Juno News - The Defenestration Nation

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.940 Coming up, the defenestrations of Derek Sloan and Roman Baber, the bad science of lockdowns, and the financial benefit of free speech.

00:00:23.400 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.960 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show on True North.

00:00:35.020 Good to have you tuned in to the program on this January 19th, 2021,

00:00:40.720 after we have seen now the new trend in Canadian Conservative politics to throw people out summarily without so much as a thank you or goodbye.

00:00:51.320 The latest example of this, of course, is Derek Sloan, the former Conservative leadership candidate who yesterday was defenestrated,

00:01:00.320 thrown out the window of the Conservative Party by leader Aaron O'Toole for reasons that should concern anyone.

00:01:08.080 Now, I want to just make something very clear here.

00:01:10.560 I know there are a lot of people that aren't a fan of Derek Sloan for his social conservatism.

00:01:15.160 There were people that did the whole feigning outrage thing when he took aim at Teresa Tam and were accusing him of being a racist and whatever.

00:01:22.820 But even if you don't like Derek Sloan, and I've had good conversations with him,

00:01:27.760 surely you can understand that the process by which he was ejected is one that was not fair and not particularly just.

00:01:36.140 So what happened was Press Progress, which is a far-left smear machine, put out a story yesterday saying that Sloan had received a donation from Paul Fromm.

00:01:47.480 Now, Paul Fromm is not a name that most Canadians would know.

00:01:50.900 He is someone that is connected with white supremacist groups, with neo-Nazi groups,

00:01:55.460 and I have no hesitation saying that he is not the type of person that I would want to be connected with

00:02:01.080 and not the type of person that I would want any politician to be connected with.

00:02:05.360 Paul Fromm had donated $131 to Derek Sloan's leadership campaign.

00:02:12.740 Donations are publicly available.

00:02:15.100 You can search them.

00:02:16.520 And what happened was this was leaked to Press Progress or Press Progress happened to find it.

00:02:23.360 I suspect it was the former.

00:02:25.920 So this comes out within hours.

00:02:29.480 Derek Sloan thrown out of the Conservative Caucus, basically, or at least the process has commenced to do that.

00:02:35.100 And barred by Aaron O'Toole from running as a Conservative in the next election for $131 from an undesirable white supremacist type.

00:02:44.720 And let me tell you something here.

00:02:46.640 This is, if you were to get rid of Derek Sloan for any reason, this is probably the weakest reason you could come up with.

00:02:53.120 13,000 people donated to Sloan's campaign.

00:02:56.660 13,000.

00:02:57.420 A total of about $1.3 million, Derek Sloan said in a statement.

00:03:02.060 So the idea that a small team of volunteers, and by the way, a lot of political outsiders, not people that know you're supposed to be on the lookout for these sorts of smears in the future, were not going through line by line.

00:03:15.140 And even if they were, the idea that they would recognize Paul Fromm's name when he was donating under a different name, under Frederick Fromm, and make the connection that, oh, wait, that might be a different name for this other guy who even then we had probably never heard of.

00:03:32.060 So let's look this up.

00:03:33.040 And at a certain point, I'm just thinking, let's just get Paul Fromm to donate to Justin Trudeau, and then that's all it takes, and Justin Trudeau's gone.

00:03:40.180 I mean, if that's all it takes, you just have to get this guy to give $131 to someone, and that torches their political career, then have at it.

00:03:47.340 I've got a whole list of people.

00:03:48.600 Maybe we can front the money, depending on where we want to direct it.

00:03:53.160 So my whole point here is that Derek Sloan has been kicked out for reasons that do not align with the stated reason of Aaron O'Toole, which he put in a statement yesterday.

00:04:07.300 Derek Sloan's acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgment or failure of due diligence.

00:04:17.080 In accordance with the Reform Act, I have initiated the process to remove Mr. Sloan from the Conservative Party of Canada caucus.

00:04:24.200 I expect this to be done as quickly as possible.

00:04:27.040 Moreover, as leader of Canada's Conservatives, I will not allow Mr. Sloan to run as a candidate for our party.

00:04:34.760 Racism is a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values.

00:04:40.340 It has no place in our country.

00:04:42.340 It has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:04:44.940 I won't tolerate it.

00:04:47.560 Now, I think a condemnation of racism is completely fine.

00:04:51.800 I think everyone should condemn racism when they see it and in general terms.

00:04:55.760 But condemning racism in this context, is Aaron O'Toole calling Derek Sloan a racist?

00:05:01.000 Is he just calling Paul Fromm a racist?

00:05:03.040 Is he calling accepting a contribution racist?

00:05:06.560 Because here's the thing.

00:05:07.660 When people hear that word accepted a donation,

00:05:11.140 this paints a picture that is different than how political contributions actually work.

00:05:17.400 Accepted donation makes it sound like there was just this big giant check that was made out to the Derek Sloan campaign.

00:05:23.360 It was presented.

00:05:24.400 Derek Sloan took it, shook hands, had a photo, and that was that.

00:05:27.820 When in actuality, anyone can donate to a political campaign, they go online.

00:05:31.860 And in the course of the leadership race, they were processed by the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:05:37.560 which took, I believe it was a 10% cut off the top.

00:05:41.420 And Derek Sloan pointed out, well, hang on, the party has a role to play in this,

00:05:46.360 which I think is actually a valid point.

00:05:49.040 And what was interesting as well is that apparently Paul Fromm was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:05:56.660 which means the party accepted him as a member.

00:05:59.760 So this idea that all of a sudden Derek Sloan is the bad guy here,

00:06:05.300 because he was the, I don't even want to say he accepted,

00:06:08.200 because he was the beneficiary of $131 from this guy is pretty ridiculous.

00:06:14.940 Derek Sloan put out a statement, his official statement on the events of January 18th, 2021.

