Juno News - February 04, 2020The Andrew Lawton Show： Press Freedom Doesn't Need a License
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Summary
Coming up, Justin Trudeau's government's attack on press freedom and free speech, Bill Blair's fear-mongering to support gun control, and Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson's future as a social conservative in Canada.
Transcript
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Coming up, Justin Trudeau's government's attack on press freedom and free speech,
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Bill Blair's fear-mongering to support gun control,
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and Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson and I talk about the future of PPC and social conservatives in Canada.
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Hey, welcome everyone to another edition, another week of episodes for The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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You heard the man at the beginning, Canada's most irreverent talk show.
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Thanks so much for tuning into the program today.
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I want to just focus on a couple of things this episode because there have been a few things that have gone on,
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but really a couple of big ones that I want to get through.
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And to be honest, I don't even know if I'll make it to the second one that I have on my list here,
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which is talking about some of the updates in the gun control plans that Justin Trudeau has,
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that Bill Blair has told us a little bit more about.
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And like everything else Bill Blair has told us, he seems to be promising something that we already have in law in Canada.
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I want to focus for the first chunk of the show here, if I can, on this idea of licensing media that now we started talking about on the last episode of the show, actually.
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I was reading from the report, the one put forward by Janet Yale, the recommendations in question that we're talking about licensing all media content.
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Now, in that report, Janet Yale said, you know, news organizations that are qualified news organizations, good journalism, all of that stuff will be exempted from it.
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But lacking from that report was the definition.
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And the devil, as they always say, is in the details.
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And I want to share with you a story in three acts, if I can here, because the first is the clip I'm sure you've seen by now.
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The initial clip of Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbo on with Evan Solomon on CTV.
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And in this, he first opened the door to the government adopting this recommendation.
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Because last week, when I talked about this report, it was just a recommendation.
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We didn't know whether or not the government was going to adopt it.
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As far as the licensing is concerned, if you're a distributor of content in Canada, and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the requirement probably wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google.
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So there would have to be some proportionality embedded into this.
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And by Monday, there was a fair bit of outrage online, not just from the usual chorus of critics of this government, but even from some mainstream media reporters that were saying, you know, I don't like the idea of government injecting itself even further into the idea of media.
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And this is, you know, funny from the industry that's now receiving this $600 million bailout, where the government has to make the determination of what a qualified or government approved media organization is.
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But there was enough outrage that the government thought it was worthwhile to walk it back.
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So Minister Gilboa, outside the House of Commons the next morning, had a scrum, and he walked the comments back.
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The problem that I have is that the media decided to stop there.
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The media said, okay, you know, it was a bad idea, but they walked it back.
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But he actually raised even more questions that haven't really been asked.
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And I want to play the clip of what he said in that scrum.
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And the reason I'm going to do that, and I'm sorry if it's a bit repetitive, is that I want you to hear the wording that's used to compare with something else I'm going to share later on.
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This is what he said in the foyer of the House of Commons.
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Our government has no intention to impose licensing requirements on news organizations, nor will we try to regulate news content.
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So what he says there, I will be clear, let me be clear, our government will not impose licensing requirements on news organizations, nor will we regulate news content.
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Now, in question period, Justin Trudeau later that day said this, and I quote,
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We will not impose licensing requirements on news organizations, nor will we regulate news content.
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Apart from those differences, the entire line was the same.
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And the reason that's important is because Minister Gilboa got up there in that same scrum that I just showed you a clip from and said later on,
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I don't have the clip handy, but said later on, you know what, I did this all on my own.
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No one told me because someone asked, who did you talk to?
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Now, maybe they were his notes, but I find it funny that his line is identical to the line put forward by Justin Trudeau.
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It's, we're not going to impose licensing on news content, on news organizations.
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But the logical question, and a few people have raised this, I'm not saying no one has, is, okay, well, what do you qualify as a news organization?
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And what will you do to those who don't meet that definition?
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Now, to his credit, Evan Solomon did another interview with Minister Gilboa and tried to probe into this.
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And I'm going to play two clips from it here, back to back, because you see how he just genuinely does not have an answer to this.
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You told me on CTV's question period that media companies will be licensed.
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Many people assumed you were referring to news organization.
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What exactly will require a government license?
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However, news agencies will not require licensing or registration by the government or any other agencies.
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And, again, the government is not in the business of deciding that.
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So, we will not be asking news agencies for license or registration.
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The confusion comes from the use of the term media in the report.
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The important answer is not what my definition is.
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But, in the report, they refer to media as anyone who produces content.
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And, they say that for news agencies, there will be no licensing required.
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But, your point of view is relevant because you're the guy that has to decide what parts of the recommendations you're going to use.
