporting what was happening there and and we were seeing that

00:03:29.200 police were being very aggressive not just with him but with other people they were encountering so

00:03:33.600 you're thinking this time in the first few days this has been on the books police in Quebec or even

00:03:39.760 Montreal specifically you think they've pared things down a little bit oh they definitely have I mean of

00:03:47.100 course there's going to be those city police that like this ounce of power you know feel like it's their

00:03:53.400 duty to enforce this but we're also seeing they're being a bit more lenient with say the other night when

00:04:00.080 there was the curfew protesters they didn't right away give them a bunch of fines they waited about

00:04:05.460 30 minutes to an hour and then they gave the fines after you know telling a few of them hey you want

00:04:11.460 to leave or else you're going to get a ticket and I talked to some people and they said yeah I left I

00:04:16.320 did not want to get that ticket you know I made my point I'm leaving so I know it's hard to ascribe

00:04:23.200 motive but from your conversations or even just your intuition do you think that police are being

00:04:28.940 deliberately laxer on this because of perhaps not fully buying into it or do you think they're

00:04:35.720 concerned about what we're seeing in Europe what we're seeing in places like Amsterdam in places

00:04:41.240 like Vienna where citizens are saying you know what we're we're not taking this anymore and the

00:04:46.560 protests become a lot more heated I mean that's possible I wouldn't think a police officer would be

00:04:52.800 really necessarily thinking about that because like we even discussed most people in Canada don't

00:04:57.200 even really know what's happening in Quebec so to really think that people in Quebec exactly know the

00:05:01.980 situation happening in Europe I don't really think that would be the case I just think everyone's pretty

00:05:07.700 exhausted I mean I'm seeing people on the ground who are pretty before they were fine with the

00:05:15.040 restrictions they understood it really speaking out not scared of the consequences of them speaking out in

00:05:22.060 their social circles I'm seeing a lot of young people being pretty upset by this and the police

00:05:26.960 force say in a place like Montreal is quite young so I think they're also just fed up at this point

00:05:33.780 thinking oh we have to do this again because the it didn't make the police look super good because the

00:05:39.380 curfew is I would say generally not very popular but there was just so many people in Quebec being like

00:05:46.740 even though I don't think the curfew necessarily works I'm happy that the government is putting

00:05:52.180 at least something in place to make me feel safer would it be fair to say that Quebec has been the 0.93

00:05:59.160 most locked down jurisdiction in Canada except for perhaps you know like the northern territories which

00:06:05.180 I know have had some some very restrictive measures I mean definitely I don't think anywhere else has had

00:06:11.120 this curfew I would say in overall North America in totality you're seeing so many people in Quebec

00:06:16.960 fleeing Quebec they're either going to Florida for vacation because they're like okay these restrictions

00:06:23.680 may last four months and then come spring they're going to lift them again and I'm seeing so many people

00:06:29.820 in Quebec move their entire livelihood their livelihoods their entire lives to Mexico I know like a large 0.98

00:06:38.700 amount of people who did that the first lockdown but now even more people this go around

00:06:43.660 well you did a video not long ago talking about yourself making an exodus from Canada explain what led to

00:06:51.400 that well so I am both Canadian and American so I don't want to get a bunch of messages asking how I did

00:06:59.840 it so that's how I was able to leave yeah you'll be dispensing immigration advice for the next several

00:07:05.780 weeks now thanks to that okay she got it in the easy way she had citizenship yeah because a lot of

00:07:10.960 people do ask me how did you do it how did you do it and unfortunately like I can't give that

00:07:16.600 information I wish I had more you know information of how you can do it as well but the reason I did it

00:07:23.820 was with all the border restrictions it was nearly impossible for my family who did not have their

00:07:30.760 Canadian citizenship for them to see me and it was just so hard for me to also go see them and have

00:07:36.820 to deal with the quarantining process on the way back I have many animals I'm an animal lover I could

00:07:43.940 not logistically figure out how I could be two week quarantine not allowed to leave my house and own dogs

00:07:50.220 so it just did not make logistical sense because there was no exemption for quarantine if you had to

00:07:56.580 walk an animal and I lived in an apartment so it was impossible so at that point I was like I miss

00:08:02.160 my family I do not believe Quebec is ever going to be getting out of these lockdowns I have been

00:08:08.600 predicting it for over a year now that this was going to happen again there was going to be another

00:08:14.140 curfew they were going to be really strong on restrictions because a lot of people in Quebec

00:08:19.080 do accept these restrictions and the popularity of the government's extremely high so I just had a really

00:08:25.880 bad outlook on the situation and unfortunately I had a family member in the U.S. become really sick

