Juno News - Tamara Lich faces 7 YEARS, Liberals push censorship law as CBC execs get raises

00:00:00.000 This is The Candice Malcolm Show. My name is Chris Simms. I'm the Alberta Director for the

00:00:07.200 Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thank you so much for joining us. Candice, of course,

00:00:11.700 will be back in her hot seat starting tomorrow. We've got a lot to cover on this show. This show,

00:00:18.600 I would like to say, is fundamentally about things like freedom of expression. Because,

00:00:24.500 of course, if you don't have freedom of speech or freedom of expression,

00:00:28.120 you can't protest the government. You can't defend yourself against the state. You can't speak truth

00:00:34.160 to power. That's one of the reasons the Canadian Taxpayers Federation was fighting so vehemently

00:00:39.800 against things like Bill C-11, which was, of course, an attempt to censor our expression online.

00:00:46.380 That, unfortunately, passed into law. And we've got another big, monstrous bill called Bill C-63,

00:00:52.640 which could again curtail your right to free expression. Because if you're at the Taxpayers

00:00:58.840 Federation, how soon will it be that we can't put a bunch of pink pig statues, right, all across the 0.84

00:01:06.620 lawn of Parliament Hill? We call politicians pigs at the trough all the time. So if you can't properly

00:01:13.160 express yourself and protest the government freely without fear, then you don't have free expression.

00:01:20.700 And on the other side of this vice grip, if you picture it, okay, on one side, we've got online

00:01:26.100 censorship, crackdown on free expression. On the other side, we have this monster of government

00:01:32.680 funded media, okay? We've got the CBC, which is, of course, government funded media by definition.

00:01:38.380 But we have a huge portion of mainstream media, which is now also on government payroll. If you break

00:01:45.600 it down like the folks at Blacklock's Reporter do, who don't take a cent from government, they do great

00:01:50.200 independent investigative journalism. If you break it down, it works out to close to $30,000 per media

00:01:57.540 company employee for government funding and subsidies and stuff. So this is a huge vice grip on your

00:02:04.560 ability to freely express yourselves, including calling for things like lower taxes, less waste,

00:02:10.520 and damn well more accountable government. So this is why shows like this are super important.

00:02:15.660 Speaking of free expression, we've got some breaking news here. And I really wanted to highlight this

00:02:20.660 for you because it just hit online. It's on X. It's on Twitter. Let's pull up Pierre Polyev's tweet here.

00:02:27.940 Quote, so this is, of course, in relation to the sentencing hearing that is happening this week in

00:02:32.420 Ottawa. We had to highlight this because, of course, it's connected to what went down with the

00:02:36.820 Emergencies Act. Quote, let's get this straight. While rampant violent offenders are released hours

00:02:42.420 after their most recent charges in anti-Semitic rioters, vandalized businesses, terrorized daycares,

00:02:48.060 and block traffic without consequences, the Crown wants seven years prison time for the charge of

00:02:54.040 mischief for leech and barber. How is this justice? So Polyev, of course, doesn't have a seat in Parliament 0.98

00:03:00.240 right now. He's campaigning for that seat during a by-election out here in Alberta, not too far here

00:03:06.680 from Crowsfoot. I think of actually my cousins up there in Stetler. So he's campaigning. He's out on

00:03:11.500 the campaign trail. So he just stopped to tweet this out because, of course, a lot of people are

00:03:17.000 remembering what was going on during the lockdowns, and especially from the taxpayers' perspective,

00:03:22.920 the Emergencies Act. People might remember what happened during the protest in Ottawa is that the

00:03:29.720 government passed the Emergencies Act, which is a new reincarnation of the War Measures Act.

00:03:35.840 Why does that matter to average people? Well, bank accounts got frozen by the government.

00:03:41.780 And this is a problem because this can stem into a chilling effect for other advocacy organizations,

00:03:48.160 for other peaceful protest groups who are standing up to the government. If you start allowing for

00:03:54.080 the government to impose the Emergencies Act when it feels like it, then we start running into major

00:03:59.500 problems of not being able to speak truth to power and to hold government to account. That's why it

00:04:05.380 was so interesting when at the federal court level, Justice Mosley said, no, the Emergencies Act

00:04:11.840 invocation that happened in Ottawa and across Canada, frankly, was unconstitutional. We'll be getting

00:04:17.800 back to that very soon. But again, if you zero in on what we're dealing with in Canada right now,

00:04:24.440 it is the vice grip on one side of online censorship. So things like Bill C-11 and the so-called Online

00:04:32.060 Harms Act of Bill C-63, which is threatening online expression if it's brought back into Parliament.