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So, are aggregators, which are recommended, are other sites, are content, opinion sites, are those going to be licensed?
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What we're interested in is how can we continue to have good Canadian cultural content made in Canada and made available?
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And, he says, the guy who, as Evan Solomon pointed out, is responsible for making this determination.
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Oh, no, no, it's not important what my definition is.
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So, the government of Canada does not recognize True North as being a media organization.
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This was made very clear during the federal election campaign, when the liberals said, no, you can't come to our events.
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And, the leaders' debates commission said to us, well, no, you can't come to our debates.
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Now, we were able to access the debates because of a federal court order.
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The federal court views us as a media organization if the government doesn't.
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But, the government would very likely look at us and say, no, no, no, you're not a news organization.
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So, you're a media organization that we can regulate, that we can force to be licensed.
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And, this is even more insidious, or at least as insidious, as demanding licensing from news companies, from news organizations, because the government is still doing the same thing.
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The government still has to make the determination as to whether or not you are a news organization.
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And, if the government has to make that determination, we're no better off under this licensing model that exempts them than we are under one that includes them.
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Because, both require government to do the exact same thing, which is acknowledge, okay, there is a line, there is a definition, and it's us, the government, we, the government, that have to determine who meets that definition.
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And, there's nothing good that can come of government coming up with this definition.
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And, the reason I know that is because of what we saw during the federal election campaign, when government decides it's going to just draw this line retroactively, designed to exclude people that they've already decided to exclude.
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And, the reason I'm bringing this up, we actually had a bit of an update in the case this week, the case against the Leaders Debates Commission, where we learned that Justin Trudeau's Attorney General, and this happened, I think, on Monday that we learned this, Justin Trudeau's Attorney General is trying to have our case thrown out.
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The argument is that it's moot, and the reason they're saying it's moot is because the debate's over, but because they view press freedom as not an issue of national importance.
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And, they actually say this in the filing, the government says this, that it's not an issue of national importance such that it makes sense to do this.
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Well, the reason we're doing it is because there is a constitutional question at hand.
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And, when we set out on this venture, when we took the federal government to court, we had no idea that just a couple of months later, they were literally going to be talking about licensing media organizations.
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And, now we see just the utter contempt, the utter contempt in which the liberal government holds independent media.
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And, I will say, very good, and I've always liked Evan Solomon, but very good for Evan Solomon to keep the feet to the fire on this for Minister Gilbeau.
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But, more importantly, I want to see more outrage from the media because a lot of them, once he walked it back, and he didn't walk it back.
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He, I'd say he walked it forward in many ways because he proved that there is, in fact, a line that's going to be drawn.
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But, many people in the media that I would have loved to have seen continue to hammer them are now, it seems, accepting that, all right, well, I guess it's over.
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This was an utterly unconscionable idea that is not something you see or should see or will see in a free country.
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Because, indeed, country is no longer free when you have to have the free press go through this licensing process, even if the end of it is, oh, no, no, no, we've determined that you don't need your license.
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My God-given right to free speech has determined that.
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So, for government to then put more hurdles on memes, basically.
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I mean, they're saying we need to go after media content online.
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It's not just about Netflix and Google and Facebook.
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And, again, I want to read the section of the report in question.
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And we didn't have as much time to go into this in as much detail as I would have liked last week.
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But the report has a word that is very important here.
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So, this idea of you just being some blogger in your basement
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licensing, the same regime that's going to go after Netflix, Google, Facebook, is going after someone that does YouTube commentary, someone who runs an aggregator service.
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And, indeed, when aggregators were put forward, he didn't have an answer.
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He said, oh, no, no, well, it's not my definition.
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This report should be ripped up, thrown out, and never spoken of again.
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And that's where we are as a country right now, that we actually have to be fighting our government for press freedom.
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And they're doing it under the guise of mandating Canadian content.
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They're doing it under the guise of, oh, you have to play more Justin Bieber songs if you're going to play Led Zeppelin.
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And what I find hilarious is that Canadian content is a holdover from a time when we didn't have the ability to go anywhere we want to find content.
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It's a holdover from a time when you had to listen to what was on the radio.
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So, if you wanted to get Canadian artists played, that was where you had to put them.
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I don't want to watch Canadian television reruns.
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So, it's already bad enough that the government is going after these types of operations.
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I think that this is an undermining and usurping of the free market in and of itself.
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But by saying that we need to go guns blazing towards the regulation of, again, to use Janet Yale's words from that report,
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of all media content, even if they are going to draw this little line around news organizations,
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without defining news organizations, it doesn't matter.
