Juno News - October 31, 2025


Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN mandatory jail for child exploitation


Episode Stats


Length

27 minutes

Words per minute

149.40202

Word count

4,110

Sentence count

241

Harmful content

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Canadian Supreme Court strikes down mandatory jail sentences for possession of child pornography. Canada's highest court rules the sentences are unconstitutional. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss trade issues. The Bank of Canada admits the country is in a recession. And the World Health Organization declares a pandemic.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 And welcome to Straight Up with Mark Bertrone. I am your host. Well, reaction has been swift
00:00:09.960 and harsh to the Supreme Court ruling, which has struck down mandatory sentences for those
00:00:15.700 possessing child pornography. Canada's highest court has ruled the one-year mandatory minimum
00:00:23.000 jail sentences for possessing child porn is unconstitutional. In a five to four vote,
00:00:29.340 the court said the mandatory sentence is a violation of the charter's protection against
00:00:34.660 cruel and unusual punishment, not for the victim, but for the perpetrators. The court says the
00:00:41.260 mandatory sentences also remove a judge's discretion to impose sentences other than
00:00:48.160 imprisonment when appropriate. But under what circumstances would you hand a child predator
00:00:54.180 after less than a year in prison?
00:00:58.180 Conservative justice critic Larry Brock lambasted the decision with this post.
00:01:02.500 Today's decision by the Supreme Court finding that at least one year in jail for accessing
00:01:08.540 and possessing child sexual abuse material is cruel and unusual punishment and grossly disproportionate
00:01:16.980 is a disgusting and cruel insult to victims of these heinous crimes. Some fear this may be
00:01:25.160 a move to gradually legalizing child pornography and possibly even pedophilia.
00:01:34.640 On the economic front, the Bank of Canada is admitting what many in Canada have long suspected
00:01:39.860 that the country is in recession. Stats Canada reports Canada's economy shrank by 0.3 percent in August.
00:01:46.820 With all the struggles facing Canadians as far as the cost of living and unemployment goes,
00:01:52.340 the governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff McAlebb, says Canadians can expect even lower standards of living
00:01:58.260 in the months ahead.
00:01:59.860 Unless something else changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would have been.
00:02:04.260 So, I mean, I think what's, you know, what's most concerning is that unless we do, unless we
00:02:11.140 change some other things, our standard of living as a country, Canadians is going to be lower than 1.00
00:02:15.380 it otherwise would have been.
00:02:16.340 Well, that will be no surprise, especially to the growing number of unemployed younger Canadians 0.93
00:02:22.820 who have borne the brunt of the economic downturn since the Liberals got into power. The unemployment
00:02:28.500 rate among 18 to 35 year olds is double the national average. The dream of home ownership is
00:02:34.100 all but disappeared. The Liberals have called on young people to make even more sacrifices, but
00:02:39.140 Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyef says young people are tired of going without.
00:02:44.340 He let the truth out of the bag. He said young people are going to have to make more sacrifices.
00:02:51.220 More sacrifices.
00:02:56.420 No more sacrifices. Mr. Carney, the young people in this room and across this country have already
00:03:02.020 sacrificed enough. You've sacrificed home ownership after they doubled the cost of buying a home.
00:03:07.700 You've sacrificed your nutrition and health after liberal food inflation drove up the cost at the
00:03:15.860 grocery store. You sacrificed your paycheck at the altar of high liberal income taxes. You sacrificed even
00:03:24.740 your job to employment, killing taxes, red tape and temporary foreign worker programs.
00:03:32.980 Meantime in South Korea, Prime Minister Carney met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and came away empty handed.
00:03:40.180 As far as trade or tariff relief goes, but Carney has been invited to China for a future visit.
00:03:46.900 And he says that relations with that country have turned a corner.
00:03:50.740 We now have a turning point in the relationship, a turning point
