Juno News - Russia declares war on Ukraine – is this Canada's fight？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:00:02.920 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:11.720 Hello and welcome to another live edition of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:18.100 I said when we started doing these shows live a couple of weeks ago,

00:00:21.920 it was that news was happening at such a pace that pre-recording just didn't make sense.

00:00:26.240 And also it's been a lot more fun to do them live.

00:00:28.440 this is not a fun subject by any stretch but certainly one that fits into that category

00:00:33.680 of evolving and changing by the not even by the minute but by the second so i'm very glad that

00:00:40.060 we have the opportunity to come to you live it's a very big day today as we talk about the invasion

00:00:46.100 which is the only way to describe it of ukraine by russia now this for a lot of people i think

00:00:51.800 was something that they imagined in the weeks previous the weeks leading up to this was just

00:00:57.040 brinksmanship and idle threats. And a lot of people saying, okay, is this actually going to

00:01:01.620 happen? Well, it has. And we've already seen the footage. This is not just tiptoeing across the

00:01:06.420 border. There have been assaults on multiple fronts in multiple parts of the country,

00:01:11.040 civilians that are being targeted by this, apartment buildings. And I want to talk about

00:01:15.440 what's happening, why it's happening, and also what it means for Canada. And to do this, I want

00:01:21.140 to welcome in someone who I know is very busy and has been on the phone and emailing all day.

00:01:25.220 And that is Yaroslav Baran of the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress, also a geopolitics commentator.

00:01:32.580 Yaroslav, thank you for being with us today. I appreciate it very much.

00:01:36.020 My pleasure. Good to be here.

00:01:37.580 Now, I know you're obviously coming to this from the perspective, which I think most of the West is, of just looking after the Ukrainian people.

00:01:45.020 And I know the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress has already done a lot to mobilize for humanitarian support.

00:01:50.500 And we'll talk about that very shortly. But I want to go back to first principles here and address the why, because I know Putin's motivations for doing this have been, in a lot of cases, distilled into this idea of, you know, someone who's never quite accepted that the age of the Russian Empire is over and that the Soviet Union is over and really trying to go back to that czarist Russian empirical ambition. Is that what this is? Is there something else that Russia is trying to get out of this?

00:02:19.120 That's precisely what it is.

00:02:20.980 This is like the final gasps of activism of a dying empire, but they are very dangerous

00:02:28.620 final gasps.

00:02:31.180 I mean, we could characterize it as an attempt to restore the Russian empire greatness or

00:02:37.580 the Tsarist greatness, but it actually goes a little bit deeper than that.

00:02:41.040 Putin belongs to a school of thought, a school of revisionist history that in order to make

00:02:49.860 their myths work, they need to appropriate Ukrainian history.

00:02:54.840 Ukraine is a much older country than Russia.

00:02:58.820 Its history goes back hundreds of years earlier, but through that earlier medieval Kievan Ukrainian

00:03:06.380 state that was one of the largest countries in Europe. It had strong ties to Byzantium and Rome

00:03:12.080 and Constantinople and all that kind of stuff. A lot of rich legacy that was later appropriated

00:03:18.940 by the Tsars who called themselves like the new Caesars. So they had to draw that connection 0.87

00:03:24.140 through Ukraine in order to create these myths about their God-given right to govern and greatness

00:03:30.800 and defender of the faith and all that jazz.

00:03:33.620 So he, for like spiritual and mythology reasons, 0.85

00:03:37.500 his school of revisionism, they need Ukraine

00:03:40.000 because otherwise their whole myth doesn't work.

00:03:44.320 So it's not logical.

00:03:46.320 It's not a question of we need their natural gas

00:03:48.960 or we need their wheat or we want their,

00:03:51.260 you know, some, you know, insert resource here.

00:03:54.340 It's deeper, it's more zealous, it's ideological.

00:03:57.700 and that makes it a heck of a lot more dangerous yeah and i think that's an important point because

00:04:03.920 if there is a strategic goal there if it were for oil or if it were for a geographic advantage you

00:04:10.180 you can better approach it i mean it's like when we see with terrorism with fundamentalism of

00:04:15.780 yeah you can't go up against ideology because you can't out reason them you can't you can't

00:04:22.880 even necessarily combat it but but at the same time there are also a lot of people and we're

00:04:26.760 seeing this particularly with NATO, that are not looking at this as a global issue, that are not

00:04:32.180 looking at it as their responsibility. They're saying, yeah, this is just, our goal is containment

00:04:36.440 to keep this within Ukraine. Well, sure, maybe that's helpful if you're Estonia, if you're 0.99

00:04:40.760 Latvia, if you're Belarus, but that's not particularly helpful if you're Ukrainian. 0.92

00:04:45.500 Yeah, you're exactly right. Because that, I mean, taking that approach essentially means that 1.00

00:04:50.140 the 45 million people in Ukraine are going to be human shields or human sacrifices

00:04:56.000 to serve as a buffer of blood between Central Europe and Russia. 0.75

00:05:04.180 And I'm not sure that we're prepared to say that that's the best we can do here. 0.76

00:05:09.720 Now, you're right in a sense in saying that NATO does not have an obligation to step in.

00:05:16.460 It doesn't.

00:05:17.780 Now, the eastern members of NATO, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, they get it.

00:05:25.400 they know exactly what this is, this sort of attempt at rebuilding the empire. So they know

00:05:30.340 full well that they're next. So they realize that it's just a matter of time before it becomes

00:05:37.200 head-on NATO's problem. So it's a little bit simplistic to say that, well, not NATO's problem,

00:05:43.220 so go away. Let's just stick our head in the sand. And secondly, if you look beyond NATO obligations,

00:05:49.700 there are two countries in particular who actually do have a treaty obligation to step in.