00:06:21.140 He said,

00:06:21.860 So that would have been the tail end of the leadership race.

00:06:35.660 He talked about the fact that the name was not Paul Fromm, as it appeared, but Frederick P. Fromm.

00:06:41.060 And then he says,

00:06:42.060 We also discovered through an investigation into the voters list that the same individual under the name of Frederick P. Fromm

00:06:48.040 applied to be a member of the CPC, and the party accepted his application last summer.

00:06:54.260 The CPC mailed a ballot to Fromm.

00:06:56.620 Fromm mailed back his ballot, and the party accepted it.

00:06:59.520 Moreover, even though the representatives of the campaigns of O'Toole, McKay, and Lewis all had scrutineers present,

00:07:05.000 not one of the campaigns objected to his ballot, and it seems that his ballot was accepted.

00:07:10.640 So if we start to, again, use the same terminology of accepted,

00:07:13.940 well, why did the Conservative Party accept a ballot from this man?

00:07:17.820 See, two can play that game.

00:07:20.360 He goes on, and you can read the whole statement online, but he says,

00:07:23.240 If the party later realized who it was and returned its share of the donation,

00:07:27.000 they never told me they should have.

00:07:28.860 If they did not discover this, I'm not surprised.

00:07:30.760 Neither did we until this story broke earlier this afternoon.

00:07:35.740 When the problematic donation was brought to my attention,

00:07:38.400 I immediately asked CPC Executive Director to refund the donation.

00:07:43.760 So it sounds like Sloan's campaign did exactly what it should given the circumstances,

00:07:49.020 and there is a ring of truth problem here as well.

00:07:52.300 Because one thing that I would note is that most politicians

00:07:56.040 who don't want to be associated with someone or know that someone isn't undesirable

00:07:59.940 would not torch their political career over $131.

00:08:04.260 The price to sell one's soul is a lot more than that.

00:08:07.260 So the idea that Derek Sloan took this risk,

00:08:11.480 took this significant risk, knowing this would all come,

00:08:14.840 is a pretty ridiculous assertion.

00:08:17.640 The easiest explanation, Occam's razor dictates that this guy,

00:08:22.240 for whatever reason, wanted to donate to Derek Sloan's campaign,

00:08:24.780 and no one knew anything other than that.

00:08:27.920 When they saw the name and the donation, it was just,

00:08:30.340 okay, great, another contributor.

00:08:31.780 And that was that.

00:08:32.700 I would support ejecting Derek Sloan from the caucus if he knew about it.

00:08:37.280 But he is saying very decisively that he did not.

00:08:41.920 And again, we have to ask the question of how on earth press progress came about this information.

00:08:46.980 I have a hard time believing that they're going line by line through 13,000 donations

00:08:51.840 to Derek Sloan's campaign, plus whoever donated to Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole and Leslie Lewis.

00:08:58.100 So the idea is that someone else probably did it and sent it to them.

00:09:01.820 Now, maybe it was just some diehard socialist.

00:09:04.640 Maybe it was within the party.

00:09:05.920 I don't know.

00:09:07.020 I do know that Derek Fildebrandt, who is the publisher of the Western Standard,

00:09:11.420 and a very good guy, we've talked to him on the show in the past,

00:09:13.860 because he's hearing from conservative MPs that they think it is an inside job.

00:09:19.460 And moreover, conservative MPs who he says are planning to vote against ejecting Sloan from caucus.

00:09:27.680 Now, at the risk of getting too into the weeds here,

00:09:30.560 Derek Sloan can be barred from running by O'Toole.

00:09:33.500 That's the leader's prerogative to say, you know what, I'm not certifying you as a candidate.

00:09:37.820 But to remove him from the conservative caucus actually requires a vote from caucus.

00:09:43.200 Now, we don't know how much the deck is stacked against him or not.

00:09:46.920 Generally speaking, people don't want to go against the leader.

00:09:49.800 So in that sense, it will probably not work out too well.

00:09:53.260 But it sounds from what Derek Fildebrandt's written in this article at the Western Standard

00:09:57.540 that there are at least some Ontario and Alberta conservative MPs that are saying,

00:10:03.200 you know what, I'm not exactly a fan of this, but they want a secret ballot

00:10:06.540 because they don't want to have to go against their leader publicly.

00:10:09.540 So they're supposed to be able to get a secret ballot, but it is not yet known whether that will materialize.

00:10:16.680 Caucus meets on Wednesday, so there's still a little bit of time here.

00:10:21.400 But again, by going after the party, by pointing out their role in this,

00:10:25.160 it sounds like Derek Sloan knows that his fate is sealed.

00:10:28.540 Now, there is something in this that is emerging as part of a trend to some extent,

00:10:33.680 and that is conservatives deciding to play the game on the left's turf

00:10:38.360 and to play the left's game by the left's rules, which never works out well.

00:10:42.420 I mean, talk to Andrew Scheer about this.

00:10:44.000 He and I spoke on his way out back in August, and he had said, you know what,

00:10:47.920 he kind of wishes, looking back, that he had just been more authentic.

00:10:51.020 He was well aware that the media was just going to hit him no matter what,

00:10:54.280 so it really didn't matter all that much.

00:10:55.980 Because now what the conservatives have done is said that they are going to allow

00:10:59.840 a left-wing hatchet machine, a left-wing smear machine, dictate the conservative caucus.

00:11:07.140 That's what they've determined, that it's the left that gets to call the shots,

00:11:10.700 it's their world, we just get to live in it.

00:11:13.780 And just a few days ago, Aaron O'Toole took aim at the far right,

00:11:18.100 which again, may be a completely justifiable thing to say,

00:11:21.760 except that it was done in a manner that was almost trying to grovel to the left.