00:03:57.620 that creates opportunities for Canadian families, for Canadian businesses and Canadian workers,
00:04:07.140 and also creates a path to address current issues. So very pleased with the outcome of the meeting.
00:04:13.860 Our officials are instructed to work at pace on issues moving forward.
00:04:17.780 Is it the China Prime Minister, you alluded to an invitation?
00:04:22.580 Uh, the, uh, the, uh, uh, an invitation has been extended and I indicated that I look forward
00:04:28.260 to accepting that invitation. Yes.
00:04:29.780 Any tariffs changes, sir? Any progress?
00:04:33.860 Yeah, no progress on tariffs. Last March, China levied a 100% tariff on canola oil. And after meeting with
00:04:42.340 the president, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, well, China agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans between now and January.
00:04:53.060 Well, John Carpe is the president of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
00:04:59.380 He joins us from Calgary. And there's a couple of stories that we need to touch on, John.
00:05:03.780 Well, why don't we start off with the World Health Organization? Apparently, Canada has voted to jump in
00:05:10.260 both feet with essentially allowing the WHO, the WHO, to what? Put us into a position where we would have to
00:05:20.740 enact the rules of an organization that's not even accountable to Canadian taxpayers. Is that correct?
00:05:27.220 That's exactly it. These international health regulations, um, were deemed to have gone into
00:05:34.180 force, uh, September, 2025. So, uh, a month and a half, two months ago. And, uh, they would empower
00:05:44.100 the director general of the World Health Organization to have the, the discretion to declare a pandemic
00:05:52.500 emergency. So that ceases to become something that, that, you know, we can decide for ourselves
00:05:59.140 and then to order countries to impose lockdowns, vaccine passports, mask mandates, travel restrictions,
00:06:06.660 uh, mandatory vaccinations, whatever. The silver lining on the cloud is that the World Health Organization
00:06:15.780 has no police force, no army, no court system. They cannot impose their will on anybody.
00:06:22.020 So ultimately at the end of the day, it's up to the government of each country to decide whether
00:06:28.100 they're going to follow these edicts or not. But it's very ominous that Canada and so many other
00:06:33.220 countries have said, yes, we want to abdicate our sovereignty, uh, to, uh, unaccountable foreign
00:06:43.300 bureaucrats based in Geneva, Switzerland. We don't want to, um, be accountable for the, to our, our own
00:06:50.900 voters about our own healthcare policies. We want to abdicate our, our sovereignty to an international 0.98
00:06:55.620 body. That has been the position of, of Canada, just about every country in the world. The outliers
00:07:01.700 right now are the United States and Argentina and Israel and Italy, uh, are four countries that are
00:07:11.060 saying no, um, they're not going to, uh, violate their own sovereignty. Good for them. But I think
00:07:21.300 this allows governments like Canada who remember the pushback from last time during the pandemic,
00:07:26.740 where you had the freedom convoy, you had many Canadians saying, I am not going to comply.
00:07:32.580 I'm not going to be forced to give up my bodily, you know, autonomy for the sake of shots that I'm
00:07:40.500 not comfortable with. And then of course the government retaliated by saying, well, you can't
00:07:46.100 get on a plane. You can't get on a train. You can't get on a ferry for instance. So essentially
00:07:52.340 the government of Justin Trudeau turned the country into a prison at the time by abdicating over to the
00:07:59.220 WHO. They can always say, well, you know, it's not us, you know, it's those guys over there
00:08:05.540 just going along with it, you know, just going along to get along. And, you know, I think that's
00:08:10.420 one of the reasons why they're doing it. They can try to blame the other guys, right?
00:08:15.460 That's the biggest problem with it, right? Because at the end of the day, the World
00:08:19.540 Health Organization cannot force Canada. They couldn't even enforce Luxembourg or Liechtenstein to,
00:08:26.100 to comply with anything. They've got no army, no police force. But the problem is exactly that,
00:08:32.100 that if the, because of these international health regulations, the next time that our masters,
00:08:39.700 the tyrants want to impose tyranny on us and violate our fundamental human rights and charter freedoms,
