Juno News - The danger of Remembrance Day complacency

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.660 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:13.060 Coming up, why it's never been more important to remember,

00:00:16.140 Aaron O'Toole tries to consolidate power,

00:00:18.300 and why the UN's getting a little bit nervous about COP26.

00:00:23.280 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.740 Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:33.440 This is the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:35.640 Thursday, November 11th, 2021.

00:00:39.120 Remembrance Day 2021, the 100th anniversary of the Poppy campaign.

00:00:44.700 And I think occasion enough to dispense with the irreverence for at least a few moments

00:00:49.360 as we talk about the importance of remembering.

00:00:52.500 As I said a moment ago, this is the 100th anniversary of the Poppy campaign.

00:00:57.880 And while I would love to celebrate that and say that the Poppy is strong,

00:01:02.260 it has never been weaker, I would argue.

00:01:06.000 And just take, for example, the fact that when you look around anecdotally,

00:01:09.740 there's no data, no peer-reviewed study on this.

00:01:12.480 There are fewer and fewer Poppies around in the world.

00:01:16.720 Part of this is that people might be less and less motivated to put them on for whatever reason.

00:01:21.180 But I would also say there is a supply issue.

00:01:23.960 It's harder and harder to find one.

00:01:26.300 Take, for example, my shortcoming on my show Tuesday.

00:01:29.440 I was not wearing a Poppy.

00:01:30.720 I had come back from overseas.

00:01:32.260 And in my limited time walking around the world in Canada on Monday,

00:01:37.020 I didn't encounter a single store that was selling them.

00:01:39.820 So when it came time Tuesday morning to record this show,

00:01:42.760 shamefully, I didn't have a Poppy to put on.

00:01:45.640 Now, that's no excuse.

00:01:46.760 I could have made a point and gone out of my way.

00:01:49.400 But unfortunately, I had run out of time.

00:01:51.520 But the reality is we are all culpable in this.

00:01:54.420 We are all guilty of this in a way of allowing remembrance to not be the driving force it once was.

00:02:01.100 I remember, pardon the pun, growing up in school and we had the Remembrance Day ceremonies all the time.

00:02:06.360 We had the veterans come and speak.

00:02:08.140 We had the Poppies that were being foisted upon us. 0.67

00:02:10.900 They were in every store, anywhere you went.

00:02:13.000 You had to work hard to avoid Remembrance Day.

00:02:16.980 And then there was a turning point when people just got complacent about it.

00:02:23.140 And a big part of this, I think, was when more and more veterans,

00:02:26.860 the kind who had been speaking to school assemblies,

00:02:29.060 the kind you'd see lining the streets for Remembrance Day parades,

00:02:32.400 when they became fewer and fewer in number.

00:02:35.380 There have not been any World War I veterans for quite some time.

00:02:38.760 While we do have a large number of World War II veterans,

00:02:41.340 they're getting more and more frail and they too are dwindling in number.

00:02:46.200 And conflicts after World War II, like the Korean War, like the Vietnam War,

00:02:51.720 which, yes, did have some Canadians participating in it.

00:02:54.600 And then later on, you go to other conflicts like the Gulf War and right up into Afghanistan.

00:03:00.180 These things do not have the cultural significance that World War I and World War II had.

00:03:08.060 So a lot of veterans who laid down their lives in these conflicts are not given their due

00:03:13.620 on Remembrance Day, which is, I think, a great shame to this country

00:03:17.660 and to the idea of remembrance itself.

00:03:21.580 Remembrance Day is not meant to be just about thanking veterans,

00:03:24.500 although I do think you should do that on Remembrance Day as you should on every day.

00:03:27.760 It's about specifically honoring those who laid down their lives for this great pursuit

00:03:32.360 of an ideal, whatever it was.

00:03:35.060 It could be the ideal of standing up for your country.

00:03:37.580 It could be the ideal of fighting for freedom.

00:03:39.800 It could just be this desire to make a difference when the world was facing

00:03:44.500 monumental challenges, the likes of which we've gratefully never seen since then,

00:03:49.820 in terms of the scope and scale of those two great wars.

00:03:53.040 Whatever the motivation is, Remembrance Day is necessary because as living memory

00:04:00.260 becomes harder and harder to find, it becomes easier and easier to forget.

00:04:06.100 I've written about this in the past in the context of Holocaust remembrance.