00:11:27.720 And it was actually quite unpleasant in that sense.

00:11:30.280 He put out this statement that said,

00:11:32.160 within minutes of becoming leader of Canada's conservatives,

00:11:35.160 I said that I want the party to be one that welcomes all Canadians,

00:11:38.620 regardless of race, religion, economic standing, education, or sexual orientation.

00:11:43.820 I've said that as prime minister, I will govern on behalf of all Canadians,

00:11:47.840 and so on and so forth.

00:11:49.080 And he talks about being pro-choice, being pro-LGBT rights, being pro-indigenous,

00:11:53.900 and these are all things that he's been completely transparent about.

00:11:57.460 But then he says this,

00:11:59.180 the conservatives are a moderate, pragmatic, mainstream party,

00:12:04.400 as old as confederation, that sits squarely in the center of Canadian politics.

00:12:09.780 My singular focus is to get Canada's economy back on track as quickly as possible,

00:12:15.200 to create jobs, and secure a strong future for all Canadians.

00:12:20.080 There is no place for the far right in our party.

00:12:24.400 Now, it is interesting to see how we came from in the leadership race,

00:12:28.920 Aaron O'Toole as the true blue candidate,

00:12:31.980 to now that he's conservative leader,

00:12:34.140 the conservatives being moderate and centrist.

00:12:37.380 Now, I want to make a point here.

00:12:39.800 There is a difference between him thinking that conservatism is naturally a centrist position

00:12:46.760 versus saying the Conservative Party of Canada is a centrist, moderate party.

00:12:53.660 He's saying the latter.

00:12:55.040 He's saying with a capital C,

00:12:56.300 the conservatives are moderate and in the center of Canadian politics.

00:13:01.460 And what he's trying to do is broaden the coalition.

00:13:03.920 I get it.

00:13:04.440 He's trying to bring in new voters, new Canadians, suburban families.

00:13:08.080 He's trying to bring in unions, people that may not have voted conservative.

00:13:11.880 This has been the line we keep hearing over and over.

00:13:14.320 He wants more people to look in the mirror and see a conservative.

00:13:18.540 You can achieve that by one of two ways.

00:13:21.600 You can try to just expand the party, market your conservatism,

00:13:25.780 tell people, hey, that idea that they're talking about actually seems to work.

00:13:28.960 Conservatives aren't scary.

00:13:29.960 Or you can do what is oftentimes the instinct from conservatives,

00:13:34.580 which is move yourself to where the people already are.

00:13:38.240 And I get very nervous when I hear a conservative leader elected as being a true blue conservative

00:13:43.200 start talking about him being the leader of a party that he sees as moderate and centrist.

00:13:50.540 Because moderation and centrism are entirely justifiable political beliefs.

00:13:55.860 But at a certain point, you can't straddle the center.

00:14:00.060 You have to be on the left or on the right.

00:14:03.320 And if the conservatives are in the center of Canadian politics, who is on the right?

00:14:09.420 We have two parties on the left, which means one of them naturally takes from the center.

00:14:14.140 Who is to the right of the conservatives?

00:14:16.920 Certainly the People's Party, but they're a new force in Canadian politics.

00:14:20.540 So if Aaron O'Toole is saying that from Confederation, the conservatives are squarely in the center,

00:14:25.480 who else is to the right?

00:14:28.220 No one.

00:14:29.600 Absolutely no one in that context, in that way.

00:14:33.200 So I'm not exactly clear what is to be celebrated about denying the conservatism of the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:14:42.480 And then to make a link that we condemn the far right.

00:14:45.920 Okay, great.

00:14:46.520 I think condemning the far right is important.

00:14:48.980 I also think you should probably define the far right because we're called far right all the time at True North.

00:14:53.980 Conservative politicians are called far right.

00:14:56.960 So what is the far right?

00:14:58.620 Is the far right anyone that is just to the right of where you think that moderate center position is?

00:15:03.840 But the whole point of this statement was coming about because of a defensive response.

00:15:09.640 It was coming about in a reactionary way because Candace Bergen, who's a lovely woman,

00:15:14.080 the deputy leader of the conservatives, was photographed wearing a mega hat as a gag.

00:15:19.240 And all of a sudden, the conservatives have to condemn the far right.

00:15:23.700 Well, what is it exactly that is being condemned?

00:15:28.780 Because the problem that I'm having is that once again, we are seeing the left call the shots.

00:15:34.100 The left decide to launch a wave of attacks against Candace Bergen, against Aaron O'Toole.

00:15:38.980 What was the other one that they did?

00:15:40.820 Oh, yeah, Aaron O'Toole's interview with Rebel News.

00:15:43.360 That was, again, something that was forcing the conservatives to be on defense.

00:15:47.720 So the leader of the official opposition's office is now condemning in general terms to a question no one is asking, the far right.

00:15:56.140 So what we are seeing is the continued capitulation to the left-wing narrative.

00:16:03.720 Aaron O'Toole, who by all accounts, and by the way, I've had a number of good interactions with him on air and off air.

00:16:10.640 I've had great interviews with him.

00:16:12.180 I think he was saying a lot of the right things during the leadership race.

00:16:15.420 And if he can adopt the platform that he ran on in the leadership in the general, I don't think there's going to be a problem.

00:16:21.640 But I'm seeing some things here that need to be questioned and need to be called out.

00:16:28.340 And when he starts to, again, govern based on what the liberals say he needs to be doing,

00:16:33.820 here's a guy who is not a fire-breathing, hard right, far right guy.

00:16:38.620 Yet he's being criticized by the left for being far right.

00:16:42.760 So now that he has to criticize the far right himself, it becomes very circular.

00:16:49.020 But him not being far right hasn't stopped him from having to say he's not,

00:16:54.180 which I think is a lesson we can all learn and need to learn.