00:04:38.400 And on the other side, we've got government funded media. And a reminder, the CBC is taking $1.4 billion

00:04:47.580 from taxpayers this year. To put that kind of money into perspective, that kind of money could pay the

00:04:54.760 full-time salaries of about 7,000 paramedics plus 7,000 police officers just this year. It is an

00:05:03.960 astonishing amount of money. People might remember what happened when the CBC was caught handing out

00:05:10.960 massive bonuses. Catherine Tate, the CEO, was dragged in front of committee. We had all parties

00:05:17.260 criticizing the CBC for being tone deaf, handing out big bonuses. And then we had the CBC backpedaling,

00:05:24.380 saying they went on a listening tour and they're going to, you know, mend their ways. They're going

00:05:29.120 to stop the bonuses. They're going to stop paying people so much. Well, two things. One, the CEO,

00:05:35.160 the new one, is still at CEO level 7. That new CEO, same as the old CEO, she's still being paid in the 0.99

00:05:42.600 range of about half a million dollars per year. Yes, that is more money than any premier across

00:05:48.680 Canada. And that's the head of the CBC. Second, they said they were going to get rid of the bonuses,

00:05:55.460 but all they did, based on access to information requests that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has

00:06:00.520 found. Here it is. It's right on the website. If you guys go to Juno News, okay? My colleague,

00:06:05.260 Franco Terrazzano, discovered this. The CBC did a sleight of hand. They said we're getting rid of

00:06:11.300 bonuses. Nothing to see here, folks. And then they just cranked up their salaries by like an outrageous

00:06:18.040 amount, like way more than they ever have in previous years. So they think you're stupid. They think

00:06:23.860 that they can just hand out more money and not call it a bonus. So it won't be a bonus. So it'll be okay.

00:06:30.520 This again gets down to the brass tax of being able to hold the government to account. Because

00:06:37.480 at the end of the day, when you add up all the different layers of government and all the

00:06:41.900 different layers of taxation, they're taking half of your money. Roughly half of your money.

00:06:49.400 To do a little thought experiment, imagine what lands in your bank account. Say you're on salary.

00:06:54.600 Say you get paid every two weeks. Close your eyes and imagine every two weeks, instead of what

00:06:59.920 is landing in your bank account, double it. Double it. Double that amount. Could you afford

00:07:06.780 more nutritious food for your kids? Could you put them into a better school? Could you save for a

00:07:10.980 down payment for a house? Could you pay off some of your credit card bills? There's a million

00:07:15.300 wonderful things that you could do with your own money if you kept more of it. That's how much

00:07:22.280 the government, various levels of it, are taking from you. That's why it's so important to have our

00:07:28.880 fundamental right of free expression protected in this country. Where are we when it comes to things

00:07:35.960 like the threat against our free expression? Where are we when it comes to things like online

00:07:41.720 censorship and the crackdown against us being able to speak up? Let's find out. Joining me now is

00:07:47.800 Christine Van Gein. She is the litigation director for the Canadian Constitution Foundation. She has her

00:07:53.660 own TV show. Her group has their own podcast. It's called Not Reserving Judgment. I highly recommend

00:07:59.620 that you add this to your kind of smaller government freedom movement podcast list. I know mine is growing

00:08:06.000 by the day. They're a must listen. And of course, her excellent book, Pandemic Panic. Okay, it sits on my

00:08:13.080 bookshelf between Franco Teresano's book on the carbon tax and Andrew Lawton's wonderful book. Now,

00:08:19.720 Christine, thank you so much for joining us. I know you've got a lot on your plate. But right off

00:08:25.800 the top, given what's going on in Ottawa, there's probably going to be a big media circus this week.

00:08:30.920 I just wanted you to quickly update our listeners on the Emergencies Act. Because of course, it was your

00:08:38.000 organization along with one other that had that huge win. I would argue, I would argue personally,

00:08:45.200 that that was a game changing win. Like I always think about it. And that was, of course, the win

00:08:50.260 in federal court, where in federal court, they said, Yeah, no, the Emergencies Act went too far.

00:08:57.340 You can't be freezing people's bank accounts for peaceful protests, all of that. My understanding

00:09:02.700 is the government is appealing this. Can you just give us an update on where that court case stands?

00:09:07.860 Yeah, absolutely. I'd be happy to. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you, Chris.

00:09:12.060 So our group was one of the organizations that challenged the Justin Trudeau government's

00:09:17.040 invocation of the Emergencies Act, an extraordinary piece of legislation that allows the cabinet to make

00:09:23.640 new criminal law by executive order. We challenged the use of that in response to the 2022 Freedom

00:09:30.620 Convoy, which the Rouleau Commission found was notable for its lack of violence. We challenged that

00:09:37.740 in federal court and the Justice Mosley at federal court found that the high threshold to invoke the

00:09:44.020 Emergencies Act had not been met, that there was no threat to the security of Canada, which is part of

00:09:50.980 that standard, that its use was unreasonable. And he found that the regulations created under the

00:09:57.880 Emergencies Act, which included the prohibitions on gatherings across the country, not just in

00:10:03.940 downtown Ottawa, where those protests had went on for quite quite a while, that these gatherings were across