00:08:46.420 violate our freedom of association, travel, mobility, bodily autonomy, freedoms of expression,
00:08:53.220 association, peaceful assembly, their political soundbite to last time around, there was a heavy
00:09:01.460 emphasis on, if you disagree with us, you are an anti-science Neanderthal and you don't care if
00:09:08.420 people die. Next time around, they will probably still be saying, if you disagree with us, you're an
00:09:13.860 anti-science Neanderthal and you don't care if people die. And we have no choice. We've signed on.
00:09:19.140 We have to honour our international obligations. And for us to not impose lockdowns would be
00:09:24.820 illegal because we are signatories to the World Health Organization. So that's going to be the
00:09:33.140 the political tactic next time around. So that's why this is worrisome and Canadians should contact
00:09:38.420 their member of parliament and say, respect Canadian sovereignty, respect democracy. Democracy is a
00:09:47.060 principle of our, it's a constitutional principle that is there to it, that Canadians have a say in
00:09:56.980 the laws that we live under. That's what democracy is all about, is that you have a say and you might be
00:10:03.460 on the losing side of an election and you might dislike a lot of the laws, but you do have a say,
00:10:09.300 might not be a big one, but you have a say in the laws that we are going to live under. That's democracy.
00:10:17.380 And that's part and parcel with sovereignty that we Canadians make laws for Canada. That's not done by
00:10:24.180 foreigners. And so with the World Health Organization, international health regulations,
00:10:29.860 we're violating both sovereignty and democracy by handing over power to unelected bureaucrats in
00:10:36.980 Geneva. And it's very ironic that this is coming from a government that will scream and shout and
00:10:42.740 light its hair on fire. Every time that President Trump talks about Canada becoming a 51st state,
00:10:49.460 they will thump their chests and talk about Canadian sovereignty. But yet these same people want to
00:10:57.940 give over Canadian sovereignty to unelected, unaccountable international body.
00:11:05.220 Now, does Canada have any recourse in terms of, say, a future government? We know where
00:11:09.860 the Kearney government stands and where the Justin Trudeau government stood before him. But one day,
00:11:16.900 there's going to be a change, a real change in government, not just a change in the guy at the top
00:11:21.780 and not really much of a change at all. But in Canada, a future government say, you know what,
00:11:27.780 we're out. We're not going to be part of this.
00:11:29.060 Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. They could do that in two ways. They could do that more formally and
00:11:33.620 withdraw from the World Health Organization or simply inform the World Health Organization that
00:11:39.940 we reject these regulations, we're not going to abide by them. They can do that formally or informally,
00:11:45.540 practically, if three months from now or three years from now or 30 years from now,
00:11:52.980 if the Director General of the WHO declares a pandemic emergency, whichever government is in power
00:11:59.460 in Canada at that time can simply say, oh yeah, we're not complying. We will listen to what you
00:12:04.980 have to say. We'll take it under advisement and we will proceed as we deem best. Thank you very much.
00:12:10.420 And that's it. And there's nothing that the World Health Organization can do about it. The other
00:12:15.620 interesting twist is that the Alberta government is introducing legislation that says that Alberta is
00:12:27.460 not going to comply with international treaties that impede on provincial jurisdiction, very similar to
00:12:38.340 legislation that Quebec already has had on the books for the past 25 years.
00:12:43.220 Healthcare, according to Canada's constitution, is exclusively provincial. It's not even shared.
00:12:49.700 Healthcare is provincial, full stop. So Quebec and Alberta are two provinces that could say, well,
00:12:56.100 you know what, unless Alberta, unless Quebec, unless we sign on to this, we're not going to have the
00:13:02.580 federal government dictating healthcare when it is a provincial responsibility, not federal.
00:13:09.620 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't know what Quebec is going to do, but I'm pretty sure that Alberta
00:13:14.820 would be pretty adamant that no, we're not going to be told what to do by the World Health Organization,
