Juno News - The Andrew Lawton Show Mailbag Edition： Andrew takes your questions on everything

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:01:20.460 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:31.000 lawton show on true north on this tuesday december 19th 2023 just a few days until christmas uh just

00:01:39.580 a few days plus one i guess until boxing day then the new year is going to be upon us you're going

00:01:45.140 to blink and it'll be easter and then it'll be christmas 2024 what is time but an illusion right

00:01:50.160 Well, it is my absolute pleasure to be with you today.

00:01:53.180 I mentioned last week that I was going to do this, and I was worried that no one would

00:01:58.420 respond or all of the responses would be unfavorable.

00:02:01.760 But to my credit and to my great delight, people did seem to like this random idea I

00:02:07.700 came up with, which was to do a show that was dedicated to answering your questions.

00:02:12.840 Now, part of this, I will admit, is a bit selfish on my part because I get besieged

00:02:17.080 by emails at times. And there are just not enough hours in the day to go through and write everyone

00:02:22.140 an emailed reply. I would love to. I do try. I used to be a lot better at it. But now that I'm

00:02:26.980 working on a book and doing the show and all of that, I can't respond to every email. But I can

00:02:31.760 respond to them on air, especially when you can kind of lump ones together that are a bit similar.

00:02:37.160 So I figured today we do something fun. It's the holiday season. Why not break with the usual

00:02:41.220 format and devote a show to answering your questions we will deal with the specific

00:02:47.380 the mundane the general the big picture the personal the political if you ask me about sports

00:02:52.900 i will give you an answer but i assure you it will bother you tremendously whatever answer

00:02:58.500 i come up with actually i did get a sports question i didn't send it to sean so i don't

00:03:02.900 think we have like a nifty graphic for it but i'll try to answer it nonetheless i think someone was

00:03:07.220 was trying to quiz me rather than genuinely seeking to get my input on whatever sporting

00:03:13.000 event it was. Something about, I don't know, crack it or something. But in any case, we are

00:03:17.280 going to have some fun today. But I first, before we get into your questions, and by the way, if

00:03:20.920 you're watching on YouTube, you can ask a question live by using the super chat feature. You can ask

00:03:26.440 it in the general comments thing, but we'll definitely see it if you give us a super chat

00:03:30.940 and it goes towards supporting the work that True North does. But I wanted to speak very briefly

00:03:35.820 about my interview which came out yesterday with conservative leader Pierre Polyev. A lot of

00:03:40.200 really great feedback on that. I've been trying to read some of the comments on that interview

00:03:45.080 and people that were very delighted we spoke about immigration and I pushed him to, I even gave him 0.97

00:03:50.140 just the number on immigration, although he still rejected the opportunity to provide a number. His

00:03:55.520 answer was that it's really not possible to come up with one that in 2025 he would put in place

00:04:00.820 were he elected prime minister but just on a completely random note that interview we recorded

00:04:07.940 on Friday of last week and we were in Mississauga Ontario and for what I live a couple of hours from

00:04:14.100 there so it's not too difficult for me to get up in the morning and drive to Mississauga and all

00:04:18.300 of that but the thing that I find interesting here is that there is a I had a weird bad feeling

00:04:27.500 about the interview and I didn't want to not not that the interview itself but I felt like

00:04:31.160 something was going to go wrong and I was prepared to blame Sean I was like going to say

00:04:35.020 so I was imagining something Sean was going to do something he was going to be late or he was going

00:04:40.340 to be in a car accident or his camera was going to break I just I had this weird ominous feeling

00:04:45.380 about the interview so I then decided I'm going to go up the night before let me just go up the

00:04:49.400 night before everything make sure I'm there and all is good there we do the interview goes off

00:04:54.300 without a hitch. Everything's fine. I'm like, great. My ominous feeling about this little foray

00:04:59.260 into interviewing Pierre Polyev in Mississauga completely averted. So I get in my car and I start

00:05:04.240 driving home. If you are from Ontario, you are familiar with this entity known as the 401. It is

00:05:10.440 the big highway that stretches from Windsor, Ontario, right up to, well, basically to Montreal,

00:05:15.640 but right up to the Ontario-Quebec border. I was on the 401. I was driving home. I'd been driving

00:05:21.580 for about 30 minutes and traffic which is just like a perennial condition there is pretty bad

00:05:27.140 there's construction congestion car in front of me slams on the brakes I slam on the brakes I stop

00:05:33.180 I do my part I do my part as a citizen as a driver I stop I don't hit the nice Cadillac in front of

00:05:38.880 me and then a GMC pickup truck just I see it in the rear view mirror I see it approaching and just

00:05:46.300 in slow motion, this car, this truck, this behemoth of a truck is just barreling towards me.

00:05:52.480 All I can do is pray and grab onto the wheel and hold on for dear life because that truck just

00:05:58.520 barreled right into me, pushed me into the Cadillac in front of me, created what I believe

00:06:04.020 they call an Andrew sandwich, which is like the least ordered item on any deli menu. And then a

00:06:09.400 fourth car comes behind the pickup truck. So we had a nice little four car collision on the 401,

00:06:15.040 one, which I endured just to bring you that interview with Pierre Polyev. And by the way,

00:06:19.940 that interview cost me my car. The tow truck driver, I was able to drive it home, but the

00:06:26.600 tow truck driver just picked it up and took it away this morning. So I now have no car,

00:06:31.600 which means my carbon footprint has gone down to a Justin Trudeau approved level. Maybe I need to

00:06:36.420 buy one of these new fancy electric vehicles the government is subsidizing. I'll donate now so I

00:06:42.480 can get a Tesla to replace my crappy little sedan that got totaled on the way back from Toronto. So

00:06:48.040 that I just had to share that with you. These are the behind the scenes things you don't actually

00:06:51.980 see. And it's why you should generally listen to your instincts. I knew something was going to

00:06:55.620 happen. I didn't know what I didn't know when, but I was right that something was going to happen.

00:07:00.120 So I said this show, I was going to devote it to your questions. I gave the email address over a

00:07:05.460 few shows last week and I got, I won't even get a chance to answer all the questions. So I assure

00:07:10.880 you, I was kind of prioritizing on length. The ones that were 500 words, I'm like, I'm not reading

00:07:15.420 that question. But I tried to kind of pluck out the relevant bits. And there are some that I may

00:07:20.020 not be answering by name, but it's because I'm answering a similar question that I happen to

00:07:25.120 see first and they're on related topics. So we've tried to triage this and make it somewhat fair,

00:07:30.860 at least as fair as we're able to. But if you want to get a new question in, you can do so on

00:07:35.420 YouTube if you're watching live using the super chat feature. But we'll start with this question

00:07:40.940 from Dustin. This is a very specific one, but it's good. It puts me on my toes. Dustin writes,

00:07:46.840 do you like or dislike Canada Post as a crown corporation? Do you still think, or do you think

00:07:56.940 it still serves a purpose? I feel like Dustin may be a postal worker and I'm being trapped here.

