Juno News - 'Tamara Lich is an enemy of the state' (feat. Ari Goldkind)

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I hope you're enjoying a great summer and hopefully

00:00:24.240 that includes watching my podcast. Today we're talking about Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara

00:00:31.060 Leach and the fact that she's back in jail after what many see as a travesty of justice

00:00:37.380 and a vindictive approach by the authorities who seem to want to make an example of her

00:00:43.160 for her having the temerity to organize a peaceful civil disobedience against government overreach

00:00:51.020 and encroachment of our civil liberties. Tamara has been charged with mischief, counseling 1.00

00:00:56.200 mischief, obstructing police, counseling to obstruct police, counseling intimidation and

00:01:02.200 intimidation by blocking and obstructing one or more highways. She was arrested in February

00:01:08.680 towards the end of the trucker's protest and was out on bail in March. In June she attended a gala

00:01:16.000 event in Toronto. She was there to receive the George Jonas Freedom Award. One of Leach's bail

00:01:22.860 conditions was not to associate with other convoy participants unless in the presence of a lawyer.

00:01:29.640 A photo of her with one fellow participant, one fellow convoy participant Tom Marazzo,

00:01:36.220 was widely shared on social media and believe it or not she was shortly re-arrested after that.

00:01:41.940 She has now been denied bail and facing the prospect of a very long time in jail while

00:01:47.320 she awaits trial. It's hard to believe that this is happening in Canada.

00:01:52.380 Today's guest will help me unravel what's been happening to the Tamara Lich case

00:01:56.460 and what it says about the legal system in Canada. Please welcome to the show well-known criminal

00:02:02.360 defense lawyer, legal expert and commentator Ari Goldkind. Ari was present during the Lich bail

00:02:08.220 hearing and had some critical comments to make about the government's handling of the case

00:02:13.500 even though he's not a supporter of the convoy. So I chat with Ari about the case and what it means

00:02:20.060 for all of us. Do tune in. It's great to have you here Ari. I'm so glad that we could make this work

00:02:26.840 and it's truly a pleasure to have you here. I've been reading some of your tweets on the Tamara Lich

00:02:34.120 bail hearing and you've been pretty vocal about your criticism in your criticism of the way that

00:02:42.440 Tamara Lich's recent bail hearings have been handled by the authorities. In particular you say that I'm

00:02:48.940 watching the Tamara Lich bail hearing. This is entering into third world stuff. Truly Kafkaesque

00:02:55.000 nonsense. It's literally that bizarre and reflects some very concerning issues about how our bail

00:03:01.460 system is not working. This is a pretty damning indictment of the system. Could you elaborate on

00:03:10.020 this please? Why do you think that the bail system is not working in the context of the Tamara Lich case?

00:03:16.380 I've been doing criminal law, Rupa, and it's great to be with you. I admire a lot of your writing a lot

00:03:22.300 of the time. Let's not keep that a secret from people. And being a criminal lawyer who's done

00:03:27.620 more bail hearings than I can count on 20 sets of feet and toes and hands, and I'm understating it,

00:03:34.260 criminal lawyers who are busy do them every day, sometimes two or three a day. Even in my own cases,

00:03:40.060 when I have clients not get out who I think should get out, I've probably never been as outraged

00:03:47.040 watching the Tamara Lich bail hearing on this Justice Centre dinner three-second breach

00:03:53.120 photographed with the wrong guy, an enemy of the state, and watching the justice of the peace

00:03:59.360 detain her, let alone what I thought were the egregious and abhorrent acts of the Crown Attorney

00:04:04.180 and the homicide detectives who had nothing better to do in Ottawa than put out a Canada-wide warrant,

00:04:10.780 which is never put out for non-violent people on breaches, by the way. Find somebody to show you

00:04:15.840 where that's happened. But they have nothing better to do than prosecute this person. That's

00:04:21.500 bad enough, because I have a great admiration for most Crown Attorneys. I would probably be a Crown

00:04:27.100 Attorney, but for certain things. I don't play well with others. I like what I make for a living. I like

00:04:32.200 being the underdog. A whole bunch of other things we don't need to get into today. But I have great

00:04:37.140 admiration for them. And when I see what this one Crown Attorney, who I won't even say his name,

00:04:42.660 has done throughout this proceeding, treating Tamara Leach as if her name is Paula Bernardo,

00:04:49.200 or pretending she's such a threat to the state that she needs to be jailed indefinitely. If Tamara 0.97

00:04:56.340 Leach is such a threat to the Crown Attorney's Office and to the Ottawa Police Service, who in my view,

00:05:01.860 both of them are exercising a political vendetta on her because she made them look terrible.

00:05:07.400 She shut down their streets. And by the way, full disclosure, I think anybody honking their horns 0.91

00:05:13.060 at night, keeping commerce from going, the blockades, I'm very much not on the convoy side.

