The New Book Burners
Episode Stats
Words per minute
182.96971
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
sentences flagged
Hate speech
7
sentences flagged
Summary
In the first episode of the new year, Andrew Lawton discusses the push by activists in the LGBTQ+ community to have a book removed from a public library in Halifax, Canada, because they don't like the thesis of the book, Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schreier.
Transcript
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Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, Halifax Libraries stand for free speech, lockdown double standards, and government prosecution of a church again.
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Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, Tuesday, June 1st, 2021.
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If you are a long-time listener to the show, you know we are all about freedom of speech here.
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It is the most essential freedom because it's the freedom that allows you to tackle all of the other issues you may want to in a society.
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One is the legal right to free speech, that government is not going to kick in your door and arrest you for saying whatever it is you want to say.
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The other more important dialogue, in a lot of ways, is the cultural free speech mentality.
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The idea that we in society uphold the fact that, yes, we can have disagreements, and that is not something to shy away from.
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That I can think what I think, you can think what you think.
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It's when threats against the two are combined together that so many problems tend to happen.
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Take a look at a lot of the discussion around what the liberals want to do with the internet.
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But there's been a bit of a victory for free speech, in a way.
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And I say this with bated breath, understanding that a lot of the time when this happens,
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In Halifax, there is a push underway to strip a book from the library because a group of activists don't like that book's thesis.
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The debate involves Abigail Schreier's bestseller, Irreversible Damage, the Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
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She's meticulously researched her point, and she takes a position that may be different than what a lot of activists think.
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But you have to give other people who want to read that book the opportunity to do so if they seek it out.
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A community petition was launched trying to strip this book from the shelves of the Halifax Public Library.
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There are activists like Chris Cochran, who's the vice chair of Pride's board of directors, and the transgender and non-binary committee lead.
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And Chris Cochran says, as a trans person, I'm not going to debate my existence, and this book is definitely debating the existence of trans people.
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If I can parse that one sentence for a moment, Cochran says they are not going to debate their existence.
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Even if it's true that the book debates trans people's existence, which, by the way, is disputed.
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A trans person here on Twitter, Debbie Hayton, says,
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No, Abigail Schreier's book does not debate our existence.
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Halifax libraries are right to carry it, and we should all just ignore Halifax Pride's little tantrum.
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But going back to Cochran's point, Cochran may think that the book debates their existence,
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but that doesn't mean Cochran has to engage in such a debate.
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Cochran can do what presumably has been done since the book came out, which is ignore it or talk about why the book might be wrong.
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But don't deny other people the right to access.
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This is something that is so fundamental and self-evident.
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And if you look at what actually started this campaign, it was, according to CBC,
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the person who started the petition noticing that 25 people had placed the book on hold.
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So 25 people in the entire city of Halifax wanted to read a book.
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And that was enough to get a petition because, well,
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we can't allow anyone to think anything apart from the activist-driven orthodoxy on trans issues or any other issues.
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But there's some good news to this I said earlier, and that is that Halifax has thus far not caved.
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The library is standing firm saying it will not be censoring the book.
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Free access to information and ideas is a democratic right of every citizen.
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Public libraries ensure this right by providing the public with opportunities
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to participate fully in a changing society through access to a wide range of humanity's thoughts,
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ideas, information, and expression of the creative imagination.
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We have assessed the book against Halifax Public Library's collection development policy
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and the Canadian Federation of Library Associations' statement on intellectual freedom
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and have made the decision to not censor the book.
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And the statement goes on to say that the library has a commitment to open dialogue and intellectual freedom.
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And I will say it is good that libraries have been very much on the right side of this generally
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We've seen stories in British Columbia where libraries have not landed on the right side of this.
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But also some tremendously courageous librarians,
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who in October 2019 was unapologetic in her decision as Toronto's top librarian to allow Megan Murphy,
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who's also been critical of the trans narrative pushed forward by activists,
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to allow Megan Murphy the right to speak at a public venue,
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when a group wanted to book out a room and have her speak.
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And the cancel mob tried to subject Vickery Bowles to all of its worst as it does
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But what's notable about this is that people eventually move on.
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A lot of people who are facing down the activist mobs make the mistake of thinking
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that the activist mob is actually going to stop whenever it gets what it wants.
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The nature of this mob is that they look for fights.
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They aren't interested in just these little isolated things that they may pick up,
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that they may talk about as though they're the end of the world.
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They're interested in the aggregate of all of them.
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because these activist groups tend to get a lot of momentum going.
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it tends to balloon into three or four and five.
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which is why it's so notable when the Halifax Library stands up and says,
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It isn't just one or two people connected with Pride
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that are saying they don't want the book there, the organization itself.
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is tremendously significant in terms of its size and clout.
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they will not have a relationship with the library.
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They won't book any library spaces until this is resolved
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with some combination of internal review, policy change, and training.
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So that, I think, is in and of itself revealing.
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They want to make sure that no transcritical book
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and if it is, that the library will never have it.
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I am not for a second comparing Abigail Schreier to Hitler.
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Sorry for the fulfillment of Godwin's Law to even invoke this.
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But I know when book publishers are talking about Mein Kampf,
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this debate comes up about whether it's important to have
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as a historic record and not as an endorsement.