00:04:09.720 We all say, yeah, we know the Holocaust, we know it's terrible. 0.98

00:04:12.680 But one of the greatest threats in Israel that they're seeing, 1.00

00:04:15.580 and again, in the Jewish diaspora around the world, is Holocaust indifference.

00:04:19.560 Not people who don't believe in the Holocaust, but people for whom it's such an abstract

00:04:23.700 and irrelevant concept that they don't feel the need to remember.

00:04:27.940 We know that global conflict is in decline.

00:04:31.700 The shape of war is very different now than it was a century ago, than it was a half century ago.

00:04:37.560 War looks very different.

00:04:39.060 The idea of these mass interstate conflicts like the Axis versus the Allies are rare.

00:04:44.840 They're, in fact, all but unheard of now.

00:04:47.480 But the reality of this is that we cannot allow ourselves to forget.

00:04:55.840 This is what Remembrance Day is supposed to be about.

00:04:59.220 It's right there in the name, Remembrance.

00:05:02.160 Remembering the world the way it was.

00:05:04.020 Remembering the sacrifice that was so important and the sacrifice that has given us

00:05:08.620 the world and peace and relative calm that we have today.

00:05:12.940 And that's the great irony of Remembrance Day.

00:05:14.800 It's harder to remember now because of a world we have thanks to those we need to remember.

00:05:24.020 I know that Don Cherry had said in an interview with Joe Warmington the other day

00:05:28.720 how shameful he finds it that there are so few poppies you see when you're walking around

00:05:32.820 on people's lapels, on people's jackets, whatever the case may be.

00:05:36.420 And you can't argue with the facts.

00:05:37.900 When you look around, they are not as ubiquitous as they once were.

00:05:41.100 So the poppy is a tremendously important symbol.

00:05:44.800 A symbol of a sacrifice that we hope is never as necessary as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 years ago.

00:05:53.280 It's also a symbol of a world we've moved beyond, but as such, one we can never forget.

00:05:59.480 Lest we forget.

00:06:00.780 Let those words carry us now and forever.

00:06:03.580 Back in a moment.

00:06:04.320 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:06:14.340 Delving back into the irreverent forms of commentary now.

00:06:18.000 And I want to focus a little bit more on the conservative shadow cabinet,

00:06:22.100 which I touched on earlier in the week on the show.

00:06:25.040 And I noted that a couple of key snubs had taken place.

00:06:29.020 Marilyn Gladjew, who formed the Civil Liberties Caucus, speaking up against vaccine mandates.

00:06:33.520 She was not given a shadow minister portfolio.

00:06:37.280 Leslyn Lewis, one of the star conservative candidates, former leadership candidate for the conservative party,

00:06:42.900 is not in the shadow cabinet either.

00:06:46.460 And I actually did some number crunching because a couple of things happened that I want to take aim at here.

00:06:52.180 Number one, shortly after I recorded the show on Tuesday, Marilyn Gladjew issued an apology.

00:06:57.560 And not that I know Marilyn all that well or can speak to her motives,

00:07:01.420 but it's the type of apology that tends to be the kind forced from above, in my experience.

00:07:07.860 She says,

00:07:08.160 I'd like to apologize for my inappropriate comments about COVID-19 vaccines during a recent CTV interview.

00:07:14.520 Upon reflection, I realized how dangerous it is to share misinformation about the severity of COVID-19

00:07:20.520 and the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

00:07:22.820 I retract these comments in full.

00:07:25.000 I apologize unreservedly to Canadians. 1.00

00:07:27.940 I apologize to my caucus colleagues and leader, capital L leader,

00:07:32.540 for the distraction my comments have created.

00:07:35.140 And then the boilerplate, the vaccines are safe and effective.

00:07:37.800 They prevent serious illness.

00:07:39.240 She encourages everyone to get vaccinated and so on.

00:07:42.020 And then this member of parliament for Sarnia Lampton,

00:07:44.460 who I don't even know if has how many people,

00:07:46.580 I don't know how many French people there are in her riding, 0.99

00:07:49.020 then issues the same apology in French as well,

00:07:52.300 which kind of just reinforces that this is that standard political boilerplate apology

00:07:56.880 that has the leader's office's fingerprints all over it.

00:08:00.840 And even with that apology,

00:08:02.140 Marilyn Gladue does not secure herself a place in the shadow cabinet. 0.71

00:08:06.360 Neither does Leslyn Lewis.