00:05:20.100 I thought they should all be arrested. And if you even honked your horn and woke a kid up from sleep,

00:05:25.340 or a nurse who had to go to the doctor or the hospitals at 9am the next morning,

00:05:29.320 I thought they should all be arrested. So don't let anybody listening to my answer about my outrage

00:05:34.380 think I can't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time and think one thing is wrong, it doesn't make

00:05:39.700 the other thing right. So to go back to your question about our bail system, when I watched the

00:05:44.220 bail hearing, and the amount of exaggeration, and frankly, stupid arguments that were being put 0.94

00:05:49.760 forward that she's going to potentially face 10 years in jail for the mischief, or that this is a bail 0.95

00:05:56.480 that would bring the administration of justice into disrepute, equating it to firearms kinds of

00:06:01.920 charges, or child molestation, or sexual assault. I'm sitting here going, this is such garbage, 0.99

00:06:09.420 that I hope that the justice of the peace literally sits there and goes, this is garbage. 0.99

00:06:15.840 And the first sign I had that I'm not going to carry the day in thinking this is garbage is when 0.97

00:06:20.780 the justice of the peace said, she's already waited eight or nine nights in jail for a bail hearing. 1.00

00:06:25.580 That is disgusting in this country, by the way, we'll get into the China like aspects of it in a 1.00

00:06:31.240 moment. The two Michaels where we sort of thumb our nose when we look east, and think of how they

00:06:37.040 detain people and what they do to people who smoke a little marijuana or the two Michaels. She spends

00:06:42.980 nine or 10 nights in jail. And then the justice of the peace says, I'll make her wait another three 1.00

00:06:47.900 nights from Tuesday to Friday until I give my decision. You compel this in my business and what

00:06:56.020 I do. And again, Rupa, I want to be clear, I'm not a partisan. I don't drink the Kool-Aid of one side,

00:07:02.520 I get in trouble, seriously, for often not taking the defense side where other defense lawyers will say,

00:07:09.060 how dare he have an opinion that isn't, you know, the orthodoxy of being a defense lawyer.

00:07:14.020 The justice of the peace comes into court and starts essentially ridiculing Tamara Leach's

00:07:21.740 lawyer's argument. Starts ridiculing what a previous superior court justice had said. He knew

00:07:27.800 the superior court justice that she's going to this dinner. And he made this three-second breach

00:07:33.680 seem like literally she had set off a nuclear bomb.

00:07:37.960 And he then did something that to me was the sign that this is just absolutely unbelievable,

00:07:44.300 where he said to Mr. Greenspon, well, there's no evidence her lawyers were around. You didn't call

00:07:49.920 anybody. I don't want to take up too much time, Rupa, with telling you how the sausage is made.

00:07:55.600 But at a bail hearing, you don't call evidence to disprove the allegations of the state.

00:08:01.920 You can show that the charges are ridiculous, that they're not even a breach, or that if they are a

00:08:06.560 breach, they're so minor, a three-second breach with a Facebook picture with an enemy of the state.

00:08:13.920 I couldn't get over the tone, the tenor, the mocking nature of the detention order.

00:08:20.360 And to detain her, that there's a substantial likelihood she'll go out and commit the kinds

00:08:25.060 of crimes that keep Canadians up at night. And the tertiary ground of bail, which again,

00:08:29.940 how the sausage is made, is invoked for only the most serious of cases, serious violence, gun

00:08:37.140 violence, rape, child molestation. You can hate Tamara Leach until the cows come home. You can hate her 1.00

00:08:45.960 cause. You can hate the convoy. You can call it the free dumb convoy, D-U-M-B. That doesn't mean you 0.66

00:08:54.060 have to do the kind of mental gymnastics that that justice of the peace did, and so many mouth breathers

00:09:00.380 on Twitter did. Yes, I said it, by saying that because we hate her, or disagree with her, or think Trudeau

00:09:07.620 came down from the heavens, and how anybody dares criticize him, or vax mandates, or lockdowns, that means

00:09:15.320 somebody should rot in jail for a year or two because they're my political enemy. Nothing could be more dangerous

00:09:22.340 to our democracy or our bail system when we keep people detained when they are a political prisoner

00:09:29.900 in even the loosest definition of that term. Yeah, that's, you know, one of several reasons

00:09:38.080 why I wanted to chat with you, Ari, is that you're not a partisan, and you've also, it's worth noting

00:09:45.140 again, and this is something you say on your Twitter feed, and you've said this now again,

00:09:50.620 that you're no fan of Leach or the Freedom Convoy. In fact, you say that, I don't care about the

00:09:56.820 Freedom Convoy. I thought the blockaders and the honkers should all be arrested, and you've also

00:10:03.700 said that you were aghast at the abhorrent use of the criminal justice system this week, and the

00:10:10.780 deference to state power and narrative. Yes. Why do you think that what's happened seems to show an

00:10:17.500 abuse of the criminal justice system to fit an official narrative of the state? So, first of all,

00:10:24.220 Tamara Leach is an enemy of the state. That means that the state and its weaponization of the criminal 1.00

00:10:30.640 justice system should be extremely cautious, because we cannot be a democracy, and we certainly can't call

00:10:37.520 ourselves liberal, when if you have a political opponent of the governing power, the orthodoxy,

00:10:45.560 the, you get a shot, or else you can't get on a plane, or keep your job, or be a cop, or be a nurse,

