Juno News - Ryerson law students sign letter defending Hamas violence

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:01:20.420 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew lawton show here

00:01:30.640 on true north it is monday october 23rd 2023 and i apologize in advance if my voice doesn't make it

00:01:39.840 to the end of the show right now i'm coming mildly strong but i don't think i will be able to hold

00:01:45.860 that up to the end. By Saturday night, I had no voice whatsoever. No, I'm not sick. I don't need

00:01:51.300 to get like the 19th booster or wear my triple masks when I go to the bathroom or anything like

00:01:55.920 that. I was talking up a storm on stage and off stage Saturday at True North Nation, our first

00:02:02.720 ever live and in-person events. We had like 450 people come out to see me and Harrison and Rachel

00:02:10.920 Emanuel and Brett Wilson and Danielle Smith and Lindsay Shepard and Candice Malcolm. And I feel

00:02:15.640 like I've probably forgotten a couple of people who are on stage it's not intentional or personal

00:02:20.040 but uh to those of you that I got to meet there thank you so much for coming out uh we had we

00:02:25.580 decided early on when we were putting this thing together we wanted it to be fun I have been to

00:02:31.040 many boring conferences and there is nothing worse than being locked up in a conference room all day

00:02:38.260 and forced to listen to people like me drone on we wanted to have it be a bit lighter so we're like

00:02:43.120 what could we do to make it fun? We brought in a popcorn machine. We had a game show and in a

00:02:49.040 little bit of an homage to the greatest hate symbol in the history of Canada, we had a bouncy

00:02:54.740 castle. It was a way to ward off the woke forces that might want to dismantle all the work that

00:03:00.780 we're doing. I said on stage, I didn't realize all I needed to do to trigger the left was just

00:03:05.320 eat an apple. Had I known that it would have been slightly cheaper than the bouncy castle,

00:03:09.320 But I did get a picture in front of the Bounty Castle with this lovely lady, Tamara Leach, who came with her husband and sister and met some people there, which was quite lovely.

00:03:21.320 And, you know, I honored her just by naming her from the stage and she got a standing ovation.

00:03:25.900 She is now back in court for the never ending trial, although a bit of good news on the horizon in that front that is breaking in nature.

00:03:33.960 the crown has withdrawn its charge of violating bail of breaking her bail restrictions this just

00:03:41.640 came down the pipeline in the last couple of hours the crown said it was denying the charge

00:03:47.300 that it had put on her last year where you may remember this she took a photo at the justice

00:03:52.940 center for constitute well she didn't even take it someone took a photo of her and some other folks 0.99

00:03:57.500 at the justice center for constitutional freedoms dinner and in the photo like i don't know four

00:04:03.120 people down was Tom Marazzo, with whom she was not supposed to have any contact. So they literally

00:04:08.040 had a Canada-wide warrant and had police pick her up in Medicine Hat and fly her to Ottawa to go

00:04:14.420 back to jail. So that charge has now been withdrawn. And one of the reasons the court said

00:04:19.980 was that, or the prosecutor said, was that, well, you know, this trial is already going on so long.

00:04:25.240 Let's just focus all our efforts on this. So they want to make sure they can really, really give her 1.00

00:04:29.860 the gears on the current charges they're trying and not have to worry about this one and incidentally

00:04:35.260 Tom Marazzo is going to be on the show tomorrow not about this we'll be talking to him about

00:04:39.100 something else but I I was worried and I said to Tamara I should probably shouldn't share this but

00:04:44.560 I think it's fine now I said to Tamara I said I'll take the picture with you but like please

00:04:48.680 don't like please tell me this isn't going to like violate your bail condition she said no I think

00:04:52.800 we're fine so who knows if like a bouncy castle is like this great symbol of all of these things

00:04:58.220 she's not supposed to be doing now in the eyes of the state. You never know. But she did not seem 0.89

00:05:02.840 to be phased by that and actually brought to our True North organizer some of these delicious mini

00:05:08.140 cheesecakes from Medicine Hat, which were, I looked like I ate them all. I did not eat them

00:05:12.480 all. I only had a bit of one, but they were absolutely delightful. So thanks again to everyone

00:05:17.180 for coming out there. Getting into the breaking news today on the non Tamera Leach trial front,

00:05:23.720 of which there is a great deal, I wanted to discuss this scourge of anti-Semitism that we see

00:05:30.660 coming out of the shadows. Now, I've quoted oftentimes my friend Laura Rosen-Cohen,

00:05:37.200 who's a fantastic writer, who coined the phrase, everyone meets at Jew hate junction. 0.63

00:05:42.700 And it's, you know, quite a little witty, snappy phrase, but there's a lot of truth behind it,

00:05:47.840 because it's the place that seems to be the natural resting point for a lot of bigots.

00:05:53.300 They can all sort of agree on being anti-Semites and being anti-Semitic.

00:05:57.360 And in the first few days of Hamas's latest attack on Israel,

00:06:02.320 it was very trendy to condemn Hamas, to denounce Hamas.

00:06:05.900 It was the morally right thing to do, but it was also the trendy thing to do.

00:06:09.820 And the people who have a great deal of disdain and contempt for Jews

00:06:13.760 kept their mouths shut, some of them, not all of them, for a couple of days.