00:10:11.240 Canada were now criminalized. And the regulations freezing bank accounts of around 200 Canadians, Justice

00:10:21.560 Mosley found that those were unconstitutional, that those violated the charter rights of Canadians. This was a

00:10:26.620 massive win for civil liberties in Canada that our organization had spearheaded. And we were thrilled

00:10:34.220 with the result. Obviously, the Trudeau government was not thrilled with the result. They announced their

00:10:40.260 intention to appeal within, I think, you know, 13 minutes, maybe less of the decision, the 200 page

00:10:47.860 decision coming out. So then obviously, not really possible to have even read the whole thing before

00:10:53.500 deciding, they disagreed with it, because it held them accountable. And so the appeal was heard in February, in

00:11:01.600 Toronto, at the federal Court of Appeal on a three judge panel, that appeal went on for two days, and we're still

00:11:07.620 awaiting the decision. Typically, it takes about six months for a decision to come out. But we do think because this is the

00:11:13.580 first time this extraordinary piece of legislation has ever been used, that it will take a little bit longer than the six

00:11:20.760 months, we usually expect. And also, this is a federal court matter, federal Court of Appeal matter. So you add in a little

00:11:27.240 bit of time, because they translate these decisions and release them at the same time in English and in French. So add a

00:11:33.800 little bit of time there. So we might get one decision before the end of the year, but we might not. But whenever we get it, what

00:11:40.820 we're hoping for is another win for the fundamental freedoms of Canadians.

00:11:44.820 Well, we're in your corner, obviously, because if you can't protest the government peacefully, as the justice

00:11:51.300 pointed out, you have no freedom of expression, then what are we in this for that's really kind of game over unless

00:11:57.060 you want to start some underground speakeasy. I mean, I love Art Deco style, but I don't want to have to go to that in

00:12:02.100 order to protest the government. In all seriousness, I did want to stress, like I've covered court from everything from

00:12:07.600 parking tickets up to the Supreme Court. What I found very interesting about Mosley's decision when I read it was I'm

00:12:13.940 paraphrasing him. So forgive me. But he said something along the lines of, I went into this thinking one

00:12:19.540 way, that I was going to kind of rule, you know, on the other side. But it was the strength of the arguments

00:12:26.580 from those who were intervening, including your organization, Christine, that changed my mind.

00:12:32.100 Yeah, we weren't intervening. We were we were the party. But yeah, absolutely. It shows the importance of

00:12:39.940 public interest litigation by groups, charities like the CCF. Because if we hadn't brought this,

00:12:46.180 I don't think that we would have had the result we had today. I mean, Justice Mosley basically said

00:12:50.820 as much in his decision. And it's very validating to hear that from a judge, we often get decisions

00:12:56.340 we don't like from the courts. And this one, really, for us was something we're really proud of. But

00:13:03.060 but more than that, it was the right decision. And it guaranteed these really core rights that

00:13:09.060 Canadians have. This is a really, really huge piece of legislation that that is so easy to abuse.

00:13:16.900 It's it's in emergency situations that governments tend to overreact and grab more power and do things

00:13:24.580 that violate civil liberties. Emergencies are generally the greatest threat to civil liberties

00:13:29.540 of anything that can can happen. It's when governments do these kinds of things. So we

00:13:34.020 really need to make it clear what this legislation can do. And that the Emergencies Act, keep in mind,

00:13:40.500 replaced another piece of legislation, the War Measures Act, that had been abused by Justin Trudeau's

00:13:46.740 own father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau during the October crisis. And not to downplay what happened in the

00:13:53.940 October crisis. I mean, there there was violence, including a murder, but nothing that happened in

00:14:03.060 the convoy rose to the level of what happened during the the abuse of the War Measures Act in the October

00:14:09.460 crisis, where hundreds of people were arrested, homes were searched without warrants, people were

00:14:14.820 detained without habeas corpus. And the court, I mean, the outcome in the War Measures Act was everyone

00:14:23.220 sort of agrees that that piece of legislation was over the top, that its use was overkill. And the

00:14:28.740 Emergencies Act was created in response to that. It came with all these bells and whistles and

00:14:33.540 thresholds and things that the government needed to do to demonstrate its use against civilians in a

00:14:39.380 public order emergency was justified. And Trudeau's son, Justin Trudeau, just blew through all of that.

00:14:48.020 So much so that there was opposition from within his own party.

00:14:52.180 I know a lot of us were talking in what I would call the freedom movement or small,

00:14:55.940 more accountable government movement at the time. And there was a lot of dissension in the ranks,

00:14:59.380 even in the Senate. So like that was not a very comfortable situation to put it mildly.