00:10:52.080 or be a doctor, or sell widgets, okay? I'm not saying what my position on that is. That's not part of my

00:10:58.440 answer, okay? That's a whole different conversation. But when you know, as a Crown Attorney,

00:11:03.440 and as a police detective, we'll get to the detectives in a moment, you know that this is

00:11:09.680 a political person who pissed off, for lack of a better term, I won't swear on your podcast,

00:11:15.000 but that's probably an okay word, that she pissed off the entire city. And I understand that. If I

00:11:20.220 was in downtown Ottawa, and people were honking their horn and keeping me up, and my sleep is

00:11:25.080 precious to me, I'm not a nice guy. I probably would have done something that would have gotten me

00:11:29.900 in trouble, okay? So I'm no fan of this nonsense, as you pointed out. But when you know you're dealing

00:11:36.300 with a person whose politics are at the core of these ridiculous charges, mischief, counseling to

00:11:44.260 commit mischief, fail to comply release, even after you've had a bail review where the superior court judge

00:11:50.520 knows you're going to the dinner. Remember, the ultimate irony of this dinner, which people forget,

00:11:56.100 because some people don't think things through, was a dinner to specifically address the overuse and

00:12:04.140 abuse by the state of the enormous power of the state that an ordinary average member of the public

00:12:11.100 can't fight against. Your bank account frozen, the stupid emergencies act invoked by the lying Marco 1.00

00:12:17.260 Mendocino, a guy I think is a really nice guy, a former prosecutor, but couldn't prosecute that case 0.99

00:12:22.800 to a conviction if his eyes were closed. That's why everybody knows he's not transparent. Nice guy,

00:12:28.100 horrible way of being an MP. But this is dangerous stuff, because even for the people, and if you go

00:12:35.180 to my Twitter feed, which, you know, I very rarely do, I put stuff out, I don't read it. But then you'll

00:12:39.960 put, you'll see people on my, well, we don't like her. She deserves to be jailed. She's an, I'm like, 0.99

00:12:45.980 you people don't understand what democracy is. I'm not a fan of all sorts of causes that have

00:12:52.460 been popular in the last three years, that have ruined our cities, that have ruined New York,

00:12:58.040 Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York. But do I think a protester who's been peaceful,

00:13:04.400 who isn't torching the courthouse, who isn't threatening Superior Court or Supreme Court judges,

00:13:11.020 do I think because I hate them, I hate their politics, I think they're ruining America? Do I

00:13:16.720 think the weaponization of the criminal justice system should go against them? No. So to your

00:13:21.500 question about why do I think that, is when you have a crown attorney, let me make this easier for

00:13:28.440 people who don't know how the sausage is made. You could say that Tamara Leach breached her bail by 1.00

00:13:33.540 taking that picture with Matarazzo or Morazzo or whatever the heck his name is. I don't actually care.

00:13:38.380 You can say that she breached it. But when you tell two Ottawa homicide detectives, homicide detectives

00:13:47.780 to put out a Canada-wide warrant and think this through, even if you disagree with me,

00:13:52.860 I don't care who disagrees with me, I actually welcome it. You instruct them to get on a plane

00:13:58.060 to go to Medicine Hat, Alberta and arrest her and bring her back, make her rot in jail for eight 0.53

00:14:05.820 nights. And you do that, you are literally sending a message that any Canadian who wants to dissent,

00:14:15.220 who wants to stand up, should be silenced. Now I can't prove that because the people who would

00:14:21.860 likely say something, who aren't anonymous egg-shaped avatars on Twitter, but who are me,

00:14:28.980 Ari Goldkind. You can do it because you're Rupa and that's your bread and butter. But if there's a CEO

00:14:35.560 of a company in downtown Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Prince Edward Island, Fredericton,

00:14:40.980 that wants to say these things, they know, hold on, maybe I should just zip it because I don't need

00:14:49.120 somebody looking at my frozen bank account. And if the citizens in Ottawa are okay with two homicide

00:14:55.400 detectives, taking time out from investigating, what's that you say? Homicides to go out and do

00:15:03.440 this, even if you dislike her, this is a gross abuse of our criminal justice system. And if I were

00:15:10.780 to say to you Rupa or your listeners, hold on, there's a lady who did maybe something bad and she 0.99

00:15:18.280 got arrested for it. She didn't hurt anybody. She didn't not feed a child. She didn't sexually 1.00

00:15:23.880 molest anybody. She didn't commit sexual assault in Quebec and digitally penetrate somebody and get

00:15:29.680 a conditional discharge, a story which has escaped attention. She did what she did in Ottawa. Okay.