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It doesn't matter because now what government is doing is saying that we have this list
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and the government-approved media organizations are on it
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and the non-approved government organizations are not on it
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If you've gone through that review process and government has determined,
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oh, no, no, you don't need a license because you're one of our preferred news organizations,
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the government will say, oh, well, yep, it seems like, yep, you're cleared.
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And if you want to cover an event and you're not on that list,
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as it sounds like True North won't be on the list,
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then government is going to say, oh, no, no, no, you aren't accredited.
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In fact, it's never about what they're telling you it's about.
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and will continue to be an excuse that government can use to shoehorn its way
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into manipulating and undermining the free press,
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We'll be back in a moment with more of The Andrew Lawton Show.
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Thanks very much for sticking with me on the show here.
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I want to talk a little bit about firearms policy in Canada,
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and I know that there's going to be more gun control discussions
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and as such, though, there will certainly be more on this show.
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But Bill Blair has a tendency to announce things that are already law.
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well, assault weapons are already illegal in Canada.
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When he talks about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals,
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well, that's already supposed to be a priority of government.
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And now he's talking about having Ottawa adopt,
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to confiscate guns from people that are deemed to pose a threat.
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Again, something that we already have in Canada.
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But I want to share with you what Bill Blair said here.
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to petition the courts to remove guns from someone flagged to be a risk.
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but doctors, victims, communities, and families
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to be able to take steps to render a dangerous situation safe.
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Now, this is something that the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
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has advocated for, a group that is very much pro-gun control.
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But already those people can by calling the police.
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Dennis Young, who's a great firearms expert in Canada,
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The program is called the Firearms Interest Police, FIP.
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And he's actually tried to get files about this program
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But in particular, there was a case in September of 2019
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where he was trying to understand how there was a failure of the system
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when someone who shouldn't have been able to hold on to his guns
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was able to, and even though serious reports had been filed with police.
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But this was, if you read into it, a failure of the process.
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Someone would read this, someone who doesn't know gun laws,
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someone who doesn't know what's legal and what's illegal in Canada,
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and say, oh my goodness, I guess people that are unsafe,
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people that are dangerous, are able to have guns without them being taken away.
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And by the way, I'll add that gun owners have had firearms taken away from them
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for a lot sillier reasons than posing a threat to someone
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They've had guns taken away for using them in self-defense.
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They've had guns taken away for not storing them properly.
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Our system is not one that errs on the side of letting people keep guns
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Now again, no one's even talking about changing that.
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I think we need to make the regulations more sensible.
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But Blair has to stop announcing things that are already law
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to really stoke fears that people have about firearms,
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You can be committed if you are going to pose a threat to yourself or others.
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This is something that we have in all provinces in Canada.
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And beyond that, if you own firearms, police know it.
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This is the thing, especially with restricted guns.
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Well, we already have that for handguns and for assaulted guns like an AR-15,
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Chuck, my neighbor, is acting a little weird and threatening me.
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And if there is reason to believe that he is going to use that gun, they can.
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But the liberals are hellbent on ignoring behavior and focusing on the easy way out,
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Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with having a red flag law,
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which is why conservatives didn't do anything about it when there was one already on the books.
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They're trying to import an American dialogue because red flag laws are part of the discussion
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you hear in the U.S. in the last year or so in particular.
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They're trying to import this American discussion and import American fear.
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And the hope has to be that Canadians are sensible enough to see through it.
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When we come back, we'll talk to Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson,
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former PPC candidate, about the future of the PPC
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and also the place that social conservatives have in Canada.
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So last week, I caught up with Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson,
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because she ran in a Burnaby by-election before the general election in 2019.
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And she's also been an outspoken advocate, not just for the PPC,
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but on a lot of the social issues that politicians tend to shy away from.
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And I wanted to touch base with her for a couple of reasons.
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To talk about the future of the PPC after its electoral showing in 2019,
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but also as the discussions go forward about where social conservatives fit into
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how the PPC has tried to cement itself as being the home for SOCON voters.
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We'll talk about this and whatever else comes up in my interview with Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson.
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Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson joins me on the line now.
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It's great to just talk about what is going on in our nation
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because for someone who has spoken out about all of the issues imaginable
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and someone who has a really deep religious conviction and a very strong faith,
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jumping into politics is not typically a place that is receptive to this, especially now.
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Why did you decide to take that plunge back in that Burnaby by-election?
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Laura Lynn Tyler-Thompson Well, you know, when I was growing up in church
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and I've spent, you know, much time my whole life in churches,
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Separation of church and state is something that you hear very often.
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Then I started realizing that all the people that maybe didn't believe in my religion
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They were going to parliament consistently to make laws to actually bludgeon what I believe,
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to go against my charter rights, to come against my freedom of conviction and conscience
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And then I said, you better wake up and know that you need to be part of this process.