00:15:04.500 I wanted to briefly touch on something quickly before we move on to Bill C-63,

00:15:08.260 that it doesn't even need to be something as dramatic and frightening as getting your bank account

00:15:13.940 frozen for a government to try to take advantage of emergencies. We just recently saw the provincial

00:15:19.540 government in British Columbia try something kind of mundane, but which would have really hurt taxpayers

00:15:24.980 and voters in British Columbia. And that was basically saying something to the effect of,

00:15:29.220 oh, well, the tariff war is like a real war. And so it's an emergency. And so we should be able to

00:15:35.540 basically do whatever we want, including major spending bills with no oversight in the legislature in

00:15:41.860 Victoria, just using the emergency cloak as an ability to override people's rights. And so to your

00:15:48.900 point exactly, Christine, it's when the government starts talking about declaring an emergency that

00:15:54.100 the average person really needs to be careful and watch them like hawks, because that's usually a dinner

00:16:00.500 bell where they're going to try to grab more power and ultimately take more of your money.

00:16:04.580 I wanted to move to Bill C-63 here because everybody's in kind of the summer mode. You know,

00:16:10.820 Pierre Polyev doesn't have a seat right now. They're all waiting to see what happens at the by-election.

00:16:14.900 To me, this kind of feels like, you know, the phony war moment. They haven't quite gotten down to brass

00:16:19.060 tacks. If and when this all comes back together in the fall, as people are expecting it to, where is Bill C-63?

00:16:26.900 Like for a quick reminder for people, when we last left off, correct me if I'm wrong, Bill C-63 was this

00:16:33.860 weird chimeric hybrid, where on one side it was about online harms and protecting children against

00:16:40.660 images of childhood sexual abuse online. Also some really crazy stuff that people are doing with deep

00:16:46.580 fakes, which is super disturbing. But next to it was this strange sort of, you know, futuristic sort of

00:16:55.700 minority report-esque thing of like, if you say something online that offends another person,

00:17:01.140 they can anonymously report you and you can be put under house arrest for it. Like the other part of

00:17:07.220 that bill sounded so far-fetched to me that I had trouble believing what I was reading. Where are we

00:17:12.980 with this bill? Is there a chance Carney could just like squelch it and not bring it back?

00:17:18.260 So Bill C-63 is dead.

00:17:20.260 It was killed in the last parliament when it was prorogued and with a new parliament,

00:17:25.860 it would need to be reintroduced. I think that there might be some procedural way to bring it

00:17:31.540 back, but I think it would have to be on unanimous consent. And honestly, I'm not like a parliamentary

00:17:35.860 procedure geek, so I'm not a hundred percent sure, but my understanding is they would probably almost

00:17:41.220 certainly have to reintroduce it from scratch. They really were hammered on this bill by civil

00:17:46.580 liberties groups like ours at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. The bill essentially

00:17:51.220 had three parts. The first part were changes to the criminal law that would have created higher

00:17:57.380 penalties for hate speech offenses, including the possibility of life imprisonment for hate-related

00:18:07.060 offenses or hate-motivated offenses. The problems with this could include

00:18:13.060 for example, overcharging by prosecutors. So if a young person engages in some hateful graffiti,

00:18:24.500 they could be charged with vandalism. But on top of that, they could be also charged with hate-motivated

00:18:29.140 vandalism, which then carries a much higher penalty. And of course, we should put people in the criminal

00:18:35.540 process if they're engaging in crime. But the risk of overcharging is a real one. And the risk of, you

00:18:42.900 know, getting someone who might not even be guilty of an offense to plead out because now the prosecutor

00:18:48.740 has this hammer of this potential life imprisonment for an otherwise minor offense, that's a big problem.

00:18:54.900 That's a big problem in the criminal law system already. And this would have exacerbated it.

00:19:00.580 The other issue in the criminal law amendments was that sort of minority report issue that you

00:19:05.940 had described. So what this involved were peace bonds, which is sort of a prior restraint on an

00:19:13.060 individual that restrains them from doing some future act. And if there were, if a member of the

00:19:20.100 public believes some person was going to commit some future hate speech offense, they could apply to the

00:19:29.860 I think it's the attorney general who could then have a peace bond applied to this individual to

00:19:36.500 do all kinds of things that restrain that person from doing things, including house arrest or ankle

00:19:42.420 monitors and things like that for a speech offense that they have not even committed, but that they

00:19:48.260 might commit in the future. We obviously have problems with that type of thing.

00:19:54.340 Now, the second part of the online harms bill related to regulations of online platforms that would

00:20:02.260 have prohibited, would have put obligations on platforms for things like online hate speech or

00:20:10.420 online bullying, which have this risk of, first of all, would have created a whole new huge giant

00:20:17.460 bureaucracy at a time when this government's bureaucracy is already absolutely out of control.