00:15:36.260 She took a picture when she came off the stage. Somebody said, thank you, a nice speech. Okay. You want

00:15:45.520 arrest her for that and charge her muzzle to more power to you. But you could very easily have said

00:15:51.840 there's a breach. We're arresting her. We don't think she's a menace to society. We don't think

00:15:56.720 she should remain rotting in an Ottawa jail. Let's have a trial and let a judge decide that to me would

00:16:02.680 have been okay. But to use the jail system, the detention, to look to a court to defer to this,

00:16:11.240 to have a court sort of give it the sign of the cross or the rubber stamp, people will say, well,

00:16:16.280 Ari, a justice of the peace disagrees with you. He knows more than you. You're wrong. She's dangerous. 0.85

00:16:22.120 She should rot. Okay. But the fact that somebody can say that and not get arrested for saying that 1.00

00:16:28.600 is exactly my point. Reasonable people can disagree. And if you don't think the shoe on the other foot

00:16:36.340 will happen, if there's a Pierre Polyev government, and somebody clings to a tree in Tofino,

00:16:44.420 Pierre Polyev should not have the criminal justice system. Not that I'm saying Trudeau pulled any

00:16:49.500 levers here. I don't think that at all. One crown, two cops. But if you don't think the shoe on the

00:16:56.440 other foot could come for you one day, if there's a right wing government, and you offend them,

00:17:02.300 and then you rotting in jail when you're nonviolent, and you take the wrong picture, 1.00

00:17:07.620 that to me is idiotic. And it's something that you would look east to China. If I describe that and 1.00

00:17:14.060 said, political prisoner, pissed off an entire city, went against the government, is a rabble rouser, 0.86

00:17:20.940 didn't hurt anybody, didn't commit violence. They tried to jail her, they kept her in jail,

00:17:26.340 a judge kept her in jail, two judges then let her out and kept her out, knew she was going to a dinner, 1.00

00:17:30.980 then she took a picture, now she rots in jail. If I said to you, what country is that?

00:17:36.280 There's no chance somebody would say Canada.

00:17:38.420 Canada, no. Yeah, no, we'll get to when the shoe is on the other foot in a little bit, Ari,

00:17:44.900 but you touched upon these two individuals. You've been particularly critical of the police officer

00:17:52.300 and the crown officer. And given what you've said about the misuse of the system, do you believe

00:17:57.700 that these two individuals were just merely misguided or were they acting at the behest of

00:18:03.700 the state? Your general critique seems to suggest that the way these individuals and others who've

00:18:09.480 handled this particular case, this may not merely be accidental, but perhaps there's some design behind

00:18:16.260 the way the lich case has been handled? I don't think there are the Geppetto-like strings of 1.00

00:18:24.240 anything to do with Trudeau or his office having anything to do with this. I'm not that person.

00:18:29.300 I know people want me to say it. Uh-uh. I don't. I think this is one man in Ottawa. I don't think the

00:18:36.740 rest of the crown attorney, if they were put up to polygraph tests and put under oath, do I think

00:18:42.820 other crown attorneys think what I think this one man is doing would be something they would support?

00:18:48.660 Do I think a whole bunch of Ottawa police officers or police officers throughout the country

00:18:54.260 think this is what two homicide detectives? Again, homicide detectives, not parking ticket officers.

00:19:02.500 Homicide detectives flying out on your money to Medicine Hat Alberta to get her and bring her back. 0.69

00:19:09.220 I don't think a lot of cops would support this. And again, separate out what was done to the

00:19:15.620 residents of downtown Ottawa. I don't excuse it. I don't get past it. But when you look at what her

00:19:22.900 cause is, which is businesses and people should not be shut down and canceled. By the way, small businesses,

00:19:31.300 not Jeff Bezos, not Microsoft, not the idiocy that is Twitter, but actual mom and pop bookstores,

00:19:39.940 barbecue joints, restaurants, diners, everything on Main Street that Jeff Bezos before COVID was 0.97

00:19:47.940 already destroying. These are the people she was speaking for. Or people who say, I'm very pro-vaxxed.

00:19:54.900 I've got 17 vaxes in me. My kids have 17 vaxes in me. But do I think for a shot where the science is

00:20:02.500 not yet in, look at the science right now for the vaccine with Omicron. I'm sorry. Is anybody going to

00:20:07.620 talk openly about that? Actually, yes. Because now the Toronto Star and CNN can't help having these

00:20:13.780 little columns that say, oh, well, we're in a seventh wave. Because the lordship known as Pfizer

00:20:22.500 hasn't solved this problem yet. A virus with a 99.7% survival rate. That was her point. Her point

00:20:31.940 wasn't, let's overthrow the government. Let's destroy Canada. Let's harm babies. Let's shoot animals. 1.00

00:20:41.220 Let's harm puppies. If this isn't something where you don't think, and I don't mean you, I mean the 1.00

00:20:49.060 proverbial you think, is this really a matter that she belongs stuffed into a jail cell for a year or 1.00

00:20:56.340 two? And Rupa, here's the other point about why this is so pernicious. And this may be too boring

00:21:01.940 for people watching us, but I'm not often boring, but here it comes. One of the consequences of

00:21:07.860 somebody not getting bail in Canada, and you can read this on your own. This is not me as a defense

00:21:13.220 lawyer, don't listen to me, go look on your own, is when somebody doesn't get bail who has a good

00:21:18.100 case for a trial, who has a good case for a not guilty plea, because they're going to get offered

00:21:23.940 time served, because they're told by the Crown, you plead guilty, we'll let you out. Think this through.

00:21:29.860 You're so dangerous to the country that we're going to keep you detained on bail and you can't get out.