00:16:57.280 And I've been talking about this for years now about the unrelenting nature of the mainstream media,

00:17:03.360 the unrelenting nature of the political left.

00:17:05.880 And, you know, I was planning on talking about another defenestration on today's show

00:17:10.840 before the Derek Sloan defenestration happened.

00:17:13.880 And that was that of Roman Baber, the Ontario MPP,

00:17:17.020 who, again, was kicked out of the PC caucus in Ontario for daring to go against big lockdown.

00:17:24.500 Now, let me say, I've had a number of political disagreements with Roman Baber.

00:17:28.980 And just personally, through contacts I have in the PC caucus can tell you he hasn't historically been well-liked.

00:17:35.120 But even then, the reason he was ejected was because of this thing, not anything else, the way it's said.

00:17:40.740 So he writes a letter asking Doug Ford to end the lockdowns.

00:17:44.340 He makes some very good points.

00:17:45.820 He cites some stats.

00:17:47.200 He says, basically, that we are in a place in this province

00:17:50.320 where the economic harm that is being caused by lockdown cannot be ignored.

00:17:55.060 We've got to open things up.

00:17:57.060 Now, going after your party leader in a public way, I get it.

00:18:00.540 Not the best career move.

00:18:01.720 But even so, Doug Ford is a leader who promised an open and transparent approach and discourse in his caucus.

00:18:08.780 Roman is not in cabinet, was not in cabinet.

00:18:11.200 So it's not like you have to have that cabinet solidarity.

00:18:14.640 And within hours, he is out on the curb, done.

00:18:19.960 Roman Baber kicked out of caucus for the crime of criticizing lockdowns

00:18:24.280 and criticizing Doug Ford's approach to this lockdown.

00:18:28.100 So the thing that I find interesting is that there has been some vindication of this.

00:18:33.440 A letter that came back from the former chief medical officer actually siding with Roman.

00:18:39.060 Dr. Richard Shabbas, who served as chief medical officer of health up until 97,

00:18:45.160 so again, quite a while ago, but still, said that Baber, quote,

00:18:48.320 deserves great credit, unquote, for opening up the discussion on lockdowns.

00:18:53.280 He said, this has never been part of pandemic response.

00:18:56.580 It is not supported by science.

00:18:58.540 And even recent studies show that the effectiveness has at most a small mortality benefit

00:19:04.660 compared to more moderate measures.

00:19:06.700 But both of these studies warned about the excessive cost of lockdowns.

00:19:11.120 And if you look at the charts in Ontario and Quebec, for example,

00:19:15.480 which have among the most strict lockdowns in Canada, Quebec has a curfew.

00:19:20.300 Ontario has a stay-at-home order.

00:19:22.220 The lockdowns have not actually done all that much to so-called flatten the curve.

00:19:27.840 Whereas you look at Alberta, which put in a more modest set of restrictions in December,

00:19:33.060 they actually peaked in December.

00:19:35.920 And we hope it continues to go that way.

00:19:37.620 Alberta has continued to be on the decline, while Ontario and Quebec continue to rise.

00:19:43.580 Now, there are population differences.

00:19:45.600 There are a number of demographic differences in the province.

00:19:48.300 But if you just look at trend lines, the severe lockdowns of Ontario and Quebec did not stop.

00:19:56.680 Because we are weeks into this now.

00:19:58.500 Did not stop the actual line from going in the direction it was headed

00:20:02.160 when the lockdowns were supposedly justified by government.

00:20:05.880 So Roman Baber is right to point this out.

00:20:09.920 Any MPP is right to point this out.

00:20:11.800 That, hey, the lockdowns aren't working.

00:20:13.660 But what they are doing is causing all of these other businesses to go into sharp and steep decline.

00:20:19.120 And then he's gone.

00:20:20.140 He's out.

00:20:20.800 He's out of caucus for this.

00:20:23.500 Now, I ran in 2018.

00:20:25.900 I could have been a member of this caucus.

00:20:27.640 And I've never been so grateful for a failure than I have been about this.

00:20:32.420 Because I could not.

00:20:33.500 And I've said this on the show.

00:20:34.660 I could not sell what is being sold to Ontarians as a cure for the pandemic.

00:20:40.940 I just couldn't.

00:20:42.420 And I have a lot of respect for MPPs that are standing up,

00:20:46.100 or any members of government in Canada,

00:20:47.960 that are standing up and saying,

00:20:49.060 you know what?

00:20:49.540 We have to say stop.

00:20:50.880 It's gone on long enough.

00:20:52.600 Enough is enough.

00:20:53.860 And this is not the way that you save a population.

00:20:57.780 And I know that Alberta has been criticized by a lot of people

00:21:00.780 by putting in very severe restrictions in some ways on the social interaction stuff.

00:21:05.600 But at the same time, the business restrictions,

00:21:08.180 which has been where my focus has mostly been,

00:21:10.620 have been more lax in Alberta than elsewhere.

00:21:13.080 And you should say that because businesses have been allowed,

00:21:15.540 by and large, to stay open with reduced capacity

00:21:17.920 as opposed to shutting down altogether.

00:21:21.060 Now, Alberta went too far, I think, by shutting down personal care services. 1.00

00:21:25.340 Those are starting to come back.

00:21:27.060 It's not perfect.

00:21:28.000 I'm not saying that Alberta is the model that we all want to copy here.

00:21:31.440 But I'm saying that if you stack up all the different provinces and their responses,

00:21:35.400 Alberta is one of the better ones.

00:21:37.940 And I actually talked about this briefly with Jason Kenney this week.

00:21:41.100 He did a press conference.

00:21:42.400 And I asked about this.

00:21:43.360 I said, hang on.

00:21:44.300 We've seen the trend lines.