00:20:22.420 Uh, and then it would have created a chilling effect on these platforms. So all kinds of speech

00:20:29.540 that might not rise to the level of hatred, but wit or a hate crime, but which is objectionable,

00:20:36.580 which frankly is a lot of speech that you see online, uh, might get proactively taken down by

00:20:41.540 platforms because of their fear of financial penalty by this new giant regulator. Now, the third part of

00:20:47.540 bill C 63 was the child protection provisions, which deal with higher penalties and new reporting

00:20:55.460 obligations for child sexual abuse imagery, which I think everyone agrees would have passed ununanimous

00:21:03.300 consent if that part of the bill had been split off. I think the conservatives had said that they would

00:21:07.380 have voted to support that. Um, I don't think any of us at the civil liberties movement, I disagree with

00:21:13.780 that. I think child welfare and child protection is something that's incredibly important. I think that

00:21:19.860 this government, if they had been actually serious about protecting children, they would have just split

00:21:24.500 this part of the bill off and had it passed by itself without tying it to these controversial and

00:21:32.260 probably unconstitutional aspects of the bill. And also they might just put child sex offenders in

00:21:39.140 jail, uh, and, and stop enacting legislation or, um, doing things that allow for lower sentences for, uh,

00:21:47.220 child sex abusers.

00:21:48.820 Big time. And to your point exactly, um, I've been in the game for a long time. I've been a staffer,

00:21:53.860 I've been a reporter, mostly worked, um, as a court reporter. And what got me when this first came out,

00:22:00.900 other than obviously the huge chilling effect that I would say this would have on free expression.

00:22:05.540 And again, if you can't speak up for yourself, including things like criticizing the government,

00:22:10.420 like we use pig statues, we call government pigs all the time. Uh, we call out the carbon tax as being,

00:22:16.100 you know, a load of bull. Um, people get really upset about that kind of stuff and that's okay for

00:22:20.580 them to be offended by what we say. That's free expression. The other part that, that struck me

00:22:26.420 was just how disingenuous and calculating it was to tack on protecting children to an otherwise

00:22:33.300 really problematic law, proposed law. Um, I don't know anyone who doesn't want tougher crimes,

00:22:40.580 at least tougher sentencing, tougher, uh, consequences for people who hurt kids.

00:22:45.140 And just telling a little war story. I remember back when I was at Sun News Network and then the

00:22:50.260 prime minister of the day, Stephen Harper had mandatory minimums for things like child sexual

00:22:55.940 abuse. And I think the mandatory minimum for an adult sexually abusing a child was something crazy.

00:23:01.380 It was like 12 months or like 18 months. And people were still freaking out about the fact

00:23:07.220 that there was even a mandatory minimum. So to turn around and have the same sort of crowd say,

00:23:12.900 oh, well, this is all about protecting children while we're threatening your right to free expression.

00:23:18.020 I just found that really disingenuous. It just seems cynical. It's cynical. It's to inoculate

00:23:23.940 themselves against criticism for their otherwise unconstitutional bill so they can hold up the

00:23:28.580 child protective aspects of the bill and say, but think about the children. This bill is about

00:23:34.420 protecting children when really they are using abused children as a shield for their unconstitutional

00:23:43.700 censorship law. I mean, pass the part of the bill that relates to children and drop the rest of it.

00:23:51.220 In fact, that was where the government, the Trudeau government was heading when this was,

00:23:57.060 when parliament was prorogued, they dropped the first part of the bill, the criminal law

00:24:02.660 provisions, but they kept the rest of it. The online regulation bureaucracy problems were still going

00:24:09.220 to be there, but at least they dropped the criminal provisions. Frankly, I think that the Kearney

00:24:13.380 government, I don't know that they want to spend political capital on that when the Trudeau government

00:24:20.020 really took a beating from civil liberties groups over it across the spectrum. There are civil liberties

00:24:25.540 groups on the left and on the right and on the center who all disagreed with those criminal law

00:24:32.340 changes. I think that the Kearney government might introduce something related to bubble zones. So I

00:24:39.300 don't think they've talked about that. It was in their platform. Those are likely unconstitutional

00:24:44.260 laws that they're, you know, sort of flirting with and considering introducing. So I don't think that they

00:24:50.740 are a free speech party, this government, but I think that those criminal prohibitions that were

00:24:57.780 contemplated in C63. My sincere hope is that they are dead and are not coming back. I was just wanted

00:25:03.700 to touch on that quickly. A friend of mine called Trudeau's bills like this, his ideology vision quest

00:25:10.740 that he was on in many, in many cases, an ideological quest. I don't see Kearney as the same sort of cat.