00:21:36.020 But if you plead guilty and admit it, we'll open the jail door for you.

00:21:39.860 What not having bail does is it makes a significant number of Canadians say, you know what,

00:21:45.620 do I want to wait three, four, six, 12, 15 months for my trial? Or do I want to plead guilty,

00:21:53.380 get time served, go home and lick my wounds? That's another pernicious danger of the bail

00:21:59.460 system failing, and it hasn't been talked about enough. Well, that segues nicely into my next

00:22:05.860 question, which is, you know, some of the aberrations that you've noted in this particular case.

00:22:11.540 Do you think this is just a one off? Or do you think this is opening up the door to future abuses?

00:22:16.340 We've talked about the fact that, you know, or you mentioned this, that, you know,

00:22:20.980 when the shoe is on the other foot, when a future conservative government uses similar

00:22:27.380 strong arm tactics to go after someone, say, on the left, do you think we're kind of at this

00:22:33.860 dangerous tipping point here in Canada? I've personally seen this kind of ping pong play out

00:22:40.020 in some third world countries, where different when different parties are in power, you know,

00:22:49.780 they'll go after their opponents. And I never thought this kind of thing would ever come to Canada.

00:22:56.020 And you've actually used the word, the term third world to refer to what has been happening here.

00:23:01.540 I wonder we're at that dangerous tipping point here.

00:23:04.180 What makes Canada not be on the precipice of third world? What happens when gas goes up to

00:23:10.820 $3 a litre? What happens when food becomes so expensive that ordinary average people can't

00:23:16.500 afford it? Everybody thinks that day will never come. But nobody thought two years ago,

00:23:21.620 when the Trudeau government was printing money hand over fist, that we would ever get to the

00:23:26.340 point where gas was $2.15 or $2.20 a litre. Nobody thought that raspberries or lettuce would go from

00:23:32.660 $0.99 to $3.99. So this idea that they're over there across an ocean, they're over there,

00:23:40.180 is one that, you know, you start having energy slowdowns here, you start having energy failures

00:23:46.580 here, you start having ransomware attacks, like nobody will say the Rogers outage was,

00:23:51.540 I don't know what it was. But this idea that it was a router down because they did some upgrading,

00:23:56.660 I'm sorry, am I going to trust Mr. Champagne or whatever his name is,

00:24:00.740 or our public safety minister to be transparent with me. This is a government that is completely

00:24:06.020 not transparent. And I'm not a fan of government per se, this is not anti Trudeau. Okay, these are

00:24:11.060 people that want to keep their jobs, they'll never tell the public the truth. And to me, that's sickening.

00:24:15.940 But when we use the term third world, think again, this through and let me give you Rupa,

00:24:22.100 the argument that I saw on my Twitter feed for one week for all the people that say I'm wrong,

00:24:27.940 okay, which is fine. Their argument is literally this simple. She was on bail. She breached her bail.

00:24:37.780 It doesn't matter how she breached it, or how little she breached her that it was three seconds. 0.78

00:24:42.660 If you can't follow your bail, you should rot in jail. It's almost like the OJ, if it doesn't fit,

00:24:48.020 you must acquit. Now I'm being serious, somebody can go to anti social media group, I never call it

00:24:53.140 social media. Somebody can go to anti social media and look at their strongest arguments

00:24:57.860 for why she rots in jail. She's an enemy of the state, or she had a bail paper, but she went to 1.00

00:25:04.740 the dinner and she shouldn't have taken that picture. Here's a news flash to mouth breeders. 0.81

00:25:10.740 I can sit here right now and give you 1000 examples of people on bail for guns,

00:25:16.580 sex assault, beating women, drinking and driving, abusing children, causing death, driving dangerously,

00:25:29.060 who not only are never detained the way she was by her first bail hearing months ago,

00:25:35.940 they never spend a night in jail. And if they spend a night in jail on a breach, they're on house arrest,

00:25:42.660 but they're found at Swiss chalet, they're at house arrest, they're found with their co accused,

00:25:48.020 they're released on bail the next day. So anybody who thinks the answer that in Canada,

00:25:55.140 once you get a bail paper, and you breach it, that means you should remain in jail,

00:26:02.740 come to bail court with me for one day in Toronto, one day, and watch how many people charged with fail

00:26:11.060 to complies, that aren't three second pictures with a bad enemy of the state at a dinner where the

00:26:17.460 irony is so thick, that it's the dinner to celebrate freedoms and abusive power. You come watch how many

00:26:24.740 people on serious charges are accused of serious breaches of their bail, contacting the woman that

00:26:31.780 they're just charged with beating up, and watch how many people are released. Only then

00:26:37.540 will your argument hit yourself in your own head about how truly stupid it is. 1.00

00:26:43.380 Yeah. Did you did you manage to convince anyone that you were interacting with? 1.00

00:26:47.620 I don't interact on anti social media. To be very clear, I don't interact, I don't respond,

00:26:53.940 I don't reply, life's too short, I don't go down the rabbit hole. I think what I think, if it changes

00:26:59.620 a mind or educate somebody great. But I do not engage with people on Twitter, particularly when you can take

00:27:06.100 one look at their bio on Twitter, and see the usual nonsense in their bio where they say future

00:27:11.940 candidate for prime minister, or they have all these things that have become in vogue about how

00:27:16.660 to describe themselves, or they're anonymous. I'm sorry, that's a rabbit hole that I don't have time

00:27:22.660 or interest to go down. So Ari, you've also said that, referring to the day that Leach was denied bail,

00:27:31.780 you said this is a really bad day for speech, dissent, and being non-violently opposed to

00:27:37.460 government power in Canada. If you didn't think the Emergencies Act, the jailing of dissidents,

00:27:42.820 the freezing of bank accounts did the trick. Today's three second breach, bail denial is the cherry on top.