00:06:18.240 Well, as Israel mounts its counteroffensive and tries to push the Hamas forces back and relegate terrorism to its place, 0.86

00:06:27.840 people who despise Israel and its existence and the fact that the Jewish people have a state of their own have not been able to keep quiet for long.

00:06:36.540 And interestingly enough, even some of the people that have previously apologized for their statements are now reverting back to it.

00:06:43.440 For example, Sarah Jamma, who is a, well, was until this morning, a new Democrat member of Ontario's legislature.

00:06:51.060 You may recall she issued this statement about, you know, resistance and all that.

00:06:56.840 And then she kind of pivoted that to a pseudo-apology walkback of sorts.

00:07:04.600 And then the NDP was like, okay, great, we've dealt with this.

00:07:08.720 Well, now she started doubling down again. 0.99

00:07:10.820 And we hear from Sarah Jama more reiterating of this, and essentially she's been unrepentant.

00:07:16.880 Well, this morning she was removed from the NDP caucus.

00:07:21.020 Now, some NDPers who agree with everything she says on Israel are very unhappy about this.

00:07:26.580 But if you want your party to exist on the fringes, you welcome people like Sarah Jama.

00:07:31.840 If you want it to be a serious party, which in Ontario it kind of is, then this was probably the right move.

00:07:37.880 But the reason I bring all of this up right now is that it is increasingly normalized and mainstream

00:07:43.840 to take very radical anti-Israel positions. And I'm not saying criticism of Israel is always

00:07:49.820 anti-Semitic or that criticism of Israel is always radical, but I'm saying that the very 0.96

00:07:54.880 fervent anti-Israel rhetoric is almost always anti-Semitic in nature. And when I say it's

00:08:01.320 mainstreamed, I mean people that are looking to enter the workforce, finish up their studies,

00:08:05.360 are owning up to the fact that they hold Israel in a great deal of contempt, not just the decisions

00:08:11.340 the country makes, but the existence of the country. You may have seen this. Over the weekend,

00:08:15.920 there was an open letter distributive signed by dozens of students at TMU's law school. Now,

00:08:22.860 you may not know what TMU is. I don't think they do either. It's okay. This is Toronto Metropolitan

00:08:28.500 University, which is the name of, it's the artist formerly known as Ryerson, because saying the

00:08:34.980 word Ryerson is now a hate crime. So you have to say Toronto Metropolitan University, or you can

00:08:40.820 actually say uneducated moronic douchebag institution, because that is essentially the 0.97

00:08:46.180 reputation it attracts when these sorts of students are defining it. Now, these are law 0.98

00:08:51.200 students. These are students who have gone through undergraduate studies. They are educated by

00:08:56.120 definition, and now they are about to enter the wonderful world of law. Now, you may have some

00:09:02.840 criticisms about lawyers and I think that's fair, but I want to read some of the comments in this

00:09:08.300 letter to you. This is a letter that they signed that they put their names to. 1L students who are

00:09:13.840 in their first year of law school, 2L students, 3L students, also alumni, and in this letter

00:09:19.840 they say that they recognize the apartheid state referred to as, quote, Israel is a product of

00:09:28.620 settler colonialism. They say Israel is responsible for an illegal occupation and

00:09:33.780 ethnically cleansing. They say Israel is a settler colony. And more importantly, they say

00:09:39.540 we stand in solidarity with Palestine and support all forms of Palestinian resistance

00:09:46.160 and efforts toward liberation. All forms. They go on to say they condemn any statement that shifts

00:09:52.680 the narrative away from colonialism. They say it's not a war. We can't both sides it. They say

00:09:57.660 Israel's the bad guy unequivocally because they are the oppressor and Hamas and the Palestinians 1.00

00:10:03.280 are the oppressed. This is a letter they have a right to issue. They have a right to sign it.

00:10:10.400 One of the things that is worth noting is that law students are in about two weeks time going

00:10:15.520 to be applying for jobs or interviewing for jobs at Toronto Bay Street firms. Now you may or may

00:10:21.140 not know this and I don't think it's an unfair stereotype but there are some high-profile Jewish

00:10:26.100 lawyers around that I would hope would raise some very serious concerns within their firms

00:10:31.340 about these students who are not just expressing their opinions, but expressing opinions

00:10:35.920 that literally and explicitly justify and condone violence. When they say all forms of resistance,

00:10:42.400 they mean that paratrooping in and kidnapping an Israeli grandma and beheading a baby and raping 0.98

00:10:49.800 a teenager, well, that is all just resistance. And how dare you criticize them when they're just the 0.98

00:10:55.320 oppressed, victim, colonized. That's what they're saying, that all of that is completely and utterly

00:11:03.000 fine and fair game. It is not just despicable and disgusting, but it borders on evil. And these 0.67

00:11:11.900 students should know better. And I would say, if you believe that, absolutely. Put your name to it,

00:11:18.500 wear it proudly. And I hope that anyone who wishes to hire you will understand the issues that you

00:11:23.420 want to advocate for as a lawyer when you issue that statement to your university, because that

00:11:28.400 is precisely what's happening here. Now, of course, the letter got deleted, but not before

00:11:31.800 screenshots, which you can look up if you're so inclined, sharing the names and titles which

00:11:36.600 these people put on the letter themselves were made and are a part of the screenshots that are

00:11:42.080 circulating. And when you ask the question, which is a legitimate one, well, hang on, are you being

00:11:47.360 unfair when you say that people who are anti-israel are anti-semitic and i always put the caveat that

00:11:53.920 not necessarily but more often not they are let's for example take a look at this video footage from

00:12:02.080 the weekend at a popular toronto restaurant at which i've never been but i've heard very good

00:12:06.720 good things about Cafe Landver.