00:25:17.540 Now he's got a horrendous plan to blow the budget. He's got a horrendous plan to pile on the debt. There's a

00:25:22.740 whole lot of issues we have with him trying to ban the sale of regular cars and trucks. There's a billion

00:25:27.380 things that I'd criticize him on. But my sense from him is that he's a bit more pragmatic,

00:25:34.340 that he doesn't, to your point, want to spend a lot of political capital on this. Do you think

00:25:40.580 that there's, if you were a betting lady, would you bet that he's going to just introduce the

00:25:46.100 child protection elements within the criminal code and adjustment under the justice ministry and leave

00:25:51.300 the rest of this out? I think that he's going to introduce legislation on bubble zones, which is a 0.65

00:25:56.500 different issue on free speech. I don't think he's going to reintroduce the criminal code

00:26:00.980 prohibitions on hate speech, but I could be wrong. You know, I just don't have enough information about

00:26:07.940 Mark Kearney and what he believes on freedom of expression issues to have any sense of where he's

00:26:13.780 going to go. He just seems like the type who has a belief that you should do what's right and proper

00:26:22.740 and just be nice and don't offend people. And unfortunately, that's not a very free speech

00:26:27.780 orientation because the whole point of freedom of expression is that you can say things that bother

00:26:33.700 people and that upset people and that offend people, even if it is not consistent with, you know,

00:26:40.500 elite British sensibilities. Yes, we have to be able to offend people. I really wanted to quickly touch

00:26:48.660 on what's going on in Ottawa this week with sentencing, and I know that your group is not

00:26:52.500 representing an individual here, but you guys did, again, amazing work fighting the Emergencies Act.

00:26:58.100 Your book, Pandemic Panic, again, is a must read for anybody who's freedom oriented.

00:27:03.060 Did you have any thoughts on what's going on here with the proposals of like a seven-year prison sentence

00:27:08.660 for a possible mischief conviction? Just in my personal experience being a court reporter,

00:27:14.340 I don't remember there being an actual sentencing for mischief. However, I have heard it threatened

00:27:20.740 before because in the criminal code, there is kind of a hefty sentencing provision in there for

00:27:26.980 mischief convictions. Did you have any thoughts on what's going on in Ottawa? I know we have to be

00:27:31.620 careful because again, it is before the courts and I would advise everybody to be a little bit more

00:27:35.860 careful with how they're talking about this before sentencing happens.

00:27:38.660 Yeah, so you're alluding to the sentencing of Tamara Leach. And look, we're not representing

00:27:46.580 her. We didn't represent any individuals who were charged related to the Freedom Convoy movement. We

00:27:51.380 were a public interest litigant. I just broadly would say that a first-time offender with a low

00:27:58.980 likelihood to re-offend on a charge of mischief. Seven years seems just pretty bonkers as a request.

00:28:09.460 I just don't see the rationale for that.

00:28:14.580 Yeah, that's all I'd say on it.

00:28:17.540 We're not involved in any of those cases, but that seems like overkill big time.

00:28:23.540 Yeah, I think anybody who's been a court reporter, again, who sat there and watched,

00:28:28.660 I mean, I've seen like repeat arsonists just walk out of court. You know, it's pretty wild. I

00:28:34.260 encourage people, by the way, it is your right as an individual and as a citizen to peacefully

00:28:39.540 sit in and watch most court cases. A lot of people don't know that, but it is absolutely your right to

00:28:44.740 sit in the public gallery so long as it's not in camera and there's a special thing.

00:28:48.180 You can't record. There are limitations on what you can do. You can't, you know,

00:28:54.180 interrupt. Don't podcast from there, please. And don't become the story, but you can

00:29:00.420 silently witness it. It's part of having an open court system. I wanted to get to something that I

00:29:05.460 hope is more fun, but I haven't braced myself because I haven't watched the footage, but apparently

00:29:10.580 we have footage of this. So correct, stop me if I'm wrong. There's this dude in Mississauga, Ontario,

00:29:17.700 correct? He had a front lawn that people got all butthurt about because they didn't like what he

00:29:22.980 was doing with their lawn. I don't think that was the terminology that the city staff used,

00:29:26.660 but that's okay. And then the city ripped it up because his lawn wasn't up to spec. Like,

00:29:33.060 tell us about this. What is going on? Repeatedly, yeah. So for background,

00:29:37.460 so people understand there's something called the naturalized garden movement. And these are people who

00:29:41.860 have a different aesthetic preference. They don't want their front lawn or their back lawn to look

00:29:48.260 like a manicured rose garden or rose of hydrangeas or something that is more typical of what you would

00:29:56.660 see in a suburban residential garden. They like wild flowers. They like their garden to look like a forest or

00:30:06.820 a meadow or just embracing the native plants that grow in their community rather than importing plants

00:30:15.060 from another place, that this ends up creating an environment for native wildlife, for butterflies,

00:30:22.580 dragonflies, and a habitat that is good for the environment. And this type of gardening is,

00:30:31.620 it's an aesthetic preference, but it's also a political viewpoint about ecology, about the

00:30:37.700 environment, about human beings interaction with the environment. And there are a series of cases

00:30:43.300 related to, you know, nosy neighbors who don't like the wildflower meadow that grows beside their

00:30:51.220 rows of hydrangeas. And so a lot of cities have bylaws about tall grass and weeds. And there are a

00:30:59.380 series of cases where municipalities have enforced those bylaws by coming onto that private property

00:31:05.460 and ripping out the garden, mowing it all down, cutting the whole thing down. And one of the first