00:21:45.580 What is it that Alberta is doing that other provinces could do themselves?

00:21:50.740 Or is it just a distinctly Albertan phenomenon what's happening?

00:21:54.360 This is what he said.

00:21:55.740 Next is Andrew Lawton with True North.

00:21:58.460 Go ahead, Andrew.

00:21:59.160 Good morning, Green Mayor.

00:22:01.860 Turning to COVID-19.

00:22:04.020 In Ontario and Quebec, where they have very strict lockdowns,

00:22:07.560 we are seeing a continued rise in cases where, contrasting with Alberta,

00:22:13.120 which had a much less severe set of restrictions,

00:22:16.200 we saw a peak in December that seems to be, we certainly hope,

00:22:19.860 continuing to be on the decline.

00:22:22.340 I'm curious if you can comment as to why you think that is

00:22:25.820 and what there might be in Alberta's approach that could be replicated

00:22:29.140 in other parts of the country.

00:22:32.040 Thanks, Andrew.

00:22:33.180 Well, you know, you can have all the rules in the world,

00:22:35.540 but it doesn't matter if people don't comply with them.

00:22:37.680 And our take on this is that if you put people on sort of indefinite lockdown,

00:22:46.480 there is only so much public patience to respect and comply with rules like that.

00:22:53.180 One of the reasons we have looked at restrictions as a last and limited resort

00:22:57.440 is to maintain public compliance with those guidelines and restrictions.

00:23:07.680 So that people buy into them and hopefully they can be shorter in duration

00:23:14.000 and therefore less destructive in terms of their social and economic impact.

00:23:20.900 So I know we've been heavily criticized by some for looking at restrictions,

00:23:26.560 not as a first choice, but as a last and limited resort.

00:23:31.800 But I think it has served Alberta reasonably well, the approach that we have taken.

00:23:36.440 We began relaxation of the current set of restrictions.

00:23:39.580 In fact, we will begin that this week with some activities.

00:23:42.760 And we will continue to take a careful approach gradually to relaxing those restrictions

00:23:49.320 as long as we continue to see the numbers go in the right direction.

00:23:52.880 I'll remind you, I know there are a lot of Albertans who are understandably frustrated

00:23:57.380 with the restrictions that we currently have.

00:24:00.840 And they often ask me, you know, what's the goal here?

00:24:05.660 And let me restate that goal.

00:24:08.820 The goal is to protect lives and livelihoods.

00:24:13.100 More specifically in Alberta, the goal is to control viral spread

00:24:18.300 so that it does not overwhelm the health care system

00:24:21.920 while minimizing the damage of restrictions on our broader social and economic health.

00:24:28.400 That has always been, our goal has never been to chase after zero.

00:24:33.560 Our goal has never been to eliminate risk because we believe that's a fool's errand in this context,

00:24:38.340 but rather to manage risk.

00:24:41.280 And I want to thank Albertans.

00:24:43.200 There was some poll a couple of weeks ago that said Albertans had the highest level

00:24:47.000 of not socializing over the Christmas holidays.

00:24:51.440 So that's the kind of buy-in that I'm talking about.

00:24:55.160 I was ridiculed by political opponents in the fall

00:24:58.340 for talking about the importance of personal and collective responsibility.

00:25:03.000 This is exactly what I'm talking about.

00:25:05.120 At the end of the day, you can have all the restrictions in the world,

00:25:08.300 try to shut things down, but if people don't respect them, it doesn't matter.

00:25:13.020 And so I want to thank Albertans for respecting the public health guidance

00:25:16.580 as we continue to see the numbers go in the right direction right now.

00:25:19.640 Our goal has never been to chase after zero.

00:25:23.180 Our goal has never been to eliminate risk

00:25:25.100 because we believe that's a fool's errand in this context,

00:25:28.200 but rather to manage risk.

00:25:30.200 A very important message there from Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

00:25:34.140 We've got to take a break.

00:25:35.120 We'll be back with more of The Andrew Lawton Show in just a moment.

00:25:37.900 Stay tuned.

00:25:41.140 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:25:47.120 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:25:49.320 I'm going to be speaking about freedom of expression and free speech later on in the show,

00:25:54.160 but I wanted to do a bit of a recall of a topic I addressed on the show last week,

00:25:59.600 which was the Liberal government still deciding to steamroll ahead

00:26:03.740 with a plan to regulate social media content.

00:26:06.700 And we have a little bit more information about this now than we did last week.

00:26:10.720 There was a story in the Globe and Mail that had some government sources

00:26:14.020 that were speaking about it.

00:26:16.080 This is actually far worse than I could have imagined for a few reasons.

00:26:21.540 And just the refresher on this is that the government wants to put in legislation

00:26:26.000 that's going to force social media companies to censor user content,

00:26:30.860 or if they don't, regulate them, fine them, penalize them in some way.

00:26:35.100 So the problem with this is that if you think big tech censorship is bad

00:26:39.260 and you think government censorship is bad,

00:26:41.520 this is government-empowered big tech censorship,

00:26:45.160 which means that big tech is the one dropping the hammer,

00:26:48.520 but government's the rationale behind it.

00:26:51.080 But because it's being done by a private company,

00:26:53.260 you can't actually appeal it.

00:26:54.840 There's no due process.

00:26:56.080 You can't really challenge it.

00:26:57.340 And companies like Facebook and Twitter

00:26:59.880 that don't want to be fined or penalized by the government

00:27:03.100 are just going to have a very broad interpretation

00:27:06.700 of what they have to get rid of.

00:27:08.740 So you have a liberal government that wants to go after online hate

00:27:12.400 despite the fact that hate speech is already illegal,

00:27:14.740 and they haven't actually defined what else they want to prohibit beyond that.