00:08:08.200 Well, something else happened that I found quite fascinating

00:08:10.960 because shortly after the shadow cabinet announcements came,

00:08:16.140 the Conservative Party of Canada, Erin O'Toole's office,

00:08:19.200 also announced a slew of deputy shadow minister appointments,

00:08:24.680 deputy shadow cabinet appointments.

00:08:26.320 Now, this is not something that I recall happening with as much gusto

00:08:31.260 as it happened under Erin O'Toole.

00:08:33.020 But if you look at the press release from the Conservatives,

00:08:35.140 you see there are how many dozens, dozens of names

00:08:38.060 that are now taking on the roles of being deputy shadow minister.

00:08:42.920 There's a deputy shadow minister for foreign affairs,

00:08:45.320 a deputy shadow minister for Indigenous services,

00:08:48.080 a deputy shadow minister for justice in the Attorney General of Canada,

00:08:52.060 deputies for everything, deputies galore.

00:08:53.860 And you may think, okay, what's the big deal?

00:08:55.820 A shadow minister has a deputy, right?

00:08:57.940 Well, there are 119 members of the Conservative caucus.

00:09:03.360 119.

00:09:04.180 There are dozens of shadow ministers,

00:09:06.620 and there are now dozens of deputy shadow ministers,

00:09:09.120 which means pretty much when you look at the numbers,

00:09:12.060 almost every single conservative could have a portfolio of some kind.

00:09:17.360 Almost every member of the Conservative caucus could have some role.

00:09:20.700 You have to work, when you're giving away this many titles,

00:09:24.260 you have to work hard to exclude someone.

00:09:26.300 But that's exactly what the Conservatives have done here.

00:09:28.700 So of the 119 members of caucus,

00:09:32.560 only 37 do not have titles.

00:09:37.200 Only 37.

00:09:38.320 So that means that 82 of 119 Conservative MPs

00:09:42.240 have been given some title by Erin O'Toole.

00:09:45.360 37.

00:09:46.540 37 do not have them.

00:09:48.060 So, again, at a certain point, like, you've got to really work hard

00:09:51.040 to be one of those 32.

00:09:52.960 So we did some crunching on this,

00:09:54.520 and we actually put together the list at True North,

00:09:56.540 and we looked, you know, MP by MP.

00:09:59.180 There was one guy, Alan Reyes, or Alain Reyes, in Quebec,

00:10:02.600 who was actually given two titles.

00:10:04.520 So originally, we had a discrepancy in our numbers,

00:10:06.880 and I'm like, why is this not adding up?

00:10:08.500 One guy got two titles.

00:10:09.840 That's why.

00:10:10.400 So things are so bad that, you know,

00:10:12.540 32, 37 people have no title,

00:10:15.220 and one guy even gets two titles.

00:10:16.940 Nevertheless, you look at this,

00:10:19.120 and I'm going to read a couple of names.

00:10:20.780 Now, these are people that got nothing.

00:10:22.680 They've not been made a deputy minister,

00:10:25.900 or a deputy shadow minister.

00:10:27.140 They've not been made a shadow minister.

00:10:28.860 They've not been given a leadership role in the party,

00:10:31.560 like, you know, caucus whip, deputy whip, all of that.

00:10:34.620 Dean Allison, Bob Benzin, Kelly Block, Colin Carey,

00:10:40.360 Michael Cooper.

00:10:41.240 Michael Cooper, very well known.

00:10:42.480 He was defenestrated a couple of years back by Aaron O'Toole,

00:10:45.700 by Andrew Scheer, rather, and now by Aaron O'Toole as well.

00:10:49.360 You have some folks that are not as well known.

00:10:52.240 Earl Dreeshan, very long-time conservative.

00:10:54.980 Rosemary Falk and Ted Falk, again, very well known out west.

00:10:59.480 Cheryl Gallant.

00:11:00.600 She, of course, is in the media's crosshairs,

00:11:02.580 not infrequently.

00:11:04.320 Marilyn Gladjew.

00:11:05.440 Sarnia Lampton, not given a file at all.

00:11:08.360 Rachel Harder. 0.83

00:11:09.660 This is, again, an up-and-comer, tremendously smart,

00:11:12.660 young member of parliament, has done a lot of work.

00:11:15.280 The Liberals tried to railroad her from being a committee chair 0.99

00:11:18.520 because she was pro-life.

