Juno News - Striking public servants are blocking infrastructure, and Trudeau doesn't seem to mind

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:05.240 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by TrueNorth.

00:00:12.200 Hello everyone and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.120 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:17.760 You're listening to or watching or sensing, I guess.

00:00:21.420 You might be able to just feel in the ether that the presence of the Andrew Lawton Show is upon us.

00:00:26.420 But whatever it is that is your preferred delivery vehicle, we welcome you to Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.

00:00:34.520 We are going to cover a couple of the big issues of the day here.

00:00:38.200 One is particularly time sensitive with 150,000 federal public servants on strike.

00:00:44.800 And if you haven't noticed a decline in what the federal government is doing, it probably tells you that these people aren't doing all that much in general.

00:00:53.580 But we'll talk about that in a few moments time.

00:00:56.420 And later on, I also want to get to this fantastic new docu-series produced in part by a friend of mine,

00:01:03.160 but that's not why I'm covering it. 0.90

00:01:04.480 I'm covering it because it is a great product in and of itself, exposing Canada's made regime. 0.67

00:01:09.920 So we're going to talk about their series, Made in Canada, produced by the Koeman Brothers. 0.96

00:01:14.920 That'll be coming up very shortly.

00:01:16.860 But let me first just bring up here the ongoing federal public servant strike.

00:01:21.760 The big presence here that a lot of us are probably sensing is the Canada Revenue Agency workers,

00:01:27.360 which means if you haven't done your taxes yet, you still don't get an extension,

00:01:31.080 even though the people that are supposed to be processing your tax return on the CRA side are on strike.

00:01:37.340 But I also want to talk a little bit about the tactics here,

00:01:40.240 because they've been very much focused on this idea of inflicting maximum damage.

00:01:46.120 And I want to bring up here one example. Chris Aylward, who is the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, he has talked about how they want to start targeting the strike at strategic locations, and included in that category are ports of entry.

00:02:07.180 and he specifically said to maximize the economic impact of the strike and if you look right now

00:02:14.360 you'll see that the striking federal workers are currently blocking access to various federal

00:02:20.160 buildings they're blocking access to key infrastructure including in the city of

00:02:25.880 ottawa now you may be wondering what does justin trudeau have to say about this well here is justin

00:02:31.760 Trudeau in the House of Commons talking about exactly this. Individuals are trying to blockade

00:02:40.000 our economy, our democracy, and our fellow citizens' daily lives. It has to stop.

00:02:51.660 i'm sorry i'm told that's not actually justin trudeau talking about the striking public service

00:03:03.600 alliance of canada workers he's actually talking about a group of truckers that were blocking

00:03:09.860 infrastructure he claims and restricting access to downtown ottawa and making ottawa residents

00:03:16.140 lives miserable. What does Justin Trudeau have to say about the striking federal public servants

00:03:22.440 blocking critical infrastructure? Roll that clip.

00:03:28.420 What's that? Oh, I'm told there isn't a clip. I'm told he actually hasn't said anything about

00:03:34.980 the blockades of infrastructure taking place by federal public servants. My goodness,

00:03:39.780 I'm just so disorganized here. I just could have assumed he must have said something about it.

00:03:44.720 By the way, I didn't tell Sean, my producer, that I was doing that bit.

00:03:50.880 So Sean in the group chat right now was like terrified that he missed a clip that I was calling for.

00:03:55.680 No, that was just me trying to do some physical comedy there, Sean.

00:03:59.280 You're in the clear.

00:04:00.580 Even the first clip, he wasn't sure if it was the right one.

00:04:02.880 But that is Justin Trudeau saying something about the truckers a little over a year ago in Ottawa

00:04:08.760 and nothing about striking federal public servants.

00:04:12.180 We know when this stuff comes up, it's all about, oh, the right to collective bargaining and the right to be heard.

00:04:18.040 Even Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader, when he was trying to find a way to weasel into supporting the Emergencies Act,

00:04:25.720 he was saying, no, no, no, I support the right to protest for climate justice.

00:04:29.960 I support workers' rights, just not this type of protest.

00:04:33.480 So obviously there is a double standard here.

00:04:36.300 We shouldn't be all that surprised about it, but it is interesting how brazen it is.

00:04:41.320 Now, let's talk about what is actually at stake here.

00:04:44.500 What are these federal public servants actually pushing for here?

00:04:48.440 Franco Terrizano is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and joins me now.

00:04:54.580 Franco, they always say it's not about the money, but in this case, it really is about the money.

00:04:59.220 Oh, it sure is, Andrew. It definitely is about the money.

00:05:01.680 I mean, look, when you talk about government bureaucrats and union negotiators,

00:05:05.660 you have to look at the full ask, pay and benefits.