00:31:11.460 cases is from the 1990s involving a woman named Sandy Bell. The bylaw at issue, the Toronto bylaw at

00:31:18.500 issue in that case, was found to be a violation of the charter. That her garden is an expression of

00:31:24.340 her belief about what is beautiful and about nature. And she's entitled to those beliefs. And

00:31:30.660 her beliefs were not harming anyone in any way. Her growing her goldenrod and milkweed was not

00:31:36.820 interfering with anyone else's safety. And we have a similar situation now in Mississauga with a homeowner

00:31:44.660 named Wolf Ruck, who has had his garden reported by an anonymous neighbor multiple times, the city has

00:31:52.900 come multiple times, I think three years in a row now have have twice mowed it down and are trying to

00:31:59.140 mow it down a third time. And it's all about your aesthetic taste. It's all about imposing what the

00:32:08.500 government thinks is beautiful on to another person's property, his private property that he

00:32:15.780 owns that he has spent years trying to cultivate this sort of wild meadow habitat for animals, insects,

00:32:25.220 and native plants. So we intervened in his case at Superior Court to challenge this bylaw and stand up

00:32:34.260 for Wolf's right to express himself and his beliefs about what's beautiful. The city even said that the

00:32:39.860 purpose of this bylaw is about aesthetic beauty. And no one gets to decide what's beautiful. We all

00:32:46.020 have different tastes. I don't want the government telling me what is beautiful because I might have

00:32:51.700 a different opinion. And I probably do. Yeah, it's not as if this guy from what I can tell from that

00:32:56.660 video has like four junked cars in the front lawn. Absolutely not. Absolutely reefs for squirrels or

00:33:03.300 some crap like that is not the case. And I can see even in that video. Those are native grasses

00:33:08.100 because I'm one of those people. My front lawn is full of criminal crap. I know don't come after

00:33:14.420 me. Thank goodness I'm in Lethbridge in God's country. Imagine if somebody tried to tell you what

00:33:18.580 to do property in Lethbridge like it's full of clover and wild flowers and cone, corn flowers,

00:33:24.740 those little blue ones because it's native prairie and some prairie grass, lots of water for the birds.

00:33:30.580 And like it's that's how it looks. Now I have little fences around it and I keep it trimmed

00:33:34.420 around the edges. But yeah, it's not like a carpet of green with perfectly clipped roses. And again,

00:33:40.980 those look beautiful. I walk around my neighborhood and I love my neighbor's yards. I just really think

00:33:46.340 it's important personally to support bees, especially and native birds. Like the irony is that these

00:33:52.820 governments have their own policies promoting this, but then like the the the boulevards have this exact

00:34:01.620 type of this exact style of garden with milkweed and goldenrod and tall grasses like on Wolf's property.

00:34:07.620 It's their own policy, their pollinator friendly garden policy. And there are fields throughout these

00:34:13.300 cities, including Mississauga with uncut grass and wild meadows. But only when a nosy neighbor complains

00:34:23.540 does it get enforced on his private property, which by the way, he's then sent a bill for a few thousand

00:34:30.740 dollars to pay for this work that destroyed his property. It's completely inappropriate.

00:34:39.140 And just leave this man alone and let him grow his plants. 0.69

00:34:43.300 This makes me so friggin mad because I will bet you that Mississauga has not had a huge property tax cut,

00:34:50.980 you know, descending over the last 10 years out on a limb here. Like this is why people get so mad at

00:34:56.420 local government. We generally expect our local governments to keep our streets safe and in good

00:35:02.340 repair. End of list. They don't want them going onto people's property, destroying bee habitat. They don't

00:35:07.940 want them saving the world. They don't want them putting in, you know, bike lanes through the middle 0.95

00:35:11.940 of the major highway zones. Like this is so stupid and what a crazy waste of money. All right. Where

00:35:17.140 does this stand right now? Like what's the, where is it in the meandering court case labyrinth?

00:35:22.100 Yeah. So it, we, we actually have intervened twice now. So we went to the court of appeal where, uh, it was

00:35:29.700 kicked back to lower court. Um, and we were heard two weeks ago, I think now at superior court where we

00:35:37.380 intervene to argue about these freedom of expression issues. So we argued in our intervention that

00:35:44.660 a government claiming that it has standards for aesthetic beauty on your property is not

00:35:51.540 a valid purpose for a law, uh, to, to limit your rights. The government needs to be limiting them

00:35:57.620 for what's called a valid public purpose. And that just isn't one. Just the very notion of government

00:36:03.140 deciding what is aesthetically beautiful. This makes me want to bark for your own property.

00:36:08.340 I actually think they should have standards for their own government buildings. They should maybe

00:36:12.580 try to make them look nice, uh, instead of, of ugly, uh, you know, balancing that against cost.