00:11:20.500 And she stuck through it.

00:11:21.860 She stuck to her guns.

00:11:22.900 She worked hard.

00:11:23.780 And now the Conservative Party is leaving her without a portfolio.

00:11:28.200 Tom Commitch.

00:11:28.880 He's been a longtime supporter of True North, I believe.

00:11:31.300 He's appeared a number of times.

00:11:32.780 Again, a solid advocate.

00:11:34.280 Not at all included.

00:11:35.900 And then we have Leslyn Lewis.

00:11:38.760 This is an interesting one.

00:11:40.480 Erin O'Toole was welcoming Leslyn Lewis with open arms

00:11:43.120 after the Conservative leadership race.

00:11:45.100 And now she's just this problem member of caucus. 1.00

00:11:48.160 And you get a couple of others here that I think need to be pointed out.

00:11:51.800 Scott Reid, longtime MP going back to the Stephen Harper days.

00:11:55.460 Alex Ruff.

00:11:56.240 He was the Conservative defense critic up until the election

00:11:58.780 and now has no file whatsoever.

00:12:02.040 And some others as well, including Shannon Stubbs,

00:12:05.120 who was one of the more vocal MPs in speaking up against Erin O'Toole's leadership.

00:12:10.000 And her reward is not a single portfolio.

00:12:13.060 Now, some of these might just be names to you that don't mean anything.

00:12:16.040 And that's fine.

00:12:16.660 I'm going to speak to the significance of them.

00:12:18.780 Because I did an exhaustive search.

00:12:20.820 And let me tell you, almost every single one of these 37 members of parliament

00:12:27.200 who did not get an appointment to the shadow cabinet or deputy shadow cabinet,

00:12:32.180 almost every single one is pro-life.

00:12:35.520 Now, I want to be very careful.

00:12:37.160 There are pro-lifers who are appointed to positions.

00:12:39.740 There are members of the Conservative caucus who are pro-life,

00:12:42.620 who were given certain appointments, certain roles,

00:12:45.540 including in some cases some higher profile roles.

00:12:48.020 But I also think it needs to be pointed out

00:12:50.540 that almost every single one who was snubbed is pro-life.

00:12:56.980 So I don't know if this is an exercise

00:12:59.320 in trying to sideline social Conservatives indirectly or directly.

00:13:03.840 Kathy Wagenthal, she's the Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville.

00:13:07.300 She was the one who introduced the ban on sex-selective abortion.

00:13:10.940 She is not included in the list.

00:13:13.200 She is excluded from any public role in the Conservatives.

00:13:17.340 Leslie Lewis as well, very prominent social Conservative in the leadership race.

00:13:21.840 It was her supporters that ultimately gave Erin O'Toole the victory. 0.91

00:13:25.360 She has been specifically excluded.

00:13:29.060 So too have a number of other members of the caucus.

00:13:32.060 Again, there are a couple on the list that I,

00:13:33.960 well, there's one on the list in particular that I know for sure is not pro-life.

00:13:37.220 There are a couple I'm not sure about,

00:13:38.800 but I know there are a lot on this list who are for sure pro-life members of the Conservative caucus

00:13:44.340 who make up a significant part of the Conservative movement,

00:13:47.020 the Conservative Party, the Conservative base,

00:13:49.420 and more importantly, are people that Erin O'Toole has claimed

00:13:52.380 he wants to continue to have inside the fold.

00:13:56.280 But anyone who's ever expressed any independent thought

00:14:00.080 on the idea of leadership,

00:14:02.260 people like Shannon Stubbs,

00:14:03.560 people like Chris Warkington,

00:14:05.300 people like Marilyn Gladue,

00:14:06.540 all of them are now sidelined.

00:14:09.860 And here's something I want to bring attention to.

00:14:12.500 You may remember in 2017,

00:14:14.360 the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race

00:14:16.480 had just a massive, massive contingent.

00:14:19.320 There were 13, 14 candidates at various points.

00:14:22.400 And at the end of that leadership race,

00:14:25.280 Andrew Scheer, who won very narrowly,

00:14:27.660 gave every single one of them,

00:14:30.580 gave every single one of them a role in his shadow cabinet.

00:14:33.920 The only one he didn't was Deepak O'Brien,

00:14:36.660 the late Deepak O'Brien, who turned it down.