00:05:09.960 And when you do that, these government union negotiators in Ottawa were pushing up to 47% compensation increase when you look at wages and benefits over three years.

00:05:20.380 So up to a 47% compensation increase, and that would cost taxpayers $9.3 billion, Andrew.

00:05:28.520 just to put this into context here by the way we've talked you and i in the last few years about

00:05:35.300 some of the economic hardships that have fallen on the private sector specifically small business

00:05:40.620 owners there was a story yesterday from the canadian press small business owners working

00:05:45.120 eight day week equivalent not because they love the beetles and the idea of doing eight days a

00:05:50.360 week but because they cannot actually afford to or find the staff to cover off their shifts that

00:05:55.640 us from a CFIB report. So you have federal public servants that are demanding a collective

00:06:00.920 multi-billion dollar raise while the private sector is still suffering. Yeah you know I think

00:06:06.600 it's fair to say that we've all struggled over the last couple years right we've all struggled

00:06:10.580 right now with the high price of living but the struggles facing government bureaucrats who got

00:06:17.080 to keep their job who got to work from home who didn't miss a pay raise that stress is not the

00:06:23.680 same as the struggles facing the small business owner, the gym, the restaurant down the street

00:06:28.260 who had to take out a line of credit just to keep the lights on. Let me paint a picture for your

00:06:34.660 viewers and your listeners of what the federal government just went through. Okay. Over the last

00:06:40.280 couple of years, during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, 312,000 federal bureaucrats took

00:06:47.140 at least one pay raise. Okay. When you look at all the different pay raises that the government gave

00:06:52.920 out since 2020, they gave out more than 800,000 pay raises over the past three years. Then let's

00:07:00.120 look at the bonuses. The Fed's handed out $559 million in bonuses since 2020, and the Fed's just

00:07:07.300 hired more than 30,000 new employees. So you have these privileged federal bureaucrats who didn't

00:07:14.340 miss a pay raise and who never had to worry about losing their job, now demanding billions more from

00:07:20.260 taxpayers who did lose their job, who did take pay cuts, and who may even have lost their small

00:07:25.120 business. I don't know if you saw this. It was like an hour ago in the Globe and Mail. Striking

00:07:31.240 public servants could continue getting regular salaries while on the picket line, the union says.

00:07:37.560 So these are people who literally are by design, by the definition of what a strike is, not going

00:07:43.760 to work and are just by default, in many cases, going to continue getting full pay from the

00:07:48.480 government. Yeah. I haven't had too much time to dive into that. I did read the article.

00:07:53.100 Now my understanding, well, first of all, hold on a sec before we even get into the weeds.

00:07:57.180 Let's just say the obvious, you don't go to work. Taxpayers shouldn't pay you right? Like that. Let's

00:08:02.580 just say the obvious right there. Now my understanding is obvious. So it does need to

00:08:07.120 be restated. Yeah. For, for everyone who's listening in Ottawa, right? Let's restate the

00:08:12.100 obvious, but so it's my understanding now that they may get some of that money clay, uh, clawed

00:08:18.000 back after the strike is over. But it doesn't look definitive, at least from reading the article.

00:08:24.900 So a couple of things that I need to point out here. The government must stop paying these

00:08:29.660 government employees ASAP. Maybe there's some payroll concerns. I don't know. But as soon as

00:08:36.120 possible, taxpayers should not be paying for people who are not showing up to work. Now,

00:08:41.700 in the future, the government must make sure that it gets every single penny back that it paid out

00:08:47.560 to these striking employees. I think that's only fair. When we're talking about the bigger picture

00:08:53.300 here, you know, one of the issues that really I find interesting, and you see this in the U.S.,

00:08:58.300 where they have, if they don't pass a budget in time, they have a government shutdown, where the

00:09:03.000 government literally shuts down non-essential services. And I've talked to people in the U.S.,

00:09:07.040 and they say one of the things that's the most astonishing is how normal their lives are when

00:09:11.400 the federal government shuts down in large areas. And I feel in Canada, we're probably going to see

00:09:16.640 something very similar where a lot of these people are not actually providing critical functions. And

00:09:21.120 I think there's a bigger picture question here about whether we need the 100 and all of the

00:09:25.340 150,000 people that are able to go on strike in these circumstances. Well, what do you call

00:09:31.420 it taking forever to get your passport? Last September, right? We've been getting subpar

00:09:38.000 services from the federal government to put it mildly for a very long time here. So the issue

00:09:43.360 isn't the the service i mean a part of the issue of course is always you know what kind of value

00:09:48.080 are we getting for our tax dollars but we we haven't been getting good value from the federal

00:09:52.140 government for quite some time now the big issue there's two i'll say is this number one

00:09:56.840 is the tax burden right they were pushing for up to 47 compensation increase over three years