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And that all began with the gender fluid teaching that was going on in the schools.
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I just thought little boys don't need to be told that maybe they're a girl inside.
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Like all of a sudden, everyone's talking about this, you know, sexual orientation and
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I never heard nothing about that, right, until just a couple of years ago.
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So now they have it in all the schools, all of this indoctrination, dozens and dozens
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and dozens of transgender indoctrination books from kindergarten, you know, all up through
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So when I began to speak, yeah, I, you know, I faced some targeting and I realized we're
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in a totally different world and I thought someone has to stand.
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You know, that gender identity aspect of the cultural discussions we have now is a hugely
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I mean, that was the issue that launched Jordan Peterson.
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That was the issue that has converted a lot of people into being a lot more supportive of
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free speech and certainly seeing a lot more of the dynamics of the culture war.
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And it's interesting that that was for you, a linchpin in your decision to jump into politics
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and start speaking out on political issues a lot more.
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Because, I mean, that old saying is that yesterday's fringe is today's normal has never been truer
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This idea that you'd be laughed at by people on the left and the right for saying 10 years
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ago, oh, we should put kids on hormones to change their genders.
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Now you're yelled at and screamed at for being a bigot if you don't say that.
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Evan Solomon, these people, Vashi, you know, they have no idea what they're talking about.
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And all they do is promote a left-wing talking point and ideology.
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We have a global 4,500% increase in gender referrals.
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Something is bloody hell wrong with our nation.
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Why are dozens and dozens of kids, even hundreds, in the greater Vancouver area now going to see
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Did you hear about this, you know, when you were young?
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You know, there's, there's, all of a sudden it's just been taken over.
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And now we have all of the schools telling these kids that, oh yeah, maybe you could be
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And now we have this confusion and now they're going to doctors and now we're going to ban
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what's called conversion therapy, which is anybody who just dares to say to a nine-year-old boy,
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And I think that let's celebrate, let's celebrate and affirm who you are in your body.
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It's a real deal to, to struggle with gender dysphoria.
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Nobody is saying it's not, but the reality and the data shows that if you don't socially
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transition a child and you get them through after puberty, they're completely happy with
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So let's stop acting like doctors in schools and not telling parents what's going on and
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It's confusion affirming therapy that's going on in schools and it has to stop.
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Well, and it's one of those areas where the political ideology tends to trump the
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And I'd say it's one of the more concerning trends that we see in the media now, the mainstream
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media, where there's a lot more of a reliance on the politicized context of things that activists
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are putting forward than there is on evidence and on truth.
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And that for me, when it comes to how politicians respond to it, gets to why the PPC and specifically
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Maxime Bernier, even before he left the Conservative Party of Canada, was such an interesting thing
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to watch because Maxime Bernier, who I know you know quite well, really started talking
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about these things that a lot of people were thinking of, but politicians were not supposed
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And I put that in air quotes, not supposed to talk about whether it's immigration, whether
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it's things like C-16 and the gender identity stuff.
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And that's a huge problem when there's a growing divide between what real people are
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talking about and what the media is prepared to accept politicians bringing up.
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And Maxime Bernier is the most courageous politician that we have going.
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He is willing to talk intelligently, with common sense, about some of the social terrorism
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we're facing. He spoke outwardly against Yaniv, who was going against, you know, using the
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Human Rights Tribunal as a bludgeoning weapon against women, you know, who would not wax
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his balls. Like Maxime Bernier was willing to talk about it. Everybody else, ooh, I'm too
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afraid, you know. And even the Human Rights Tribunals were scolded by the person who helped to create
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the Human Rights Tribunal, saying, well, how could this even be heard, this Yaniv crazy
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person? Also, Maxime was willing to speak out on the issue of the young person who wanted
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to transgender, to change their gender in the Vancouver area, who at the very first visit
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was offered cross-sex hormones rather than counselling to, you know, maybe check it out.
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Without parental consent, the court ordered that this child was able to transition.
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What has gone wrong? Yes, Maxime Bernier knows how to deal with what we are going through.
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And he also defended me. He defended me when the Conservative Party of Canada would not run
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me as a candidate. Why? Because I didn't think that little kids should be told that they can
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be a different gender. Maxime Bernier took me on in an unprecedented move of courage and ran me as
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one of his first candidates. He had to defend me against Evan Solomon and, you know, all of the,
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you know, the left-wing reporters who don't know the truth if it lands on their desk. And, you know,
00:29:50.380
frankly, it was very disturbing. And so I am indebted. And Maxime's time is coming. It is,
00:29:56.640
this is not done by a long shot. It's coming because the whole bid for the social, for the Conservative
00:30:03.080
leadership race and what is shaping up, it's going to be a mess. And I can't wait to watch this.