00:05:55.400 And I'll just take you back in time a little bit.

00:05:59.240 When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, overnight, Ukraine became the third biggest nuclear power in the world.

00:06:06.700 It inherited a big chunk of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

00:06:09.360 It was nuclear power number three in the world.

00:06:12.960 Global powers freak out. 0.55

00:06:14.480 Oh, my God, we've got more nuclear states.

00:06:16.140 Is this stable?

00:06:16.940 What do we do?

00:06:17.420 So years of nonproliferation talks ensued, culminating in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

00:06:25.400 an international treaty by which Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for

00:06:32.360 security guarantees from three countries, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. 0.59

00:06:39.840 I mean, the Russia part of it is a joke because Russia had an 800-year history of constantly

00:06:44.800 invading Ukraine. But still, I mean, you had to start somewhere. So the great powers, let's get

00:06:50.680 them at the table. If you guarantee your sovereignty, guarantee your security, guarantee

00:06:54.600 our territory, we will give up our nuclear arsenal. So in this case, sure, one of the parties to the 0.73

00:07:00.600 treaty is the aggressor, but the other two parties, the U.S. and the U.K., do have a treaty obligation

00:07:05.620 to step in and stop the assault against Ukraine's territorial integrity and its security.

00:07:14.660 So it is a little bit more complex than just saying it's a NATO issue. There are dimensions

00:07:20.960 beyond NATO where major powers like the US and the UK do have an actual live written treaty

00:07:28.280 obligation to step in. And by the way, even if you look beyond Ukraine, if they fail to live up

00:07:37.180 to their commitments under the Budapest memorandum, that actually imperils all future

00:07:43.820 denuclearization or non-proliferation talks. Because if you're like, I don't know, North Korea 0.81

00:07:49.360 or Iran or, you know, pick your country who's going to be in some denuclearization talk down

00:07:56.880 the line. They're going to be like, really? You want us to take your word for it, that we're

00:08:02.880 going to have some kind of international security guarantee when we give up the strongest thing we

00:08:07.660 have to protect our security and our sovereignty? Like nobody will ever believe any kind of

00:08:15.460 non-proliferation deals if the Budapest Miranda isn't lived up to.

00:08:19.060 No, I think that's an incredibly valid point, Yaroslav. And thank you for raising that.

00:08:24.020 I've seen some of the chilling footage here of fathers putting their family on buses and in cars

00:08:30.460 and staying behind to fight. The Ukrainian government has, as I understand, basically put

00:08:35.180 out that call. If you're going to stay and fight, we'll take you. This raises the question, how

00:08:40.420 prepared is Ukraine? I know you have years of a lot of Western backing and training and equipment

00:08:46.280 for Ukraine. I don't know the size of the armed forces, but how prepared logistically are they

00:08:52.180 for an attack like this? Yeah, look, I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but I mean,

00:08:58.820 Ukraine is a sizable European country. We're talking between 40 and 45 million people. It's

00:09:03.240 got a territory the size of France. But it's the second largest European country. I mean,

00:09:08.360 yeah it is it is i mean if you don't count the european part of part of russia if you look at

00:09:13.080 countries fully within europe it is the largest country in europe sure and so by european

00:09:17.880 standards it has it has a sizable armed forces now um by compared to russia it doesn't i mean

00:09:25.720 they would they're clearly outmatched by russia in in numbers and in technology and that's simply a

00:09:31.480 fact um will they put up a hell of a good fight you bet they will and even if russia succeeds in

00:09:39.160 occupying ukraine it will be really really hard for them to hold it i've seen one commentator

00:09:45.000 refer to it as the bear trying to digest the porcupine like it would not uh it would be it

00:09:51.800 would be a very difficult go so let's talk about the response further away because you're right a

00:09:58.680 a lot of the Baltic states, a lot of other states around Ukraine. In some cases, they've been down

00:10:03.500 this road before. Estonia, within the last 15 years, has seen significant Russian aggression,

00:10:08.720 in particular, as of other states like that. Further away, we saw those photos, which really

00:10:14.020 became memes a couple of weeks ago, of Canadian cabinet ministers with their little eight and a

00:10:18.840 half by 11, I stand with Ukraine signs, which is a lovely sentiment, but I don't think anyone

00:10:24.180 in Canada or in the United States or in Britain, for that matter, I've been watching a lot of UK

00:10:29.800 media today as well, is all that keen to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. So what is the support

00:10:37.420 that you would like to see from a lot of these Western states? And more practically, what do

00:10:43.260 you think is the support they're likely to send? Well, I guess I live in hope that we're going to

00:10:49.840 start to see some serious sanctions. So far, the kinds of sanctions that we've seen are the kind

00:10:54.020 you normally get in a sane environment when you're dealing with a logical actor right um when you

00:11:00.740 when you try to send a signal that for that act there will be this amount of pain and targeted

00:11:06.500 sanctions are usually where countries begin you go after the the governing class the oligarchs you

00:11:12.180 know the captains of business the people who have influence internally on the government so we've

00:11:17.460 We've seen sanctions already, like freezing the assets of, you know, cabinet ministers and key, you know, business people around Putin.

00:11:26.500 Fine. That hasn't had an effect.

00:11:28.180 And Crimea was invaded eight years ago, and it still hasn't had an effect, those sanctions.

00:11:33.820 So far, we're seeing more of those kinds of sanctions.

00:11:36.640 And that simply ain't good enough.

00:11:38.640 To push back against an ideologically driven bully like this, the only thing they get is force, and it's got to be serious pain.