00:14:38.860 But Andrew Scheer offered every single leadership contender

00:14:42.000 a spot in his shadow cabinet

00:14:44.060 because he said that they were all part of the party

00:14:46.400 and this was essential for unity.

00:14:48.680 Now you have to work hard to take 13 people

00:14:51.560 that were your opponents

00:14:53.340 and put them in your shadow cabinet,

00:14:56.680 to put them on your leadership team.

00:14:58.080 But that was precisely what Andrew Scheer did.

00:15:00.300 Now you fast forward to the 2020 leadership race

00:15:04.380 in which Aaron O'Toole emerged victorious

00:15:06.780 and in which there were just four candidates

00:15:09.080 when all was said and done.

00:15:11.420 And let's talk about those four candidates.

00:15:13.680 Aaron O'Toole was the winner.

00:15:15.540 Peter McKay was ousted and forced out.

00:15:19.400 Derek Sloan was kicked out of the Conservative caucus.

00:15:23.420 And Leslyn Lewis has been excluded from shadow cabinet

00:15:26.940 and her comments about vaccine choice condemned by the leader.

00:15:31.540 You expand even further outside that

00:15:33.920 and Marilyn Gladue, who was seeking the leadership

00:15:36.080 and of course didn't get the money or signatures in time,

00:15:39.400 she's excluded as well.

00:15:40.620 But there were four candidates

00:15:42.080 and none of them appear in the Conservative shadow cabinet.

00:15:46.960 Only one of them appears in caucus.

00:15:48.660 The other one was kicked out of caucus.

00:15:50.480 The other one did not run.

00:15:51.660 And the one who did get elected has been denied any position

00:15:55.100 despite how Aaron O'Toole talked about

00:15:57.160 how important it was to include her.

00:15:59.860 So just contrast those two visions.

00:16:02.740 Andrew Scheer making a point of bringing everyone

00:16:05.640 who he defeated into his shadow cabinet

00:16:07.980 and Aaron O'Toole specifically excluding

00:16:10.700 anyone who's ever criticized him

00:16:13.040 from his shadow cabinet.

00:16:16.760 So there's very much a whip cracking taking place.

00:16:19.660 You compound that with what's happening to Bert Chen,

00:16:22.460 the suspended National Council member

00:16:24.440 who's now being subject to his emails and documents

00:16:28.540 and data being requested by the party.

00:16:31.020 Apparently he has to turn over all of this information

00:16:33.400 as though it's some kind of inquisition

00:16:34.920 for the crime of launching a petition saying

00:16:37.380 we need to have a leadership review.

00:16:40.820 If you are clinging on to your leadership

00:16:43.520 in a way that makes it so that anyone who is critical of you

00:16:48.320 does not have a place in the party,

00:16:50.620 you are not confident or self-assured in your leadership.

00:16:54.540 And I don't think anyone can look at

00:16:56.360 what Aaron O'Toole is doing right now

00:16:57.840 and say that these look like the actions of a guy

00:17:00.620 who's confident that he can hold on to power.

00:17:04.180 I think what Scott Hayward from Right Now said

00:17:06.680 in an interview with True North

00:17:08.200 is that this is all looking like desperation.

00:17:10.700 And you know what?

00:17:11.100 I can't disagree with that.

00:17:12.380 If you are confident in your leadership,

00:17:15.960 you can actually be a bridge builder.

00:17:17.440 You can bring people in who disagree with you

00:17:19.480 and you can say by coming in

00:17:20.760 and being part of the Shadow Cabinet,

00:17:22.380 we'll all have very rigorous discussions.

00:17:25.300 We'll approach the issues with vigor and rigor

00:17:27.880 and then we will go and work together as a team.

00:17:32.120 But by only surrounding himself with,

00:17:34.720 I don't want to say sycophants

00:17:35.800 because there are some very good people

00:17:37.140 that are appointed to the Shadow Cabinet,

00:17:39.080 but by specifically excluding those

00:17:41.840 who will not be yes men and yes women,

00:17:45.400 you aren't exactly giving confidence

00:17:47.380 that you're prepared to entertain

00:17:49.360 all of these different perspectives.

00:17:50.980 Remember, this is the guy

00:17:51.860 that was all about conscience rights.

00:17:53.620 This is the guy that was all about MPs

00:17:55.140 voting in accordance with their values

00:17:56.620 and their consciences.