00:10:02.800 costing taxpayers 9.3 billion dollars so they want that money to come from people who have been

00:10:07.320 struggling right the people who are worried about their mortgage payments right now the people who

00:10:11.240 are worried whether or not they can afford that package of ground beef at the grocery store okay

00:10:15.660 so the number one is the big tax bill if the government gives into these demands number two

00:10:19.520 the implied threat from the union negotiators of the tax bureaucrats has always been this

00:10:25.260 if you don't pony up money taxpayer that you can't afford and you don't have you may not get your own

00:10:31.400 money back at tax refund time i think that is extremely cruel i think it's extremely out of

00:10:36.800 touch andrew is the reason i really don't think that there's canadians out there outside of ottawa

00:10:41.540 that will have sympathy for any of these privileged bureaucrats who just took pay raises and now are

00:10:47.280 making these types of implied threats to their to their neighbors no and i mentioned it briefly

00:10:52.540 when i started talking about this the tax deadline is i think a very revealing uh symptom here and

00:10:58.440 in that canadians still have to live by the same rules that they always have and file their taxes

00:11:03.560 on time well those on the other end of it can just decide you know what we're not going to work this

00:11:08.380 week so there is this double standard between the real world and the public sector well there's a

00:11:14.380 huge difference between the real world and the government right i mean look what just happened

00:11:19.500 over the last two three years everyone as a taxpayer in the private sector was worried about

00:11:24.500 losing their job or taking a cut or maybe even losing their business they weren't even worried

00:11:28.940 about missing a pay raise in government. I mean, the executives weren't even worried about missing

00:11:34.420 a bonus in government, right? And now here's how a serious government would handle this.

00:11:40.420 A serious government would actually take a page from former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein and put

00:11:46.480 the onus back on the union negotiators, right? Because there's a couple ways to solve the issue

00:11:51.060 of the ballooning bureaucracy, which increased by 31% over the last two years. What you would do

00:11:56.740 is you would say, OK, we're going to find savings through attrition, reducing the number of

00:12:01.840 bureaucrats, pay cuts or benefit cuts, or maybe all of the above. Union negotiators,

00:12:07.220 you have to figure it out. Either you take pay cuts or you hand out pink slips.

00:12:13.580 Yeah. So I guess the question is, where do you think it's going to go from here? I know that

00:12:18.560 Mona Fortier, the Treasury Board president, has said that she wants an open dialogue and all of

00:12:23.960 this stuff and and you know she says the union has given 500 and some odd uh demands and of those

00:12:29.160 you know a few are those core sort of critical ones do you think the government folds here

00:12:32.500 well i'm not at the negotiating table and i don't have a crystal ball but let me just point out the

00:12:38.180 obvious the only way that these union negotiators can even go to the table with these types of

00:12:43.120 outrageous demands is because you have a government that doesn't care about reining and spending that

00:12:49.460 has been so frivolous for so long and has no plan to actually exercise restraint, right? Because

00:12:55.400 most of us, if we went to the table and asked our bosses for some of these demands, we'd get

00:13:00.180 laughed out of the office. Andrew, let me read you some of the non-wage benefits that these union

00:13:05.520 negotiators are pushing for. Are you ready? They want to get paid more to work past 4 p.m.

00:13:11.560 You know what most people call working past 4 p.m.? A normal day on the job, a normal work day,

00:13:16.860 Right. They want this might be the most outrageous. They want taxpayer funded contributions into a union controlled social justice fund to advocate for progressive public policy.

00:13:29.200 Now, Andrew, I wasn't even aware that there was a social justice fund until the Canadian Taxpayers Federation dug this up.

00:13:35.440 They've been using the social justice fund to send members to climate conferences in Madrid and Cancun.

00:13:41.760 They've even used the fund to produce a report which advocates for higher business taxes.

00:13:47.800 Now, you have a right to advocate for public policy, but you shouldn't be forcing taxpayers to pay for it.

00:13:52.940 They want an education fund for up to $17,000 for laid-off employees.

00:13:58.880 They want two weeks of paid time off.

00:14:01.420 They want four weeks of vacation, folks, after just working for four years.

00:14:06.240 And they want overtime paid at double time.