00:27:20.000 So if you were around when the Canadian Human Rights Commission

00:27:23.200 was prosecuting people under Section 13,

00:27:25.820 it was basically the thought crime provision of Canadian human rights law,

00:27:30.500 you'll know why this is such a dangerous area for government to be involved in.

00:27:35.160 But this Globe and Mail story has some more details,

00:27:37.680 one in particular that jumps out.

00:27:39.600 The Canadian legislation could be introduced in Parliament

00:27:42.240 as soon as February or March.

00:27:44.280 It's expected to be influenced by measures already in place in other countries,

00:27:48.160 such as Germany, which requires social media platforms

00:27:50.940 to remove illegal content under tight deadlines

00:27:54.100 and the threat of financial penalties.

00:27:56.740 In a Canadian context,

00:27:58.560 this will likely involve the creation of a new government regulator.

00:28:03.920 So not only do we have government going after your speech,

00:28:08.980 but we also have government creating a new bureaucracy in the process,

00:28:13.440 which is the one thing no government ever needs more of.

00:28:16.600 More regulators, more agencies, more bureaucrats.

00:28:19.060 So not only are we going to have online censorship thanks to the government,

00:28:23.340 but we're also going to have government spending,

00:28:25.100 which is just like adding insult to injury and the icing on the cake, as they say.

00:28:29.960 This is a story that I just want to touch on very briefly

00:28:33.220 that shows the absurdity of the era in which we live.

00:28:36.760 Hells Angels-affiliated members pick up over $32,000 in fines

00:28:40.620 for illegally gathering in January.

00:28:43.040 This is in Montreal, where officers in Quebec's provincial police's organized crime squad

00:28:47.860 have broken up gatherings of people affiliated with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club,

00:28:52.960 and they haven't gotten them on drug trafficking or human trafficking

00:28:56.820 or any of the other litany of crimes the biker gangs are involved in,

00:29:00.420 but they've gotten them on violating the COVID-19 restrictions.

00:29:04.720 This is like the modern equivalent of getting Al Capone on tax evasion, I think.

00:29:09.040 It reminds me of that story back in, I think, April when a Hamilton drug dealer

00:29:12.680 was busted for running a non-essential business during the COVID lockdown.

00:29:17.560 So this is what it's come to now.

00:29:19.220 They're getting the biker gangs on violating lockdowns, violating curfew, 1.00

00:29:23.100 not on, you know, the other illegal stuff.

00:29:25.840 Oh boy, we've got to take a break.

00:29:27.380 When we come back, talking about the financial benefit of free speech

00:29:30.720 here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:29:32.400 Stay tuned.

00:29:35.660 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:29:39.040 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:29:44.820 We often talk about free speech and press freedom as being important on their own.

00:29:50.680 They're important because they're values of liberty that we all treasure.

00:29:54.140 But it turns out there may be an economic argument for them as well.

00:29:58.060 A new report from the Montreal Economic Institute says that you could actually end up with more money.

00:30:03.700 The average Canadian could be richer by $2,552 annually if Canada had more freedom of expression.

00:30:11.920 We'll talk about how we get to that number with Maria Lillie-Shaw,

00:30:15.700 who's an economist with the Montreal Economic Institute and one of the co-authors of Canada,

00:30:20.480 must do more to protect and encourage freedom of expression.

00:30:24.480 Maria, thank you for joining me today.

00:30:26.480 Thank you for having me.

00:30:27.920 So this is an interesting one.

00:30:30.040 And when I first saw the headline, I admittedly was curious about how we get there.

00:30:34.140 You actually looked at a whole bunch of countries all around the world

00:30:37.420 and found that you could actually draw a line between more money in people's pockets

00:30:42.340 and more press freedom.

00:30:43.600 How is that?

00:30:45.220 Exactly.

00:30:45.800 Well, as you know, freedom of expression is extremely important in democratic societies like ours.

00:30:50.920 Canada ranks fairly well internationally.

00:30:52.940 We're in the top 20, according to the independent analysis that we looked at.

00:30:56.620 But we know we can do better.

00:30:57.880 So and frankly, it's hard not to feel like we're losing ground

00:31:00.580 when we see the climate of censorship that's taking hold of our universities and the general public.

00:31:05.080 So in light of this, we asked ourselves if there was an economic angle that could be interesting

00:31:09.000 that we could explore that would allow us to truly display the clear link between freedom of speech

00:31:14.120 and economic growth.

00:31:15.320 So surely enough, by doing the math, we were able to estimate that Canada's GDP per person,

00:31:20.400 like you said, could increase by over $2,500 if we defended freedom of speech as well as the

00:31:26.640 number one country does on our ranking.

00:31:29.020 And right now, the number one country is Norway.

00:31:31.680 So what is it that Norway does differently than Canada?

00:31:35.180 Or did you not go down into that depth?

00:31:37.180 Because I know it's difficult when you are looking at so many different countries.

00:31:40.040 No, we did actually ask ourselves what Norway does differently than us.

00:31:44.420 And well, the Norwegians basically made it a priority to strengthen their freedom of expression

00:31:48.620 in tangible ways.

00:31:50.000 So it's standard practice for politicians in Norway to make constant efforts to better protect

00:31:55.280 their freedom of expression.

00:31:56.960 And just a few years ago, the country armed itself with an action plan to better promote

00:32:01.220 media independence and increase government transparency.

00:32:04.640 And by comparison, Canada is doing less and less to fight censorship.

00:32:08.100 As we see, the government can arbitrarily subsidize one media outlet rather than the other, which

00:32:13.580 can undermine media independence and make the information less reliable or biased.

00:32:19.340 So and that's not to mention that it's increasingly difficult to get information from our governments

00:32:23.800 right now.

00:32:24.420 And these examples are only part of the differences that exist between Canada and Norway right now.