00:11:50.880 What we need is like Iran-grade sanctions.

00:11:54.780 They need to be isolated. 0.94

00:11:56.000 They need to be made, not made into a pariah state.

00:11:58.460 They've made themselves a pariah state.

00:12:00.120 We need to respect their decisions and isolate them from the social normal order of how other 0.99

00:12:07.460 countries behave. That means do not trade with them. Do not recognize their passports when 0.99

00:12:12.580 Russians try to travel here or to London or to Paris for their shopping trips. No, sorry. 0.98

00:12:18.960 We don't accept those passports anymore. Turn around and go home. You don't accept them as 0.86

00:12:23.400 travelers. You freeze their commercial assets. You don't trade with them. And the

00:12:29.620 the biggest buttons we can push would be isolating Russia or booting them out of the international 0.87

00:12:36.840 financial e-commerce transaction systems like the Swift system, for example. So they go to swipe a 0.90

00:12:44.720 credit card or use a bank card. It doesn't work because the backbone infrastructure making all

00:12:50.460 that stuff work has just kicked them out. That's the kind of stuff that they will feel. And all of

00:12:55.520 a sudden, they're going to feel internal pressure. You may have already seen a lot of protests in

00:13:00.140 Moscow and St. Petersburg. Those protests would be 100 times as big if people's credit cards

00:13:05.020 suddenly don't work. So you think it's fair to put forward economic measures that go beyond just

00:13:12.380 targeting the specific oligarchs in the leadership class, but basically just Russian commerce as a

00:13:17.220 whole, including because individual people that have nothing to do with this are caught up in

00:13:21.320 those measures. Yeah, it's true. And that's the unfortunate thing. But with with a bully like

00:13:26.500 this, it's the only thing that they will it's the only thing that will speak to them. Having

00:13:32.080 having a mass unrest at their hands might might finally get them to reconsider. And keep in mind

00:13:39.200 too, though, like when we see things like, you know, discussions about natural gas and, you know,

00:13:44.180 Germany buying Russian natural gas, etc. Putin has been planning this for a long time. He is known

00:13:51.200 that the usual kind of sanctions are coming. 0.85

00:13:54.160 So he's been cozying up to China.

00:13:55.960 He's been building a market in China.

00:13:57.780 He's been cutting deals.

00:13:59.340 Germany turns off the taps.

00:14:00.860 Xi Jinping is more than hungry enough

00:14:03.840 to consume whatever natural gas Russia has to sell.

00:14:08.160 So even the usual kind of counter moves

00:14:12.120 that had some effect in the last eight years

00:14:15.800 will be less effective going forward

00:14:17.900 because he has established China

00:14:19.820 as a sanction offset. Yeah. And that's the problem with a lot of, I mean, North Korea,

00:14:26.040 that's been one of the challenges with any of the measures that have been tried there. And

00:14:29.820 obviously Russia's a much different animal, much more integrated with the West and with the rest 0.57

00:14:34.500 of the world than North Korea. But China's an interesting thing to bring up here, Yaroslav,

00:14:39.880 because in China's case, we talk a lot about the Belt and Road Initiative and China's ownership of

00:14:45.720 much of the developing world. Russia doesn't have that as much, but it does have it. And I think in

00:14:51.680 a lot of ways has flown under the radar. One notable example is with vaccines. I mean, a lot

00:14:56.880 of these even smaller European countries like Albania and whatnot, they were getting a lot of

00:15:01.580 their vaccines to buy from Russia. So there is among countries small and medium, and even India.

00:15:07.940 I mean, India has been very ambiguous and almost ambivalent about this because I think India has

00:15:14.000 enjoyed its relationship with Russia. There are still a large group of countries that do have

00:15:19.360 in some way a debt to Russia, either literally or figurative, and as such, are not wanting to

00:15:25.280 get involved here. Well, yeah, you're right. That is at play here, and it's not just vaccines. I

00:15:31.140 mean, Russia has actively been building vassal states all around it. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,

00:15:37.420 on um belarus is a great example it's really strengthened its its position russia has really

00:15:45.700 strengthened its position as a as an overlord of belarus in the last uh in the last half year or so

00:15:50.980 and yeah so that makes a difference i mean they are and it is just the new uh incarnation of what

00:15:58.720 we used to call a you know a direct empire now it's just indirect empires by by creating dependence

00:16:03.980 on your military support, your military security, your trade, and so on.

00:16:12.760 So let me just ask you in closing here about the humanitarian aspect of this,

00:16:18.200 because war creates casualties and it isn't just the soldiers on the battlefield.

00:16:21.940 We're already seeing people flee.

00:16:23.800 This isn't just about those eastern regions that Russia claims.

00:16:26.840 We're already seeing talk about the risk of Kiev falling.

00:16:30.840 falling so there are going to be people that are in need how is uh the ukrainian canadian congress

00:16:36.440 trying to support well the ukrainian canadian congress it's a it's a it's a peak uh association

00:16:42.920 that that uh that knits together all the other ukrainian organizations in canada um so what it

00:16:49.880 has done is is partnered with the biggest charitable foundation the ukrainian um uh

00:16:55.720 the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.

00:16:59.080 So the two of them have come together

00:17:00.340 and jointly established a hub for all humanitarian giving.

00:17:05.720 So people don't need to wonder,

00:17:07.220 do I donate to like Red Cross Ukraine

00:17:09.460 or do I, you know, like, where do I go?

00:17:11.840 So they've established a joint foundation

00:17:13.840 run by the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress

00:17:17.020 and by the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.

00:17:18.860 You can find it through either one or the other

00:17:21.760 through their websites.

00:17:22.760 They're both promoting it heavily now.