00:27:49.380 Now, we can all agree that we've gone through an unprecedented few months in Canada. I was here

00:27:55.460 in Ottawa on the ground as the police were pushing back the protesters, they were breaking up the freedom

00:28:01.140 convoy. And I was stopped by a police officer right here in the market where I live. And he asked me

00:28:08.660 where I was going and what I was up to. And, and that, you know, there were consequences for me,

00:28:14.660 to me, if I were to go beyond a certain point. Again, this is the kind of thing I've experienced

00:28:20.900 elsewhere, mostly in the third world, but I'd never thought I'd experienced it here in Canada.

00:28:26.900 And it seems to me that you share some of these concerns as well. Where do you think we're headed

00:28:32.260 in Canada? Are we going down the slippery slope of becoming increasingly authoritarian?

00:28:38.340 Well, I say he's going to be prime minister for as long as he wants. I've always said that this is

00:28:42.980 Prime Minister Silver Spoon. That's just, to me, a fact. I mean, Patrick Brown is out of the race,

00:28:48.740 thank God. He's as milquetoast as the day is long. The more Pierre Polyev continues down this road,

00:28:54.820 I think he's either going to be prime minister if he says stuff out loud that you're not supposed to

00:28:59.700 say. The more he waters it down, the more he won't. I'm not saying I like them or don't. I

00:29:04.180 don't actually know him. I didn't even know how to pronounce his name until two months ago, quite frankly.

00:29:08.820 But everybody seems to pretend that this is an authoritarian state because Trudeau is the prime

00:29:13.300 minister. 31% of Canadians, of the 60-something percent that voted, voted for him. Aaron O'Toole

00:29:21.620 got more votes. We need to get this stupid idea out of our system that 31% of 67% means that this is a 0.99

00:29:32.260 far-left country. We need to get this stupid idea out of our head that if you're an immigrant, 1.00

00:29:38.340 if you're a black person, if you're Indian, Muslim, Sikh, Chinese, Jewish, whatever it is, 0.99

00:29:44.340 that you must automatically like Trudeau because he's your guy. So because I do believe that he will

00:29:51.140 be prime minister for as long as he wants because he's aided and abetted by the discourse in our country,

00:29:57.220 you know you're an outlier, Rupa, in being able to write and keep your job by actually being critical

00:30:03.860 of the state. To me, this is a tipping point because we are at the point where there was an

00:30:10.420 emergencies act involved. We don't talk about that enough because it's yesterday's news. Today,

00:30:16.660 we're on to Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian and him manscaping. That's the way our attention span is

00:30:22.500 in this world, okay? And you had a government that with no cause shut down not only people's bank

00:30:29.780 accounts. Think that through. We're not a third world. They shut down people's bank accounts,

00:30:36.100 but money launderers, drug traffickers, organized crime never have their bank accounts touched unless

00:30:42.820 they're due process. You have to go to court. There are injunctions. We know who money launders. We know

00:30:49.060 how who owns half the real estate in Vancouver and Toronto. You think the rise in interest rates

00:30:54.820 that are going to cripple so many people listening to you and I right now, ordinary average people

00:30:59.700 throughout Canada, who are going to be crippled by the interest rate hike that will have nothing 0.98

00:31:04.420 to do with inflation, particularly if you believe the crap that it's Biden's price, 0.98

00:31:10.100 Putin's price hike. Think that through. You don't have any bank accounts frozen of any of the people 0.99

00:31:17.300 in Canada that are nefarious, but if you're some person in Yellowknife who wanted to send 25 bucks

00:31:23.220 to a cause that goes against, you're never going to do it again because you don't want to be on the

00:31:28.100 RCMP radar. It's not worth the headache, but if you can't have a hundred thousand people sending 20 bucks

00:31:36.420 to a cause they believe in, you have stifled dissent. I can't prove this, but when you get give,

00:31:44.100 send go or go fund me saying we're going to take this down, your name will go to the government,

00:31:51.140 to the RCMP and your accounts will be frozen without any due process. And then they come into

00:31:58.260 the House of Commons and lie about it. That to me again is the precipice of something disastrous.

00:32:05.860 So just because it's July, whatever today is, the sun is shining, there's still food on the table.

00:32:12.180 Look at Sri Lanka, look at the Netherlands, look at all of these examples of countries that were once

00:32:19.060 civilized, probably with people as civilized, if not more than us, South America, Latin America.