00:12:36.720 Now you may wonder why they're targeting this restaurant. Now I've never been there. Supposedly they have very good schnitzel. To my knowledge the restaurant has never been explicitly political. I have not seen any statements or proclamations of being Zionist but the restaurant is Jewish owned and it seems to me from my perspective the only reason it was targeted by these activists is because a Jew dared own a restaurant in downtown Toronto.

00:13:06.160 and that is worthy of calls for boycott.

00:13:09.480 You often hear university campuses very explicitly and openly

00:13:13.980 vow to support the boycott divestment sanctions movement,

00:13:17.640 which is to say we should boycott Israeli products.

00:13:20.500 Sometimes they will go so far as to say Israeli people,

00:13:22.880 Israeli academics, and divest from any Israeli company

00:13:26.340 and sanction Israeli products and all of that.

00:13:29.020 And it's not actually Israel thereafter, it's Jews. 0.99

00:13:33.220 and they can cloak it all they want in the pretend,

00:13:36.420 oh, I'm just an anti-Zionist 1.00

00:13:37.900 or oh, I'm just making criticisms of Israel. 0.84

00:13:40.220 But a lot of these people hate the Jewish people 0.87

00:13:42.320 and are very proud of that fact.

00:13:45.740 Now, I've always said, despite my criticisms of this,

00:13:48.200 I am a supporter of freedom of speech.

00:13:50.520 I believe you have the right to express very heinous views.

00:13:53.420 I take a very broad view of free speech.

00:13:55.960 I will also say that some of the rhetoric we've seen

00:13:58.960 in some of these protests in the last couple of weeks

00:14:01.040 very much crosses that threshold of threatening violence or supporting terrorism,

00:14:07.000 which is where we get into trickier territory.

00:14:09.820 Now, that being said, as with that letter signed by the Ryerson,

00:14:14.080 or no, you can't say Ryerson anymore, the TMU law students,

00:14:17.120 it's probably more useful to know who these people are,

00:14:19.720 which you don't get if you go the censorship route.

00:14:22.120 But I saw an interesting tweet from Ari Goldkind,

00:14:25.280 who's a lawyer in, you may know, he's quite a superstar on the media circuit,

00:14:29.620 and I've had the great privilege of being on his show on a couple of occasions.

00:14:34.200 But Ari Goldkind shared that video from the protests outside Lanver.

00:14:39.660 And he said, I'm a supporter of the police, which in my line of work isn't popular,

00:14:44.260 but I don't think I've ever felt more let down by the police than in the last two weeks,

00:14:49.360 turning a complete blind eye, which they'd never do with a proud boy,

00:14:53.540 a non-social distancer, or God forbid, a trucker.

00:14:57.680 Ari Goldkind joins me now. Ari, it's good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:15:02.800 Great to be with you, Andrew.

00:15:04.580 So let's first off, let me get your take on that law letter, because here we have students that

00:15:10.040 are in a couple of weeks going to be doing interviews with some of these big Bay Street

00:15:14.040 law firms. And I know we can talk about how institutions have gone so woke, but I can't

00:15:18.920 imagine there are a lot of law firms in Toronto that would want anything to do with people saying

00:15:23.060 that this call to violence should be welcomed well andrew as much as i tend to agree with a

00:15:29.140 lot of the things you say i'm going to disagree on that one they will be hired within a nanosecond

00:15:35.540 this this is how toronto now works all one has to do is look at demographics in toronto to

00:15:42.820 understand the imbalance here between people with my last name and people who think people

00:15:49.300 with my last name should be wiped off the face of the earth the fact that this is now going to be

00:15:54.740 the future lawyers of this country forget even the anti-jew part of it and no i don't accept that the

00:16:02.100 anti-israel part means that they're not anti-jew it's just a a euphemism that they use as a get

00:16:07.780 out of jail free card but leaving aside the anti-jewish hate because i don't actually love

00:16:12.740 the word anti-semitic it's not specific enough these are also people that are going to be in

00:16:18.580 charge of free speech free expression which we know will not only be free it'll be expensive

00:16:25.620 but it could cost you your life your business your boycott and the worst part about it andrew

00:16:32.100 is that nobody's doing a thing about it because the political people that could do something about

00:16:37.780 it or the people at the top of the corporate food chain which often have more power than even

00:16:43.140 politicians they understand the demographics in this country the members of parliament understand

00:16:50.100 the writings and you don't need votes of people with last names of gold kind or schwartz or

00:16:56.900 silverstein to get elected anymore they know the demographics they know the birth rates they know

00:17:03.060 our country's completely open border so when you hear trudeau and his sycophant saying we don't

00:17:09.460 like anti-semitism but on the same day they welcome hundreds if not thousands on a daily basis

00:17:17.300 of anti-semites to this country all you're now seeing at cafe landward and other places