00:08:01.220 So I have no opinion on Canada Post specifically. I've sent mail and I've received mail, which is like the end of my transactional involvement with Canada Post in principle. In principle, I think it's kind of past its prime. Now, Milton Friedman, I believe it was, I can't remember which of his books, kind of said that the Postal Service was one of those things where, yeah, maybe in principle as a libertarian, he wasn't a fan of it being a monopoly, but in practice, it just made sense.

00:08:27.860 But practically speaking, that's no longer the case. You have people that are sending packages all the day long through DHL and Purilator. Is Purilator still owned partially by Canada Post? It used to be in part. But you had, of course, the idea here that all of these different courier services, FedEx, UPS, are doing this. What are they doing? They're doing mail.

00:08:51.260 I mean, what is Amazon doing? Amazon has effectively recreated postal delivery as a private for-profit corporation. So do I care about it? No. Do I have an issue with it in general terms as far as the day-to-day implications of it? No. But is it still relevant? I also would say the answer to that is no.

00:09:12.760 But I'm not going to be leading the crusade to end Canada Post just because I don't actually spend a lot of my time thinking about Canada Post, to be honest.

00:09:21.780 Dustin's question is the first time I've genuinely had to think about Canada Post ever.

00:09:27.760 We have one from Jonathan here.

00:09:30.280 Could you look into how it is that King Charles III can attend these functions like COP28 while being our apolitical head of state?

00:09:38.140 This seems to be him going against what the crown is supposed to be.

00:09:43.600 So that is, I mean, I don't actually need to look into it, Jonathan.

00:09:46.660 The answer is that King Charles fancies himself a political leader, a political figure, and

00:09:53.640 not just a nonpartisan, a political head of state.

00:09:57.620 Now, this was always going to be the big challenge because when he was the Prince of Wales during

00:10:01.920 Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's reign, he loved to be all about the political issues.

00:10:07.040 He was the one who would like fly the private jet to the private tarmac, get in the private limo, drive to the palace and then deliver a press conference about how we all need to live within our means and do less.

00:10:18.540 And he always was able to do that because as the Prince of Wales, you can be a little bit more issue oriented.

00:10:23.760 His issue was saving the planet.

00:10:25.800 But I think there are two things that come up here.

00:10:28.580 The first is that the environmental radicals believe that they are not, or at least convince

00:10:34.760 everyone that they are not engaging in a political issue. If you talk to one of them, they'll say,

00:10:39.840 oh, this isn't politics. This is the climate. This isn't politics. It's science. So they've

00:10:44.380 kind of managed to make climate like homelessness, where it's this thing that you can have an opinion

00:10:49.740 on while claiming you're not getting into politics. When the reality is on the climate issue,

00:10:54.380 All of the prescriptions that are coming about it from it are very much political and they're

00:10:59.300 very much trying to reorient the way people live. So that's part of the problem is that King Charles

00:11:05.400 III, King Charles III has started engaging in a political issue while kind of believing this,

00:11:15.940 effectively say this lie that the environmentalists have been pushing for several years,

00:11:19.680 that it's not a political issue, that there's no politicking going on. So when he transitions,

00:11:25.540 when he becomes the king, and he's no longer the Prince of Wales, and he's supposed to be even more

00:11:31.640 restrained, as her late majesty always was. I mean, she was never engaged in political issues.

00:11:38.280 Mark Stein, who I quote on the show from time to time, he's a friend of mine and a very legendary

00:11:43.040 writer in Canada, had said that he was dining at Buckingham Palace with Prince Philip and Queen

00:11:49.860 Elizabeth. I don't know if Prince Charles was there, but dining with them the night of the

00:11:56.240 Australian referendum, however many years ago, on whether to become a Republican. And they were

00:12:01.880 literally dining and had no idea what the Queen thought, because the Queen knew her role, even at

00:12:08.380 a private dinner, which was to not be political. And that, I think, has always been why the monarchy

00:12:14.080 has been such an enduring and powerful institution. And look, King Charles is the king. I mean, you

00:12:18.780 may not like him personally, but if you respect the institution, which many Canadians do,

00:12:24.320 there is a little bit of trepidation that people have. Will he keep that institution

00:12:28.920 where it needs to be, which is apolitical? And I think the question is a valid one. When he's

00:12:34.080 going to all these climate summits, he is at the very least deviating, if not outright diverging

00:12:40.660 from that norm. And I think a big part of that is this arrogance in a lot of the climate worlds

00:12:46.460 where they talk about their issue as being above politics when it is as hot button a political

00:12:52.980 issue as it gets. We have a super chat from Luke who writes, hi, Andrew Carpenter, Luke here,

00:12:59.260 no question, just thanking you for what you do. Well, thank you for thanking me and for enjoying,

00:13:05.480 I didn't know, I didn't know we could do that. That's exciting. I didn't know we could put up

00:13:09.540 these graphics. Yeah, Luke, thanks as well. Thank you, Luke. You know, I've often said on the show

00:13:14.000 here that, I mean, if I didn't have an audience that valued what we talked about, I would just

00:13:20.040 be a guy screaming into his computer every day, which I probably still would be. I think that

00:13:26.160 would probably be something I would do anyway. But the fact that I get to do this as work when

00:13:30.840 it's something I love is something I'm only able to do because there are folks like you

00:13:33.900 that enjoy this and engage with us and support the work that True North is doing. So thank you

00:13:38.820 for that. We have a question from Daryl here who writes, I feel there is way too much silence

00:13:45.220 everywhere on the WEF. Our government is simply following the WEF's agenda. The media, the House

00:13:52.540 of Commons, even Pierre Polyev seldom speak of it. Can you help me to understand why the crickets on

00:13:58.340 this? I don't know if that was an intentional pun, by the way. If so, well done. Especially as the

00:14:03.700 WEF brags about infiltrating over half of the Liberal NDP cabinet, it seems clear that Justin

00:14:09.820 Trudeau is deliberately destroying our country. You will own nothing and you'll be happy. I didn't

00:14:17.480 quite do it justice. And by the way, I have to correct your facts there, Daryl. The WEF did not

00:14:22.580 brag about infiltrating over half the liberal NDP cabinet. You've got to do it right here. If you're

00:14:26.780 going to do it, you've got to do it right. They bragged about penetrate the cabinets. That's what

00:14:31.160 Mr. Klaus Schwab did. He penetrates the cabinet of people like Justin Trudeau. He looks around and

00:14:37.120 says, oh yeah, half of them are our people. This is a maniacal egomaniac that is very proud of the 0.75

00:14:45.460 fact that he wields, or at least purports to wield, so much influence in the elected governments in 0.85

00:14:50.600 places like Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and so on. So, you know, Klaus Penafrezi-Kabinet

00:14:56.460 Schwab does speak to a profound level of influence in the Canadian government. And I think there are

00:15:03.320 two things happening. Number one, the WEF needs its big money supporters. The WEF, even if you

00:15:11.140 strip away the partisan agenda and the political agenda. Strip away the crickets and the digital ID

00:15:17.060 and the own nothing and be happy. And just look at what the organization is on its own face.