00:14:08.440 just before i let you go i want you to go back to this after four o'clock thing here because it's 0.99

00:14:14.440 4 16 now uh so i don't know if i can actually shake down uh candace malcolm for some more money

00:14:19.980 here let me know no andrew i think you live in the real world sir you're you're not within the

00:14:25.600 golden gates of government so uh it's not as sunny out here for you all right well i will uh just out

00:14:31.040 of the goodness of my heart double your appearance fee today because it's after four oh my gosh yeah

00:14:35.400 what's double zero you weren't supposed to say that part out loud uh franco terrazano federal

00:14:41.500 director for the canadian taxpayers federation and to keep up the great work staying on top of

00:14:46.400 this and holding them to account it's very much appreciated thank you andrew all right that is

00:14:51.820 franco terrazano always good to talk to him we are going to move into in just a moment here a little

00:14:57.840 bit more of a somber topic because it is an issue that i think is one that we need to spend a fair

00:15:03.460 bit of time discussing in the sense that I don't believe we should allow it to fall off the radar

00:15:10.420 as much as it has. But before we get to that, I just want to give a little bit of an update on

00:15:14.640 a story we've covered in the last couple of months. The battle to replace outgoing, well now

00:15:19.920 he's gone, gone Conservative MP Dave McKenzie in Oxford, which is a riding in Ontario, not far

00:15:27.060 for me uh dave mckenzie is a member of parlor was a member of parliament who had for years been

00:15:34.620 trying to like pass off his seat to his daughter he was he decided that uh being a member of

00:15:40.220 parliament should be a little bit more dynastic so he has been kind of for years uh deciding oh

00:15:45.240 do i resign do i not trying to find an opportunity to get his daughter to replace him so uh he

00:15:50.220 resigned midway through the term uh which is something that i don't think was unplanned on

00:15:56.080 his part. His daughter tries to seek the conservative nomination. Of all the candidates

00:16:00.560 in that race, she was not at all the one that anyone thought was going to be the winner,

00:16:04.700 despite the fact that she is a city councillor. She's accomplished. I've never met her, but I

00:16:09.660 don't have any reason to dislike her. But anyway, she doesn't win. Arpan Canna wins. I covered on

00:16:16.280 this show the disqualification of Garrett Van Dorland, which I thought was a very bad idea on

00:16:21.040 the part of the Conservative Party. But the point of the matter is that Dave McKenzie's daughter was

00:16:26.480 obviously Dave McKenzie's primary candidate. She did not win. Why is this relevant now? Because

00:16:32.340 Dave McKenzie has decided to back the Liberal. So he's just taking his marbles and going home

00:16:37.240 and now wants the Liberal to win in the heartland of the Conservative movement, which is rural

00:16:42.680 Ontario next to Alberta. I think we can call it the most reliable Conservative seats in the country.

00:16:47.780 So he says that this is a reflection of where the Conservative Party has gone now.

00:16:52.220 No, I think it is a reflection of where Dave McKenzie is.

00:16:56.080 And the kind of person who can just unilaterally and instantly flip from conservative to liberal for political reasons

00:17:03.000 is probably not someone who is ever conservative and ever someone that voters should have rallied behind.

00:17:08.660 So that little rant out of the way here.

00:17:10.940 I want to talk about this series which has been exposing and adding a lot of context and nuance to an issue that is near and dear to my heart for reasons I've discussed on the show and in writing, and that is Canada's assisted dying regime.

00:17:26.500 MAID is the more palatable term.

00:17:29.580 Euthanasia is the one that we're told is a little bit outmoded.

00:17:33.320 But essentially, it is the state's sanctioning and facilitation of an individual's death,

00:17:39.760 which is under the Liberals getting a heck of a lot easier

00:17:42.720 because they are capitulating to the activists that don't believe

00:17:46.300 there should really be that much in the way of constraints,

00:17:49.900 even for those who are suffering from mental illness.

00:17:52.620 And as we've seen in a couple of cases,

00:17:54.280 people who aren't suffering from any condition but are dealing with poverty and are in need of support

00:17:59.060 and are instead being offered by a variety of public service workers into the idea of MAID.

00:18:05.980 Well, this new docuseries is trying to shine a light on this.

00:18:09.820 It's called Made in Canada.

00:18:11.860 It's produced by the Koeman Brothers and Unveil TV.

00:18:15.780 And I should just say, by way of disclosure, one of the Koeman Brothers, Andrew Koeman, I go to church with,

00:18:21.360 although I'm not doing this as a favour to Andrew.

00:18:23.500 I'm doing it because it's a tremendous series and I just want you to take a look at the trailer for

00:18:28.720 the second episode which just came out. First of all the individual who made recommendations

00:18:36.060 to a veteran around medical assistance in dying is no longer working with veterans. That was

00:18:42.720 absolutely unacceptable. I have a letter saying that if you are so desperate madam we can offer

00:18:48.480 you made medical assistance in dying. It's better than blowing your brains out against the wall. 1.00

00:18:54.560 That is what he told me, she said. This is a damning indictment of the government's handling

00:18:59.620 of this bill, Madam Speaker. It is very well done. You can check it out at madeincanada.org.

00:19:12.800 Joining me is Andrew Koeman, the producer and one of the directors, Daniel Koeman. Andrew,

00:19:18.000 Daniel, good to talk to you both. Thanks for coming on today.