00:13:20.100 which has largely been discredited since the pandemic. I mean, since that whole fiasco, when people
00:13:27.140 really found out more about this organization, the power they have, and heard some of the things that
00:13:32.660 they were pushing, you know, I think the level of credibility they have, the level of trust that
00:13:38.580 they have amongst many people outside, like not only in Canada, but the United States and elsewhere,
00:13:43.780 is rock bottom, you know? Who trusts these guys anymore, John?
00:13:49.940 Well, the tyrants who want to take away our rights and freedoms, they like the World Health
00:13:56.580 Organization as a tool to help them to accomplish that purpose. Tyrants never take away rights and
00:14:03.700 freedoms without offering a nice sounding pretext. And so a great excuse for turning us into slaves
00:14:11.460 and taking away our charter rights and freedoms is to say, oh, we've got this deadly virus. And, you know,
00:14:17.140 the World Health Organization has declared a pandemic emergency. And so we've got to lock you down
00:14:24.980 and make sure you can't travel and make sure that you get injected with whatever that we want you to
00:14:32.580 get injected with. And it's a pretext and an excuse. The other important point is we can cooperate with
00:14:41.940 other countries on fighting a virus, on environmental protection, on trade. We can cooperate with other
00:14:51.940 countries in the world, and we should, without giving up our sovereignty to a supranational body. And this
00:15:00.020 is something people lose sight of. They think, well, if you're not going to obey the World Health
00:15:04.180 Organization, then you're being a bad world citizen. Well, it's not true at all. We can and we do have all
00:15:11.700 kinds of different relationships, you know, economic, trade, cultural, health care. We've got all kinds
00:15:20.900 of great relationships with other countries. And we should cooperate with other countries,
00:15:25.620 but we can do that without giving up our sovereignty. Let's talk about three particular bills,
00:15:32.420 possibly a fourth, if you include the Online Harms Act, that you have opposed on the grounds that
00:15:38.260 if we don't oppose these bills, we're going to be a police state by Christmas under an authoritarian
00:15:47.780 government. I mean, look at what's going on in the UK. I mean, how stunning is some of that,
00:15:51.300 where you see people being imprisoned over Facebook posts, you know, for opposing immigration policies.
00:15:57.620 But you're saying we're going down the same road, courtesy of three specific bills, right? That would be
00:16:03.460 a C2, C8 and C9. Can you talk about those? Yeah, it's combined together. And the previously,
00:16:12.260 the Online Streaming Act that gives the Canadian radio televisions, because the CRTC has authority,
00:16:20.020 control over the internet to decide on Canadian content. So if you look at the previous bills,
00:16:26.100 then you add in Bill C2, which in a nutshell, will authorize Canada Post to open letter mail without a
00:16:33.060 warrant, which will make it illegal to use cash in amounts greater than $10,000, which will create a
00:16:39.460 brand new Authorized Access to Information Act, which would give federal government officials,
00:16:46.500 not just police, all kinds of authority to do warrantless searches on your computers and cell phones.
00:16:54.020 So you have a vast expansion of the surveillance powers of the state, the search powers of the
00:17:00.500 state to search and to demand information without a warrant for the government to demand from
00:17:09.220 telecommunications companies that they turn over their subscriber lists and IP addresses.
00:17:14.420 So that's Bill C2. It's called the Strong Borders Act. It should be called the Strong Surveillance Act.
00:17:19.860 Next, we got C8, which is the Cyber Security Act, which would actually provide, if passed in current
00:17:28.500 form, it will give federal cabinet ministers the power to kick Canadians off the internet on the
00:17:34.420 pretext of there being a threat to Canada's telecommunications system. But the minister gets,
00:17:42.420 has practically unfettered discretion to determine what constitutes a threat. And so these are the
00:17:51.060 same people that froze our bank accounts that violated our rights and freedoms during lockdowns.
00:17:56.660 They get to decide what's a threat. And then they actually, if they kick you off the internet,
00:18:02.980 they can target individual Canadians and say, your phone is cut off. You can't use your phone
00:18:09.860 anymore. You can't use your computer anymore. They can make that order secret so that you're not
00:18:15.220 allowed to talk about it to your friends. And then your only recourse is to try to take it to court,
00:18:21.220 which you can't do unless you've got a spare $100,000 kicking around that's available,
00:18:26.740 you know, spare spending money on litigation for a court process that would take two or three years
00:18:32.020 that you're not guaranteed to win. So that's Bill C8, gives federal cabinet ministers the power to kick
00:18:37.220 Canadians off the internet. Bill C9 is the Combating Hate Act. And that is going to unleash a new wave of
00:18:46.100 hate speech prosecutions against Canadians by getting rid of a current provision that requires the Attorney
00:18:55.460 General to provide permission for a hate speech prosecution to proceed. So it's not just at the
00:19:03.620 discretion of local police, local prosecutors to decide what they feel might be hateful. So there's
00:19:10.740 kind of a sober second thought review process. So to date, even though these laws have been on the books
00:19:16.340 for decades, we've had very few hate speech prosecutions in Canada. If Bill C9 passes, we're going to see a lot more
00:19:24.820 prosecutions. Well, we already have a criminal code provision, right, for inciting hatred. And I
00:19:34.820 can just distinctly remember hearing and watching some of the committee hearings about this. And the
00:19:39.380 questions was always asked, you know, to the minister, why do we need this extra law? You know,
00:19:47.220 why the need for that? And I think his answer was, well, so that we could charge them under two different
00:19:51.460 laws. We could really go after them. You know, that was his excuse. That was his reason for it.
00:19:57.300 So we could really go, you know, clamp down on this sort of thing. I mean, as far as I could see,
00:20:02.740 the current act on the books, as far as inciting hate goes, has been doing its job fine for decades.
00:20:09.940 And nobody's had a real problem with it, except maybe with the way it's enforced. You know,
00:20:14.580 some people seem to get away with a lot more hatred towards their fellow man and woman than other
00:20:19.460 people. You know, if you look at, for instance, some of the things that were said during the
00:20:23.220 anti-Israel pro-Hamas protests that we saw time and time again, just hate-filled, hate-fueled attacks
00:20:31.300 on an identifiable group of people. Very few people were charged, if any, under the
00:20:36.580 provision of attack. Isn't that true? I mean, is the way it was enforced?
00:20:41.460 Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And then you've got, you know, social conservative activists like Bill
00:20:46.820 Watcott, who he and some friends dress up as green, during the Toronto Pride Parade,
00:20:54.340 they dressed up as green gay zombies. And they handed out a pamphlet that talked about some of the 0.98
00:21:05.220 diseases that you could get from certain sexual activities. And yeah, it was hard-hitting. I could
00:21:13.220 see why his literature was offensive. He gets charged with hate speech for, you know,
00:21:19.380 distributing socially conservative flyers during the gay pride parade in Toronto.
00:21:30.180 And then, as you said, you have people with very hateful, but here's the problem. It's an emotion,
00:21:35.540 right? Like you could listen to it. You and I could listen to the same person saying the same thing,
00:21:40.740 and you could say, oh, that's really hateful. And I could say, nah, it's just an opinion. And vice
00:21:45.780 versa. I could listen to something and say, oh, do you hear the hate? And you could say, no, it's just
00:21:51.380 an opinion. So this is the problem. And Bill C-9 Combating Hate Act, it's going to, if it's passed in
00:21:59.620 current form, we're going to see a lot more Canadians prosecuted over their speech. It also gives judges the
00:22:05.700 power to severely increase penalties. If the judge feels that hate was part of the motivation in
00:22:13.060 the commission of a crime, then a maximum penalty of two years can become a maximum penalty of five
00:22:19.380 years. Maximum five can become maximum 10. Maximum 10 can become maximum 14. Maximum penalty of 14 years
00:22:26.660 can become life in prison if the judge feels that hate was involved in the commission of an offense.
00:22:32.500 So that too is quite worrisome, that you see these very draconian penalties based on an emotion.