00:30:10.640
At the same time, there is also a very uphill battle for Conservatives to win elections in Canada.
00:30:16.980
We don't have the Conservative base of the population that they have in the US, for example.
00:30:22.700
So when Conservatives have won or the Conservative Party historically has won, it's been by very slim
00:30:28.540
margins in many cases. Do you think the PPC is sabotaging Conservative victory hopes in Canada?
00:30:36.560
No, I think the PPC is offering an alternative to the the CPC constituents who can no longer
00:30:43.740
be vaccinated, respected, honoured by the Conservative Party of Canada. Let's remember,
00:30:51.280
Peter McKay basically thinks that social Conservatives are a stinking albatross in the
00:30:55.900
organization. Social Conservatives have recently just come out. Unless you're willing to march
00:31:00.420
in a pride perversion parade with naked guys and children around and naked women and children
0.93
00:31:07.220
watching, then apparently you're not worthy of being a Conservative. That party has abandoned.
00:31:14.220
You might as well just all go to the Liberal Party and give Justin Trudeau a run for his money
00:31:19.460
for leadership because that's who you are. And the the Conservative constituency that are true
00:31:26.980
Conservatives needed an outlet. And Maxime Bernier saw that and he thought he can't even support all
00:31:33.340
of this. I mean, the the policies on immigration, the Paris Climate Accord. When I was running in Red
00:31:39.900
Deer, I couldn't find any I could not find one Conservative who supported the Paris Climate Accord.
00:31:44.400
But, you know, blah, blah, blah, on and on. They were just going to support Andrew Scheer,
00:31:50.900
who rammed that through. As soon as he was leader, he rammed the Paris Climate Accord. He forced a vote
00:31:57.460
on it, which Maxime Bernier, you know, quietly removed himself from the House so that he didn't have to
00:32:04.340
vote against, you know, this guy that just beat him. And also, let's not remember, there's a bunch of
00:32:09.720
cheating going on because there were 7,466 votes, too many cast in that leadership vote. And I believe
00:32:17.080
that Maxime Bernier was robbed. So he did not he did not take his ball and leave angrily. He stayed
00:32:22.720
there and stayed there, even though it looked like there was complete, you know, underhanded cheating
00:32:27.960
going on. I mean, Andrew Scheer didn't actually win. 7,466 votes were cast that shouldn't have been
00:32:34.240
cast. And they all swayed the vote into Andrew Scheer's camp. And really, he won by about 69
00:32:39.200
votes. I mean, it was one, it was less than 2%. And so this party is too morally and intellectually
00:32:46.680
corrupt to be reformed. Maxime Bernier knew that before any of us. And I thank God for him.
00:32:52.700
You know, there was a time when people said that about the PC Party of Canada when it was around. And
00:32:57.820
the remedy to that was the merger between the Alliance and the PCs to form the Conservative Party
00:33:04.040
of Canada. That merger produced Stephen Harper, that merger produced Maxime Bernier. Is that something
00:33:10.300
that you think could happen in the future? Because right now, I see far too much animosity between the
00:33:16.300
PPC and the CPC for it to ever meet in the middle and say, all right, now we're a true Conservative Party.
00:33:23.720
Right. Well, what a beautiful thing to happen would be that a true Conservative were to be elected as
00:33:32.900
the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. And there is a massive movement going on right now.
00:33:39.020
And it is with the true SOCONs. It is with the true people who believe in the sovereignty of Canada,
00:33:44.520
who love Canada, who believe in freedom for all. We believe in freedom for all sexually
00:33:50.720
people who are of different nations and different religious affiliations. We believe in freedom for
00:34:03.500
all. If somebody were to be elected, that could embrace all people and yet respect diversity because
00:34:12.180
in Canada, we're losing the truth. We think that we are diverse, but we have to agree with each other.
00:34:17.920
And we don't have to agree with each other. We simply actually have to respect each other,
00:34:23.440
respect diversity, respect it. So if there was somebody hired or brought in who won the leadership
00:34:30.580
of the Conservative Party that would embrace the PPC people who had gone and maybe offer an olive branch
00:34:39.700
to Maxime Bernier with a completely different party. Oh, OK. Miracles can happen. But under the way it is
00:34:46.780
with Peter McKay, Aaron O'Toole, Marilyn Gladue being these key people, whoever comes in, you know, even if
00:34:54.940
if Candace Bergen were to run, she's not a true conservative. She would still probably march in a
1.00
00:35:02.860
parade with stipulations or whatever. She's not the real deal. So how are we to walk together? You know,
00:35:11.580
I'm a spiritual person. Here's a proverb from the Bible. How can two walk together unless they agree?