00:15:23.220 It is a cash for access grift that connects the big money of corporations with the big power of

00:15:30.980 governments and basically sells that relationship to the other. They go to political leaders and

00:15:37.940 say, this is the place you have to be because we have all these other political leaders and we have

00:15:41.960 all these big movers and shakers in civil society. And then they go to the big corporations and they

00:15:47.240 say, well, you need to be here because we've got all these big, powerful political leaders here

00:15:51.880 and they're never going to take your call back home. But in Davos, you can just like run into

00:15:56.120 them in the men's room or the ladies room or at the cricket buffet. And you can tell them about

00:16:01.480 all the things that they need to do. And it's a behind closed doors, undisclosed cash for access

00:16:07.440 fundraiser that connects lobbyists with politicians in ways that could never be done in Canada based

00:16:14.380 on lobbying restrictions. So that is what they're doing. The politicians are there for free

00:16:21.580 because they are the product being sold. It's the Microsofts that are spending millions of dollars

00:16:27.900 to get their people to the World Economic Forum annual meetings. And it's those people that are

00:16:32.320 then connected with the King of the Belgians and the Prime Minister of this country and the President

00:16:36.640 of this country and so on. And why that is so important is because you have to look at what

00:16:44.840 the organization's value proposition is. So when Klaus Schwab gets on a stage and says he's

00:16:51.080 penetrated the cabinet, what he's doing is he's making a sales pitch to all of those big corporate

00:16:57.560 donors that he needs to finance the WAF by telling them how influential he is and how influential

00:17:03.680 the World Economic Forum is.

00:17:05.520 So there are two possible interpretations of this.

00:17:07.720 Is he just, is it bravado, chest-thumping,

00:17:10.780 inflated sense of self-importance,

00:17:12.620 or does he wield that influence?

00:17:14.840 Does he have that power?

00:17:17.120 Well, if it's the latter, then we've got a big problem

00:17:21.240 because all of a sudden our democratic nation

00:17:23.460 has been outsourced to some Swiss business guy

00:17:26.520 that has no leadership role whatsoever,

00:17:28.940 no authority, no democratic oversight.

00:17:30.920 If it's the former, he doesn't actually have that power.

00:17:34.640 He's just thumping his chest.

00:17:35.820 He's blowing smoke up every orifice imaginable.

00:17:38.940 Then why is no one saying it's not true?

00:17:42.940 Why is Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister who sits on the board of trustees

00:17:47.740 for the WEF, not coming out and fact-checking saying, oh, come on, Klaus, quiet down.

00:17:52.720 Yeah, you haven't penetrated anything.

00:17:54.420 And this is the problem is that I believe it's a bit of both.

00:17:57.340 I believe the guy does have some influence, but I also believe he loves just puffing up his chest

00:18:01.520 because that is his business model. That's how he remains relevant. But the fact that no one can

00:18:07.660 have this conversation without being labeled a conspiracy theorist is so dangerous. The fact

00:18:14.100 that I should have pulled the clip for today. The fact that I went up to Chrystia Freeland very

00:18:17.880 politely and very friendly in a friendly manner in Davos. And I said, you know, you have a conflict

00:18:23.780 of interest. How do you explain that when you're on the board of trustees and you're also

00:18:27.000 referencing Canada. And she is not a tall woman, but man, do those legs scurry when she's trying 1.00

00:18:31.720 to get away from a real and legitimate question, a question that as far as I'm aware, she has never

00:18:37.500 answered. And a question that so far as I can tell, she has never even been asked by a legacy

00:18:42.800 media journalist in Canada. Instead, what the legacy media journalists in Canada do are run

00:18:48.080 interference by saying that anyone who wants to have this conversation is a conspiracy theorist,

00:18:52.780 that it's all just some big globalist,

00:18:54.900 anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and all of that.

00:18:57.620 And that's why I think there's been such an interest

00:19:00.120 from True North supporters

00:19:02.220 in us going to the World Economic Forum

00:19:05.140 as journalists reporting on what they're doing there.

00:19:08.420 I have been twice now.

00:19:10.000 I went once in May of 2022.

00:19:12.220 We returned with Sean

00:19:14.000 and we're doing some more video content in January.

00:19:17.120 And we're going back

00:19:18.700 and we're bringing another colleague of ours,

00:19:20.720 Cosman Georgia, who will be doing some more content, because anytime we've talked to our

00:19:24.960 audience about this, the audience has said, yeah, we think this is important and no one else is

00:19:29.920 asking these questions. No one else is looking for the story here. And I'm not a conspiracy

00:19:35.260 theorist. I'm trying to do it in a way that is responsible and grounded in facts. And it's

00:19:40.600 amazing how many facts you don't need to come up with conspiracies because you can just use their

00:19:44.940 own words. You can just find their own panels, their own discussions, their own proclamations

00:19:49.600 and prescriptions and all of that and that is where i one person says nice close interpretation

00:19:55.840 thank you i get between january and january to uh to practice it uh when i'm not uh engaging

00:20:01.600 in my own choreography in Davos, which one of my colleagues so rudely edited into this video.

00:20:31.600 I mean, it wasn't even the right Alps there.

00:20:45.040 Phil is the guy who did that, our executive producer.

00:20:48.800 But that was partially my problem.

00:20:50.740 We were in the Swiss Alps.

00:20:51.920 She was in the Austrian Alps.

00:20:53.400 But the landscape was just so beautiful.

00:20:55.620 Anyway, people complained when I did that video that I didn't sing as well.

00:20:59.400 So that was where that clip came.

00:21:02.240 So if you want more of that,

00:21:03.960 you can contribute to our World Economic Forum reporting fund

00:21:07.960 and send us back to Davos.

00:21:10.460 So let's see what else we have going on here.

00:21:12.520 Daniel writes,

00:21:14.460 first off, Merry Christmas to you and yours.

00:21:17.400 Well, Merry Christmas to you too, Daniel.

00:21:20.180 My question is, can the woke left actually be defeated?

00:21:25.080 Everyone seems to either cater to their view or is silent.

00:21:27.740 do you think the average Canadian will finally stand up to this? So look, I remain a bit of an

00:21:34.080 optimist, which is why I do this. If I were pessimistic, if I were negative, I wouldn't do

00:21:38.380 the work that I do on a regular basis. But the question is how much pain will we need to endure

00:21:43.600 before that point comes? And what I would say is that the average Canadian is not woke. I'm not

00:21:52.000 going to say they're anti-woke, but the average Canadian is not woke. And in fact, a lot of these

00:21:55.680 discussions that exist on Twitter and in campus student unions are things that if you were to put

00:22:02.500 to the average Canadian, they don't even know it's a thing. For example, I don't consider myself a

00:22:08.360 normal person. I'm involved in politics. I'm not normal. But I was speaking to normies the other

00:22:13.640 day and they had just learned about this thing you may have seen going around the internet that

00:22:18.740 now federally regulated workforces, which includes the parliament buildings, it includes the

00:22:22.900 military, True North had reported on this, now have to distribute tampons to their employees.