00:22:44.340 And it's really about shutting people up. I mean, let's face facts here. The government doesn't like
00:22:48.660 certain opinions. They don't like those opinions shared. They saw what happened during the pandemic
00:22:53.380 when people started sharing opinions about the pandemic itself and the lockdowns and these draconian
00:23:00.180 measures that were brought in supposedly for our health. And the government wants to shut that
00:23:04.900 down. Whatever, you know, anything that they don't like and they want to shut it down. And of course,
00:23:09.380 the other side that's very troubling is, you know, just because you find something offensive doesn't
00:23:13.460 mean it should be illegal. You know, there's stuff that I find offensive. I've seen it. You know,
00:23:18.740 I just got to, you know, turn the page and find something else to look at. But my concern is that
00:23:24.340 they'll turn that into a crime. You offend somebody, well, you've committed a crime.
00:23:29.140 You know, I mean, I offend people all the time. So that's my problem.
00:23:34.820 Well, tied in with that, we've got the potential reintroduction of the Online Harms Act,
00:23:39.700 which is Bill C-63. It died on the order paper in April of 2025 when the election was called.
00:23:47.380 It was it was on track to get through. I mean, the block and the NDP were both supporting it. So
00:23:54.820 this bill, the Online Harms Act, if reintroduced, would give new powers to the Canadian Human Rights
00:24:03.060 Commission to prosecute non-criminal offensive speech. And this is also a big nightmare because
00:24:10.660 they think that because it's not criminal, it's not a big deal. And so they can prosecute Canadians 0.98
00:24:18.580 over offensive speech. But the problem is the penalty is up to $50,000 payable to the federal
00:24:27.140 government, up to $20,000 payable to a complainant who felt offended by the speech. And if you choose to
00:24:38.820 fight it, if you retain counsel, you'll be out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills.
00:24:43.620 So that's the Online Harms Act. You know, you won't have a criminal record, you'll just be
00:24:48.420 out of pocket, a lot of money, and you'll have this non-criminal prosecution hanging over your head
00:24:54.660 for years. The Online Harms Act also had a provision in there that a judge could place you
00:25:05.060 under house arrest, make you respect a curfew, and wear an ankle bracelet if he believes that you
00:25:12.580 might commit a speech crime in future. And I kid you not, this is a Minority Report. 0.85
00:25:17.700 Minority Report.
00:25:18.820 Somebody who has, yeah, somebody who has not been charged with an offense and has not been convicted
00:25:24.420 of an offense could be placed under house arrest by a judge based on someone's fear that they might
00:25:30.740 commit a hate speech offense in future. That's in Bill C-63. Last but not least, or again,
00:25:39.140 the Online Harms Act, it'll have a different bill number if it's reintroduced, is the provision giving
00:25:47.620 the federal cabinet the power to write regulations that govern internet content without any input from
00:25:56.580 parliament. And that would be enforced by a digital safety commission that can hand out very big fines
00:26:02.740 to any company that is not kicking the wrong speech off of its platform. So Canadians need to contact
00:26:11.620 their MP today, tomorrow, this week, and say vote against bills C-2, C-8, C-9. Do not bring back the
00:26:20.100 Online Harms Act. And we've got to, we've got to have, you have to speak up, you know, it's not good
00:26:26.260 enough to complain only to your family members. Yeah, absolutely. And it's no good to self-censor
00:26:34.180 either. It's just that that doesn't work. Anyway, how do people support the Justice Center?
00:26:40.420 You can go to our website, www.jccf.ca. So that's Justice Center Constitutional
00:26:46.020 Freedoms, www.jccf.ca. Sign up for our email newsletter. If you wish to donate, we are,
00:26:52.100 we depend entirely on voluntary donations from Canadians to defend freedom in Canada. And we're
00:26:58.900 registered charity, we issue official tax receipts. So you're welcome to donate online
00:27:03.620 and sign up for our free newsletter. Great. John Carpe, thank you so much for
00:27:10.580 coming on the show. We really do appreciate it. Thank you, Mark. Have a great rest of the day.
00:27:14.660 Thank you. And that is it for this edition of Straight Up. Appreciate you tuning in,
00:27:19.780 my friends. Let's do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.