00:17:23.620 is people who thought they needed to be a little bit quieter now they're emboldened they're doing

00:17:29.380 it in a blazing way and the part that concerns me given the double standards of the last few years

00:17:35.780 Andrew, is that they know they can do it. They're untouchable. And this country that I thought would

00:17:42.140 be safe for people with my last name is now clearly, clearly becoming unsafe. And for those

00:17:50.320 who say, oh, Ari, you're clutching your pearls, which you're not actually wearing, I can tell you

00:17:55.880 that in the late 1920s and early 1930s, there was no greater place on the earth for Jews to live

00:18:02.580 than Germany and Poland. It's a heart-wrenching tale you tell, and one I hear from so many of

00:18:11.040 my Jewish friends. Just over the weekend, there was the president of a Detroit synagogue who was

00:18:15.600 stabbed in her home. I mean, this is, I fear, a story that's going to be repeating itself

00:18:20.940 elsewhere. Café Landwehr, its only crime, insofar as I've been able to see it, is that they happen

00:18:27.040 to be jewish in toronto right now which is enough to attract this attention and you are right when

00:18:33.680 you make that reference in your tweet to truckers when there were a group of people that were

00:18:38.320 planning when the convoy was in ottawa to drive around toronto and honk their horns for a bit

00:18:42.240 police were giving press conferences they were talking about all these preventative measures

00:18:46.320 and even if they didn't charge they were saying we need to be out in full force to say we aren't

00:18:49.920 going to stand for this where is that on this scourge of anti-semitism it's non-existent

00:18:55.040 so let me bring in a little bit of the law here i mean i'm not dressed like this to see you andrew

00:18:59.840 i am in the middle of my work day and always a delight i thought i was special well you are but

00:19:04.880 here's where i'm going to go back to agreeing with something that you said at the beginning

00:19:09.920 you and i are both almost free speech absolutists okay and i very much am a free speech absolutist

00:19:18.240 here's the point you now have a country that says there are hate speech laws that says public

00:19:28.160 incitement to hatred is unacceptable but it seems like there's only one group of people that you can

00:19:34.880 do it with only one group of people and where i say is if police were not going around and

00:19:42.000 arresting people for not socially distancing or for demonstrating in Ottawa or for saying they

00:19:48.640 don't want a vaccine mandate or not standing six feet behind somebody at Costco or Walmart

00:19:55.280 I would be the first to say look police really shouldn't get in here this is odious and disgusting

00:20:01.600 but by what double standard can somebody be arrested I mean literally arrested for taking

00:20:06.640 their kid rollerblading in covid or complaining about pfizer but these people publicly inciting

00:20:13.760 hatred and genocide which is what they're doing of the jewish people means no police response 0.94

00:20:19.840 should be forthcoming and andrew to go inside baseball i can tell you very specifically a

00:20:25.600 friend of mine was assaulted at young and blur the other night right on video right at one of

00:20:30.880 these massive demonstrations and the police made very clear to him as a jew they're not there to

00:20:37.520 arrest they don't want to make things any more heated they're just there to observe this is a

00:20:43.840 toronto police service which i've lost a lot of love in my business i'm a criminal defense lawyer

00:20:49.920 that's supposed to be very anti-police and not liking police i'm very out outspokenly pro-police

00:20:56.960 the fact that the police brass i don't put this on the beat cop andrew the fact that the police

00:21:03.920 brass understand the new demographics of the greater toronto area and it certainly isn't

00:21:10.160 jewy and the fact that they're allowing this to take place is a very very scary thing and if you 0.99

00:21:17.520 take the view that they should be hands off which is a legitimate debatable view it's a very worthy

00:21:23.600 debate then ask yourself should dad have been arrested for taking kid rollerblading two years

00:21:30.440 ago and trust me i did those cases so if the police are concerned with tamara leach on a day 0.79

00:21:37.180 by the way where her stupid bail charge was just withdrawn a half an hour before you and i spoke 1.00

00:21:42.680 she did 49 or 59 nights in jail the charge was withdrawn these people are advocating on young 0.99

00:21:50.040 street in toronto that people like me should be killed and put into the sea that's what they're

00:21:55.880 saying if you don't believe me hire a translator and the fact that they're all going to be future 0.95

00:22:00.840 lawyers and this is ryer sinners or tmu students are putting in lawyers occupy as much as i can

00:22:08.360 make a hundred jokes andrew a pretty lofty place at certain levels in our culture the idea that

00:22:14.520 not only they're signing this and thinking it but they're saying it proudly other unlike those 0.98

00:22:21.000 cowardly harvard pieces of garbage who didn't have the guts to sign it these people are putting their 0.96

00:22:26.680 names to it and it won't cost them a single thing well and therein lies i think the crucial part of 0.98

00:22:32.440 this ari which is that there has been in the last couple of weeks and i'd say it's been increasing

00:22:37.160 over a number of years the normalization of this i mean it used to be uh people had the wherewithal

00:22:42.440 to conceal certain beliefs like this. And maybe you'd see these pockets on university campuses,

00:22:47.000 but now when someone says from the river to the sea, which is, you know, calling, I did the whole

00:22:51.840 map analysis last week on this show. It's, it, they're from the river to the sea is the entirety

00:22:56.220 of Israel. Property, Andrew, people have more property in Alberta. Yeah, exactly. So when they

00:23:01.540 say that it's, uh, you know, I think an incredibly important point that they're proud of that. You

00:23:06.160 know, they're proud of saying all forms of resistance. Now you have to have a level of

00:23:11.340 temerity and brazenness to defend unequivocally all forms of resistance when babies were beheaded.