0.62
00:35:18.100
If we cannot come to agreement, we cannot walk together. Maxime Bernier is in the position where
00:35:22.560
he has to lead because we all can't vote for the CPC anymore.
00:35:27.240
But I want to ask you about the significance you hold to pride parades. And I get that in the last
00:35:33.380
couple of weeks, this has become central to the media's discussion. And, you know,
00:35:37.700
the battle between Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole is who's going to march in more pride parades than
00:35:42.100
the other. But why isn't that in your view? Is that something that disqualifies someone from being
00:35:47.500
a conservative? I mean, there are lots of people that are completely OK walking in pride parade that
00:35:53.600
I would say are still conservatives. Why does that disqualify someone from having an ideological
00:35:58.280
outlook? If by your own admission earlier on, you said PPC is about standing up for all people of
00:36:03.500
sexual orientations, races, religions, cultures and so on.
00:36:07.700
Right. Excellent question, Andrew. My gay friend, I just love this guy. He will not march in a pride
00:36:16.200
parade. My transgender friend, Jen Smith, will not march in a gay pride parade. Andrew, we have
00:36:23.580
children and we see pedophilia trying to be normalized. And when you've got grown men with their
00:36:31.400
junk hanging out and I got the pictures, they're on my Facebook. Feel free to grab them and stick them up
00:36:37.100
for your audience, you know. But you've got grown men and women half naked. You've got men who have
00:36:46.520
chains attached to guys who are walking. I have a picture of this and they've got dog face masks on.
00:36:54.480
This is sadomasochistic perversion. Like these are sexual deviants with children walking behind.
00:37:00.720
This is, I'm sorry. My gay friends are embarrassed of what is going on in pride parades. This is not the
0.93
00:37:09.840
place where we say, you've got to march in the pride parade. Do you know what I stand for? I stand for
00:37:14.360
freedom for all people. If you want to be gay, you be gay. You want to be polyamorous, bisexual,
00:37:18.900
you know, whatever it all is, pansexual, be it. This is Canada. Apparently it's a real asset to be gay.
0.99
00:37:29.160
I'm good with that. But don't tell us that our standard in the litmus test is to have our children
00:37:38.460
being sexualized in a parade. Like, you've got to be joking me. I lose all respect for all these
00:37:45.720
leaders at this point. I lose respect for the Conservative Party of Canada. Where is the decency?
00:37:51.300
Where is integrity? Where is moral character? Where is the family being respected in this nation?
00:37:57.380
If we are going to become Babylon, we will get what we vote for.
1.00
00:38:01.600
You know, I've seen the pictures that you've described. I'm aware of the nudity factor and I'm
00:38:06.880
aware of that. I mean, every gay rights activist I've spoken to about this has said that it's a minority.
00:38:12.660
For a lot of people, it's just about a place to celebrate and a place to be who they are and
00:38:17.040
celebrate the freedom that you just acknowledged. And I still go back to how participating in that
00:38:23.760
aspect of society, if you want to, and I don't like when people get bullied into it, but if you want to
00:38:29.340
be there and you're a politician, why that is antithetical to being a Conservative?
00:38:35.340
Well, you just brought up the key issue, bullied into it. It's become the test. Is it a test?
00:38:42.380
If they walk in the Jesus parade? Is it a test if they walk in, you know, an Indigenous march?
0.99
00:38:50.660
If that were to happen? It's not. It's become the pride parade. And many people do not believe
00:38:59.360
that that coincides. Here's the honest truth. It doesn't coincide with their religious conviction.
00:39:05.320
Has Maxime Bernier not himself marched in pride parades, though?
00:39:08.240
He has. And, you know, I've never actually asked him this, but I don't think he'd do
00:39:12.340
it again, Andrew. Not because I don't think Maxime Bernier really would have a problem with
00:39:20.100
it as per that people are gay, because I think he has shown himself to be very supportive of
00:39:25.100
all Canadians. But I don't think he would do it from the pandering aspect any longer.
00:39:29.540
Because the LGBTQ has begun to be a political event and movement whereby, hey, if you don't
00:39:38.820
accept diversity and inclusivity and Bill C-16 pushing things towards, you know, compelled
00:39:45.120
speech, now young guys can identify as a girl and run in girls track and field and steal the
00:39:55.360
awards and gold medals from young budding Olympian girls, okay? So guys can come in. So the whole
00:40:05.220
thing all lumped together now, it's too political. It's too much like a movement taking over society.