00:22:30.180 They have to make tampons available in the bathroom. Now you may think, okay, well,

00:22:33.620 you know, not every woman can afford a tampon, you know, feminine hygiene products are expensive, 1.00

00:22:38.700 or at the very least just to be available to be there would be useful until you just go one step

00:22:44.320 further and learn that they also have to be made available in men's washrooms because it would be

00:22:51.240 not inclusive to only provide tampons to women. You need to also provide tampons to men because 1.00

00:22:58.020 everyone knows that most men now are getting their periods. This is like one of the big 0.64

00:23:01.900 woke developments of 2023 where you can be a manstruator. And in fact, most men are in fact 0.87

00:23:08.520 manstruators. So this is the absurdity where you look at this and if you're to talk to some

00:23:13.120 diversity activists, some diversity equity inclusion coordinator, some university social

00:23:18.120 justice warrior, they're going to be like, well, yes, obviously, obviously men can get periods.

00:23:23.480 I mean, what are you? You hater, you bigot. And you go and talk to, you know, Gladys Smith at

00:23:29.900 123 Maple Street and say, hi, Gladys, do you think men need tampons? She's going to think you have 1.00

00:23:37.300 dementia and not her. And this is, I think, the reality. Most Canadians, most people are very

00:23:44.020 sensible. But what happens is they get deceived and deluded into believing that they are the

00:23:50.740 problem, that they are the ones on the fringe, they are the ones on the margins, and that this

00:23:55.480 is the power of Gramsci, who was a Marxist philosopher in Italy back in the day. Well,

00:24:01.320 it wasn't back in the day if you had Marxist philosophers. But nevertheless, Gramsci was

00:24:04.820 quite influential. He used to have this issue that he was grappling with, which was why the

00:24:10.520 collapse of capitalism hadn't happened. He was kind of just thinking, okay, it's coming. Any

00:24:14.820 day now we're going to rise up. And it never did. And he was wondering why. And he came up with

00:24:20.120 what's now talked about as this cultural hegemony, this idea that the media, which he was quite

00:24:25.060 accurate on, has this reinforcing value, this self-reinforcing value of being able to keep the

00:24:31.060 people believing the lie. And we are in a cultural hegemony now where the media, the elites, the

00:24:38.560 leadership class, they all tend to go down this road of getting us to believe the lie. And if you

00:24:46.080 can convince people that something as fundamentally simple as biology is a lie, or is a construct,

00:24:54.080 that men and women, these are not terms that we understand, that I can look at someone, and who

00:24:59.320 knows, maybe they're a man, maybe they're a woman, I don't know, maybe they have a five o'clock shadow 1.00

00:25:04.080 and a beard and a beer gut, maybe they're on their period. You never know. If you can convince people

00:25:10.180 to go against every instinct and every sense and every ounce of logic and understanding they have

00:25:15.840 on something like that, you can convince them to believe absolutely everything. And it's why I talk

00:25:23.500 often about the idea of first principles. And I'm going to be doing an interview with Mark Milkey,

00:25:27.880 I think next week about this, where if we as a society cannot agree on the first principles,

00:25:32.900 We can't go down and just fundamentally, fundamentally understand and accept a baseline premise.

00:25:38.880 We're never going to be able to deal with the related premises and subsequent premises that come about in any discussion or any debate.

00:25:47.400 So once more, we've got some emailed questions I'm working through here.

00:25:51.080 If you want to get a fresh question in and go to the top of the queue, you can post a super chat on YouTube.

00:25:56.360 And I welcome all of you contributing there.

00:25:59.960 Let's see. We've got a message here.

00:26:02.060 We've got a few here.

00:26:03.320 Phil says, your show has the momentum of a runaway freight train.

00:26:08.220 Why are you so popular?

00:26:10.240 Well, Phil, I don't know.

00:26:11.400 It's very difficult, but we somehow managed.

00:26:13.940 Thank you for that guy.

00:26:15.280 That might be the Phil that I was insulting earlier on the Sound of Music video, in which

00:26:19.000 case I recant.

00:26:20.660 We've got a question from Tim.

00:26:22.140 Now, this is a physics question.

00:26:24.120 I am good with words.

00:26:25.380 I'm good with language.

00:26:26.360 Phenomenal with geography.

00:26:27.380 If you want like an obscure international city or a state capital, I've got you covered.

00:26:33.620 Physics, not so much.

00:26:34.940 But Tim wants to know, what happens when a resistible force meets a movable object?

00:26:42.940 Now, I believe this is a play on the original question, which is what happens when an irresistible

00:26:49.360 force meets an immovable object, which generally speaking is as much of a paradox as Justin

00:26:56.580 Trudeau being intelligent about something. But, uh, what happens when a resistible object meets

00:27:00.480 a movable object? Well, I actually had some experience with that on the 401. Uh, and the

00:27:04.640 answer was that my movable object was moved into another, uh, seemingly irresistible object and I

00:27:10.980 lost my car. So, uh, you know, Tim has a little bit of an insensitive question if I do say so

00:27:16.280 myself, but, uh, thank you anyway. If I have gotten it wrong, I encourage you to take it up

00:27:21.160 with Neil deGrasse Tyson. So that's the name of that, like a physicist that, you know, always

00:27:25.200 tells everyone how smart he is right Neil deGrasse is that yeah Neil deGrasse Tyson or is he a

00:27:29.340 basketball player I don't know I if it's a sports thing I have no idea but uh we have a question

00:27:34.760 from Colleen here this one I get asked about a lot so I wanted to get to Colleen's question

00:27:39.200 she writes I'm wondering about the people in prison after the coots border issue are they

00:27:45.160 still in prison someone just told me their wives can't even visit them is that correct so I get 1.00

00:27:51.360 emails all the time. Why are you not covering the Coots 4? Why are you not covering the Coots 4?

00:27:55.720 I have mentioned it on the show, but not in a while. So just to bring you up to speed here,

00:28:00.840 the Coots 4 refers to an arrest of four men facing allegations that they were involved in

00:28:08.860 a conspiracy to kill RCMP officers. Very, very serious charge. They were arrested in February

00:28:16.620 2022. It is coming up on two years since that arrest, and there have been delays and delays

00:28:22.100 and delays in the case, and there is still no trial. Now, I believe the trial is imminent,

00:28:26.800 but this has been a long-running issue, and as I've talked about in the case of Tamara Leach

00:28:31.740 and Chris Barber, the process is very much the punishment in these things. Your life is on hold.

00:28:36.440 In this case, the guys are behind bars. Now, here is the thing. I have many, many problems with a

00:28:43.300 revolving door justice system. And I do not like that violent offenders are arrested, released on

00:28:49.560 bail, they re-offend. Arrested, released on bail, re-offend. This is the perennial story of our

00:28:54.640 justice system. If these men are guilty of the offense for which they are charged, they belong

00:29:04.160 behind bars. We're talking about an incredibly serious charge. The idea of plotting to kill

00:29:10.340 police officers is not a charge that is going to get you bail. Now we are innocent until proven

00:29:16.840 guilty in our society. At least we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. It's a

00:29:20.420 cornerstone of criminal justice, but this does not mean that you cannot be incarcerated prior to

00:29:26.580 your crime or prior to your trial. For example, if you commit a murder and you're arrested in

00:29:33.260 the eyes of the law, you're innocent, but you're probably not going to be let out on bail pending

00:29:39.160 your trial because of the seriousness of it. And there's a whole formula about how bail issues are

00:29:44.120 dealt with. Now, I believe it's important because of that for trials to be dealt with expeditiously.