00:17:24.740 And right now, they're just amassing funds.

00:17:27.240 They don't yet know how they will need to be deployed, but they know they will be.

00:17:31.040 We will have a humanitarian crisis, whether it's a refugee crisis or whether it's blood supply or whether it's shoring up hospitals or sending doctors or whatever it may be.

00:17:41.660 There will be serious needs, and they want to be prepared to deploy as soon as those needs become apparent.

00:17:49.440 Yaroslav Baran, thank you very much for your time.

00:17:51.420 Really appreciate it.

00:17:52.620 My pleasure.

00:17:53.220 Good to be here.

00:17:54.240 thank you that was a quite uh quite an important interview and it's again someone who knows the

00:17:59.440 situation very well who knows uh the history and the context of that because i do think the context

00:18:05.040 is important here and one thing i i would raise interestingly enough i did uh not that long ago

00:18:10.000 actually for fun a course on war and conflict and it was a year of uh not a european a university

00:18:16.640 level course which looked at through history a lot of the european battles a lot of the big global

00:18:21.200 battles. And one of the takeaways from it, and there have been numerous studies about this,

00:18:26.160 there's a big project called the, I think it's the Correlates of War Project, which literally just

00:18:30.520 tracks conflict. And the one takeaway, you can't look at the numbers without realizing

00:18:35.280 that interstate war just doesn't happen. It does in very small scales like Azerbaijan, Armenia,

00:18:43.600 but these are typically very targeted, very local. Civil wars are very common. Wars between

00:18:48.400 non-state actors and state actors, very common. But the idea of one country, World War II or World

00:18:54.980 War I style, going into another country, this is not a common thing anymore. And we can be very

00:19:00.180 grateful for that. But when this happens, and we've known it was happening, we've known it was

00:19:05.540 a risk, it raises significant questions about what the appropriate response is. And you get two

00:19:11.820 schools on this. You get the realists that say, this isn't our problem. They can just do what

00:19:16.440 they want over there. This isn't our problem. And again, that's a natural position, I think,

00:19:20.640 for a lot of Canadians and Americans to take. And then there's the position that is forming

00:19:24.760 the backbone of agreements like NATO and the UN Security Council, which say collective defense.

00:19:31.160 You attack one of us, it's like you've attacked all of us. And interestingly enough, I saw an

00:19:35.340 interview last week with, oh, who was it with? It was with a former British defense secretary. I

00:19:41.360 think Michael Portillo is his name. And he was saying that at the time, 20 years ago or so,

00:19:46.900 when he was the defense secretary and NATO was trying to, or Ukraine was trying to join NATO,

00:19:52.440 a lot of the concerns by NATO members were, we think it's likely that Ukraine is going to be

00:19:57.980 attacked by Russia. So we don't want to be in a situation where we have to take action against

00:20:04.580 Russia. Because if a NATO country is attacked, every other NATO country has an obligation

00:20:09.940 direction to defend them. It's called collective defense. And that was the concern. So this has

00:20:15.560 been known. And the question is, do we actually want to stick our necks out for Ukraine? That's

00:20:20.500 the question that's been asked by a lot of countries. And NATO's position on this is no.

00:20:25.540 If this is contained, it may well stay that way. If this starts to spill over into other areas,

00:20:30.640 that's when you may see a change taking place. Obviously, we're going to follow this. I'm going

00:20:35.080 to be perfectly candid here. I am not an expert in Russia or Ukraine. I know geopolitics. I know

00:20:40.640 international relations. I know the international institutions. But I am going to bring you guests

00:20:45.160 who know this when we talk about this. And we'll certainly have updates as this conflict goes on,

00:20:50.740 which, as we've saying, is changing by the minute here. So that's our Russia-Ukraine update for

00:20:57.500 today. I do want to change the turn the page just a little bit here. And obviously, we've had a lot

00:21:02.600 of news this past week a lot of the bank accounts in fact most of them have been unfrozen so you

00:21:08.120 may recall on tuesday we had tom marazzo who is the trucker convoy volunteer organizer we spoke to

00:21:14.460 and he said all of his bank accounts had been frozen well as of yesterday afternoon they have

00:21:19.060 been unfrozen we have justin trudeau saying the emergency is no longer so not that it changes

00:21:25.780 much in our day-to-day life because if it's a fake emergency life isn't that much different when

00:21:29.940 the emergency has been declared over, or the so-called emergency, as we've said.

00:21:34.540 But again, I would make it known and note here that we should not let Justin Trudeau off the

00:21:41.220 hook just because he's decided that the emergency is no longer a case. And these legal challenges

00:21:46.200 that we're seeing from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, from the Canadian

00:21:50.540 Constitution Foundation, all of these things, I think, need to be continuing and will continue

00:21:56.420 to pay attention to them.

00:21:57.820 We've got to take a quick break here.

00:21:59.460 When we come back in just a couple of moments,

00:22:01.320 we hear a lot of talk from politicians

00:22:03.640 about all the reasons we can't exit the pandemic

00:22:06.020 and end restrictions.

00:22:07.340 And they say, well, the science said,

00:22:08.820 well, forget about what they say about the science.

00:22:11.220 A group of scientists and experts have said

00:22:13.120 that there is a way out of the pandemic.

00:22:15.280 It can start right now.

00:22:17.060 We'll talk about that up next.

00:22:23.360 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:22:26.420 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:22:32.480 Obviously, we've been speaking for weeks, for years now about the COVID restrictions that have in many ways,

00:22:39.640 as I've said time and time again, been in some key areas far worse than the virus against which these restrictions were intended to protect,

00:22:47.800 especially as the virus has gotten weaker through the Omicron phase when some governments were insisting on adding restrictions.