00:08:33.440 they had a stroke and I wouldn't have been able to say goodbye to them luckily they lived through this

00:08:40.320 but I wanted to spend time with my family and I think a lot of people feel very similar to me and

00:08:46.020 that's why they're also getting their entire family out of places like Quebec and other places in Canada

00:08:51.380 going to places like Mexico where they feel like they can live their lives yeah I mean I never thought 1.00

00:08:57.620 you know Mexico would be the bastion of liberty lovers but I've heard from a few people that have

00:09:03.640 or more commonly people that have decided to go down to Florida and Texas and I'm glad you shared what

00:09:09.600 you did Marie because in a lot of cases people tend to talk about this in in ideological terms of you

00:09:14.800 know I'm tired of living in an unfree place I want to go to a free place you've just described there

00:09:19.460 some very real and very legitimate reasons where you could not live your lives it wasn't just this

00:09:26.220 moral objection to continuing to live in Quebec but but actually an inability to live your life

00:09:31.040 and interact with your family and your pets the way I think any person should be able to

00:09:35.320 yeah it was just such a heavy burden on me because the more and more I lived in Quebec I lived in Quebec

00:09:42.160 for about I think six or seven years I first was like oh I want to get out of here I don't like it here

00:09:48.000 and then I really put my roots down in Quebec I was looking at you know possibly buying my first

00:09:53.160 home in Saint Adele I was thinking about staying for the rest of my life even though I'm an Anglophone

00:09:58.620 I was like okay I'm going to try and figure this out even though there was already so many blockades

00:10:03.840 for me to live in Quebec I'm a type 1 diabetic very hard to get in the health care system in Quebec

00:10:09.640 for that reason and the Quebec government really just pushed me out and so did the federal government

00:10:16.360 with the border restrictions and even the U.S. government with their also restrictions with

00:10:21.720 Canada it was just this whole tornado I thought right now at this time I'd be living the rest of

00:10:27.660 my life in you know a more rural part of Quebec but obviously that didn't happen

00:10:33.160 I just out of curiosity here do you find in Quebec because you mentioned that people tend to support

00:10:39.120 what's happening and that I don't think is unique to Quebec that's been one of the biggest

00:10:43.400 disheartening things I've seen elsewhere now I think the last lockdown might be the the exception

00:10:48.220 in Ontario but a lot of people seem to be willing to go along with this do you find there's a language

00:10:53.180 divide where Anglo Quebecers and Franco Quebecers are approaching this differently or does that not

00:10:59.060 factor into it from what you've seen I don't know if that's necessarily a factor I would say the factor

00:11:06.260 is with the French is only so far as because they are stuck in this ecosystem or this echo chamber of 0.93

00:11:15.440 the French media and the French media in Quebec is really pro lockdown there was even a journalist at

00:11:21.960 the last last press conference saying you know this is the consequences of letting unvaccinated people 1.00

00:11:28.360 like be allowed to be in Quebec and asking if they're going to mandate the vaccine for everyone

00:11:34.320 how that might happen I don't really know exactly and asking if they're going to extend the vaccine

00:11:39.540 passport to more places than it already is so you have a media in Quebec that has no pushback there's

00:11:46.400 no like opposition media like say maybe more so in English speaking part of Canada or like the US

00:11:53.060 so I think a lot of that is the issue with Quebec and for francophone speakers is really the only media

00:12:02.100 they have access to is a media that upholds the government rule doesn't speak against it is no

00:12:08.220 opposition to the government is a talking piece for the government is super pro lockdown super pro

00:12:13.960 restrictions where it just becomes really difficult for anyone who is French speaking to break out of that

00:12:22.760 bubble because all they know is that and when there has been you know this media this radio show in Quebec

00:12:30.240 city that was speaking out against the government the government pulled their ads so they gave them

00:12:36.020 a consequence hey you're speaking out against us well the way you make money is through government ads

00:12:41.400 like so many media all over Canada so that that's what they'll do in opposition times yeah very well said

00:12:49.500 but as I mentioned when we were setting up this interview even with you having fled Quebec you still do a

00:12:54.960 better job covering the story of what's happening in Quebec with lockdown than any other English

00:13:00.240 reporters in Canada and I'd venture to say probably a lot of the the French reporters too I just don't

00:13:04.640 follow their work as much as I probably could Marie Oakes of the Westphalian Times an absolute pleasure

00:13:10.120 thanks very much for coming on today thank you Andrew have a good one thanks for listening to the

00:13:15.240 Andrew Lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - January 05, 2022

Quebec is the most locked down place in North America

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