00:29:51.000 Here's where we get into the problem of why I've not covered the case. Number one,

00:29:55.540 to cover a trial, I believe requires a commitment that you have to cover it from start until finish.

00:30:00.440 I have not covered the Tamara Leach-Chris Barber trial in Ottawa because I know that I could not

00:30:05.480 sit in that courtroom every day and accurately tell you well i'm supposed to be doing a show

00:30:10.120 every day what's been happening so we do updates from time to time we rely on people who are in

00:30:14.840 the courtroom and who are covering it that can provide that but it's difficult to cover a long

00:30:19.480 running trial in detail in a podcast format because they're so convoluted and especially

00:30:25.160 with our court system being what it is um you need to do so much in person i'm not in lethbridge i

00:30:30.120 can't move to lethbridge i don't think my actually maybe my wife would like if i moved to lethbridge

00:30:34.440 and just left her in Ontario, but I can't commit to doing this in the way that it's supposed to be

00:30:40.000 done. The other issue, and this is the bigger one, and I have to be very careful about how I discuss

00:30:45.060 this. There have been publication bans on parts of this case, on some of the evidence that is

00:30:53.260 part of this case, that I cannot discuss, and I cannot even discuss the existence of, based on

00:31:01.320 the last documents that I saw. So this, I mean, I'm kind of flirting close to the edge here and

00:31:06.200 I want to avoid that. But what I'm saying is that I have reviewed documents that I am not allowed to

00:31:11.080 discuss. And it's very difficult for me to, now they're available. I mean, you can seek them out

00:31:15.640 as an individual, but I, as a member of the media, cannot discuss it or share it with you. But it's

00:31:21.520 very difficult to unknow something. And how can I talk about a case where the details of the charges

00:31:27.960 are very important when I have this information that I'm not allowed to share. And that's part

00:31:34.540 of the reason I've made the decision to not have to walk close to that line, because I do take

00:31:40.100 contempt of court very seriously, and I don't want to find myself guilty of violating a publication

00:31:45.140 ban. And there have been challenges against the publication ban by media outlets, and I don't

00:31:51.740 know where that is at this exact moment. But that's the issue, is that it's very, very difficult to

00:31:56.540 cover a case like this. So I think people should. I'm not saying it's not a story. I'm just saying

00:32:01.860 that this is where people that are on the ground that can be there need to really rise up and do

00:32:06.680 this. And when there are details that we're allowed to share, we can. But the issues about

00:32:13.020 justice, the issues about speedy trial, absolutely, that has been dealt with. And those are the parts

00:32:18.240 of this I have spoken about. So I do thank you for the question, Colleen, and others who have

00:32:22.860 asked that as well. Let's see. Do we have any other hot button issues here? Yes, this is another one

00:32:29.300 we get a fair bit of. Bogdan writes, I know there are a few adverse effects from these. I don't even

00:32:36.260 want to say the word because we're going to get YouTube banned. You can see it on the screen

00:32:39.500 there, but the mainstream media is silent on it. I was wondering if True North is willing to attack

00:32:44.100 this sensitive topic. There are a lot of people on ex-YouTube Rumble podcast who are just presenting

00:32:48.860 apocalyptic scenarios for persons who got these mRNA shots. Again, I have Pfizer on my shoulder, 0.67

00:32:55.580 but these guys will not be watched or taken into consideration by my friends. And I guess 60 to 70

00:33:00.560 percent of regular Canadians are like that, if not in the mainstream media. So even if I tell

00:33:05.780 them that I have friends who got ugly adverse reactions after these shots, they just don't

00:33:10.380 believe it. So this, I mean, I've gotten hate mail on this in the past. I shared this with you early

00:33:16.260 on because I didn't want anyone to think that I was hiding it. I made the decision to get

00:33:19.940 vaccinated. I do not regret that decision, but I have never on air or off air told anyone else

00:33:26.420 what to do. I encourage people to make their own decisions. They know their medical history,

00:33:30.720 their family history, their value sets. I trust people to have relationships with their doctors.

00:33:35.020 And I have taken the view that it should be an entirely voluntary decision for absolutely

00:33:39.240 everyone. And one of the reasons I've not talked about adverse effects on the show is twofold.

00:33:46.260 Number one, I'm not a scientist, and it's very difficult for me, and I'm aware of my

00:33:51.640 limitations, to adjudicate between what two people in lab coats are saying.

00:33:56.300 Because, yeah, for all of the Robert Malone's and the Peter McCullough's that are coming

00:34:00.120 and presenting their side of this, there are other people that are just as qualified or

00:34:04.540 educated, and frankly, more of them on the other side that are saying the opposite of

00:34:10.060 that.

00:34:10.260 So if I am to engage in this issue, I believe that I have an authority or I believe I have a responsibility if I'm talking about something to understand it, to know the issue.

00:34:20.860 So I've engaged on the issue of vaccines from the perspective that matters to me the most, which is personal choice and civil liberties.

00:34:28.300 I agree there are consequences.

00:34:30.000 And I think certainly if you look at in the UK, what they've dealt with on the AstraZeneca

00:34:34.280 rollout, there have been cases, documented cases affirmed by coroners and reports and

00:34:39.780 all of that where people have been injured or have lost their lives.

00:34:42.680 And I believe they deserve to be treated far more respectfully than they have been when

00:34:47.180 they're silenced and shut up.

00:34:48.700 I think there are also other people that are overstating anytime something happens, assuming

00:34:56.360 it had to be related to this thing without a connection there and I think this is why I can

00:35:01.220 tell some people are probably seething by me even having this conversation but I cannot adjudicate

00:35:06.480 between these things when they're so personal and so scientific and it's not my job to I feel so

00:35:13.820 I think people should be able to have the discussions I support free speech for doctors

00:35:17.240 I support bodily autonomy for patients and as a result you have to be the one to seek out the 0.62

00:35:22.680 information that you value. And if you're looking to me for medical, look at me, no one should be

00:35:27.220 looking to me for any medical advice. That's the one thing I can tell you. And that's probably my

00:35:31.320 best defense on this. And then there's the practical side, which is even if you so much

00:35:35.620 as dance around the issue, YouTube's going to give you the slap on the wrist. And like I had

00:35:40.040 the MyPillow guy on this show and we were banned from posting anything on YouTube for two weeks

00:35:46.140 because I spoke about Jesus and drug addiction recovery with Mike Lindell. And he just mentioned

00:35:52.260 in passing that he had a documentary coming out and boom, we got banned. So that's why this issue

00:35:58.020 is so difficult. Excuse me. See, like I said, don't take medical advice from me. I like cough