00:23:20.760 Like, how on earth did this become so acceptable?

00:23:27.140 Oh, I believe we've lost Ari there. We will hopefully get him back in a couple of moments.

00:23:32.340 But I think the point stands. When they say all forms of resistance, they are saying that any

00:23:39.160 single news story we have heard of atrocities happening was in their minds completely a-okay

00:23:47.020 that's the position they've taken yesterday I don't know if you saw this and I I haven't done

00:23:53.280 it myself because I was traveling yesterday and to be honest I don't know if I want to

00:23:57.220 but Israel the Israeli government released to journalists hours and hours of footage and

00:24:04.800 information it collected from Hamas officials and operatives that were apparently wearing body

00:24:10.540 cams. They shared this and they said to all these people, you don't believe what they were doing

00:24:15.320 here. Here's the evidence of what they were doing. And you're still going to get deniers and all of

00:24:19.620 that. But we've got Ari back. Ari, I don't know where we lost you there, but basically my question

00:24:24.220 was, when you say all forms of resistance are fine, knowing what we know about what Hamas has

00:24:29.720 done you're defending that and how did that become acceptable how did that become a position that you

00:24:35.320 could in mainstream society express well look you start andrew and i think somebody's not liking

00:24:41.160 what i'm saying so they cut the internet feed even though it looks four bars but in any event

00:24:45.400 you look at 9 11 okay the first and i think all roads i always believe this andrew i'm a person

00:24:51.880 fascinated by 9 11 i'm 49 years old it's imprinted in my dna i have walked the tracks at auschwitz

00:24:59.720 when you walk the tracks at Auschwitz, you feel things differently than an 18-year-old who never

00:25:05.460 saw 9-11 and who has no idea what the Holocaust is. What they're saying right now, remember after

00:25:13.180 9-11, the first thing Bush said is, don't be mad at the philosophy or political religious ideology

00:25:20.700 that did this to America. It wasn't just done to the buildings, it was done to America. That's the 0.58

00:25:25.740 first thing bush did so what did every western world country do andrew they did the opposite

00:25:31.020 of what they should do now let's bring this back home to canada look at that bill whether it's m13

00:25:37.300 or i can't remember what it is i don't remember you're not allowed to say anything about the

00:25:43.860 fastest growing religion in canada you're not allowed to say anything if you're saying anything

00:25:49.480 about it you're told that you're phobic or that you have a certain phobia but they can say anything

00:25:56.840 they want about jews including from the river to the sea and they're more specific than that they

00:26:01.480 call for actual murder genocide and death nobody says a word about it and here's the kicker

00:26:10.600 if somebody like me says what i'm saying and justin trudeau hears me today he'll come out

00:26:16.840 and say i'm making this up but it's exactly what he'd say well i've heard ari goldkind and

00:26:23.160 anti-semitism has no place in our country and islamophobia is one of the most serious problems

00:26:29.800 in our country they can never ever understand or say out loud where does the new anti-semitism

00:26:37.160 come from does it come from a proud boy does it come from maga does it come from the ku klux klan

00:26:44.520 this is not a difficult puzzle to solve it's not getting the caramel in the cadbury bar

00:26:50.360 that's what is so pernicious and sinister about this is that you can never talk about this issue 0.69

00:26:56.200 with one of these actually grotesque liberal mpps or the entire disgusting ndp always conflating 0.85

00:27:06.680 anti-semitism and islamophobia when they're not to be conflated and when the numbers and 0.97

00:27:12.520 And the birth rates in this country suggest that if you're Jewish, Houston, we have a problem. 0.94

00:27:18.120 If you're not, you're in control of everything.

00:27:21.520 And now they're in control of more than you're even allowed to talk about, which used to be, by the way, the pernicious stereotypical Jewish myth that Jews were kind of proud of. 0.97

00:27:34.180 but we were wanting to make art, develop vaccines, do heart surgery, write piano concertos,

00:27:42.640 advance the law in a good way for the underprivileged. Now, where are things from the

00:27:48.800 group that is growing exponentially? It is to push people like me into the sea. And people

00:27:54.120 keep saying, Andrew, and people who don't have my last name can't understand this. Oh, it'll never

00:27:58.580 get to 1929 1933 crystal nut what do you think the next step is when they go to the jewish businesses

00:28:07.060 do you think it's to peacefully protest they're emboldened and they're emblazoned this country

00:28:12.260 is in trouble and we have been completely completely abandoned by a federal government

00:28:19.220 that by the way andrew is obsessed with minority rights so long as that minority is the majority

00:28:27.620 of their voters think that through just one final question because you mentioned m103 which was the

00:28:34.900 anti-islamophobia motion and you know i was very critical of that uh going back and i people can

00:28:40.420 read what i wrote at the time but a lot of the jewish groups and by that i mean you know the

00:28:46.580 official jewish groups that proclaim to speak for jewish people and i don't always but i