00:17:57.860 But when they speak up

00:17:58.860 and go against the prevailing narrative

00:18:00.740 on COVID alarmism,

00:18:02.660 all of a sudden it's,

00:18:03.580 well, no, that's irresponsible.

00:18:04.500 No, we can't talk about that.

00:18:05.800 No, MPs shouldn't have been talking about that.

00:18:07.820 And all of those MPs are completely sidelined.

00:18:11.740 And again, I mean,

00:18:12.600 these MPs who are excluded,

00:18:13.920 I don't know the stories of all of them.

00:18:15.600 Some of them might not have wanted posts.

00:18:17.560 Others might be perhaps running

00:18:18.820 to be deputy speaker of the house

00:18:20.540 or something like that.

00:18:21.560 But I know that most of them are pro-life.

00:18:23.840 Most of them are solidly conservative.

00:18:25.600 And most of them were sold a bill of goods

00:18:27.680 by Aaron O'Toole when he was elected

00:18:29.760 that they would have a place

00:18:31.380 within the conservative party,

00:18:33.220 that they would have a place

00:18:34.480 within the conservative movement

00:18:35.820 and now are being completely sidelined

00:18:38.460 and I would say shafted.

00:18:41.360 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:45.120 We are back.

00:18:46.320 This is The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:47.940 I want to turn our attention back

00:18:49.420 to COP26 in Glasgow,

00:18:51.800 which is coming to an end in,

00:18:54.160 I think tomorrow actually,

00:18:55.280 as a matter of fact,

00:18:56.080 the conference is wrapping up.

00:18:58.000 And the United Nations Secretary General,

00:19:00.140 Antonio Guterres,

00:19:01.100 is not exactly happy with the progress.

00:19:03.980 Now, I know I was trying to do it

00:19:05.880 without laughing and smiling,

00:19:07.160 but I couldn't do it.

00:19:08.140 So, well, I've given up my perspective about this.

00:19:10.960 And it's not because I don't care about the planet.

00:19:13.160 It's because I don't believe

00:19:14.800 that the dangerous policies being advanced

00:19:17.460 by the UN, by the World Economic Forum,

00:19:20.020 by a lot of the alarmists

00:19:21.360 that tend to drive the narrative at COP26

00:19:23.420 are going to do anything about the environment.

00:19:25.920 They're just going to hurt Canadians 1.00

00:19:27.820 and people around the world

00:19:29.580 who are forced to foot the bill for these things.

00:19:31.560 Well, as I've talked about for months now,

00:19:35.000 a lot of the efforts in COP26

00:19:37.380 and the lead up to it

00:19:38.540 have been based around an outcome

00:19:40.560 that was already set before the conference began.

00:19:43.620 And one of them was this idea of,

00:19:46.080 quote unquote,

00:19:46.820 keeping 1.5 alive, unquote.

00:19:49.700 And this is that one of the key goals

00:19:51.700 was to come together

00:19:53.460 and reach an agreement

00:19:54.560 that would dedicate countries

00:19:57.780 to reducing so-called global warming

00:19:59.820 to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius

00:20:02.720 above pre-industrial levels.

00:20:04.500 In Paris, a few years back,

00:20:06.680 they agreed to 2% or 2 degrees rather

00:20:09.340 and then said they're going to pursue efforts for 1.5.

00:20:13.060 That wasn't good enough.

00:20:14.560 For Glasgow, they wanted to reach an agreement

00:20:16.820 where they would say,

00:20:17.640 no, no, no,

00:20:18.040 we have to keep temperatures

00:20:19.680 to less than 1.5 degrees above.

00:20:22.580 And it sounds from what Antonio Guterres said

00:20:24.900 to Associated Press,

00:20:26.180 that isn't happening.

00:20:27.180 He said that the goal is,

00:20:29.560 quote, on life support, unquote,

00:20:31.260 but until the last moment,

00:20:32.740 hope should be maintained.

00:20:34.060 The reason I want to talk about this

00:20:35.740 is because while he's saying

00:20:37.060 they're probably not going to yield

00:20:38.780 the results that they wanted,

00:20:42.020 he said that no one has come close

00:20:44.700 to the UN's three priorities for the conference.

00:20:47.020 One of them is cutting carbon emissions

00:20:49.100 by half by 2030 to reach this goal.