00:36:19.860 Uh, but they don't get to decide what's beautiful for your property. That's a big problem here. They're

00:36:25.460 trying to come on your property and say, we don't like your garden and we're going to come and cut it

00:36:30.260 down and then charge you for it. Destroying this habitat. Um, that he has animals living in this

00:36:37.060 garden. He has rabbits and chipmunks and animals that live there and destroying the habitat for them.

00:36:43.620 Um, and, and he cutting down these plants right in the middle of their pollination season.

00:36:48.580 Gross. Absolutely gross. Now, Christine, I don't know if I'm telling tales out of school,

00:36:52.660 but did you want to mention your, your new book that's coming out this fall? Is that,

00:36:56.260 yeah, no, no, it's not. I haven't made a formal announcement yet, but I'll tell your viewers

00:37:01.140 because I think that they'd be really interested in this. So we have a book coming out this fall,

00:37:06.180 September 2nd about freedom of expression and it's for children. And it sort of tells the story of

00:37:13.620 it's based on these gardens stories. So it's about a little girl who wants to grow a garden and the city

00:37:18.580 comes and cuts it down. And then she tries to protest and the city tells her she's not allowed to

00:37:24.020 to protest. She tries to go to city hall and they tell her she can't have a sign in city council

00:37:30.340 chambers. We've been working on some litigation about that as well. She tries to put up posters 0.72

00:37:35.860 around the city and the city says that's not allowed either. These are all based on real

00:37:40.420 Canadian case law about freedom of expression. And in the end, the court sides with her and says that,

00:37:47.860 you have a right to freedom of expression that's guaranteed under the charter and the government

00:37:53.140 can't interfere with that in a way that isn't justified. And it's illustrated by a Canadian

00:38:00.260 artist who I actually grew up with who had her own sort of as an artist cancellation attempts against

00:38:06.900 her. So she really understands the importance of freedom of expression in our culture. The great

00:38:13.780 irony is trying to cancel an artist who are supposed to be in the industry where you can speak truth

00:38:21.060 to power and coming at you for expressing yourself and trying to have you canceled for expressing yourself

00:38:27.140 as an artist is especially egregious, but it's beautifully, beautifully illustrated. And the reason

00:38:35.220 I wanted to write this book is because my husband's American. I'll go to the United States

00:38:40.580 sometimes when we'll go to a historic site and you know, when you exit through the gift shop,

00:38:44.580 you always walk through and you see all these different items for children about America's rich

00:38:50.900 constitutional history. And these are books, picture books for children that are in every American

00:38:56.900 museum shop. And we in Canada have an incredibly rich constitutional history and incredible case law and

00:39:04.980 protections for free expression. And we should embrace that and celebrate it and teach our

00:39:10.340 children about these protections from an early age. I'm so thrilled that I have an opportunity to do

00:39:15.780 that with this new children's book. So it's called Maple's Garden and it's going to launch on September

00:39:22.100 2nd and you can pre-order it on Amazon right now. So if you search up Maple's Garden on Amazon, you'll find

00:39:28.660 it. And yeah, if you buy it and help me out, we might end up on the Toronto Star bestseller list,

00:39:36.340 like Pandemic Panic, my last book did, much to I think perhaps the chagrin of the star. But I think

00:39:45.620 people of every persuasion need to understand the value of freedom of expression, starting with

00:39:50.900 children. I love this for a few reasons. One, that you're releasing it on Atlas Shrugged Day, September

00:39:56.100 2nd. I didn't even make that connection. It's okay. We nerds have your back. And then also that you're

00:40:02.180 tackling this from different angles because it's, it's easy, or I guess I should say it's kind of

00:40:07.300 comfortable, like, you know, soft, supple shoe leather to just get mad about things all the time.

00:40:12.180 And I totally understand why people get mad all the time. I wake up mad most of the time.

00:40:16.500 But we really do need to embrace some art, have some joy and especially teach our kids about this

00:40:22.980 stuff because otherwise we're just ripe for the picking. Christine Van Gein, litigation director for the 0.98

00:40:28.580 Canadian Constitution Foundation and Freedom Fighter. Thank you so much for joining us on the show here

00:40:33.540 on Juneau. Awesome. It was a pleasure. That was an outstanding conversation. Thank you again so much

00:40:39.460 to the Canadian Constitution Foundation and all the other great advocacy organizations that are arguing

00:40:45.300 for smaller, more accountable government. Folks, we have to walk the walk here, okay? We have to support

00:40:52.020 organizations that matter because the government is funding organizations quite often who are on the

00:40:59.620 other side of this, these sorts of issues, okay? So if the government is taking your money and handing

00:41:04.740 it to media organizations, it's super important for those of us who care about accountability, a free press

00:41:12.340 and free expression to support the groups who are fighting for you. Juneau News is one of those.

00:41:19.300 Become a subscriber. Spread the word. Share the message with your friends and family. Head on over to

00:41:25.780 JuneauNews.com and join the fight.

Juno News - July 21, 2025

Tamara Lich faces 7 YEARS, Liberals push censorship law as CBC execs get raises

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