00:32:30.500 And you've actually used as a proxy here media freedom for broader freedom of expression,

00:32:36.860 correct?

00:32:38.100 Yeah, exactly.

00:32:39.240 Because when we talk about freedom of speech, it's actually very closely linked to the freedom

00:32:43.980 of the press.

00:32:44.860 So there are also other criteria that we have to consider, such as government transparency,

00:32:48.960 media independence, violence towards the press as well.

00:32:51.780 So when we say we want to improve freedom of expression, we actually want to encourage an

00:32:56.000 environment or an infrastructure that facilitates the production and dissemination of news and

00:33:01.380 information.

00:33:01.840 How do we know that this isn't just an issue of the countries that are very much open to

00:33:08.140 press freedom are also doing other things?

00:33:10.300 They're predisposed to other things that are causing that economic growth.

00:33:14.300 How can we draw the line between the two?

00:33:16.020 It's hard to know.

00:33:17.840 You're right.

00:33:18.300 But when we did look at the overall picture of our sample, which included over 130 countries,

00:33:24.180 when we looked at those who ranked the lowest, meaning those who have a very weak performance

00:33:29.180 in terms of freedom of speech, they're often authoritarian countries, of course.

00:33:33.520 But they're also those who have the lowest GDP per capita.

00:33:37.380 And so the population in those countries not only suffer from poor economic conditions,

00:33:42.040 but they also have very high unemployment, very high infant mortality rates, and a low

00:33:46.600 GDP.

00:33:47.680 So that's where we basically drew the line.

00:33:51.320 Yeah.

00:33:51.460 And this is actually coming at a really important point.

00:33:54.160 We talked about this on the show last week, that the Canadian government is looking at even

00:33:58.140 more restrictions.

00:33:59.360 So not going the direction that you're saying we should go, but the opposite way on online

00:34:04.160 freedom of expression, which we know is potentially a recipe for disaster.

00:34:08.860 In fact, I don't see how it can be anything but that.

00:34:11.100 So it does seem like we're backsliding here.

00:34:14.540 Exactly.

00:34:15.060 And what appears to be, let's say, unusual is that now it's the younger generation that

00:34:19.360 seems to want to censor the older generation, or let's say it's the students that are kind

00:34:23.040 of standing up and saying what they don't like or what they don't like what they're

00:34:26.100 hearing.

00:34:26.580 And when it goes that way, it's kind of worrisome, because there are grave consequences when

00:34:31.080 it comes to the climate of censorship, like I said, that's taking hold of our universities.

00:34:35.340 And the example of the GDP per capita is only one example of what we're losing by not protecting

00:34:41.020 it more.

00:34:42.480 Yeah.

00:34:42.680 And it's important to note that while you have quantified the benefit in this, if we were

00:34:47.600 to go down a road of having more press freedom, there would also be a better human freedom,

00:34:52.800 which is not as easily quantifiable, but there are other benefits to living in a freer country.

00:34:58.300 Of course.

00:34:59.220 Like I said earlier, Norway making it a priority.

00:35:02.560 The fact that the politicians are making a constant effort to better protect their freedom

00:35:06.500 of expression means that the citizens can also speak out and say what they like and what

00:35:11.380 they don't like.

00:35:11.860 So the policies that they come out with are, by default, better adapted to what their population

00:35:17.400 wants.

00:35:18.000 So that's another way to see how our standard of life is also at stake here with the censorship.

00:35:24.280 Now, what are some of the tangibles that you've included that you think would actually get

00:35:28.300 us on that road to having more press freedom and thus having that more $2,500 more in our

00:35:35.540 pockets?

00:35:36.800 Well, we put forward three concrete recommendations that could improve our freedom of speech and

00:35:41.300 therefore improve our standard of living.

00:35:43.280 And the first being to create a regulatory and fiscal framework that's favorable to all

00:35:49.000 media rather than just dishing out subsidies rather randomly to one or the other.

00:35:53.600 The second being to encourage universities to promote freedom of expression in order to

00:35:58.320 allow their faculty and their students to speak freely without fear of repercussion.

00:36:03.020 And the last one is to increase transparency by reducing the need to make requests for access

00:36:08.580 to information.

00:36:09.940 Yeah.

00:36:10.560 And the last one isn't the sexiest of topics, but it is a significant issue.

00:36:15.820 I mean, any journalist I know, certainly any independent journalist, and I include myself

00:36:19.960 in this category, has had access to information requests that have, in some cases, taken years.

00:36:25.660 And some departments are notoriously bad about this, like the RCMP.

00:36:29.860 But it's very difficult to hold a government to account when the government is saying, no,

00:36:34.280 we're very open.

00:36:35.060 We have access to information.

00:36:36.220 But in practice, that isn't actually working.

00:36:39.260 Exactly.

00:36:39.780 And it has happened to us in the past.

00:36:41.420 I mean, in June, we did make a request for access to information.

00:36:44.220 And we haven't had a response.

00:36:46.280 All we had are emails saying, OK, the response will be delayed.

00:36:49.340 But we've never actually gotten our answer.

00:36:51.540 So it has happened to us as well.

00:36:53.200 And I can't imagine the number of journalists that have done the same and that have gone

00:36:57.120 without answer as well for all these months at a time.

00:36:59.600 There is a delay that the government is supposed to respect.

00:37:02.760 If I'm not mistaken, it's three months.

00:37:04.500 Forgive me if I'm wrong.

00:37:05.400 But still, in any case, they have surpassed this delay by many, many months.

00:37:10.060 Yeah.

00:37:10.240 And the university aspect is an important one as well.

00:37:12.920 We saw in Ontario the new government—well, it's not new anymore, but at the time in

00:37:17.960 2018, the new conservative government put in a policy that said any university that

00:37:23.080 didn't have a statement that was affirming freedom of expression could be regulated and

00:37:28.700 could have their funding affected.