00:32:25.940 I'm sorry. It doesn't take 10 years for us to descend into something worse. So when you have a message

00:32:33.700 rubber stamped by a court with no analysis, no depth, okay, maybe she breached. We'll set it for

00:32:41.620 trial, but I'll release her. She's learned her lesson. She won't go to more gala fundraisers. 0.59

00:32:47.300 When you send the message that a court rubber stamps this and uses terms like ridiculous

00:32:55.460 and uses terms that are just so beyond the pale, you are sending a message to Canadians who may be 0.64

00:33:03.300 wanting to oppose the government. Hold on. Can't lose my job. Can't get canceled. Can't lose my ability

00:33:12.180 to feed my family. And that is much stronger of an incarnation than anything called cancel culture,

00:33:19.700 where you put a mean tweet out and then your Twitter account is closed.

00:33:24.020 No, I absolutely agree with you, Ari, that for things to change, I mean, things can change

00:33:29.220 quite rapidly. And as you mentioned, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. And for some reason here,

00:33:35.300 we seem to think that we're immune from all of these things, but, hey, but did anybody even think

00:33:40.820 that you would have one of the biggest protest movements this country has ever seen?

00:33:48.980 And would have been bigger, Rupa. It would have been bigger, but the PR exercise of the Emergencies

00:33:54.180 Act, the PR exercise of freezing bank accounts, the whole point of that, Rupa, just to be clear,

00:34:00.340 was not to freeze the bank accounts, but was to the silencing of millions of people

00:34:06.260 that might've said, okay, I want to send 20 bucks to a cause that fights a government shutting down

00:34:13.620 Main Street, ordinary average taxpayers who don't hide money in their mattress, who don't launder

00:34:20.020 money, who don't bring in money from overseas. It's not that the bank accounts were frozen that I'm

00:34:25.940 as concerned with. I am. But it's sending the message to the millions who have no voice,

00:34:30.980 nobody representing them, no politician who speaks truth about crime, immigration, inflation, gas,

00:34:39.140 groceries. Those millions of people are like, I'm not taking this chance. And that to me is

00:34:46.580 antithetical to people's participation in a liberal democratic society.

00:34:52.340 Exactly. So going forward, Ari, how do you think things will play out for Leach? Is she likely to

00:34:58.820 remain in jail until this goes to trial? Do you think the trial itself will be a continuation of

00:35:06.020 what you see, what you've called as a vendetta against her?

00:35:08.900 There is no chance that that failed to comply. If she even waits to trial, I don't think she'll

00:35:15.300 ever be convicted. I think a judge or a jury, because the Crown's proceeding by indictment,

00:35:19.380 believe it or not, that's a conversation that's so stupid, I can't even tell you that the Crown is 0.98

00:35:23.860 proceeding by indictment versus summary. What that means for people who don't know, 0.98

00:35:27.380 like the United States, they use terms like felony and misdemeanor. The Crown's treating

00:35:32.100 the three second picture like a felony, if that makes sense. There's no chance she'll be convicted 0.98

00:35:36.740 on that. A first year law student could defend that, let alone her excellent legal team.

00:35:42.420 But the worry I have, Rupa, is that because a justice of the peace didn't tear the Crown's

00:35:49.140 presentation apart. Deferred to it, agreed with it, rubber-stamped it, provided no in-depth analysis

00:35:57.300 of its ludicracy. Started talking about the tertiary ground as if she's Paula Bernardo, as I said.

00:36:04.100 Started talking about her propensity to commit crimes as if she's a ticking time bomb, dangerous offender, 1.00

00:36:10.180 with no perspective, no humility, no backing forward and saying, okay, maybe she's odious, 1.00

00:36:16.740 but she shouldn't be rotting in an Ottawa jail cell. My worry, Rupa, to your question of where it goes

00:36:21.780 from here is, she'll either get a superior court judge at the bail review, which will come in the

00:36:27.220 next few weeks, that will tear the justice of peace apart, but in judicial terms, in judicious terms,

00:36:34.340 in terms that are all deferential, the way our system works. I actually think it shouldn't work

00:36:38.820 that way sometimes. I think things should be called out. I hate when a judge hears a cop

00:36:44.500 lying through their teeth, but the judge will say, I prefer the evidence of Mr. So-and-so

00:36:52.500 over the officer. Well, if you think the officer is a lying sack of you-know-what, call it that. You

00:36:59.460 don't need to bend over backwards. Because I assure you, Rupa, when the judge thinks that the accused

00:37:05.460 person is a liar, the judge is going to say, I find accused person X to be a liar. But they defer to

00:37:13.060 the police too often. No, I think police should be deferred to. I'm pro-police. I'm not defund the

00:37:18.580 police. I'll take the police over anybody any day. I'd rather live in a gated community surrounded by cops

00:37:24.100 than surrounded by anybody else. So don't mistake me. But my worry is that now a superior court judge

00:37:30.100 will get their hands on this justice of the peace decision. And because we live in a precedential

00:37:35.700 deferential system, which is arguably good, but I say arguably not so good sometimes, 0.98

00:37:42.340 that a superior court judge won't say, this is the most ridiculous load of poppycock. That's 0.98

00:37:49.380 Lawrence Greenspawn's word in court, not mine. This is the most ridiculous bunch of hooey horse manure 1.00

00:37:55.140 I've ever seen, but rather will say it was a balancing act. The justice of the peace is entitled 0.99

00:38:01.620 to difference. I don't see. That's my worry. And I hope that there's one brave superior court judge

00:38:08.740 who doesn't mince his or her words and comes out and says it. And, you know, people say to me,

00:38:13.860 should this even be heard in Ottawa because passions are so high in Ottawa? Can she get a

00:38:19.380 fair shake in Ottawa? That's a really interesting question when the judge who kept her detained

00:38:24.900 the first time actually said out loud, this convoy screwed up my day. I'm paraphrasing.

00:38:31.860 That raises really interesting questions because usually we think of juries as being potentially

00:38:37.060 biased. Juries being biased because they see Twitter or read about Johnny Depp or Bill Cosby

00:38:43.540 or Harvey Weinstein. There is something very insidious to me happening in Ottawa,

00:38:49.060 where I'm not sure people have looked at this with dispassionate, nonpartisan heads. Again,

00:38:56.260 in the political arena, Rupa, I wouldn't care if this was a battle of op-eds and tweets, 0.89

00:39:02.340 but when you have somebody's liberty taken away, you better damn have a good reason. And we have

00:39:09.940 no good reason here. And the whole thing to me is not only odious, but in my opinion, it's dangerous.

00:39:16.980 And to use a term in my business, I think it brings the administration of justice into disrepute.

00:39:23.220 And with millions of Canadians, threatens the public's confidence in why does our bail system

00:39:29.700 do this to Tamara Leach. But if you're charged with possessing three loaded firearms or firing them 0.97

00:39:36.660 off or sexually assaulting somebody, you get bail and the next week you went out and killed somebody.

00:39:43.220 That's not a strong argument on your side.

00:39:45.220 Yeah. And speaking of civil liberties, how worried are you about the future of civil liberties and

00:39:52.260 the right of peaceful protest and civil disobedience in Canada?

00:39:55.620 I'm more worried about freedom of speech and dissent than I am about who gets to collect 1.00

00:40:03.060 themselves in Ottawa and honk their stupid horns. I'm more concerned about who gets de-platformed. 0.99

00:40:09.860 I'm more concerned with who doesn't get to speak. I'm more concerned with a government directing

00:40:15.540 Twitter what to do or what's misinformation. There's a great clip out there, Rupa. I don't know if you've

00:40:22.820 seen it, but I invite people to go watch it. It's Carl Sagan about 30, 40 years ago talking about the

00:40:30.180 dangers of science and technology. And you should find it. And I don't mean you, I mean anybody listening

00:40:35.140 to us because I'm not going to plagiarize it. It's him. And what he says is science and technology will

00:40:41.540 be great. But what he's worried about are the people who control the science and technology,

00:40:47.460 who know nothing about it and use that science and technology to silence people who disagree with

00:40:55.140 it or have a concern about it. And what we're finding now, which is what Carl Sagan talked about,

00:41:01.380 is that the people in charge to keep their positions in power will shut down all questions

00:41:07.860 about the science. And science isn't science unless it's constantly challenged, constantly tested,

00:41:16.500 constantly criticized. So if the Trudeau government or the government du jour, the Biden government is so

00:41:23.540 great, it should withstand and be able to stand up to scrutiny, even by the insane tin hat people,

00:41:32.180 who with every passing month, their tin hat conspiracies become a lot less tin hatty. So my

00:41:38.580 concern is not who gets trucks together in Ottawa to drive residents nuts, I thought they should all be

00:41:44.180 taken out and put in a field 1000 miles away from anybody. But what we're experiencing now is that if

00:41:50.820 you don't think what's allowed, you are going to lose not only your speech, but your job, your mortgage,

00:41:59.460 and everything like that, and that to me, is so antithetical to what Canada is, that the idea that

00:42:06.900 people who call themselves Democrats, capital D, or small d, or who are liberal Rupa, are people who are

00:42:15.300 saying less speech, not more tells me, and this is my bottom line, that they know their ideas are

00:42:24.580 absolutely terrible, and will not stand up to scrutiny.

00:42:30.100 Well, as you say, Ari, I mean, this is not Canada, this is completely bonkers, this is insane, it just 0.74

00:42:37.060 makes no sense anymore. I'm afraid we're gonna have to leave it there. But you know, I really appreciate

00:42:44.420 you coming on the show and sharing your views and your opinions on the case. And it's been an incredibly

00:42:51.060 fascinating conversation with you. And, and I really hope that we can pick this up at a future

00:42:58.340 point. I guess tomorrow is going to be, there's going to be another hearing coming up shortly. And

00:43:04.260 hopefully we can reconnect again at that point. It's always great to talk to you, Rupa, to read

00:43:09.380 your work. And it's nice that you asked me to come chat with you. Okay, perfect. Thanks, Ari. And

00:43:13.940 thank you again for making the time and hope to see you soon. Thank you. Okay, take care.

Juno News - July 19, 2022

'Tamara Lich is an enemy of the state' (feat. Ari Goldkind)

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