00:40:12.940
And so I don't think that Maxime Bernier would march in a pride parade because he wouldn't march
00:40:18.000
in a Jesus parade, although he's Catholic and believes in Jesus. But he wouldn't do that. He's
00:40:24.540
not seen with all, you know, Sikh and Muslim groups meeting and Christian groups. He's trying to
00:40:31.940
embrace what Canada is great for, and that's freedom. Does that make sense, Andrew?
00:40:38.200
It does. And I think that even if people disagree with your perspective about prize parades,
00:40:43.780
I think they can understand that these have been undeniably politicized. I mean, the police
00:40:48.400
involvement versus police being banned. That's a great example of that. And that's why I think
00:40:52.940
you've seen politicians in the Conservative Party who have used that as basically their route,
00:40:57.760
I think, to say, ah, you know, I don't want to be in this, so I can do it on the police grounds.
00:41:02.500
But I think you raise a valid point here, which is that Maxime Bernier, by his own admission,
00:41:06.700
has not shied away from taking on the libertarian label. And I think a lot of people have assumed
00:41:12.320
that someone who is more libertarian in nature and someone who's a social conservative cannot find
00:41:18.800
common ground on a lot of things. And I've always disagreed with that. And I find that the
00:41:24.240
relationship that you have with the PPC is a great example of this, where you can have these
00:41:29.220
socially conservative values and stand up for liberty, and these things aren't at odds with each
00:41:33.560
other. And I think that that is something that would be valuable for social conservatives to
00:41:38.840
understand, that there is a lot more common ground if you view it in different terms than
00:41:43.660
the way that I think that argument has conventionally happened.
00:41:47.760
Exactly. And, you know, in the PPC, there were gay candidates. And I talked with, I think,
00:41:55.420
probably most of them, because as I was so vocal, they wanted to have this conversation with me,
00:42:00.900
like, am I accepted by you? Or do you reject me? You know, and vice versa, like, do you reject me?
00:42:07.840
I'm a strong Christian standard. I believe in the word of God. Can we find a place where we walk
00:42:13.500
together, where we have coffee, where we have, I had lunch, you know, with people from the PPC who
00:42:18.800
are gay, and we talked it all through. And I think one thing that they could sense is I'm a very loving
00:42:24.900
person. There's kindness in my voice. I have no reason to expect or demand that anybody would change.
00:42:32.180
I do have to ask, as a matter of practicality, and truth is truth, I'm not one of these people that
00:42:36.660
thinks it's subjective, and your truth, my truth, I don't buy that or like that. But you are statistically
00:42:45.240
a minority. I mean, Christians are a minority at this point, devout, observant Christians. And that
0.96
00:42:51.460
means that Christian values in Canada, specifically in Canada, are a minority. Now, there are people that
00:42:57.160
are of the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, and other faiths that would agree with you on a lot of things
00:43:01.580
you've said, maybe for different reasons, maybe for the same reasons. But politically speaking,
00:43:08.380
would you rather not deal with winning, and having the ability to advance the things that you care
00:43:17.360
about, by not talking about those things by saying, you know what, whoever you are, whatever you do,
00:43:23.580
whatever you like, I'm not going to touch that. Because that's the the dynamic that I think people
00:43:27.140
are trying to put on the Conservative Party of Canada right now, which is that we have to take
00:43:31.700
this 20, 30, 40% chunk of the party and say, okay, you guys, keep your mouth shut. But the the trade
00:43:37.720
off is you get to win. And I know you don't like that and don't agree with that. But I wanted to put
00:43:42.560
that scenario to you to hear exactly why it is that that's so wrong in your view.
00:43:47.380
Right, it's so wrong. You know, Maxime Bernier did an incredible tweet, I believe it was either this
00:43:55.040
morning or yesterday. So if you go to his Twitter account, this man is he is miles ahead of everybody
00:44:01.960
else, every other politician in Canada. Basically, somebody was saying two thirds of the people in
00:44:07.300
Canada don't agree with you. And Maxime Bernier came back and he said that he would rather spend his
00:44:12.720
time trying to convince them of the great ideas, great policies of the reasons that we feel that
00:44:19.340
we have the truth. He didn't use that word the truth, but of the reasons that the PP feels that
00:44:26.720
they are the leading edge and the right choice for this nation, rather than pandering to the rest.