00:37:30.740 And that never ended up happening.

00:37:32.160 I mean, universities put it forward, but we still have stories of university censorship.

00:37:36.720 So there hasn't actually been a firm policy that does what you're recommending, which

00:37:41.080 is actually seriously promoting and protect what are supposed to be inalienable rights

00:37:46.180 on publicly funded campuses.

00:37:49.040 Exactly.

00:37:49.720 And the controversy at the University of Ottawa is just one example.

00:37:53.940 It's a very sad example.

00:37:55.080 But still, as you said, there's no very clear and concrete policy that has been put into

00:37:59.740 place that is easy to respect and enforce.

00:38:01.940 So we're kind of still waiting on that to see if the government has any other moves up

00:38:06.540 its sleeve.

00:38:08.120 We hope so, because if there isn't freedom of expression in universities, I'm afraid of

00:38:12.180 where we're going, because that's where the ideas are supposed to flow.

00:38:14.680 That's where innovation is supposed to happen.

00:38:17.360 Very much so.

00:38:18.280 I'm just curious, Maria, when you set out on this study with your colleague, did you expect

00:38:22.820 that you'd find such a decisive number?

00:38:25.960 Did you expect that there would be such a visible difference between less free countries

00:38:30.480 and more free countries on this economic criterion?

00:38:34.840 Well, we didn't really know what to expect.

00:38:37.600 We were very glad to see that the number was interesting.

00:38:40.180 We wanted this piece to interest many people.

00:38:44.620 The $2,500 per person was something we were quite excited about, and the fact that we can

00:38:49.300 actually present this and say, you know, there's concrete ways to increase our standard

00:38:54.060 of living if we at least make it easier to say our ideas in public or in school.

00:39:00.780 So our expectations were low in the sense that we didn't have any, but we were hoping to find

00:39:06.080 something very interesting.

00:39:07.280 And the $2,500 per year is actually, for every ranking we go up, so let's say right now we're

00:39:14.260 in 18th position, if we were to become the 17th country on that list, we would gain $150

00:39:19.540 per person per year.

00:39:21.200 So it's every time we go up a place, we gain something.

00:39:24.100 So even the smallest detail, even the smallest little policy could make a difference for

00:39:29.300 every Canadian.

00:39:30.160 Do we find that freedoms tend to go hand in hand, that countries that are better on press

00:39:34.800 freedom are better on economic freedom, are better on other forms of liberty?

00:39:40.380 Yeah, well, just as the lowest ranking countries had a very poor economic condition and high

00:39:47.160 unemployment rate and infant mortality rates.

00:39:49.000 It was kind of the opposite for those who had a very high ranking in terms of freedom

00:39:53.300 of expression.

00:39:53.900 So they had very high GDP.

00:39:56.460 The education level was higher as well.

00:39:59.940 Their unemployment was lower.

00:40:01.920 And this was before COVID.

00:40:03.520 The information was taken.

00:40:06.260 Very interesting.

00:40:07.320 Well, again, I mean, we've covered media freedom a great deal on this show and will continue

00:40:10.760 to.

00:40:11.100 And it's good to know there's an economic basis for wanting more of it as well.

00:40:14.900 Well, Maria Lily-Shaw, one of the co-authors of this report with the Montreal Economic Institute,

00:40:20.400 it is called Canada Must Do More to Protect and Encourage Freedom of Expression.

00:40:24.680 Maria, thank you so much for coming on.

00:40:26.240 Really fascinating.

00:40:27.620 Thank you so much.

00:40:29.840 This is great.

00:40:30.680 I mean, it used to be, and I have made this comment on the show in the past, that people

00:40:35.220 had enough of an appreciation for free speech that if you could say to them, well, that would

00:40:39.820 actually challenge free speech, they would say, oh, well, you're right.

00:40:42.320 Therefore, I don't like it.

00:40:43.700 Whereas now, I mean, free speech is a tool of the patriarchy.

00:40:47.140 It's white supremacist.

00:40:48.200 It's privileged.

00:40:48.940 It's all of that.

00:40:49.900 So you can't even really deal in facts in some cases.

00:40:53.560 Now, it stands to reason that people who don't care about the facts on one level probably

00:40:57.480 won't care about an economic argument because, you know, well, you know how the left is on

00:41:01.880 economics, but it's a whole topic for another show.

00:41:05.140 But it is interesting that, you know, countries can take a step forward because a lot of these

00:41:09.400 would not cost anything.

00:41:11.080 I mean, you could reform access to information by maybe spending a little bit more to have

00:41:15.560 better resource departments, but we're not talking about billions of dollars here, and

00:41:19.560 this would make Canada more free.

00:41:21.540 You can actually save money by taking the funding away from public universities that don't respect

00:41:26.100 free speech, and you either save money or you just gain more freedom and spend the same

00:41:30.700 amount.

00:41:31.500 Again, something you could do.

00:41:33.060 So a lot of these things are not economically restricted, but are really coming down to a lack

00:41:38.940 of willpower.

00:41:41.420 Provincial, even municipal governments say, you know what?

00:41:44.060 Free speech is important.

00:41:45.480 It is.

00:41:46.020 And now it would make Canadians a bit more money.

00:41:48.300 So that's even better.

00:41:49.180 The icing on the cake, as they say.

00:41:50.980 My thanks again to Maria Lily Shaw and the Montreal Economic Institute.

00:41:55.160 We'll be back in just a couple of days with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show

00:41:59.540 here on True North.

00:42:00.760 Thank you.

00:42:01.260 God bless.

00:42:01.780 And good day, Canada.

00:42:02.540 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:04.880 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - January 19, 2021

The Defenestration Nation

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