00:36:03.720 nonstop. One thing that has come up from so many people here, this is like one of the number one

00:36:09.960 questions that came in. Tracy writes, well, no, sorry, I'll get to Tracy's after. Sonia writes,

00:36:16.640 thank you for all your work. Thank you to all True North team. You are my daily news. Would you

00:36:21.540 please show at least a picture with you and Sean. You communicate with him during the show so many

00:36:27.680 times that naturally I started getting curious. I hope I spelled his name correctly. Bentley also

00:36:34.400 writes, you often talk about your producer, Sean, but I've never seen him on camera. So maybe you

00:36:39.320 could have him on with you on the episode. I think a lot of listeners will like it. Well, so this has

00:36:45.140 actually been a running gag that got out of hand. Sean doesn't actually exist. He's not a real

00:36:49.740 person. Every broadcaster needs a foil. So I just kind of made up this fictitious producer that you

00:36:57.460 are meant to believe is behind the camera. And then I just periodically have these conversations

00:37:02.840 with, oh, wait. Oh, there is a Sean. Oh, oh, hey, Sean. How are I didn't see you there? What's going

00:37:10.480 on? Sean, you're the producer and you came on without audio. How about that? Am I coming through

00:37:19.240 There we go. I can hear you now. Welcome. This is Sean Thompson. Yeah, this is Sean Thompson's

00:37:24.940 Andrew Lawton show debut. He does exist. He is real. He's been involved very, very much in all

00:37:30.780 of the episodes. And he is also the videographer when we go on the road and do something like we

00:37:36.040 did on Friday with Pierre Paulyev or like we do in Davos. Sean, welcome. Good to have you here.

00:37:42.700 Thank you. Long time listener, first time caller. Happy to be on the show.

00:37:46.940 What do you think of just like the popular demand that we created for you?

00:37:51.560 Like you were, I think you were actually the number one individual topic was, I want to

00:37:55.240 know more about this Sean fellow.

00:37:57.360 Well, I'm truly flattered and thank you all for not only just watching the show, but being

00:38:00.540 so curious to see what I look like and, uh, and I guess fascinated by my existence.

00:38:04.720 No, honestly, this is something that I thought about, uh, just very briefly, you know, end

00:38:08.300 of the year kind of things.

00:38:09.400 Maybe we do like a little trivia or something like that.

00:38:11.680 And I was curious to see if people actually remembered, cause you do bring me up often

00:38:14.900 on the show. And I was just curious, maybe throwing a question like, do you know the name

00:38:18.480 of Andrew Long's producer? But before I even had the chance to think of that idea, all these

00:38:22.540 questions already came in. And it looks like there are at least a few who do remember the name. So

00:38:27.080 thank you all, not just for watching, but for taking a little bit of interest in what we do

00:38:30.580 here behind the scenes. Yeah. And I will say it's obviously been a lot of fun getting to work with

00:38:35.600 you and being on the road. There is, I know from working in talk radio, the relationship between

00:38:40.780 the producer and host is is a very important one because one of the biggest challenges especially

00:38:46.680 in talk radio is that every producer like had their own view of how the show could be and and

00:38:50.760 and ideally you want someone who's going to bring you ideas that you wouldn't have come up with but

00:38:54.780 also not try to like like you haven't been like we're gonna go all vegan all the time and we're

00:38:59.040 going to talk about how great electric cars are and how uh men and women are malleable concepts

00:39:03.600 you've not like you've not like upended the format which is good well not yet at least i mean give us

00:39:09.360 another year or so perhaps you know i gotta sort of let these things come with time i can't just

00:39:13.460 jump in and throw it all on you at once but no um i mean i've been a little deferential in that

00:39:17.760 sense i respect that this is your show you've been doing it for quite a long time so anything

00:39:21.100 that i could do to help you make that process a little bit easier and to contribute some new ideas

00:39:25.000 i've always been happy to do all right so which which is your favorite but we've sent you to some

00:39:29.160 exotic places like uh zurich and davos and uh ottawa um what's been your favorite uh favorite

00:39:37.460 on location bit we've done well calgary for sure i mean calgary is a beautiful city um pretty much

00:39:43.960 anywhere we've had an opportunity to travel to i've really enjoyed visiting people ask me the

00:39:48.220 most i would say about davos people are always wondering what that's like and uh sort of what

00:39:53.000 it's like to be at the world economic forum and um i think people are often disappointed when i

00:39:57.040 tell them that i just i had a wonderful time i mean maybe because i was a good company with with

00:40:00.260 yourself but and you know the rebel crew was there as a levant very wonderful very gracious uh person

00:40:05.760 himself, but, um, something about being in the Swiss Alps at that time, just, it was, it was

00:40:10.760 truly something unique for me. Um, but aside from that, if we're, if we're really thinking

00:40:15.000 about the places that have really connected with me the most, I think Calgary for, for something,

00:40:18.820 something just about the people there. It's just a beautiful place. And, um, yeah, I just, I like

00:40:23.960 that, uh, Alberta temperament. You're, you're the only Torontonian that's ever had nice things to

00:40:28.420 say about Calgary. So I think that's why they keep having you back. See, this is why I can't put you

00:40:32.460 on the screen beside me normally and why you've never been on the show because we have a comment

00:40:36.100 here wow he's handsome is andrew's producer single wowza is there a name behind that comment just

00:40:43.440 just curious there is and i think this may demystify the comment a little bit the name is

00:40:48.060 emma does that ring a bell at all it does ring you know i think there's a couple uh maybe someone

00:40:52.680 in my life named emma who would say something like that perhaps but i like to think that that's

00:40:56.760 a commonly shared sentiment amongst the audience she's just speaking on behalf of of the rest of

00:41:00.460 them well look i'm sorry i misread it that was actually from harrison faulkner uh that comment

00:41:04.620 that you know that makes a lot more sense now yeah yeah get in line emma harrison was that was

00:41:09.040 up first all right well uh just what are you uh doing for the holidays what are you uh planning

00:41:13.880 for the new year's outside the show because we we do let you have a life i believe i hope

00:41:17.380 is that is that just a trick question are you serious i actually gotta have a whole no

00:41:20.860 yeah the answer should be i'm working i'm gonna be hard at work over christmas no no no what's

00:41:24.680 coming up honestly just the normal sort of seeing my families and stuff you know i love i love the

00:41:29.260 holidays um my mom is my mom is peruvian so she takes christmas to a whole different level so uh

00:41:34.700 you know it's mainly just about being with your family for my mom celebrating the birth of jesus

00:41:38.500 christ and uh and for new year is sort of the same thing i mean i'm sure me and emma will find

00:41:42.720 something to do you know we always find some trouble to get up to but uh nothing too big no

00:41:47.020 no traveling i mean most of my family's here in the gta anyway so it's kind of easy for us that

00:41:51.620 way but just hoping to get enjoy enjoy some time with the family get some much needed time off and

00:41:56.340 rest and get ready for January 2024. All right. And that's, yeah, well, we've got obviously the

00:42:03.080 Davos trip coming up. I believe there is, I don't know if you put the poll in, but someone did a

00:42:07.460 poll. Do you want to see more Sean on the Andrew Lawton show? And so far, yes is winning with 80%

00:42:14.560 and no with 19. So maybe we should do this more than just at the year end show when we're doing

00:42:19.620 the Ask Me Anythings. I would love to. I don't know what that 19% is thinking, honestly, but 0.96

00:42:24.020 But no, for sure.