00:20:52.860 Now, this is insane

00:20:54.440 because when you're talking about carbon emissions,

00:20:57.220 which, by the way,

00:20:58.580 are not the problem of Canada,

00:21:00.660 they're not the problem of the United Kingdom

00:21:02.180 when you look at what's coming from China

00:21:04.220 as one notable example,

00:21:05.840 but to say they have to be slashed in half

00:21:08.280 doesn't happen overnight.

00:21:11.240 So governments have to find some way

00:21:13.360 to punish people

00:21:14.380 who they decide to malign as polluters

00:21:17.880 in order to reach these goals.

00:21:19.740 So when you see something like this happen,

00:21:22.600 it's going to fall on the do-gooder countries,

00:21:25.540 the people like Justin Trudeau,

00:21:27.320 to make this happen,

00:21:28.600 even if the rest of the world isn't.

00:21:31.620 But here's my concern,

00:21:33.260 is that the UN tries to claim

00:21:34.560 that it does not have an agenda in and of itself.

00:21:36.580 The UN tries to claim

00:21:37.620 that it is just a collection of countries

00:21:39.680 and it doesn't have a mandate

00:21:40.920 beyond what those individual countries have.

00:21:43.980 But here he is saying he's disappointed

00:21:45.660 that these UN goals

00:21:46.960 are not being met by the countries negotiating.

00:21:49.740 Well, hang on.

00:21:50.620 If the UN is supposed to be responsible

00:21:52.140 to these countries,

00:21:53.140 how does it have an agenda

00:21:54.460 that is different from the countries

00:21:56.140 that are at the negotiating table

00:21:58.160 in Glasgow right now?

00:22:01.180 And this is a very key question.

00:22:03.480 And obviously the UN has this agenda.

00:22:05.320 They have their initiatives.

00:22:06.260 They have their priorities.

00:22:07.380 But the problem is on things like this,

00:22:09.000 they tend to just take on a mind of their own

00:22:11.020 and start working against the countries

00:22:13.260 that are actually forced to make this work.

00:22:15.220 You can't vote out Antonio Guterres.

00:22:17.500 You can't vote out the UN regime.

00:22:19.560 You can't vote on these UN agenda items

00:22:22.540 and these UN climate goals.

00:22:24.380 They are completely removed from the people

00:22:26.840 that are forced to deal with the consequences of them.

00:22:30.200 So if the countries are actually having

00:22:32.540 some realistic discussions right now

00:22:34.480 and saying,

00:22:35.320 we don't think this is feasible,

00:22:37.160 we don't think this is viable,

00:22:39.200 they should not be condemned

00:22:40.900 by someone who ultimately

00:22:42.400 is supposed to be accountable to them.

00:22:46.100 I said earlier that I was convinced

00:22:47.920 that 1.5 was going to be in there.

00:22:50.180 I was convinced that it was already written

00:22:52.240 before this started.

00:22:53.940 And I don't know,

00:22:54.380 maybe they're trying to just lower expectations.

00:22:56.360 I don't know.

00:22:56.920 I'm not sure what is at play here

00:22:58.440 because the whole point of this

00:22:59.760 is that they're trying to remove themselves

00:23:01.560 from scrutiny here.

00:23:03.320 I think I mentioned earlier,

00:23:04.420 we were planning on covering this.

00:23:06.440 We were planning on attending and covering this

00:23:08.300 and the UN would not accredit True North.

00:23:10.560 So you can tell they only want certain journalists

00:23:13.040 to have access like the Associated Press

00:23:15.460 to whom Antonio Guterres gave this exclusive interview

00:23:18.700 and not those that are actually going to start

00:23:21.040 poking holes in this narrative,

00:23:23.240 which ultimately penalizes successful countries

00:23:26.980 and industrialized countries

00:23:28.460 because of the fact that China

00:23:30.860 doesn't want to come to the table.

00:23:32.780 We've got to end things there.

00:23:34.020 Hopefully we'll have some more to talk about

00:23:35.760 in the COP26 outcomes in the next show.

00:23:39.480 But tomorrow we have a very special edition

00:23:41.780 of the program looking at healthcare reform.

00:23:43.700 You won't want to miss that.

00:23:44.920 And we'll talk to you then and also next week.

00:23:47.040 This is the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:23:48.300 Thank you.

00:23:48.940 God bless.

00:23:49.720 And lest we forget.

00:23:51.200 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:23:53.340 Support the program by donating to True North

00:23:55.280 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - November 12, 2021

The danger of Remembrance Day complacency

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