00:28:51.060 proclaim don't get me started proclaim we're standing in lockstep with a lot of the muslim 0.99

00:28:56.020 groups when M103 was coming up. And I think a lot of them felt they had to, that they would be

00:29:00.520 hypocritical to talk about antisemitism without condemning Islamophobia. But a lot of them had

00:29:05.300 egg on their face the last two weeks. They've been wondering when that reciprocation is going

00:29:09.320 to come, and it just hasn't. It's been some of the Muslim groups have gave very cursory 1.00

00:29:14.680 condemnations. Many didn't even do that, and most of them have actually come out with outright

00:29:19.140 endorsements of what Hamas has done in the weeks since. And I think a lot of very well-meaning

00:29:25.400 jewish people kind of got hoodwinked during that islamophobia discussion all right so i understand

00:29:30.280 the last part i'm actually not sure they're well-meaning i think they've committed suicide

00:29:35.080 i think they've killed themselves i think they've killed others this was always suicidal to me you

00:29:40.600 could see the writing on the wall 10 million miles away all you have to do is study demographics

00:29:47.880 study what's happened in the west study what's happened in europe study what's happened in

00:29:53.800 canada and you can understand even this rabbi that was killed that they say well they have no evidence

00:29:59.160 it's a hate crime in detroit well what was it a love crime even that rabbi was instrumental in 0.77

00:30:05.160 saying that the other side are her friends and if we've ever seen a wake-up call where people

00:30:11.320 shot at raves in the negev desert innocent truly innocent people beheaded whatever you want to say

00:30:20.120 carved up elderly younger if there was ever a line in the sand that if the two religions were

00:30:26.280 going to come together as the religion of peace says it's a religion of peace and we're going to

00:30:31.640 come together if there was ever an example where people would say there's just a bridge too far

00:30:37.720 you would think shooting people driving down a road or at a music rave of all races and religions

00:30:43.800 Americans, Brazilians, Asians, whatever it is, you would think they'd come out and say you know what

00:30:51.720 we have to do something about it, I mean their side. Instead it's all this nonsensical woke

00:30:58.040 garbage language, settler colonialism, this that and the other, it's all horse manure, 1.00

00:31:03.240 it's garbage and as far as I'm concerned the Jews that have gone down this road who tend to 1.00

00:31:08.520 be left or far left have all essentially assisted the rest of us in committing suicide because they 1.00

00:31:15.560 all didn't listen to the words from 1945 which was never again and all they've done is allow it

00:31:23.400 to begin again ari gold kind always a pleasure i know it's been very difficult for for you in the

00:31:29.880 last few days but i'm glad you're speaking out the way you are sir thank you for coming on

00:31:33.720 always good to talk to you, Andrew. All right. That was Ari Goldkind. And again, I mean, he was

00:31:38.920 very, very explicit in what he said. And I think people should very much pay heed to that. We'll

00:31:43.420 have more on this discussion tomorrow. And I will also just pivot very abruptly because there's no

00:31:50.040 natural transition here to this story out of Ottawa. Now we had on the weekend at True North

00:31:56.260 Nation, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation very generously and graciously sponsor us. And our

00:32:01.000 good friend Chris Sims was there who is our favorite guest every Monday because well she's

00:32:05.680 our only guest that's on every Monday but she'd be our favorite anyway Chris always good to talk

00:32:09.800 to you thanks for coming on today thanks so much for having us on Andrew and I couldn't even find

00:32:15.040 my original backdrop because it's still stuck in the car I had to grab this old one so yeah

00:32:20.120 that was really being it was really great being at that conference well it was good to have you

00:32:24.360 there so I we did a home renovation my wife and I back in the summer and you know we were trying

00:32:29.600 to, you know, scrimp and save and, you know, spend as little as we had to while getting quality.

00:32:34.080 I feel we got a steal looking at the government of Canada's reno budget. What was this? Eight

00:32:38.940 million dollars for a barn at Rideau Hall. Yeah. Am I misreading this? Nope, you're not. It's

00:32:46.340 really bad. So my partner in crime, Franco Terrazzano, our federal director, and our

00:32:52.420 investigative journalist, Ryan Thorpe, they work away there in Mordor, also known as Ottawa, in our

00:32:58.080 office. And they dug up these documents, Andrew, that showed taxpayers paid more than $8 million

00:33:04.320 for what is being referred to as a barn on the grounds of Rideau Hall. So, Rideau Hall is where

00:33:11.600 our Governor General lives. Right now, it's also actually where the Prime Minister of Canada lives

00:33:16.060 too in the Rideau Cottage because 24 Sussex is so dilapidated. So, on those grounds, they built

00:33:23.400 this storage facility, lack of a better term, that is somehow net zero. And if this is an

00:33:33.120 indicator of how much net zero is going to cost us, as far as the government goes, folks just

00:33:39.560 put a fork in it. We're done. We can't afford this. They blew $8 million on this thing. And

00:33:45.180 so it's apparently to store vehicles and to wash vehicles and stuff. They started shovels in the

00:33:53.220 ground, July of 2020, and they took about a year or so to finish it off. So just imagine, July 2020,

00:34:00.100 this is when we were getting locked down, businesses were getting shut down, people

00:34:04.280 losing their livelihoods, you know, everybody getting, a lot of people getting salary reductions

00:34:09.440 and pay cuts. No, no, the NCC forks out $8 million for what is essentially a glorified garage.