00:42:25.220 I'm curious who the 19% is now.

00:42:28.320 That's all right.

00:42:29.240 If you don't like Sean, don't let him know in the comments

00:42:32.300 because I think he sees them before I do.

00:42:33.940 But Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with you.

00:42:37.000 And I believe I've met that Emma that's lurking you

00:42:40.180 in the comment section as well.

00:42:41.460 And she is similarly lovely.

00:42:42.680 So I hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

00:42:44.500 And thank you so much for all your work on the show to date.

00:42:47.580 And I'm looking forward to what comes next.

00:42:50.020 Thank you so much, Andrew.

00:42:51.480 Merry Christmas to yourself as well

00:42:53.140 and to everyone in the audience too.

00:42:55.040 All right, well, thank you.

00:42:55.880 And I hope, Sean, you don't disconnect

00:42:56.920 because then I believe the show ends.

00:42:58.220 So he goes back to the behind the scenes role.

00:43:01.980 We have some more questions here.

00:43:04.440 We are just gonna be ending in a few moments.

00:43:07.160 So I can't get to all of the questions here.

00:43:08.980 Tracy had said, I'm so glad I found True North.

00:43:12.300 I love all the news and unbiased reporting.

00:43:14.160 I would love to meet everyone at True North.

00:43:16.540 I know a lot of the names and watch their shows,

00:43:18.660 but there are several I don't know

00:43:20.020 because we only get articles.

00:43:21.980 Would it be possible to have a short show to introduce everyone just to put a face and perhaps

00:43:27.020 a short bio to the name? That is a great idea. And you know what? Next week, I think I'm going

00:43:31.240 to have some of the reporters on just to chat about some of the top stories of the year,

00:43:35.500 people you might not see on camera often. But maybe in the new year, that's something we could

00:43:39.380 do in a bit more of a casual way. I will say for our True North insiders, these are people who make

00:43:44.560 monthly contributions to True North, which you can do at donate.tnc.news. We do these periodic

00:43:51.020 off-air, I'd say off the record.

00:43:53.740 I mean, they're not secret.

00:43:54.440 We just don't broadcast them.

00:43:55.920 Zoom meetings where we just all chit-chat

00:43:58.460 and people who you may know of

00:44:00.660 and not see on shows all get together.

00:44:02.800 And it's a fun opportunity for the True North team

00:44:04.540 to kick back and also to take some more questions

00:44:07.380 similar to this format that we have there.

00:44:11.960 And sorry, I got distracted by another comment about Sean.

00:44:14.120 Sean's like amassing all of the fans in the audience.

00:44:16.880 So this may be like a Dr. Phil scenario where,

00:44:20.080 Well, actually, that makes me Oprah in this case.

00:44:22.220 So anyway, don't take the metaphor too far.

00:44:25.080 We have a message from Elia who writes,

00:44:29.580 Perhaps you can address why there is no mention in the media or by the conservatives

00:44:34.000 that according to a number of sources that measure or estimate the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions per country,

00:44:40.640 China produced a bajillion kilotons of carbon per year.

00:44:45.260 The numbers are, you can kind of see them there.

00:44:47.920 But basically, the question is that China is contributing more than 20 times what Canada is.

00:44:52.940 They're building coal plants, not reducing, yet we're the ones that have to do the so-called fight to stop climate change.

00:45:01.180 What Elia writes here, personally, I think we should make efforts to take our natural environment into consideration and endeavor to be more environmentally friendly.

00:45:09.080 But it's obvious that the liberals are perpetuating a fraud on Canadians.

00:45:12.740 I would say, I mean, I don't know if the conservatives talk about it.

00:45:15.720 We talk about it on this show.

00:45:16.940 I think with Mark Marano last week on his time at COP28, we talked about this.

00:45:22.500 Why is it that we have to bend over backwards, destroy our economy when China is kind of just going along and paying lip service while investing, industrializing, building, constructing, and doing so with no sense of environmental consideration? 0.95

00:45:35.960 So we can't stop the world from producing, but we can shift production.

00:45:39.600 And do we want to be producers here or do we want China and India to be the beneficiaries?

00:45:43.960 And when you put it like that, it's a simple calculation.

00:45:46.560 but one that you're right is absent from a lot of the mainstream media discourse this is a question

00:45:52.360 from john i have followed you since you were on the radio and agree with 99 of your views that's

00:45:58.440 a very good out very good average i see that on the middle east situation you along with the north

00:46:03.200 american mainstream and conservative media take a strong pro-israel stance you've even reported

00:46:09.340 repeated the beheaded baby story which i've learned after much research was just a rumor made up by a

00:46:15.900 reporter. Do you still believe it? Here's a loaded question. So just, yes, I'm pro-Israel. I've been

00:46:24.220 to Israel twice. I do not take an uncritical view of Israel. But when it comes to the core question,

00:46:29.600 does Israel have a right to exist? My answer is yes. Does Israel have a right to defend itself? 0.64

00:46:34.080 My answer is yes. Now, the Gaza situation has been a heinous, heinous example of why Israel's 1.00

00:46:43.540 right to exist and defend itself is under threat because you have this terrorist group called Hamas

00:46:48.740 and other groups as well that want the annihilation and obliteration of Israel. Now war is nasty,

00:46:55.060 terror is nasty. The question is about this one specific allegation that has become a very

00:47:03.140 important one in terms of how people view this conflict and also the pace at which media reports.

00:47:09.380 So how it started was there was an Israeli reporter

00:47:13.540 with I-24 in Israel, I believe it was, who reported that she had heard from an IDF official

00:47:19.700 or multiple IDF officials that there were evidence of babies having been beheaded. I think it was at

00:47:24.700 the kibbutz whose name escapes me right now. And this was reported extensively. It was reported

00:47:30.880 everywhere. But if you looked at all of the reporting, it all linked back to this one woman

00:47:37.200 and this one report. And that was so very key. And this was just a few days after the initial

00:47:42.960 attacks. So I reported it originally, and then I pulled back a little bit. And then I saw there

00:47:50.160 be more and more support for it. And then multiple IDF officials at different levels came out and

00:47:57.320 said, yes, there is evidence. And yes, there are photographs. Now they have not shared these

00:48:02.020 photographs, even when they have brought reporters in and showed off the record footage of what has

00:48:08.740 happened and footage of victims, they have not shared videos of beheaded babies. And it's terrible

00:48:14.260 for me that this has become, brutal as this is, such an important discussion in this. But I have

00:48:22.060 not seen pictures. I have not seen these images. I do not claim to have seen them. Do I believe them?