00:19:21.560 Thanks, Andrew.

00:19:22.840 So let's start off with why decide to tell this story, because it is a hot button issue.

00:19:28.000 It is a contentious one. Why did you want to get into this fight?

00:19:31.340 Yeah, such a good question. So we, I was living my best pandemic life, you know,

00:19:35.200 just kind of in the blur of everything shut down and all that happened, you know,

00:19:39.220 raising two young kids, working a full-time gig and living in Ontario.

00:19:44.020 so we had a lot of disruption to daily life and I honestly I was not engaged I didn't even really

00:19:49.400 know about medical assistance in dying in Canada vaguely remembered 2016 that the criminal code

00:19:54.860 had changed and that had some implications but it was honestly Andrew because I follow your

00:19:59.120 sub stack and I read your article that you wrote about you know if 10 years ago when you went

00:20:04.380 through a mental health crisis if you know with expansion of this new law if you had gone through

00:20:10.940 that today you could have been a candidate for medical assistance in dying and that actually

00:20:15.460 shocked me and then I started to do some research I read some other articles and just kind of woke

00:20:19.180 up to the reality of what was taking place in my own country what was moving forward with in

00:20:24.500 parliament and that we were on the precipice of this this moment where mental health could become

00:20:29.160 a sole consideration for doctor assisted death I was really shocked by that Dan Matt and I who

00:20:35.440 were producing the film together we started talking about it it's really the setup for an

00:20:39.220 incredible horror film like it could be this great dramatic feature we actually talked about

00:20:43.400 that that might be if that might be a film we should do and then realize wow like there's

00:20:47.760 probably so many canadians just like us average people who weren't aware of how rapidly this had

00:20:53.520 expanded and that there's already been 30 000 deaths since 2016 because of this procedure or

00:20:57.800 more and counting and we started asking questions and we said we just gotta you know get the cameras

00:21:03.080 rolling get some people on camera to talk about this to learn more and see if canadians really

00:21:07.480 want this. Well, I'm humbled that I got to play even a small role in inspiring this. I mean,

00:21:13.900 as I said, when I wrote that and in other discussions, I think more people need to be

00:21:17.100 aware of it. And that's the challenge is that you can't even get to the solution phase of a problem

00:21:22.160 if a lot of people in the country don't even know it's a problem and don't even know what's

00:21:27.060 happening. So I'll ask you more from just the, I guess, the directorial perspective, Daniel,

00:21:32.780 how do you go about telling this story how do you go about in in not a huge amount of time

00:21:38.140 putting this problem that many people may never have really heard of or only may have heard of

00:21:42.060 peripherally in front of them well that is the question and if you find an answer let us know

00:21:46.940 but um i think um it's like i i hearken back to when we did a film about human trafficking called

00:21:53.180 she has a name and it's a similar thing where you can hear about an issue and you get peripheral

00:21:58.300 sound bites and you get stuff kind of flying by in the distance and then slowly the sort of uh

00:22:03.980 shrapnel from the cannon fire gets a little closer to home and for us when we did the human

00:22:08.540 trafficking story it was when we met an actual survivor from our small hometown of red deer

00:22:12.780 alberta where we went whoa human trafficking is not only real but it's on my own doorstep

00:22:18.300 well the same thing happened with this medical assistance and dying issue

00:22:22.060 literally almost as if i had entered a war zone when it had shifted to a narrative that within

00:22:27.820 it was actually march 2023 that they were going to initially try to force through this um change

00:22:33.420 in the in the law which would allow condition of soul condition of mental illness which they've

00:22:37.660 bumped by a year um and we got to do everything we can in the next you know nine to twelve months

00:22:42.140 here to try to raise awareness about it but it was when that happened i guess around january

00:22:47.180 february i started getting news articles i started hearing about people connected to my own small

00:22:53.020 community now in the Comox Valley that have loved ones that have used MAID, have loved ones that are

00:22:58.220 considering MAID, have loved ones that are applying for MAID right now, have loved ones that are in

00:23:03.160 line for when conditions solely mental illness, they are going to be there at the front. That was

00:23:09.500 such a bring it too close to home moment for me and for us as brothers as filmmakers is like

00:23:14.580 we need to tell this story because I believe when people do hear it they are shocked because we're

00:23:19.320 not talking about the cases that it was quote unquote initially made for in this series we're

00:23:24.080 talking about people who are vulnerable people who have disabilities people their sole condition

00:23:28.920 right now might be that they're legally blind and they're going to get made and they have 45 years

00:23:33.420 to live like we're talking about these stories of Canadian veterans like Christine Gauthier who's a

00:23:38.040 five-time world champion she's a Paralympian she's a Canadian hero she's a veteran she served in

00:23:43.200 Canada's military and veteran affairs on outgoing calls offered her medical assistance in dying

00:23:49.080 rather than a wheelchair lift, which is what she actually needed.

00:23:52.440 So these are the kind of stories that when they're put in front of audiences,

00:23:55.340 I really do believe that it shifts from awareness to action.

00:23:58.380 And I hope that everybody listening will realize that their voice in this conversation matters.

00:24:02.580 And even a small, faint little shout from a corner of a dark room is going to make a difference in this case.

00:24:08.280 When you mentioned the case of Christine, which is, I think, a shocking one,

00:24:12.120 and one that really put this issue on the radar for a lot of Canadians,

00:24:15.160 all of these stories that have come up of which there have not been an inconsequential amount

00:24:20.080 they're not denied by the liberal government but justin trudeau david lametti the attorney general

00:24:25.440 they sort of all just say they're outliers you know trudeau i know you you shared the clip and

00:24:29.560 it was in the trailer there oh well yeah we got rid of the person that was unacceptable

00:24:33.340 david lametti saying yeah the system's kind of working but were you finding as you delved into

00:24:38.340 this that those were not the exceptions that those were actually the rule i think you know

00:24:44.420 talking to physicians we're talking to psychiatrists we're talking to disability advocates we're talking

00:24:48.580 to families who are left behind and i would say it is not the exception i i don't know if i'd go

00:24:53.940 so far to say it is a rule but i think um but they're not just they're not just aberrations

00:24:58.820 they're not aberrations and you know i've emailed every mp in canada personally as a concerned

00:25:04.260 citizen to say hey i'm concerned about made what's your stance what are you going to do about it

00:25:08.180 what do you think about expansion i didn't know if i'd get any responses um but i've got a lot

00:25:13.300 and the parties have a pretty packaged message they're pretty in line i'm even hearing from

00:25:20.180 like liberal members that they think this is a dangerous path i think the party has been whipped

00:25:26.020 to have a certain talking point but i think they're and what they're doing is saying this

00:25:31.620 pause is almost a safeguard in and of itself our concern is that we'll just wait a year and they're

00:25:36.180 going to just continue moving forward and that they've just used this time delay as a perception

00:25:41.700 of safeguarding and as we talked to you know people like dr sanu gan from the university of

00:25:46.660 toronto he um he's an incredible psychiatrist and he he's a maid assessor and he works on a

00:25:52.340 maid committee but he said he will resign from his position if if it expands to mental health

00:25:58.740 so they're like you know not just like filmmakers who are just learning about this called um raising

00:26:02.980 the red flag but people who this is their their um vocation are are saying this is their these

00:26:10.020 are aberrations this is really or sorry not aberration this is like this is alarming and

00:26:15.300 you know we've had 100 plus disability advocacy groups saying to the government please do not 1.00

00:26:20.980 expand this this is a social experiment that is tragic when you bring in people living with 0.97

00:26:25.940 disabilities when you bring in mental health and we really we do think it's not apoplectic to say

00:26:31.140 that this will open a pandora's box because these experts are saying people with mental health issues 0.71

00:26:36.180 who get made would have gotten better we just won't know who they are because they'll be dead

00:26:41.220 just to drill down on that coalition you you allude to there people sort of expect faith-based

00:26:48.660 groups to be opposed to this because they're traditionally pro-life on other issues people

00:26:52.440 sort of expect i think large c conservative politicians to come out against this this is

00:26:58.140 something that is attracting a resistance from people that are not just christians and not just

00:27:03.600 conservatives. It's attracting, as you mentioned, the disability rights advocates, the mental health

00:27:08.220 advocates, people that are not political may actually be quite on the left. Were you finding

00:27:12.780 you were able to get that diversity in the people you interviewed, Daniel? Yeah, that was probably

00:27:18.220 in many ways what made it such an obvious, well, it was called a catastrophic social experiment by

00:27:26.080 someone in a testimony in Ottawa. And I think that all of these different voices lend to that

00:27:32.320 that definition because yeah you start to see that wow like everyday canadians from every walk

00:27:37.800 of life when they hear the actual facts not just the talking points that are pushed out on

00:27:42.340 mainstream media but the actual facts and the people who are affected negatively by this

00:27:46.940 they basically i mean you you barely squeak out the national anthem when you know the truth

00:27:53.760 because it's so heartbreaking to think that this is where canada is headed and it's a fringe group

00:27:59.340 of people an actual fringe group of people in uh the government in ottawa that are pushing this and

00:28:04.860 believe in this and the expansion of it should really should really it should shock and alarm

00:28:10.140 us to the point that we want to do something and i think it it can't be understated that

00:28:14.860 every single person has not only an ability to raise some issues around this and to try to see

00:28:20.700 if they can be a part of the solution and changing and curbing it but like we have a moral

00:28:24.700 responsibility as canadians because this is a battle for the soul of our nation i really believe

00:28:28.700 that and i don't think those come up every day i think that this is an issue that is threatening

00:28:33.820 the actual makeup of who we are as a country and where it it it really is a sign of where

00:28:39.260 we could be headed if we don't address it and um hearing those different voices to your question

00:28:43.900 from every different i mean originally we thought well maybe it'll be like a certain group of people

00:28:49.980 that will kind of share our viewpoint well no it was doctors ethicists people in disability groups

00:28:55.180 average citizens people in the workforce young people old people you know people that are

00:29:00.060 veterans that have served our country people from all the different walks of life and it it really

00:29:05.420 is accelerated so fast it's very alarming and i again i just continue to believe that true canadians

00:29:12.140 are going to rise up and say something about this i i didn't warn you ahead of time that i would be

00:29:16.700 giving you an assignment but i i hope you'll indulge me for a moment i want to put up a chart

00:29:20.700 from Statistics Canada here.

00:29:22.840 And this is, again, government data.

00:29:24.420 This is irrefutable as far as the government's idea is concerned.

00:29:27.500 And this looks at the total made deaths in Canada

00:29:30.020 over the last five years,

00:29:32.320 up until the last year for which numbers are available, 2021.

00:29:35.560 And you see every year it's going up, you know,

00:29:38.320 1,000, 2,800, 4,456.

00:29:41.740 2021, 10,064 made deaths in Canada.

00:29:46.420 Now that is astronomical.

00:29:47.940 you compare that to some of the most liberal made regimes in the world like in the netherlands

00:29:54.260 which has i i think actually per capita fewer now if i'm not mistaken and i need to go back

00:30:00.000 and check that and other countries you look at places like california and it's just a fraction

00:30:04.460 of a fraction were you able to diagnose in the course of your interviews why canada is such an

00:30:11.460 outlier here why canada has become this made country it's definitely a question we're asking

00:30:18.500 um california is such an interesting case study because like from a population standpoint

00:30:22.800 california canada are almost similar in population and made is available there except

00:30:29.220 patients must kind of fulfill the procedure themselves a doctor will set up the scenario

00:30:34.560 and then the patient is the one that takes their own life and so i think there's a discrepancy i

00:30:39.360 think that because in Canada a doctor will do the procedure so I think that it's almost like the

00:30:45.000 stigma of suicide is still attached to it in California I that's kind of my hypothesis and

00:30:50.060 I think there's some writing and research on that so I think that's one thing that we're learning

00:30:53.300 I think we're just like more than any other country we have fewer safeguards and so I think

00:31:00.300 the if you follow that logic if we continue to remove safeguards we're going to have more and

00:31:04.760 more problems and it's like they haven't released the numbers for 2022 yet and we're expecting it

00:31:09.240 will be much higher than 10,000 people.

00:31:11.740 So just to interject there,

00:31:12.940 so do you view it not as a cultural or social problem,

00:31:16.140 but as a policy problem purely?

00:31:19.040 I think there's a number of things.

00:31:21.080 Like I think it's ideological.

00:31:23.160 I think there's a policy problem as well.

00:31:25.320 But I think when you remove the individual's hand

00:31:30.080 from the procedure,

00:31:31.520 then when you make it a medical procedure

00:31:33.880 and you take off the stigma of taking your own life,

00:31:39.240 there's something that changes with the procedure itself and i think that you know even the euphemism

00:31:44.760 that we use medical assistance in dying is significant and the words matter and that that's

00:31:51.080 that's a definite intentional change in the language you know and this is the irony in

00:31:57.040 canada it's a sad and tragic irony we have worked for decades to stop suicide at all costs

00:32:02.740 and now out of the same mouth the government like which has worked has worked so hard and i would

00:32:08.520 And I commend the government of, you know, if the past president for all the work they've done to stop suicide, we have a suicide hotline, there's resources.

00:32:18.300 But now that same, that same entity is saying this is this is OK.

00:32:22.980 It's a totally confusing and mixed message and one that I think just the the damage done to the stop suicide movement is going to be incalculable.

00:32:32.940 Yeah, and that was, I mean, one of the reasons I shared my own story there is that I'm so grateful that I had doctors that said, no, I'm not going to settle for some young man that could have a bright future going down the road of suicide.

00:32:44.480 And now you push this into the current context when suicide is seen as a medical treatment and it's seen as an answer to problems rather than the type of thing that is itself a problem.

00:32:56.620 I'll give the last word to you on this, Daniel.

00:32:58.740 I know your first episode really looks at the kind of the bigger picture of this setting the

00:33:02.320 table. The second episode, which we shared the trailer for early talks about Canada's heroes

00:33:07.580 and their treatment. Where do you go from here? Yeah, well, we have four more episodes in the

00:33:13.240 queue. And it's worth noting, it's a viewer supported series. So anyone that feels passionate

00:33:17.260 about this, you can literally help us to tell this story by going to madeincanada.org and

00:33:21.780 getting behind us because we really felt like for one, I personally wouldn't pay money as a,

00:33:28.040 know pay-per-view to watch a series like this but i would want to watch this and so we want it to be

00:33:34.200 available free to all canadians and people in other countries as well but we are calling on

00:33:38.520 those that are passionate about the stories and about the issue to join along with us and support

00:33:42.520 us through the made in canada site and you can do that as you know a one-time pledge or a subscription

00:33:47.320 but the point being um in the four additional episodes we're going to cover quite a broad range

00:33:52.120 but specifically we're diving right now into medical ethics so what what are the ethics of

00:33:57.000 the medical profession and is this even possible to label as a medical treatment because they

00:34:01.720 actually put that word like treatment on stuff and i the a treatment that kills you is not actually

00:34:06.760 by definition a treatment um it's kind of a final solution right so i think um it's it's something

00:34:12.520 that we're really going to dive into is the ethical questions in the next episode we also have

00:34:17.000 one that is about a very perplexing and shocking part of it it's called ode which stands for organ

00:34:22.440 donation euthanasia they actually promote in clinics and in hospices in canada that we are

00:34:29.080 leading all districts in organ donation euthanasia and that should be something to weep about not to

00:34:34.920 celebrate and this is truly i mean a nurse in my own town just messaged me because they know we're

00:34:40.760 making this and said guess what they just they just announced that we've surpassed organ donation

00:34:46.440 all time organ donation record oh dot dot how do you think that happened so they're giving it as

00:34:52.920 an alternative to say you know what maybe maybe you're suffering too much maybe life is hard but

00:34:58.280 you can go out in a blaze of glory and help somebody and that is called suicidal ideation

00:35:03.000 and that is a very very dangerous in fact illegal thing if you consider so organ donation euthanasia

00:35:08.680 is another episode we're working on plus um one that is very intriguing and should get people's

00:35:14.760 attention is uh follow the money what does this mean for the cost of which the actual liberal

00:35:20.760 government said that our health care system is on the verge of collapse so the people that are

00:35:25.000 saying we're going to expand medical assistance and dying also said our health care system

00:35:31.000 nationwide is on the verge of collapse so just try to put those two together and see if the

00:35:35.080 narrative lines up that i mean i've covered this issue extensively and the organ donation dimension

00:35:41.560 is not one I've come across at all.

00:35:43.300 So I'm already learning things in the interview.

00:35:45.140 I look forward to the episodes.

00:35:46.420 As mentioned, people can head to madeincanada.org

00:35:49.380 and that's the M-A-I-D spelling, madeincanada.org.

00:35:52.940 The series producer, Andrew Koeman,

00:35:54.760 and one of the directors, Daniel Koeman, join me.

00:35:57.580 Now, gentlemen, thank you so much for doing this

00:35:59.560 and for coming on today.

00:36:00.420 It's good to speak to you both.

00:36:01.820 Thanks for having us, Andrew.

00:36:02.760 Thank you.

00:36:03.620 All right, thanks again.

00:36:04.740 And like I said, Andrew Koeman,

00:36:06.160 I actually just saw him yesterday at church,

00:36:08.020 but this was not an act of nepotism.

00:36:10.260 It was an act of celebrating the production of storytelling that is very much needed in Canada.

00:36:16.260 And I've always been a big believer in independent media.

00:36:19.240 And I should just kind of add a bit of a caveat there that independent media isn't just independent journalists.

00:36:25.240 It's also independent authors, independent documentarians, people that are telling these stories that are oftentimes undertold or undersold by the mainstream media.

00:36:35.020 So I think this was a tremendously important one and we'll follow it as the episodes progress.

00:36:39.420 that does it for us for today

00:36:42.200 I want to give a big thank you to all of you

00:36:44.080 who tuned in to the Andrew Lawton show

00:36:45.540 we'll be back on Friday with another

00:36:48.060 edition of the program and

00:36:50.040 then next week and the week after and the week after

00:36:52.020 that and you're just going to be so sick of me in 10

00:36:54.060 years but we're still going to be doing it hopefully so

00:36:55.920 thanks to you all and if you want to support

00:36:57.920 the work we are doing here

00:36:59.500 you can head on over to donate.tnc.news

00:37:03.100 so that does it for today

00:37:04.320 thank you, God bless and good day

00:37:06.420 to you all

00:37:06.960 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:37:10.840 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - April 25, 2023

Striking public servants are blocking infrastructure, and Trudeau doesn't seem to mind

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