00:22:55.080 Now, slowly but surely, we've seen some of these start to be lifted, notably Alberta and Saskatchewan took a very swift approach to getting rid of their vaccine passports in Ontario and Quebec and other provinces.

00:23:08.340 We have a bit of a slower uptake, but the big question here is when is the pandemic over and who gets to decide?

00:23:15.440 It's the World Health Organization that said we were in the midst of a pandemic, but do we have to wait for their cue to say it's over?

00:23:21.840 Well, a few weeks back, you may recall we spoke to Irvin Student of the Institute for 21st Century Questions, which had assembled a crack committee called the Canada Science and Policy Committee to exit the pandemic.

00:23:35.460 The focus was to figure out in concrete ways how to get Canada from the indefinite, never-ending, lockdown, permanent emergency to a place of where we want to be, which is hopefully getting rid of all of these restrictions.

00:23:49.440 Irvin Student joins me back on the show now.

00:23:51.640 The committee has, after just a few weeks, said that the pandemic is effectively over.

00:23:57.100 And let's start there, Irvin, because words matter.

00:24:00.320 And you're not saying over, you're saying effectively over.

00:24:03.160 What does that mean and how does it differ from over?

00:24:07.900 Well, thanks, first of all, for having me.

00:24:09.640 Thanks for all your reporting.

00:24:11.180 And thanks for allowing these types of interviews with proper answers about serious topics.

00:24:16.580 Andrew, the pandemic is effectively over for Canada.

00:24:20.580 We've declared it such on the Canada Science Policy Committee to exit the pandemic.

00:24:25.580 It's a similar declaration for countries like Singapore, Israel, Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland.

00:24:34.580 I could go on.

00:24:36.580 They're no less smart than we are.

00:24:39.580 In fact, they've collapsed their systems less.

00:24:42.580 they've determined that it is now effectively endemic which means that it has a highly seasonal

00:24:47.380 character first of all secondly that their systems are able to deal with any rises and falls of

00:24:54.180 course during seasonal variation as are ours and thirdly on a systems understanding in Canada

00:25:02.340 it is the minor problem amongst eight crises of system that are very serious in the countries all

00:25:07.380 those things combined mean that it's steady as it's full on as she goes through the systems we

00:25:13.860 exit with high energy the pandemic is over for us we are not following the science as a science

00:25:19.780 project because then you would say well a virus never ends we could be following the science

00:25:24.580 and studying covet 19 for a century and that's what happens with all historical viruses it is

00:25:30.180 a policy lead the science informs that and we're at a point both through vaccination other other

00:25:36.100 immunity other interventions and the passage of the virus the mutations at a point where we're

00:25:41.780 ready to exit quite easily across the systems that we'll discuss so that's the considered

00:25:47.060 determination across huge study and consultation by the committee over a short period of time

00:25:52.020 and we're ready to go so we presented our exit plan on the back of an endemic endemicity declaration

00:25:57.460 that we say with considerable certainty and consistent with other positions and our own

00:26:02.820 domestic circumstances. You mentioned a few moments ago, Irvin, a whole list of countries

00:26:08.000 that have done what we've been hoping for in Canada for quite some time. They've lifted

00:26:11.980 restrictions. They've declared the pandemic effectively over. And in those cases, though,

00:26:17.120 it was governments that made that declaration, governments that made a determination to lift

00:26:21.960 these restrictions. Why in Canada, and I mean no disrespect to you and your group here, but why in

00:26:27.300 Canada is it falling to a private sector group to make this declaration instead of governments

00:26:32.240 making it we're not for profit but we are doing it in some sense for the government which is

00:26:38.000 unable to make that declaration for a host of reasons both backing themselves into ideological

00:26:44.000 corners into corners of fetish into slogans uh corners on online they're just unable to say what

00:26:52.400 what is obvious to a policy community that is observing uh this both nationally and international

00:26:58.640 i should say it is a policy lead so when you say government it is not scientists that declare the

00:27:03.440 pandemic is over the scientists study and they advise but government and policy people decide

00:27:09.760 this is what we've got wrong from the ab initio at the very start in cam that we started working

00:27:14.480 in slogans follow the science or the virus is in charge nay policies in charge we study the virus

00:27:22.720 we have science advisors amongst many other advisors across the disciplines and they advise

00:27:27.920 policy people who make a determination the policy determination is that we're good to go across the

00:27:34.240 systems the science determination it is that is endemic it feeds into a policy conclusion

00:27:39.920 and we provide the choreography of exit across the systems the other countries that you've mentioned

00:27:44.720 did not collapse their systems to the same degree that we have and I'm sure we'll discuss that

00:27:49.200 which is why contrary to what we say online or what the government imagines when it says

00:27:53.440 i gotta have gut feeling that we should we should exit slowly steady she goes see what the numbers

00:27:58.880 are it has to be full on full energy not just restrictions obviously restrictions go uh

00:28:04.480 immediately and then we we will discuss that but across the other systems that have collapsed

00:28:09.120 national unity public health non-covered education the economy international the international

00:28:15.840 picture the social fabric we've collapsed those to a very very considerable degree and we so we

00:28:20.880 we can't just afford to look at COVID cases, ICU counts, all of that is for the good. But it has

00:28:27.320 to be in a complex of systems thinking. And the conclusion is, we're off, we got to go, go, go.

00:28:32.860 Otherwise, the systems continue to collapse, COVID notwithstanding.

00:28:37.320 Let me then ask you about why that's happening in your estimation and your fellow committee

00:28:43.520 members here. Is it because government is relying on bad science or flawed science? Or is it that

00:28:48.980 governments are in your view drawing the wrong conclusions from science that is at its core sound

00:28:55.300 it's a great question and it's one for the history books and we do at the end of our uh this exit

00:29:00.580 table that we provided i recommend all people look at is eight by 21 matrix with detailed

00:29:05.780 choreography across all regions of the country call us all systems at the end we do call for a

00:29:10.820 royal commission on the pandemic lessons learned and best practices around the world my own

00:29:15.940 um working hypothesis is that we collapsed intellectually and systems wise in the in

00:29:25.460 the machinery of government at the very start whereas science advisors and scientists were

00:29:31.460 at the very margins of public decision making in 2019 we all of a sudden said the scientists

00:29:37.460 are in charge and our scientists are some of the best in the world they're clinically excellent

00:29:42.020 and they're well-intentioned good professionals but with the greatest respect they stink at public

00:29:47.220 policy public policy is public policy is a separate craft no less complex and requiring

00:29:53.540 no less intellectual um capacity well yeah they're not economists they're not constitutional scholars

00:30:01.380 and i mean those are just two significant things that were absent from much of the discourse early

00:30:06.580 on especially but i'd say even now to some extent education specialists social social scientists

00:30:11.940 social policy people economists business people constitutional lawyers international strategists

00:30:17.860 national unity thinkers uh everything related to the complex system that we call uh canadian

00:30:24.580 society second largest country in the world and we imagine that all of our thinking reduces to

00:30:29.780 covet the covet is the central condition and covet is obviously an amazing a massive shock to the

00:30:34.660 system but all along we should have had a complex of thinkers and a synthesis at the top called a

00:30:42.580 policy synthesis that's what leadership is about we collapsed that in favor of the scientists who

00:30:47.700 all of a sudden had decision-making power and veto power over school closures business closures

00:30:52.820 border closures the social fabric vaccination on vaccination they signed off on government and

00:30:59.860 and decision-making in all these spheres

00:31:03.040 that extended well beyond their legitimate ken.

00:31:05.480 In many cases, they didn't know what they were doing,

00:31:07.160 but they were charged with this

00:31:08.680 and perhaps they grew to be confident about it

00:31:10.900 and it's clear that they overstretched.

00:31:13.480 What we've done on this committee,

00:31:14.580 I think it's very original across the countries

00:31:17.500 and I'm not aware of any other national committee

00:31:20.320 in any other country around the world that has done this.

00:31:23.080 We brought a communion between the scientists

00:31:25.400 and the doctors and the policy community

00:31:27.780 across many disciplines.

00:31:29.140 brought them together to exit nationally and we have a policy lead the science feeds into that

00:31:35.380 and so the choreography we have is is that of a policy choreography determined by

00:31:41.300 excellent science and scientists one thing that was interesting looking at the table that you

00:31:48.420 provided here is you don't just break it down chronologically you know from steps you take in

00:31:53.220 February and March and beyond but also regionally and some things are general you know the end of

00:31:58.580 restrictions that's something that applies in the north atlanta canada central canada the west

00:32:04.020 where are the areas where you do think there are regional differences here that need to be

00:32:07.700 taken into consideration because that's not something that we've really heard discussed

00:32:11.300 in fact in a lot of ways it's been a very one-size-fits-all solution that has been offered

00:32:15.940 by the federal government certainly it's a great question where the country is very big i repeat

00:32:21.460 it's second biggest country in the world and we divide it into four regions atlantic center

00:32:25.700 centers canada uh sorry ontario quebec uh the west four provinces and the huge north which is

00:32:31.460 the size territory of the european union so it's huge uh for ontario for instance uh the most

00:32:39.060 cataclysmic school closures we recommend an immediate door-to-door campaign to find a

00:32:44.420 hundred thousand plus third bucket kids kids out of all school permanently not homeschooled not

00:32:49.300 pod school not physical school no school we must be found immediately that's particular to ontario

00:32:55.300 and then something like section 22 that has allowed officers of medical health to close

00:33:01.300 schools and close businesses in a very decentralized way we we advised for that to be rescinded in the

00:33:07.300 Ontario Health Protection Promotion Act immediately on top of all of the restrictions vaccine

00:33:13.540 passports but if you go to the north of the country all of a sudden we sit we talk about

00:33:18.500 international borders we talk about borders between the territories very different realities

00:33:23.220 because they they are completely isolated if you go to the west of the country we have specific

00:33:28.660 recommendations related to indigenous communities to to business and and grants and loan guarantees

00:33:36.660 we also announce a national uh canada walk for youth on april 3rd of this year to really

00:33:43.220 physically impose the youth who have suffered most during this pandemic of canada

00:33:48.100 to get out in sports teams schools communities university level to show their force they are

00:33:54.660 the future so the choreography you're right is very regional properly so because the pandemic

00:33:59.860 has been very variegated across the regions through time across eight systems let me go

00:34:05.140 through the systems quickly there's covid public health non-covid public health there's education

00:34:11.060 the economy institutions national unity social fabric international one quick thing that people

00:34:17.060 won't note it won't won't recognize including decision makers is while we call for immediate

00:34:22.500 uh removal of vaccination mandates vaccination conditionality although continued new vaccination

00:34:29.460 campaigns for the most immunosuppressed immunocompromised and aged when new vaccines

00:34:34.180 come out for everyone else it's off to the races we're learning we're studying immediately without

00:34:40.900 fetish without without any zombie exit without anything gradual immediate because we need that

00:34:45.700 high energy but people don't realize that there are all these vaccination impositions across the

00:34:51.060 society that are out of control businesses schools private schools camps universities sports clubs

00:34:57.940 that are just being imposed and proliferated out of control mostly for marketing or fetish

00:35:04.420 purposes or ideological purposes and when the government stops the vaccination mandates at

00:35:09.220 the center these continue and they create huge chaos in the social fabric so all these systems

00:35:14.500 need to be understood in their totality and we call for an end to that again not for ideological

00:35:19.040 purposes but because that's over we're off to the races across the systems oh I mean obviously a lot

00:35:25.220 of the restrictions to do with travel to do with public servants to do with some of the national

00:35:31.220 level things like vaccine procurement or areas that are within the purview of the federal government

00:35:35.480 a lot of the things that you're pushing for when it comes to health care systems when it comes to

00:35:39.460 education are things that would have to be instituted at a provincial level and we know

00:35:44.320 that premiers talk the first ministers and the prime minister they all get together but when

00:35:49.240 push comes to shove how do you choreograph something when you're talking about 13 different

00:35:52.960 governments not to mention local and regional governments underneath that it's a great question

00:35:58.400 on the federal side just strict federal powers obviously we are we advise and call for a

00:36:05.400 reinstitution of federal control over interprovincial borders and those need to be removed

00:36:11.160 physical borders regulatory borders psychological borders let us never imagine in the future that

00:36:16.920 provinces will just willy-nilly set up interprovincial borders that's proper and you're

00:36:21.320 just talking about within the country there that's within the country these are interprovincial and

00:36:26.200 provincial territorial borders that have been erected willy-nilly by provinces and the federal

00:36:31.640 government ceded that authority the federal government was reimposed itself and rid the

00:36:35.880 country of these internal borders because otherwise we don't have a country we don't have a federation

00:36:39.880 huge blockages to economic uh wealth and travel and psychological unity but the federal government

00:36:46.280 must bang heads the leaders are the provincial governments that have imposed restrictions for a

00:36:51.720 variety of interests and and and purposes the federal government must choreograph this exit

00:36:57.480 by bringing everyone together and launching this national plan a lot of the instruments are in the

00:37:02.120 provincial hands some municipal but the federal government must declare for the country as we've

00:37:08.440 already allowed it to do through this national committee non-partisan that it's over it's over

00:37:15.240 because other countries have already said such our capacity to deal with any uh seasonal uptick

00:37:23.880 is plentiful and on a systems understanding canada has other fish to fry very serious ones

00:37:31.480 so the federal government has huge instruments has huge spending power still

00:37:35.400 it has inter-provincial it has international power and it controls huge institutions

00:37:40.440 sectors like the banks all the all the inter-provincial international transport sectors

00:37:45.720 the north which in my other thinking is the future of the country will open up

00:37:50.440 a huge arteries of imagination and economic and social activity and that all of that is in Ottawa.

00:37:58.680 One dimension of this roadmap that I found quite fascinating because it's not something that's

00:38:03.800 gotten I'd say any substantive discussion is the rebuilding of institutional trust in Canada. I

00:38:10.760 think certainly mistrust has been something we hear spoken about on an individual level and

00:38:15.560 certainly in media it's a discussion that I've had here on this show and elsewhere

00:38:19.000 people not trusting public health officials politicians and in many cases for good reason but

00:38:23.800 you've actually put this specifically front and center in the roadmap recovery of trust in

00:38:29.240 institutions and also institutional efficacy so it goes hand in hand i think the institutions

00:38:34.040 need to be effective and they also need to communicate that efficacy do you i mean first

00:38:39.160 off do you agree with my assertion that this has not gotten nearly enough attention and i guess more

00:38:44.600 fundamentally how do you rebuild that trust correct it's not got enough attention because

00:38:50.600 some of the ones that need to provide the attention are the ones in whom attend trust

00:38:55.240 has been lost frankly so we start with the information space i don't want to call it the

00:38:59.800 media space i call the information space how canadians get their information how they feed

00:39:04.680 information to government how government feeds information to canadians over the last two years

00:39:10.120 we've been unable to tell our own stories our own realities it's also important that we it's also

00:39:16.760 explains why we do regional roadmaps on top of the national one because the regions are so different

00:39:22.440 amongst themselves and we're not able to tell that diversity of experience to the central governments

00:39:27.960 to media apparatus and based in toronto and montreal who are not leaving zoom rooms so media

00:39:33.400 is one of them huge um deficiency in performance over the last two years we can explain why

00:39:39.640 but that needs to be reconsolidated if we're going to have a country that is able to inform

00:39:44.680 its decision makers about realities on the ground and tell its own stories to itself.

00:39:49.400 Government. Governments at all levels have essentially been operating in emergency mode for

00:39:54.600 two years. Leave aside the Emergencies Act in Ottawa. This emergency's power is almost universal.

00:40:01.560 It's by two or three people at the center of government in all the provincial capitals and

00:40:06.600 the federal capital making decrees by fiat for countries that that a country for a country they

00:40:15.160 do not see that is again the second largest in the world with those feedback mechanisms absent

00:40:20.680 because the media itself is not reporting properly the media itself is not leaving the zoom room

00:40:25.400 and as a result regardless of the intellect and good intention of the decision makers huge huge

00:40:31.320 mistakes of public policy and administration hence the eight crises of system we have in the country

00:40:37.800 that are not seen in other countries countries less developed or smaller they just did not

00:40:43.240 collapse because they didn't collapse the institutions you know of course there are

00:40:46.120 other institutions like if you want to call the emergency or police services you have to wonder

00:40:50.520 whether they'll come in some cases if you want to do banking if there's a mistake in the banking if

00:40:55.800 your account is frozen in in in in the current services what are the appeal mechanisms