00:44:33.140
And I believe that's true. And there's one more reason, Andrew, and I'm this is you, your questions
00:44:38.020
are phenomenal. And if we could understand this as a nation, we could change this nation,
00:44:44.280
we can no longer just go along with the narrative because it's going to lead to complete and absolute
00:44:51.740
loss of freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. When Randy Boisenault, former MP for the
00:44:59.400
Liberal Party, he was voted out of his seat, thank God, in Edmonton. He is going from municipality
00:45:06.380
to municipality. And he's telling all of these municipalities, you have to ban conversion
0.95
00:45:10.960
therapy. Do you know what he wants? He wants a young kid who's 10 years old to not be able to
00:45:15.600
be convinced that that he can that he doesn't have to change his gender and that he can be affirmed in
00:45:24.380
where he is. He wants somebody who's 22, who's struggling with a sexual desire towards same sex
00:45:31.440
attraction that they don't want that we're talking about people who are actually going, you know,
00:45:35.640
I don't want this. I've fallen in love with a girl. I'm still attracted to guys. These are real
00:45:40.280
scenarios, by the way. These are real people. So they want there to be no conversation. So what
00:45:45.260
Randy Boisenault has suggested is that pastors, psychologists, psychiatrists would receive a
00:45:52.620
$10,000 fine for even saying what I just said that, hey, maybe there's, you know, reasons behind how
00:45:58.760
you're feeling and we should talk about it. Talk therapy is now going to be banned out with a
00:46:03.920
$10,000 fine removal of credentials. And Randy Boisenault said prayer should be removed prayer.
00:46:10.220
So you want to pray for somebody that that God would reveal his ultimate will and purpose and
00:46:14.940
and affirm their destiny and their identity. You want to pray? You're gonna end up. Do you know
00:46:20.600
what word he used, Andrew? Jail. Jail. That's why we can't be silent. Because this has gone too far.
00:46:28.220
I was at some of the Justice and Human Rights Committee meetings that were on Parliament Hill
00:46:33.620
back in I think it was June. And there were activists there that were saying we need to
00:46:38.180
start criminalizing hate speech, but their definition of hate speech, which I mean, we know from
00:46:43.260
the letter of the law now could include misgendering, could include all of these murky and malleable terms.
00:46:48.740
And the Liberals have been quite open to that idea of recriminalizing hate speech that falls below
00:46:54.920
that criminal standard. And I think this is precisely the point. We have serious challenges
00:46:59.480
in Canada. We have a Liberal government that doesn't care about liberty. And to your point
00:47:04.500
about what Maxime said, wanting to win people over, you look at the PPC vote numbers in 2019,
00:47:11.800
not a huge player electorally. Maxime Bernier didn't win his seat. And I guess the question I have is,
00:47:17.960
do you not think that there is a problem or a risk of spinning your wheels and not getting to advance
00:47:25.000
anywhere because you're holding out for this ideological purity?
00:47:29.900
I have a belief that whatever you compromise to keep, you will eventually lose. And Andrew Scheer
00:47:38.960
saw this happen. The reason, so we didn't get the best numbers. We're only a year old. Oh my gosh,
00:47:45.540
this is a miracle. Almost 300,000 people in Canada. You know, that would be, you know, maybe three,
00:47:52.560
four ridings if we put them all in the same spot. But that amount of people thought that our ideas were
00:48:00.020
good. I moved to Red Deer and I didn't know one soul in that place. And I got 2,500 people to vote for me.
00:48:06.620
And yes, it was a small percentage based on all the percentages, you know, but it was more people
00:48:11.780
than where I lived, where I got 10.65% in Burnaby South. Okay. Like people, I would just meet them.
00:48:19.460
I'd begin explaining what we believe, the freedom that we stand for. They were like, this is it.
00:48:24.260
A lot of people, if I had $1 for everyone who said, I just can't vote for you this time, but I'll vote for
00:48:29.860
you next time. I would be a millionaire. Well, okay, maybe exaggerating just a bit, but I would
00:48:35.960
have some money in my pocket because people wanted our ideas. And the whole problem and everything
00:48:44.320
that we're facing right now is that we think that we have to compromise to be in a big party.
00:48:49.740
There's no compromise with the CPC. They are ruled by elitists. And I guess we're tired of it. And we're
00:48:55.000
not going to vote just to have a party. We're going to vote our convictions. We're going to stand for
00:48:59.060
what we believe in because eventually more and more people are going to stand with us.
00:49:08.680
That was an interview with Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson. Pre-recorded, if you couldn't tell,
00:49:15.660
I was wearing a different shirt. I thought about whether I'd try to emulate and I'd say, no,
00:49:19.800
I just admit that the magic of radio meant it was a pre-taped interview. In any case, my thanks to
00:49:24.920
all of you for tuning into the show, supporting the program, and standing up for freedom. We'll be
00:49:30.020
back in just a couple of days with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show,
00:49:34.580
The Andrew Lawton Show on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day, Canada.
00:49:38.680
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at