00:48:30.300 Yes. I believe them because it has come from enough different places, enough different

00:48:36.100 authorities that do not have a reason to lie about this and by that i mean that there is enough that

00:48:43.940 has been proven such as the sexual assaults the hostages all of that there's enough that has been

00:48:51.700 proven that you don't need to make something like this we know that babies were killed we know that

00:48:57.380 bodies were burned is it all that unbelievable that babies were so yes i believe it i i dispute

00:49:05.220 the premise that it all goes back to that one reporter's work that one reporter certainly

00:49:10.740 started that initial volley but it has since been reaffirmed by multiple people in the idf now look

00:49:16.100 if you're if you take the view that israelis are just propagandists and they're lying and it's all

00:49:20.740 just wartime propaganda yeah you won't believe that unless you have evidence but i'll say does

00:49:24.980 it really matter and and i don't mean that truth doesn't matter truth does matter but if if your

00:49:30.900 view of what Hamas did is that everything else is fine, except for the possibility of beheading 0.81

00:49:38.400 babies, you have already decided that you are fine with horror and you are fine with terror.

00:49:47.140 So the people that got all pearl clutchy about this particular issue are people that are generally

00:49:52.940 fine with Hamas violence in general. I can't end on that note. That would be like a brutal one to 0.63

00:49:57.720 end on. But do we have any lighter ones here that we can go to? Well, here's a fun one. Robert says

00:50:04.680 he finds it infuriating when we see a politician asked a question in the House of Commons launch

00:50:09.520 into a talking point filled speech that in no way relates to the question. We see politicians

00:50:13.980 refuse to answer no matter how many times they're asked. I believe Justin Trudeau was asked 17 times

00:50:19.060 in a row. How many times have you met with the ethics commissioner? Would it be possible to get

00:50:25.200 a few influential people together to discuss the merits in bringing in some form of regulation

00:50:30.260 regarding the Q&A period that requires truth and relevance, something similar to those in place

00:50:35.340 in a court of law. So I don't know if it's possible. I think what we need to see is political

00:50:40.200 pressure. We need to make it where the dodging the question is not something you can just get

00:50:45.120 away with. I jokingly wrote, it was actually like one of my most popular tweets about a year ago,

00:50:50.860 something where I said, you know, I'm going to start talking to my wife like a politician. If 1.00

00:50:53.860 She says, did you unload the dishwasher?

00:50:55.940 I'll say, I believe in clean dishes.

00:50:58.780 I've always believed in clean dishes.

00:51:00.520 And it's terrible that you could have a house

00:51:02.380 in which dishes are not clean.

00:51:04.280 And that's based, I mean, I was inspired to write that

00:51:07.080 after seeing an Aaron O'Toole press conference.

00:51:08.940 So take from that what you will.

00:51:10.440 But not that Justin Trudeau is much better.

00:51:12.540 Pierre Paulyev, very good at answering questions.

00:51:14.940 Even if you don't like the answers,

00:51:16.140 that's why I pushed him hard on immigration numbers 0.98

00:51:18.400 in that interview.

00:51:19.480 Jason Kenney was always good at answering questions.

00:51:21.760 He would take a meandering route to get there.

00:51:23.860 but he would always end with a question.

00:51:26.900 Kathleen Wynne, you know, 0.83

00:51:28.460 I do not have a lot of time for her policies, 0.98

00:51:30.120 but she was always a delight to interview

00:51:32.060 because she would say the answer

00:51:34.440 and that she was the Premier of Ontario, the Liberal,

00:51:37.260 and she would give the answer and you'd hate the answer,

00:51:40.120 but it's like, well, I can't fight with you

00:51:41.740 because you've given me the answer.

00:51:43.000 You've answered the question.

00:51:43.960 You've done what I asked you to do in the interview.

00:51:47.060 And a lot of the time people mistake.

00:51:49.160 If I think of kind of my own interview philosophy,

00:51:51.340 people think my job is to bludgeon or persuade people. When I interview someone, I'm not trying

00:51:58.120 to convince them. I'm not trying to convince Pierre Polyev of anything. You want to expose

00:52:02.280 things. You want to expose contradictions and conflicts. But ultimately, I'm asking because

00:52:06.680 I believe they have an answer that people need to hear to make up their own opinion on. So if they

00:52:11.480 don't answer the question, I'll ask. If they do answer it, I'm not going to just bludgeon them

00:52:14.660 with it. I'll say, okay, then we move on to the next topic. And it's tough because you could take

00:52:19.300 a 20 minute interview and spend it on one particular issue, trying to get a yes, no answer

00:52:24.660 to a question. But then you've missed the opportunity to talk about a whole bunch of

00:52:30.260 other things. And that it's always a bit of a balancing act. And I know every now and then you,

00:52:34.120 whenever you do an interview, the most annoying questions you get are, well, why didn't you ask

00:52:37.680 this? Because it's 20 minutes and you can only ask so many questions in a 20 minute period,

00:52:41.220 which is why I think leaders should do more and more interviews with True North. So that's my

00:52:46.400 little new year's hope for the uh 2024 that's coming apparently our master producer sean who

00:52:52.640 was so popular was like having a conversation that you all were hearing that i didn't hear

00:52:56.560 so hopefully it was nothing that like it was too uh hopefully it was sean i don't know sean if you

00:53:00.740 can still pop on but hopefully it wasn't anything uh too too bad that we'll like lose our clean tag

00:53:04.960 on itunes for was it i can't imagine it was anything too interesting no honestly i just

00:53:10.300 went back to review all the things i had just said while i was on the air very briefly that's

00:53:15.540 self-conscious i am about all this so you weren't even talking you were just like listening to

00:53:19.060 yourself you were just basking in the glory of sean for sure it was just it was a recording of

00:53:23.780 a recording again i apologize to the audience you probably all want me kicked out and booted from

00:53:27.860 the show you know so it was a great time working for you andrew and uh yeah thanks yeah this this

00:53:33.540 is now your uh your turn your exit interview at true north well all right well sean thanks very

00:53:37.700 much and to all of you thanks for your questions if you think we should do this again let me know

00:53:41.940 in the comments. If you think we should kill this format, take it out to the woodshed and never speak

00:53:46.020 of it again, let me know that as well, because we do try to be receptive to your feedback. So if you

00:53:50.300 like the idea of doing the questions, say so. If you don't like the questions, say that as well.

00:53:55.000 I don't know if it's going to be perfectly democratic, but if there's like a clear consensus,

00:53:58.720 we will probably try to go along with it here. Another super chat from just me, Nicole, who says

00:54:04.440 a quick Merry Christmas to all and congratulations on the Pierre Polyev interview. Well done. Well,

00:54:09.060 Thank you very much, Nicole.

00:54:10.400 Thank you to all of you tuning in.

00:54:12.000 We will talk to you tomorrow here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:54:14.900 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:54:18.220 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:54:20.440 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:54:39.060 We'll be right back.

00:55:09.060 We'll be right back.

00:55:39.060 We'll see you next time.

00:56:09.060 Thank you.

Juno News - December 19, 2023

The Andrew Lawton Show Mailbag Edition： Andrew takes your questions on everything

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript