Juno News - ＂The anti-WEF＂： Jordan Peterson-led UK summit kicks off

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

00:01:20.400 north hello everyone and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:31.420 lawton show here on true north on this monday october 30th but we are going global today i

00:01:38.380 am normally coming to you from london today i'm also coming to you from london albeit very much

00:01:44.060 a different london a bit more of a vibrant one no offense to my hometown but i'm coming to you

00:01:49.940 live from London, England, where I have just had the great privilege of going through the first

00:01:57.000 day of the first ever ARC Forum. Now, what is the ARC Forum, you ask? Well, what a wonderful

00:02:03.340 question. I banged my microphone. I'm sorry. I'm doing a weird on-the-road setup here. But the

00:02:09.300 ARC Forum is the Conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, which is a new organization

00:02:16.980 helmed by Baroness Stroud, and more notably championed by Jordan Peterson. I just say that

00:02:24.100 because I know he's been a big booster of this idea of a global organization where the big

00:02:29.760 thinkers and leaders of the era come together and convene about their ideas for the future.

00:02:35.740 Now, hang on, don't tune out just yet. I'm not talking about Davos. I'm not talking about the

00:02:40.440 World Economic Forum, although I will talk about some of the contrast between it and ARK in a few

00:02:46.480 moments. This is very new, and I had the great privilege of being invited, and I wanted to come

00:02:51.880 and check it out. I'm actually at this conference as an attendee, but I'm always kind of like have

00:02:57.180 microphone, will travel. So I've been making a point of interviewing a number of the other

00:03:01.440 conference goers while I've been here, and I will continue to do so over the course of the week.

00:03:07.360 But why I wanted to talk about this is because we've often wondered why groups like World Economic

00:03:13.560 Forum and the UN to some extent, although it's a bit different, and other institutions like these

00:03:19.760 are so powerful. And oftentimes, it's because they've actually put in the effort to make these

00:03:24.380 places the rooms where decisions are made. And that's, I would argue, Canadians and people in

00:03:30.320 the Netherlands and the UK and Americans and Australians that ultimately have to deal with 0.98

00:03:35.660 the consequences of these because the rooms are made, the rooms where decisions are made are

00:03:40.500 happening far away from democratic oversight. So it isn't quite like that. So to give you a bit of

00:03:46.180 a sense of what the ARC Forum is all about, let's go to its champion, Jordan Peterson.

00:03:53.860 Let's also be clear. The future is not just happening. The future is built by us,

00:04:01.960 by a powerful community as you here in this room.

00:04:06.180 oh we cut off klaus schwab there the uh uh that was the clip though i know that was that didn't

00:04:14.740 look like jordan peterson his accent has come along a little bit no no no different conference

00:04:19.840 different forum whatsoever uh let's go instead to baroness stroud philippa stroud kicking off

00:04:26.300 the inaugural arc forum we believe there is a better story and it is one of optimism that

00:04:33.540 sees a future of abundance and opportunity not scarcity and decline so

00:04:38.820 ladies and gentlemen as we open this inaugural ARC conference we invite you

00:04:44.760 to go on the journey from darkness fragmentation division polarization and

00:04:50.060 intolerance to a better story one that is rooted in the infinite value of every

00:04:55.940 human being built on the freedoms of freedom of conscience freedom of

00:05:00.340 speech freedom of assembly and woven together with kindness faithfulness gentleness and self-control

00:05:08.420 by a responsible people and as i'm sure we will hear jordan peterson say shortly welcome aboard

00:05:16.740 the ark ah you don't often hear the davos folks talk about individualism and freedom of conscience

00:05:26.100 freedom of religion, freedom of speech. Those are concepts that, in fact, are viewed as the

00:05:31.140 antithesis of the globalist utopia that is the World Economic Forum. But all of that is to say

00:05:38.500 that there is a bit of a different brand of conference taking place here. Now, I know I'm

00:05:43.380 coming across as a bit of an evangelist, and part of that is because I think that conservatives have

00:05:48.840 needed something like this. And I use the broadest possible interpretation of the word conservative

00:05:55.300 here. I'm talking about people who are more social conservative in their orientation, people

00:05:59.660 who are libertarians, traditional Tories, people who are also more of the revolutionary populist

00:06:05.980 conservative. All of them have had a bit of a role to play here. And I know there was a bit of

00:06:10.660 skepticism in the crowd when Kevin McCarthy, who up until like five minutes ago was the U.S. House

00:06:16.180 speaker, was one of the speakers at the ARC forum. And people were looking around saying, well,

00:06:20.900 is this the conference we signed up for? And to be fair, you also have people like Dave Rubin and

00:06:27.980 Ben Shapiro here. You have Jordan Peterson championing it. You have people that are coming

00:06:32.840 from all walks of life, 1,500 delegates, 72 different countries, people in media, academia,

00:06:39.780 politics, and government. Lesley Lewis is an advisor. And interestingly enough, I suspect

00:06:45.660 the left will be a lot less tolerant of Leslie Lewis having a role with ARC than it will of

00:06:51.920 Chrystia Freeland having a role with the World Economic Forum. And to all of the critics of

00:06:57.640 this, I say absolutely criticize the ideas. This is a forum for ideas. But at the core of it,

00:07:04.000 and this is I think the most important part, the ideas seem to be rooted in the value of

00:07:09.120 the individual. And this is not a place where decisions are being made by elites that you will

00:07:14.780 all have to deal with downstream. And, you know, interestingly, I just about, I don't know, 40

00:07:19.500 minutes ago or so, I was speaking with Jordan Peterson very briefly. And I had said, Jordan,

00:07:24.480 I'm about to go on air. And he says hello, by the way, he's a big supporter of True North. I said,

00:07:29.260 Jordan, I'm about to go on air. What would you tell people is the distinction or the contrast

00:07:35.520 between ARC and WEP? And in true Jordan Peterson-like fashion, he gave a very eloquent and

00:07:41.740 biblical and historical answer that I can't possibly paraphrase, and the room was far too

00:07:46.800 loud for me to record it. But he effectively said, we are wanting to give people freedom

00:07:52.300 to rise up themselves, to raise their communities, to elevate themselves, and as a result, elevate

00:07:59.580 society. We're not looking to just give people what they want or what we think they want.

00:08:05.080 And that was so critical. And look, I've covered the World Economic Forum on two occasions now,

00:08:10.540 And both times, the presentations you hear from the speakers are almost all about them building the world they want and you having to make it happen.

00:08:21.780 Here, we are being empowered as attendees.

00:08:24.320 And I say that because I actually felt, I don't feel empowerment often, but I felt a wee bit of empowerment this morning.

00:08:29.520 Maybe it was something in the punch.

00:08:30.680 But we are being empowered to help build the world that we want for ourselves and as a result, lift people up.

00:08:38.660 And that is, I think, the biggest distinction between the elites versus the everyman, I would argue generally between the left and the right.

00:08:47.920 And that was one of the conversations I was having with people here.

00:08:52.380 You may know Ava Blardingerbrook, who has been an absolute firebrand of a commentator from the Netherlands.

00:08:58.740 I first met her because she was a regular guest on my old friend Mark Stein's show.

00:09:03.200 And I was actually hanging out aboard the Mark Stein cruise with her a few months back.

00:09:07.760 And I was chatting with Ava a little bit about this very trend we're seeing right now towards globalism and what an organization like ARC can do to kind of resist that.

00:09:19.280 Take a look.

00:09:20.580 One of the things you've been known for, I think, contextualizing and criticizing is the rise of globalism.

00:09:26.940 And I'm wondering where you think this comes from.

00:09:30.140 What's the root of this?

00:09:31.600 Where globalism comes from?

00:09:33.860 Well, I mean, ultimately, people like power, especially people in power,

00:09:39.240 and they like to extend their power beyond what they already have.

00:09:43.360 And globalism, well, what's better than to have control over the entire world?

00:09:47.940 You know, if you can control one country, that's nice.

00:09:51.020 But I think to people who have nefarious intentions, the more power, the better.

00:09:57.760 And then why not on a global scale?

00:10:00.120 Right. So I think in some to a certain degree, it's a natural thing in the human mind to want to expand power.

00:10:07.460 And sadly, I think that there are a lot of people right now who who see opportunities there and who package that really nicely and with good, good sounding intentions.

00:10:17.460 But when we look at how that plays out in reality, it can never really be good.

00:10:21.120 One of the biggest, and I'd say most disheartening trends is that people who are elected as anti-globalists or as nationalists oftentimes end up disappointing.

00:10:30.840 I mean, you have a number of conservative governments in the UK, in the Netherlands, Italy has been a particular letdown, I know for you personally.

00:10:39.040 How do we fight that? Because if you can't even really elect someone in a country that's going to fight against it, we truly are powerless.

00:10:48.020 Yeah, I've been somewhat, to throw in a nice internet term there,

00:10:51.500 somewhat blackpilled on the political system in general.

00:10:53.860 I mean, yes, Maloney, for example, being a recent case of someone who I've heard personally go on stage

00:11:01.920 and talk about the danger of globalism and really vehemently attack the globalists.

00:11:07.500 And now she's in power, and the one thing that she promised, which was a naval blockade, she didn't do. 1.00

00:11:12.200 and Lampedusa is being swarmed with migrants at a record number last month.

00:11:18.380 So it's like, I think probably not putting too much solace and or hope

00:11:23.940 in people who have personal interests within the political realm is a good idea

00:11:29.560 because somebody who will, like I said, if you get in power, you probably want to keep it.

00:11:35.400 And catering to the globalists is a way to keep it right now, sadly.

00:11:39.620 So maybe the resistance has to be outside of the system rather than in it.

00:11:45.320 There's a World Economic Forum class, obviously, people that go to the same parties.

00:11:49.400 They all take each other's ideas.

00:11:51.260 They all take inspiration from each other.

00:11:53.240 Here we're at a forum that on paper is arguably similar.

00:11:57.740 It's a global collection of leaders in various fields, but it's very different.

00:12:02.320 And I'm wondering if you could explain a little bit about why that is,

00:12:04.760 and I guess more importantly, why you're here.

00:12:07.260 Right. Well, so I'm here, obviously, when Jordan Peterson announced that he was starting a counter movement, basically, to the World Economic Forum,

00:12:15.440 it immediately sparked my interest because although I'm not a fan necessarily of centralized organizations, the essence of this is not that.

00:12:24.600 It's actually to bring together people who look at power in a more decentralized, more nationalist way, bring them together to fight, again, a global agenda.

00:12:33.880 right so it's it's in essence the opposite idea of the world economic forum even though we do have

00:12:39.700 to conspire together you know in order to exchange ideas and uh and i really like that for because of

00:12:48.060 the fact that it's it's active you know we're doing something and there's a lot of talk on the

00:12:52.120 conservative side but this is something where people can actually join and and and exchange

00:12:57.220 ideas and take action and hopefully spread the word beyond social media. So I really like it

00:13:04.000 for that reason. The focus obviously on responsible citizenship is a very different idea than what

00:13:12.440 the World Economic Forum predicates. For them, all of the political ideology that they're based on,

00:13:19.740 everything left-wing anyway, anything neo-Marxist, it's always outside of yourself, right? It's

00:13:24.540 always the system that is oppressive it's a racism or the patriarchy or anything climate you know

00:13:31.600 it's always anything that is outside of your own control and I think what Peterson opened with

00:13:36.780 today saying no you you have agency over your own life and that's where you need to get started

00:13:40.900 is a really good message and one that we desperately need so I'm curious to see how

00:13:46.260 this will develop and what will come from you know a meeting like this because it can't just

00:13:51.720 be talking. We need to be wary of that. But I really, really like the idea.

00:13:56.440 And just on citizenship, I mean, one of the more dangerous trends in recent years has been this

00:14:00.300 idea of a quote-unquote global citizen, which I think is an incredibly facile thing to say exists.

00:14:07.520 You can't have citizens without nations. And that's one thing I hope comes up here, 0.91

00:14:11.360 because that's really been, I'd say, the cornerstone of a lot of the problems we've

00:14:14.980 seen is the erosion of nations and the erosions of states.

00:14:17.720 Yes. I mean, a citizen of the world is a contradiction in terms.

00:14:21.900 I would say you can't be a citizen of the world.

00:14:24.140 You are a citizen of a particular country.

00:14:26.520 And with that, you know, we're talking about citizenship being limited to your nation state,

00:14:31.980 but also democracy in and of itself is inherent to the idea of a nation state.

00:14:37.580 You can't have democracy on a global level. It doesn't function.

00:14:41.100 So I think that that's important for people to realize, you know,

00:14:44.060 even though the globalist ideas the the ones that we hear for example in the agenda 2030

00:14:49.180 they sound very good but the only way that that can happen if it is if there is a an active

00:14:54.540 redistribution of your rights your goods and um i mean in general all of your basic liberties

00:15:01.580 really you can't have a democracy on a global level it doesn't work that way and i think that

00:15:05.980 that's something that people don't don't really realize when they they listen to the the nice

00:15:11.500 free text in the pretty words so yeah i hope i hope we'll hear more of that here but we've only

00:15:16.780 just gotten started so i'm very hopeful that was ava vlardinger brook very strong voice on global

00:15:24.140 as i intended to talk to her about digital id that's been a big thing for her but the conversation

00:15:28.540 just sort of meandered in uh different directions that were far more pertinent to the topic and

00:15:34.300 conference at hand so i have no regrets about that but i do think i mean when we talk about the idea

00:15:39.820 of ideas, which is really what is at the core of a forum like this. I go back to what I said about

00:15:47.220 the World Economic Forum, which is the contrast. I mean, ARC really, I think, was created as a

00:15:53.100 counter force to WEF, whether intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly. That's

00:15:59.040 how I see it. And that's how it's been explained to me by people who support this. And I said in

00:16:03.740 the title of the show, and I'll say again, this is the anti-WEF. It is a group that could have the

00:16:09.120 same force, but for good and for the individual. And I should say there are not a huge number of

00:16:16.380 politicians here. And I'm not aware of there being any heads of state or heads of government. I may

00:16:21.900 be wrong. I was like, there's like a speaker's list here. And I was looking through and there

00:16:27.720 are a few former heads of government. The only current MP from Canada is Lesley Lewis, as I

00:16:33.060 mentioned. But even though, suppose that the Conservatives form government, Lesley Lewis is

00:16:37.640 in cabinet, let's say, I don't think she would be coming. And I would certainly reject it if

00:16:42.880 she were coming here because she wanted to come up with policy. And I almost think it's more

00:16:48.540 powerful that politicians are not as central as they are in Davos, which has really become this

00:16:54.980 very large cash for access fundraiser where you've got the big money of corporations, the big influence

00:17:00.320 of NGOs, the big power of politicians, and they all get together in a back room and come out with

00:17:05.840 some agreement or proclamation that they're going to bring back to their respective countries. And

00:17:10.900 if you're a voter in that country wondering how that thing came to be, well, the joke's on you

00:17:15.140 because you don't actually get to vote for it or against it. And you don't even really get to vote

00:17:19.600 out the people responsible for it. Klaus Schwab does not appear on your ballot. And it is interesting

00:17:26.280 because when you look through the speakers, I was sitting earlier on next to Bruce Party, who's a

00:17:31.520 former law professor at Queen's University. Now he's the head of Rights Probe. And if you've seen

00:17:36.280 Bruce's interview on my show, you'll know he has never once in his life been accused of optimism.

00:17:41.840 So he is like the most cynical, pessimistic person possible. And on my other side was David Haskell,

00:17:48.800 who's a dissident professor at Laurier University, very optimistic despite the climate. And beside

00:17:54.480 him was Bjorn Lomberg, the great activist on environmentalism and climate change, although

00:18:00.660 from a far more common sense perspective.

00:18:02.500 So Bjorn's not part of the story.

00:18:03.980 I just had to name drop him

00:18:04.960 because he was at my table.

00:18:06.560 But I had David Haskell,

00:18:07.860 like the angel on one shoulder,

00:18:09.300 Bruce Party, the devil on the other

00:18:10.720 in terms of disposition.

00:18:13.080 And, you know, it was really interesting

00:18:14.580 because I was chatting with Bruce

00:18:15.760 and he was like, oh, well,

00:18:16.840 I don't know about this speaker.

00:18:17.940 I don't know about this speaker.

00:18:19.440 And it got me thinking,

00:18:20.720 and I'll have a bit more of a thorough report

00:18:22.940 when I've seen a bit more of this.

00:18:25.480 The problem with this organization

00:18:27.320 is that you have a lot of stakeholders in it.

00:18:29.520 you've got, you know, big money people, you've got activists, you've got conservative politicians

00:18:33.860 from countries that have very different political traditions. Like you take a UK Tory MP and put

00:18:39.900 them next to a Republican from the United States. And a lot of them are probably going to feel like

00:18:44.880 they are on different sides of the aisle. So the bigger it becomes, the more different things you

00:18:50.580 have to accommodate. And the problem with that is that you can oftentimes move towards banality at

00:18:56.900 best because you're trying not to alienate anyone, or at worst, you move in another direction

00:19:03.060 politically entirely. And it was interesting because I was thinking about this this morning,

00:19:08.040 and there's a gentleman by the name of John O'Sullivan, who's a former advisor to Margaret

00:19:13.280 Thatcher and the author of a number of tremendous books, my favorite of which is The President,

00:19:18.040 The Pope, and The Prime Minister. And John O'Sullivan coined this phrase that I've used on

00:19:23.280 the show in the past called O'Sullivan's First Law. And O'Sullivan's First Law, I'm paraphrasing

00:19:29.860 here, is that any organization that's not explicitly right-wing will over time become

00:19:35.940 explicitly left-wing. And the thrust behind that is that the cultural forces trend leftward,

00:19:41.700 so unless you're really, really holding on tight and anchoring yourself, you're going to move left

00:19:47.080 with the culture. And I was thinking about that in the context of the World Economic Forum,

00:19:51.820 and that was an organization that I don't think was ever explicitly right-wing and then I put it

00:19:57.200 into the context of ARC and say okay this is a more conservative oriented organization will it

00:20:03.640 as it grows naturally drift left what would O'Sullivan's first law say about this and as I was

00:20:09.880 thinking about this internally I look up and there's John O'Sullivan who is like grabbing a

00:20:15.120 coffee at the cafe there so I went up and chatted with John and decided we would just do this on

00:20:20.460 camera instead. So this was my chat with John O'Sullivan about whether an organization like

00:20:26.080 this can keep its footing and avoid being like the rest of these globalist Disneyland's.

00:20:32.360 What advice would you give to an organization like this that's established that has

00:20:36.860 a number of competing interests, people from different geographic backgrounds and also

00:20:40.980 different industrial backgrounds? Well, I would simply warn them, of course, 1.00

00:20:46.380 that there are people in any organization who have other aims than those of the organization itself.

00:20:56.880 So there'll be some people who simply want to become famous, rise in the world, get a good title,

00:21:03.560 and they generally will side against the highly principled people because they won't want to take risks,

00:21:10.440 So you watch out for them. And I think you will find people who interpret the mission of the organization genuinely interpret it differently.

00:21:20.440 And again, you have to argue with them and maybe when you argue with them, it leads inevitably to some kind of a split.

00:21:30.440 So the main point is to keep the initial aims of the organization clearly in the mind of everybody

00:21:38.440 and of defending those aims clearly whenever the opportunity or the necessity arises.

00:21:44.680 To go back to your time working with Baroness Thatcher in that era of conservatism,

00:21:50.560 how relevant is that brand of politics today still to the challenges we face?

00:21:58.100 Well, politics changes, but it never changes completely.

00:22:02.020 So obviously there are periods when a party feels it's doing well, it has support, it can push its ideas clearly,

00:22:13.020 and other times when it feels that somehow or other the mandate of heaven has been removed from it.

00:22:23.020 it and it's that's the most important moment really because um anybody who wants to make an

00:22:31.340 advance in politics quickly thinks that they can do so by becoming a major figure in an organization

00:22:38.140 that is on rock bottom and they're generally right and that's they're often right about that maybe

00:22:44.380 mainly but you must distinguish those who think that they will do well by tacking to the wind

00:22:51.100 by simply adopting what seems the popular view outside, in our context here, moving to the left.

00:22:59.960 They will generally find that that is not the case.

00:23:03.420 A party, when it's down and out, looks for sustenance in its basic principles.

00:23:10.480 And I think somebody who steps forward, as Disraeli did after the destruction of the Conservative Party

00:23:16.680 in the middle of Victorian England who stepped forward to it

00:23:21.660 and he more or less said, you may not like me, but you need me.

00:23:26.940 I am someone who can take this party from the scrappy

00:23:30.280 and make it the governing party of Great Britain.

00:23:33.460 And that's what he did.

00:23:34.900 I think a lot of conservatives, certainly in a Canadian context,

00:23:38.180 have generally tried to be incremental in the past.

00:23:41.500 And I think in the COVID era, we've seen a bit more of a rise

00:23:44.760 of revolutionary conservatives,

00:23:47.860 of people that believe we need to upend institutions.

00:23:50.240 And I'm wondering where you fall on this.

00:23:51.840 You know, I don't know if it's too crass

00:23:54.220 to distill it down to the old sort of Toryism

00:23:56.500 versus a new libertarian conservatism,

00:24:00.040 but there does seem to be a bit of a split in the right

00:24:02.300 about whether we need incremental change or radical change.

00:24:05.680 And what do you think?

00:24:06.860 Well, my own view is that the way forward is generally

00:24:09.520 by adopting the famous motto,

00:24:11.720 fortiter in re, suaviter in modo. On the principles, you're firm on how to get

00:24:19.520 there, well that's different. You can tack to the wind, you can agree with the

00:24:26.760 middle ground on some issues, you can do those kind of things. But unless you have

00:24:32.480 a clear aim and unless you have strong principles, then you can't expect a

00:24:40.280 political party to rally to in the long run. They must be the principles of that party.

00:24:46.440 But my best example of the kind of leadership I admire is Margaret Thatcher. With this example,

00:24:54.920 when there was a challenge to her government from the miners in 1981, some of her ministers

00:25:01.400 want to fight it. She did not. And the reason was she knew she couldn't win that contest at that

00:25:07.960 time so she basically gave way made a deal that the miners wanted she immediately called in senior

00:25:16.680 ministers like Nigel Lawson and said this problem is not going away we'll come back and so we must

00:25:23.960 now prepare to fight the miners when they challenge the government and that's what she did not only

00:25:30.120 she do it but she did it brilliantly so that they she inflicted on the miners in 1985 the biggest

00:25:38.200 defeat that uh a trade union suffered for about 50 years we have more interviews coming up in

00:25:48.760 the days ahead just ones that are in the bank that i don't even have time to play right now

00:25:53.080 include my chat with andy nugo i always get a name wrong i never know if you do like the n

00:25:57.960 and the G or just the G or just the N. So Andy, NGO. No, no, that's like a non-government. We're

00:26:03.340 not doing the non-governmental organization thing. So never mind that. But we have a chat with him

00:26:08.520 that we'll share with you, I think, tomorrow about the far left finding a very unlikely friend in

00:26:15.840 Hamas. Also a chat with Dennis Prager about Israel. We've got an Australian senator on

00:26:21.440 this Indigenous referendum they had where the left and the wokest just got absolutely trounced 0.98

00:26:29.120 by ordinary Australians in the polls and lots of other things. And I do want to preface all of that

00:26:37.060 by saying that some of the coverage over the course of the week will be about this forum

00:26:41.600 itself, which is new. And I think there are still some questions about what it's going to look like.

00:26:45.560 And others will just be conversations I've had about random things with people I saw there

00:26:50.280 that were interesting and I thought would be of note to you.

00:26:53.840 So that's what you can get from me in the next couple of days.

00:26:57.780 But it's partially going to be business as usual on the show.

00:27:00.100 We'll get to our friend Chris Sims in just a couple of moments.

00:27:03.200 But first, I always try to be responsive to the reader criticisms,

00:27:08.460 which I am very proud to say are not too, too common.

00:27:11.860 But every now and then we get like a really hardened reader criticism.

00:27:15.640 Now, I shared on Twitter last week a meme that I just came up with when I was bored once and distracting myself from writing the book that I'm working on right now, inspired by Pierre Polyev and the new symbol of resistance, the humble apple.

00:27:32.220 Now, this was the meme that I shared, which is Pierre Polyev looking very svelte and smiling, swinging on an apple.

00:27:41.200 Now, if you wonder what that is, you are not, in fact, having an acid drip right now.

00:27:44.800 Well, maybe you are. I don't judge.

00:27:46.460 But this was inspired by a wave of memes from, like, I don't know, 2017 or whatever

00:27:51.760 that came about from this catchy Miley Cyrus song.

00:27:58.660 I came in like a wrecking ball

00:28:02.440 I never hit so hard in love

00:28:06.500 All I wanted was to break your walls 0.51

00:28:10.520 I don't know what was wrong with me.

00:28:20.000 I saw it and I'm like, oh, well, you know, Pierre Polyev and the Apple are just like the wrecking ball of Canadian politics right now.

00:28:27.920 There was really not a huge amount of depth.

00:28:29.820 Anyway, so my colleague Noah had was checking the True North general inbox and had this email from a listener slash viewer. Hi, team. I'm just taking the time to let you know that I'm not pleased with Andrew Lawton on X. That's what Twitter used to be or is called now tweeting out the photo of Pierre Polyev sitting on the Apple in a provocative pose. Really, Andrew?

00:28:56.640 I have so much respect for you and True North, and I was so disappointed.

00:29:00.960 Not funny at all.

00:29:02.340 And I'm sure the left had a lovely time with it.

00:29:04.860 Your mother and grandmother would be embarrassed for you.

00:29:08.460 Can you imagine if someone took the time?

00:29:10.100 Well, I'll get to that in a second.

00:29:11.400 Let's take this letter off.

00:29:12.660 So my late grandmother has passed away a few years back.

00:29:18.040 To be honest, I don't think she would care at all.

00:29:21.100 My mother is still alive.

00:29:22.540 And to be honest, my mother did text me to say she loved me yesterday.

00:29:26.140 and I don't think she was saying that in spite of the Pierre Polyev Apple gif or meme. I think if

00:29:32.460 she saw it she was not disappointed in me but nevertheless I don't want to disappoint the

00:29:37.520 reader. Let me say I don't know if the left really cared because the great thing about that picture

00:29:43.320 was that it was just meant to be silly and ridiculous and was not making a political point. 0.86

00:29:48.860 If anything it was sympathetic to Pierre Polyev for turning the apple into something so hilarious 1.00

00:29:55.520 which is a tool to own the left and the hackish leftist reporters that ask their stupid questions 0.97

00:30:02.240 while he just calmly munches on an apple but let's return to the email if we may 0.98

00:30:07.400 can you imagine if someone took the time to superimpose your face over pp and that's pierre

00:30:17.720 and do the same to you i guess that would be very deserving sorry not sorry otherwise keep up the

00:30:25.120 fight and bringing truth to Canadians. Well, we will do that. It would be a terrible, terrible 0.69

00:30:30.460 shame if someone put my face on Pierre Polyev's face in that graphic, wouldn't it? Well, I'll do

00:30:37.980 you one better. Oh, there we go. That seemed even more offensive and to show that we should all have

00:30:45.500 a sense of humor about these things. Actually, the longer I look at that picture, the more I look

00:30:49.780 more like a pumpkin than an apple. So, but my face is actually that fat sometimes. So anyway,

00:30:55.600 the good thing is Pierre Polyev looks better than me in that picture. So it's all relative. I think

00:31:00.400 in that case, I would trade places with him and that would be more insulting. So you may not like

00:31:06.500 it. That's fine. It's a stupid, stupid joke and I do not apologize for it. But if you can't laugh

00:31:13.280 at yourself and the people you like, you are going to be crying and I choose not to do that in

00:31:18.260 politics. Let's pivot to the big Canadian story of the weekend, which is kind of two-pronged

00:31:25.780 because on Friday, the Liberal government staring down another cold winter showed a little bit of

00:31:32.840 weakness, a little miniature retreat on the carbon tax and climate file. But around the same time,

00:31:39.360 we also heard a Liberal minister say this about Canadians who are displeased, especially in the

00:31:46.460 west with how the government is handling things like the carbon tax. Both the premier of Alberta

00:31:52.160 and the leader of the opposition in that province posted statements following the decision around

00:31:57.840 home heating oil. Premier Smith said the federal government has decided that one part of Canada

00:32:02.040 with one type of home heating is worthy of a carbon tax break, while those living elsewhere

00:32:06.260 using another type of home heating do not. Is your government open to, because of the affordability

00:32:12.600 crisis right across this country looking at other carve-outs for other types of home heating in the

00:32:16.580 future? That's a discussion that we'll have down the road when we know that this one is working

00:32:20.900 but I can tell you Atlantic Caucus was vocal with what they've heard from their constituents

00:32:26.040 and perhaps they need to elect more liberals on the prairies that we can have that conversation as

00:32:31.440 well. Oh so if you want the government to hear your concerns you have to vote liberal. What a

00:32:41.120 great trade-off. This government that has been in power now for eight years saying, well, if we

00:32:46.580 don't actually give a hoot about what you think, it's because you didn't elect enough of us. So

00:32:50.900 vote for more of us, including in this part of the country that we're screwing over economically,

00:32:55.200 and then maybe, just maybe, we'll hear what you say. Now, Goody Hutchings is a minister from

00:33:03.720 Atlantic Canada. She's supposedly responsible for rural economic development, though evidently 0.72

00:33:09.260 she's only interested in anything rural that the Liberals were elected in. So if you're from

00:33:14.800 rural Ontario, in southwestern Ontario, which is almost all conservative, rural Alberta,

00:33:19.880 Manitoba, Saskatchewan, well, she's not there for you. The government is not there for you

00:33:24.840 because you didn't vote the right way. Ideally, a government would represent the interests of

00:33:30.500 all Canadians, not just Canadians in Liberal-held ridings. But what do I know about politics? Well,

00:33:36.860 there is a bit of a silver lining in this. I think that the government's messaging on this

00:33:42.420 and the inconsistency has started a bit of a rebellion. Scott Moe, the Premier of Saskatchewan,

00:33:48.740 had this to say today. As Premier, I cannot accept the federal government giving an affordability

00:33:55.580 break to people in one part of Canada, but not here. So today, I am calling on the federal

00:34:01.720 government to offer the same carbon tax exemption to saskatchewan families by extending it to all

00:34:07.320 forms of home heating not just heating oil it's only fair to other saskatchewan and canadian

00:34:13.560 families hopefully that exemption will be provided soon but if not effective january the first sask

00:34:21.720 energy will stop collecting and submitting the carbon tax on natural gas effectively providing

00:34:28.280 Saskatchewan residents with the very same exemption that the federal government is giving

00:34:32.560 heating oil in Atlantic Canada.

00:34:35.480 The federal government may say that's illegal and that you simply cannot choose to collect

00:34:40.280 and pay your taxes.

00:34:42.720 In most cases, I would agree with that.

00:34:45.640 But it's the federal government that has created two classes of taxpayer by providing

00:34:49.560 an exemption for heating oil.

00:34:51.800 An exemption that really only applies in one part of the country and effectively excludes

00:34:56.500 Saskatchewan.

00:34:58.260 premier it's my job to ensure saskatchewan residents are treated fairly and equally with

00:35:03.620 our fellow canadians in other parts of the country and that's what i am doing today

00:35:10.020 shots fired let's talk about this with our regular monday correspondent chris simms who is the

00:35:16.660 alberta director with the canadian taxpayers federation uh chris that must have been music

00:35:21.460 to your ears yeah it was really awesome i'm just going to adjust my shot so i'm not literally

00:35:26.260 standing in front of a garbage can for you. So, all right. So there are better metaphors for

00:35:30.540 Canadian politics. Actually, no, wait, there aren't. So I'm here actually at the Edmonton

00:35:35.280 legislature, uh, because of course it's the throne speech. So it's everybody's, uh, first day back at

00:35:40.440 school, so to speak, uh, here in Alberta. So, wow. Hearing that from Premier Mo, can he do it?

00:35:49.340 We don't know. We'll put it this way. Mo's heart is definitely in the right place. And Trudeau

00:35:55.780 here is definitely in the wrong and boy oh boy I thought we'd already seen enough of it last week

00:36:02.740 Andrew when they said oh we're gonna do a carve out we're gonna do a suspension but just for

00:36:08.060 furnace oil who uses furnace oil almost you know exclusively folks in Atlantic Canada so they

00:36:14.640 really stepped in it there and then the liberal minister is like no wait there's more but if you

00:36:21.400 voted Liberal, we'd be nicer to you. Like, this is a dumpster fire for this government.

00:36:27.380 Yeah, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. Because if anyone followed along with the carbon

00:36:33.340 tax Supreme Court case, and the cases before the Court of Appeal for Alberta and Ontario, etc.

00:36:38.940 The government's whole argument was that no, no, no, climate change is national. Greenhouse gas

00:36:43.260 emissions are national. We can't let provinces come up with their own local approach to this.

00:36:47.920 We can't regionalize or provincialize this.

00:36:51.120 And here's the federal government doing that, saying, well, we're going to treat this differently in Atlantic Canada than we are elsewhere, which undermines the government's whole approach, which is why I think Scott Smough may actually have at least a moral leg to stand on, a legal one we don't know yet.

00:37:06.860 Premier Danielle Smith, I haven't seen the clip, but I understand earlier she's talked about reevaluating the Supreme Court case as well and in light of this.

00:37:14.680 So it does sound like the government here has really stepped in it.

00:37:18.760 I mean, not even politically, possibly legally.

00:37:21.960 Yeah, exactly.

00:37:23.020 So it was interesting to hear what Premier Smith had to say.

00:37:25.540 So in Saskatchewan, they have a Crown Corporation.

00:37:29.020 So that's part of the government.

00:37:30.480 So the Premier there is able to say, hey, wing of government, arm of government, we want you to do this.

00:37:36.220 Now, again, this is legal federally.

00:37:39.880 Godspeed.

00:37:40.640 We don't know.

00:37:41.680 We're leaving that up to the legal beagles. 0.97

00:37:43.260 But here in Alberta, it's a private power industry.

00:37:47.460 So we have competing companies that offer private power to different homes, etc.

00:37:51.860 You get to choose and pick and choose.

00:37:53.560 It's not like Alberta power.

00:37:55.640 So they don't have that ability.

00:37:57.280 And she was very careful today when she answered her question.

00:38:00.820 She said, I wouldn't want to advise a private company to maybe go against the law.

00:38:05.360 But she's looking at this really hard.

00:38:07.680 What's great about this, Andrew, is like you just said,

00:38:10.380 all of a sudden the prime minister has to now admit that this isn't so much about the science

00:38:16.480 is it it's about political science yeah and i think that's the other thing that they've undermined

00:38:23.160 here not just that this has to be the same nationally there has to be a one-size-fits-all

00:38:27.180 solution but the government's other argument was that this is so important we can't offer anyone a

00:38:33.240 reprieve even on a temporary basis because you at the canadian taxpayers federation have been

00:38:38.220 calling on the government the conservatives have been calling on the government to offer a bit of

00:38:42.300 a break with the cost of living crisis let's just pull back on the carbon tax let's let's just stop

00:38:47.580 the hikes of the carbon tax and the government has said no and their argument has been no no no

00:38:51.860 climate change is so important we we can't do this this isn't about now it's about 10 years from now

00:38:57.040 20 years from now and it is about right now if you're in atlantic canada and voted liberal yes

00:39:02.980 Yes, exactly. And so we've been in the game for a long time. This is so obvious. It's really obvious. The fact that they singled out just furnace oil. Okay, so around three or four percent of Canadian households use furnace oil or heating oil for their homes. Of that three or four percent, the vast majority of those homes are in Nova Scotia.

00:39:27.600 Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, a little bit in New Brunswick, but not quite as much.

00:39:32.980 Yes, there are some isolated folks up in the north of Ontario and up north, maybe across the west, a little tiny bit, but not usually.

00:39:40.880 Usually it's furnace oil for the Maritimes in Atlantic Canada and natural gas for those of us here across the west and mostly in Ontario as well.

00:39:49.140 What's getting me here too, Andrew, is that there's a whole lot of seats around the 905 and around your area there of Ontario.

00:39:58.340 They use natural gas.

00:40:00.300 Like, what are they, chopped liver?

00:40:02.040 Like, what message are they sending to all of those Liberal seats there in Ontario?

00:40:06.940 But what the big win here is, is that now the Prime Minister has had to admit, one, this is unaffordable.

00:40:13.700 Two, apparently this isn't the big honking crisis that he said it was going to be because he's

00:40:19.160 willing to suspend the usage of a carbon tax on a much more heavier particulate burning fuel

00:40:26.840 for the next three years until after the next election. That's the obvious part here. Why did

00:40:32.700 he give a timeline on it? It just made it even worse. Yeah, I think that is in and of itself

00:40:39.000 there too. And I wonder if this is looking at some of the polling and seeing Atlantic Canada

00:40:45.040 as wavering of it. I mean, Pierre Polyev had been, I think, doing a rally that night.

00:40:50.640 Yes, he was.