00:34:17.680 yeah and I mean we've been hearing for years now but all the issues with finding a place for the

00:34:25.600 prime minister to live because you know 24 Sussex Drive is like this rat infested I'm not talking

00:34:30.720 about the politicians that live there like literal like rats and the cobwebs and all of that and then

00:34:35.960 you know so they have to stay at Rideau Cottage and but then they're also renovating and building

00:34:39.620 like additions at Harrington Lake and then so then you hear about this it's like I you go to

00:34:44.420 Northern Ontario or rural Alberta, and you'll find like four guys named Chuck that'll build a barn

00:34:49.200 for 82 bucks and a two four in a weekend. Yeah, exactly. As Franco put it, you know,

00:34:55.340 he's not a farmer, but our buddies in Brooks can sure as heck build you a barn or even a garage.

00:35:00.740 They should have put it out to tender. Let your buddies in Brooks make a bid on this rather than

00:35:04.180 like, you know, Ottawa's finest. Yes, exactly. And see, this is the problem. You know, people can

00:35:08.900 hear $8 million and just kind of roll their eyes and let it glaze over. No, really think about what

00:35:14.400 $8 million is in real money. If you look up what is often referred to as Ottawa's fanciest

00:35:20.920 palatial mansion, it's on sale right now on a real estate website. It isn't even $8 million.

00:35:27.120 And we're talking like marble, everything, jacuzzi tubs, like fancy stuff that we'd see

00:35:32.280 on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous when you and I were kids. They blew this on a garage.

00:35:37.740 So this is just indicative of what the National Capital Commission is capable of doing when it

00:35:42.660 comes to blowing money. And for anybody who lives outside of the Ottawa bubble, you don't know what

00:35:48.120 the NCC is. What it is is basically a glorified parks and rec department that is only in the

00:35:55.700 Ottawa Gatineau little bubble there. It's usually responsible for things like Tulip Festival and

00:36:02.220 cutting the weeds out of the Rideau Canal. But they're also the geniuses that blow this kind

00:36:07.860 of money on a garage. They're also the ones who have built a bonus mansion up at Harrington Lake

00:36:13.620 for who knows who to live in. These folks just waste money in spectacular fashion. And Andrew,

00:36:19.620 these are the same people who are crying poor. They want a raise. They want more taxpayers'

00:36:25.440 money. They want to spend more taxpayers' money on 24 Sussex. And so this is just a highlight.

00:36:31.220 We have un-money right now. We are so deeply in debt. We're more than a trillion dollars in debt

00:36:37.380 federally. If you and I started counting right now, Andrew, if we had like a barrel of loonies,

00:36:42.840 it would take us 30,000 years to count to 1 trillion. That's some great data visualization

00:36:50.220 there, Chris. But no, it's insane. And look, just to reiterate this point, $175 million is what the

00:36:56.440 NCC wants to renovate, or no, what they spent to renovate and maintain properties. Sorry,

00:37:03.380 135 for the renovation they want 175 to restore them uh so basically they want you know over 300

00:37:09.780 million in the span of like 15 20 years uh to do this and i mean the ncc is basically it's like

00:37:16.900 bureaucrats and interior decorators combined like both of whom want to blow more money than a project 1.00

00:37:22.520 budget has it's like i never thought that was the most dangerous combination but i think it is

00:37:26.780 interior decorator bureaucrats they have they've created a monster right because imagine having 1.00

00:37:32.280 endless monies right no budget all those home reno shows that you watch right usually they'll

00:37:37.860 stop about 10 minutes in and they'll have that moment where the couple's like oh can we really

00:37:42.940 afford this imagine that part never happening like ever and then just double the cost on top

00:37:49.440 of everything else because it's government that is what we are all paying for with the ncc like 1.00

00:37:55.180 for the amount of money that they spend renovating harrington lake to give you an idea

00:37:59.600 you could have bought uh avril lavigne and chad kroger's mansion you could have bought hallie

00:38:05.520 barry's cottage up in the laurentians you could have bought there was a really famous hockey

00:38:10.160 player you and i know about the same amount as of hockey nhl you could have bought his house

00:38:15.960 his fancy mansion in london ontario all combined wait there's a hockey player who has a fancy

00:38:21.560 mansion in london i live in london ontario i didn't know apparently there is yeah it's apparently

00:38:25.800 the most expensive house in London, Ontario. And some NHL or dude owns it. I stopped following

00:38:31.000 hockey in 1994. Well, Justin Bieber lives like, you know, 45 minutes from me. You could have used

00:38:35.600 that one as a right. I don't know how much his house is worth though. Right. And so they spent

00:38:39.540 more just renoing one cottage at Harrington Lake than all of those places I just described to you.