00:41:01.160 if your child son or daughter is not being educated because of closures in schools and

00:41:06.920 the third bucket condition we talked about what is the appeal mechanism how do you get information

00:41:11.800 about how to re-educate your child this is all collapse of systems and institutions that were

00:41:16.840 foreign to us in 2019 and we have to carefully reconsolidate reconstitute these institutions if

00:41:22.760 we're going to have a country so as we talked about earlier this is something that you are

00:41:28.520 driving with your committee to advise the government governments do not like moving swiftly

00:41:33.960 as we've seen even with places like Alberta and Saskatchewan which have been more quick than other

00:41:39.160 jurisdictions to want to lift their vaccine passports and whatnot they are putting plans

00:41:44.200 in place that take weeks to months to do it so how do you with your data with your information

00:41:50.040 go to governments and say no you can do this immediately right so great great question again

00:41:56.360 good questions as always andrew d i want to for your distinguished listeners just disabuse them

00:42:03.000 of the idea that the exit is just removal of restrictions well that but that is the first

00:42:07.560 step that's where that's coming from it's it's a concurrent step and why because we we say that at

00:42:13.080 the very first box amongst hundreds of them removal of all restrictions which provides

00:42:18.600 over the immunos immunocompromised immunosuppressed why um not because i like or dislike restrictions

00:42:25.560 because on the system's understanding we've collapsed all the other ones and therefore we

00:42:30.440 need to move with speed but if we were only to remove restrictions we would still have 200 000

00:42:34.920 kids out of school still huge learning gaps we still have tens of thousands of businesses

00:42:39.400 disintegrated huge social conflict so we need to restitch all that as we remove restrictions it's

00:42:44.360 not remove restrictions and off she goes because that is continued chaos so government needs to

00:42:50.760 move on all systems beyond just removal of restrictions which is the negative step

00:42:55.480 governments are historically slow canada is extremely slow so we have to do things that

00:43:00.360 are counterintuitive to us when the medical officer of health of ontario kieran moore says

00:43:06.360 i imagine my gut tells me that the masks of students will be off at some point but later

00:43:11.160 than the rest that's a gut that's that's his gut talking he's talking to canadian there which is

00:43:16.040 the gut it's not the gut the strategic approach is we're off to the races why because our kids are

00:43:22.440 two years behind on learning and many of them are not in school why must we be off to the races in

00:43:27.400 national unity through uncertain borders because the country is falling apart in the centrifugal

00:43:32.360 forces why must we be off to the race in the economy because if we wait more businesses will

00:43:37.720 disintegrate they don't stick around for you to have a coffee and say i feel comfortable now

00:43:43.000 lifting restrictions these are what i call twitter or facebook positions but they're not strategic

00:43:47.960 positions for a country like canada and therefore we need to overcome the foolish instinct to to

00:43:53.080 believe our twitter feed and say this is the structure of our country this is the structure

00:43:57.480 of the systems in collapse there are eight of them we need to inject maximum energy at the front end

00:44:02.760 in order for all of them to begin to reconsolidate and only then might we in more difficult post

00:44:08.840 pandemic circumstance reach 2019 because we've collapsed way beyond way before 2019 we remove

00:44:15.560 everything today we're still not at 2019 quality of life other countries are because they didn't

00:44:20.120 collapse to the same extent the report you can access at i21cq.com the institute for 21st century

00:44:29.880 questions it is the product of the canada science and policy committee to exit the pandemic the

00:44:35.160 Chair of that committee, Irvin Student, joins me now. Irvin, always a pleasure, sir. Thanks for

00:44:39.020 coming on today. Thank you. I'm co-chair of Quadro Caramontang, doctor, and we've brought

00:44:44.540 the scientists and policy people together, and always a pleasure. Thanks, Andrew.

00:44:49.240 And yeah, I'm glad he mentioned Dr. Quadro Caramontang. He's been fantastic, and of all

00:44:53.700 the doctors that the mainstream media TV shows tend to draw from, he's been one of the strongest

00:44:59.600 because he's actually been speaking out, especially with children, but in general,

00:45:03.760 about the negative effects of lockdowns

00:45:06.660 and I think it's so important to do that.

00:45:08.420 Again, being anti-lockdown is not being anti-science

00:45:11.400 and this is one of the most disruptive

00:45:13.240 and deceptive messages we've seen

00:45:15.820 in a lot of media coverage

00:45:16.980 because again, some of the very scientists are saying,

00:45:20.300 hey, we need to follow the science and reopen

00:45:22.800 yet somehow those things are not always given

00:45:25.160 the political attention they deserve.

00:45:27.440 We've got to take a quick break here.

00:45:29.380 When we come back, we will close out the show.

00:45:31.400 This is the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:45:33.760 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:45:39.500 well i know it's we tried to pack a lot into the show here my thanks to yaroslav baran and also

00:45:49.380 to urban student and also importantly to all of you tuning in we're going to be back tomorrow with

00:45:54.840 another brand new edition of the andrew lawton show i'm not even going to tell you what's on it

00:45:58.720 i'm not trying to keep you in suspense but i just don't know that much is going on that i don't want

00:46:03.440 to commit to a path and then find that news is causing us to rip up the run sheet and start

00:46:08.180 again. But whatever it is, I assure you it'll be good. My thanks to you all. If you want to

00:46:12.040 contribute to keep this show on the air, you can head on over to donate.tnc.news. And we thank you

00:46:18.240 so much for your generous support. We'll talk to you tomorrow, folks. This is The Andrew Lawton

00:46:21.920 Show. Thank you, God bless, and good day. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:46:28.460 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - February 24, 2022

Russia declares war on Ukraine – is this Canada's fight？

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