00:40:51.520 This announcement came out in Atlantic Canada. Now, I don't think Atlantic voters are so stupid 1.00

00:40:56.700 as to be hoodwinked by a very temporary promise. I mean, by a government, it's basically the can 0.99

00:41:02.600 you stop hitting me thing. And then a person stops hitting you and you don't just thank them,

00:41:07.180 you know, in the grand scheme of things, you're like, okay, well, thank you for stopping. But

00:41:11.060 I'm not going to forget that you were the guy doing that in the first place. And that's really

00:41:15.040 what's happening here. And I mean, look, I'm not telling anyone how to vote. But I do think for

00:41:19.780 Atlantic Canadians, they're probably not going to forget that this reprieve was not really offered

00:41:25.260 to them till now. And all of these increases, the addition of the carbon tax was entirely the doing

00:41:30.180 of the feds in the first place. Yes, exactly. I think most folks in that area will remember that

00:41:35.760 only when all of those fat and safe seats in Atlantic Canada were suddenly tanking in the

00:41:42.300 polls, all of a sudden the politicians got really into listening to people. It was just miraculous.

00:41:48.320 See, this is what we try to say at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. If you want to make change

00:41:52.800 happen, go right after your member of parliament and say so. And if they don't listen to you,

00:41:59.080 that's when you say, you know what, next time, the next election, I'm going to get a group of

00:42:03.560 10 friends together and I'm going to door knock against you in your riding on this issue. You get

00:42:09.180 their attention real fast. Why? Because it's their butts on the line this time. So that cabinet

00:42:14.640 minister who said, oh, well, maybe you should elect more liberals and we'll actually listen to

00:42:18.500 you on something as unaffordable and unfair as the carbon tax. Whoa. All of a sudden, her salary of

00:42:24.620 200 something thousand dollars with all expenses paid for travel and food and home heating, by the

00:42:30.120 way, that's suddenly in peril. And that gets their attention real fast. So this is really clear. What

00:42:37.500 we're happy about is now, finally, finally, at the federal level, the crack is there, the crack is

00:42:44.540 breaking, and they're realizing that the carbon tax is unaffordable, and it doesn't fix the

00:42:49.400 environmental issues. Yeah, and I always like doing the flip on political stories and say,

00:42:55.520 you know, what would I think if this were reversed? What would the critics think? And

00:42:58.420 I was kind of imagining this fantasy scenario of some Quebecer in, you know, 2013 makes a comment about the federal government and Stephen Harper just glibly says, well, if you want to be heard, you got to elect conservatives like there would be outrage on that.

00:43:12.020 I mean, now that I say it, I'm like, I would kind of be amused in that context. But that doesn't mean it's the responsible thing to do when people are hurting. And that's really what the government is saying here. And like, again, if Pierre Polyev said that to some suburban Toronto voter, well, if you want anything, you should have voted for me.

00:43:28.140 like that. That's not prime ministerial. No. And in fact, one of the first things,

00:43:33.580 whenever there's somebody elected, okay, a premier, a prime minister, it doesn't matter

00:43:38.620 what party. If you've been watching this game long enough, you know this. One of the first

00:43:42.480 things out of their mouth is they say, while I was elected by this percentage of Albertans or

00:43:48.000 Canadians, I will be the premier. I will be the prime minister for all of you. That flies in the

00:43:55.460 base of what that cabinet minister just said. Like that was a huge misstep. But what's good

00:44:02.340 about this misstep, and everybody's human, so they screwed up. Yep. What's good about this

00:44:06.540 misstep is now this message of the carbon tax is unaffordable and it doesn't fix emissions issues

00:44:13.220 anyway. So why are we paying for it? Why are we punishing Canadians for staying warm in winter

00:44:19.360 in Canada. It is not right. Scrap it for everyone everywhere across Canada. That's becoming the

00:44:25.960 dominant message now even in Ottawa, which is excellent. It's a long time coming, but it needs

00:44:31.720 to happen. Well, we'll see if this starts a bit of a ripple effect across the country here,

00:44:37.480 the Prairie Rebellion, I guess we can call it. Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:44:43.240 joining us live from the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton. Always a pleasure, Chris. We will chat

00:44:48.180 with you next Monday. You betcha. All right. And that does it for me for today. It's like

00:44:53.560 9.45 at night and I haven't slept in, I don't know, like three days. So I'm going to try to

00:44:59.800 get some rest and hit the ground running tomorrow at the ARC Forum here in London, United Kingdom,

00:45:05.600 and we'll have more coverage from the ground. And I'll try to be a bit better at tweeting. I wasn't

00:45:09.920 tweeting a huge amount today just because I was getting my sea legs and I could not find anywhere

00:45:14.920 to charge my phone.

00:45:16.240 So that is though,

00:45:17.400 I think the World Economic Forum

00:45:18.820 had more phone chargers

00:45:20.280 and slightly better hot chocolate.

00:45:22.140 But the people here seem to like freedom.

00:45:24.340 So I guess hot chocolate freedom,

00:45:25.760 you can decide which one you like better there.

00:45:28.240 But we will talk to you all tomorrow

00:45:30.040 here on True North and The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:45:32.880 Thank you, God bless and good day to you all.

00:45:36.060 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:45:38.640 Support the program by donating to True North

00:45:40.680 at www.tnc.news.

00:45:44.920 We'll be right back.

00:46:14.920 We'll be right back.

00:46:44.920 Thank you.

Juno News - October 30, 2023

＂The anti-WEF＂： Jordan Peterson-led UK summit kicks off

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