00:38:46.900 You could buy them. Like you could buy them outright. So this is where we're highlighting

00:38:51.600 this folks that we just can't afford this and this is the sort of mentality and thinking that

00:38:56.480 is the reason why we are more than a trillion dollars in debt so the next time we're saying

00:39:01.760 folks the government needs to tighten its belt don't let them get away with the idea of okay

00:39:06.960 what do you want to cut first you know healthcare or education that's just nonsense how about you

00:39:11.680 scrap the ncc when c11 uh goes into full force we'll do like some can con uh knock off of property

00:39:19.120 brothers we'll call it property bureaucrats we'll uh just have the ncc go into like little suburban

00:39:24.260 families homes and you know renovate them and uh when the person says well i don't know how we're

00:39:28.840 going to afford that the uh ncc people will be like what do you what i'm sorry i've never heard

00:39:33.740 those words before what do you mean i need my universal translator i actually would watch that

00:39:37.980 show so especially if you should produce it you should do your own like little uh spoof comedy

00:39:43.960 of like you know the ncc version of a home reno show i i'll i'll chip in a couple hundred bucks

00:39:48.540 Could you imagine just, like, Franco in, like, a tool belt with, like, a level and, like, a hammer just doing stuff?

00:39:55.240 Yeah, I want Franco to do the whole, like, Holmes on Holmes, you know, thing with the, you know, the overalls and the tool belt.

00:40:01.860 And then you'll be in there with your hard hat directing it along.

00:40:05.120 We can get, you know, Scott Hennig to, you know, go in there with the palettes for the paint and just everyone gets to pick it up.

00:40:11.580 I think we're on to something here.

00:40:12.920 there'd be so many smashed fingers and bruised toes but it would be funny and we would do it

00:40:18.400 under budget so it would get done it would be just like that simpsons episode where they had

00:40:22.860 a load-bearing poster remember when they rebuilt flanders house and they took that poster down

00:40:28.120 but this you got to laugh or cry i know folks are watching this going how could you be laughing at

00:40:32.340 eight million dollars it's either bad or cry folks because if you sat down and tried i guarantee you

00:40:38.860 you would not be able to blow even $4 million building a garage.

00:40:44.060 Double that.

00:40:45.260 And you paid for it.

00:40:46.880 So that can get depressing real fast.

00:40:49.340 And this is the key.

00:40:51.200 Bureaucrats and politicians can't stand it when you mock them. 0.99

00:40:55.220 They can't stand it.

00:40:56.280 It really bothers them.

00:40:57.320 Because if they stay in power long enough,

00:40:59.120 they start thinking they're like some duke and you are a feudal serf.

00:41:03.500 So if you laugh at them and you point at them and you mock them and ridicule them,

00:41:07.620 it really gets under their skin and hopefully we'll be able to get to them and make them change

00:41:11.940 their behavior. Yeah, they're just not used to any real criticism or pushback, which is why a lot of

00:41:19.420 these things just tend to exist without any sort of challenging and criticism. And I think that

00:41:26.320 having members of parliament that are going to stand up there and say no is important. But it's

00:41:29.820 amazing how much of this is just allowed on a discretionary basis, like how much power is kind

00:41:34.580 of relegated to these people and how large their budgets actually are this is when we get into

00:41:39.540 things like permanent government right and it's one of those things where you can hear you know

00:41:44.780 trump talk about the swamp and you can hear about deep state and all that stuff but taking just

00:41:49.020 rinse all the politics out of it for a moment say that it's benevolent for some reason or objective

00:41:53.380 or rational we have a permanent government and it's always there so whenever you hear somebody

00:41:59.760 referred to a deputy minister, that doesn't mean the junior backbencher sitting in the House of

00:42:05.240 Commons. That means a bureaucrat who is heading up a department. That bureaucrat almost always

00:42:12.280 is paid way more than that elected politician cabinet minister, okay? And nobody knows their

00:42:19.280 name. They can almost never be fired. And the ability to hold them to account is almost impossible.

00:42:25.660 so and they have a ton of staff and underlings under them that's the department side of things

00:42:31.640 and no matter who gets elected through the revolving election door okay the bureaucrats

00:42:37.000 in that department they see you as a johnny come lightly if they don't like dealing with you

00:42:42.200 they put their feet up and they water a house plant enter and they wait they wait for a change

00:42:46.980 of government because they see themselves as the permanent state it was wonderful to see you

00:42:52.200 saturday at true north nation you representing ctf and then you also had our friend liam dunn

00:42:56.980 who was there with generation screwed uh wait okay chris i've got the name for your show okay

00:43:04.600 generation screwdriver it's the canadian taxpayers federation fixer upper show generation

00:43:11.640 screwdriver okay you did it you coined it go buy the domain i'm gonna like i'm gonna do the ezra

00:43:17.440 levant thing and like book the domain name right away just in case because you know i need to have

00:43:21.680 that. It's all yours. Okay, everyone. That's coming soon to CTF. And you'll, of course,

00:43:27.160 learn about the show because with C11, it'll be forced to your homepage as authentic Canadian

00:43:31.120 content. All right. Chris Sims, always good to talk to you. We will check in next Monday.

00:43:35.500 Take care, Andrew. All right. Thanks, Chris. All right. We've got to wrap things up there.

00:43:40.680 My thanks to you all. We will be back in 23 hours and 15 minutes with more of Canada's

00:43:45.720 most irreverent talk show. Thank you. God bless and good day to you all.

00:43:49.680 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:43:52.960 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:44:19.680 We'll be right back.

00:44:49.680 We'll be right back.

Juno News - October 23, 2023

Ryerson law students sign letter defending Hamas violence

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