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And I'm actually a firm believer in completeness in that sense.
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It's important to have access to all forms of books
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because every single book that's written and published
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You don't need to agree with the point to read the book
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So if a library were to want to have Mein Kampf, for example,
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I would not support a Jewish group protesting it
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because I would say, listen, that book is a part of history.
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If you want to start talking about burning books,
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which is basically the equivalent of trying to strip a book
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from a library shelf so people don't have the ability to access it,
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especially since Abigail Schreier's book has been deplatformed
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I think Amazon for a time, perhaps even now to this point,
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It is very easy for me to sleep at night with my position
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And I don't need to debate the contents of individual books.
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you don't need to go line by line and audit every single book
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because you're concerned about the message that book might send.
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I probably disagree with, I don't know, 80 to 90% of the books
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that are out there making a political point or a religious point.
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I disagree with the Koran because I'm a Christian.
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They disagree with the Bible because they're Muslim.
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Now, agreement does not have to be the standard
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is that a lot of these trans activists are saying
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which from all the people that have read this book
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But their response is to deny this author's right to exist,
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And good on Halifax Public Library for standing up for it.
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Just to pivot for a moment to another example of this,
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there was a story in my city, in London, Ontario,
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some incident in which he put on at a cancer fundraiser
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the hair of a black student to pose for some silly little video.
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The video went viral in the school, apparently.
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And two years later, in 2021, this happened in 2019,
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in 2021, Black Lives Matter seizes this, publishes the video,
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and all of a sudden you've got people from all corners of society
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and it doesn't sound like actually bothered the students
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as a weapon in the war they were already waging.
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And the sooner we all realize that's what they're doing,
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Last week on the show, I talked a little bit about
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Ontario's reopening plan that doesn't actually involve
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I got a lot of feedback on that, mostly negative.
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Not negative towards me, but negative towards Ontario,
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who, just to give you a bit of a refresh on this,
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the final step, the final step in the reopening plan
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that's been put out says expanding access to indoor settings
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with restrictions, including where there are larger numbers
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of people and where face coverings can't always been worn.
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So yes, Ontario's reopening plan is going to work up to eventually
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some sports and rec facilities, indoor dining, museums, art galleries,
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And of course, they're not sharing what those restrictions are going to be.
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Now, looking at Quebec's restrictions, they are a lot slower in nature.
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They've finally released the curfew that was imposed for several months time.
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On June 11th, they're going to allow patios to open.
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On June 25th, they're going to allow day camps and some more outdoor activities in advance.
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And by the end of August or later, which should never give anyone in Quebec any encouragement,
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the end of August or later, progressive relief,
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depending on the epidemiological situation and vaccination coverage,
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if 75% of those aged 12 years or over have received a second dose.
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They're talking about a progressive return, a gradual return at the end of August or later,
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but they're requiring three quarters of the population to have had two doses of the vaccine,
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Now, Ontario says on the surface level that it's using vaccination stats as the baseline here.
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But as I pointed out on the weekend, there is a bit of a disconnect here because on one hand,
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They've already had 65% of people get their first dose when we're supposed to be in step one,
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which in and of itself is nothing to be too thrilled about when that's supposed to kick in at 60%.
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So they're kind of making it up as they go here,
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which is why we saw the flip-flop this week with the Toronto Maple Leafs
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and Montreal Canadiens game at the Scotiabank Centre in Toronto.
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Game seven, which I'm told is significant in hockey.
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This is the first and last time, by the way, I will ever do a hockey story on this show
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because the more I talk about it, the more I'm going to say something that makes absolutely no sense.
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However, initially, there was a proposal to allow fully vaccinated health care workers
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who, again, have been working away for the last 15 months to go to this game, have fun.
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There was a huge wave of criticism towards the province.
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And like 14 hours later, the province flipped on this and said 550 fully vaccinated frontline health care workers,
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including hospital and long-term care staff, will be invited to attend game seven of the series
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between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena tonight.
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So they found a way to actually break their own law to respond to public pressure and allow this.
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I have no issue with health care workers going to a sporting event.
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I have no issue with that sporting event taking place.
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My issue has been why can't everything else go on?
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Just like I talked a couple of months back about the double standard between churches,
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which have been shut down by governments, and churches being used as film sets, which have been opened up,
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my view on this, and still to this day, is that anything that can be done safely should be done safely.
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So if we're allowing health care workers to gather in a sporting venue,
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why can't we allow other people to gather in sporting venues?
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If we're allowing film sets to film in churches, why can't we let churches open?
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I'm going to be speaking in a couple of moments' time with Lisa Bildy of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,
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which is having fewer than 550 people come together in its parking lot for services
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and still facing relentless charges and prosecution from the Ontario government.
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And what's more, we had on the weekend a worship in the square in Waterloo.
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Four pastors, including Jacob Rayome and Michael Thiessen and Aaron Rock,
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who came together and said, we're going to just have worship outside in Waterloo.
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I would bet there's not going to be a single documented transmission of COVID that comes from this event.
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And to be clear, I haven't learned of any charges taking place.
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So I don't want to jinx it for the folks in Waterloo that gathered together and had worship.
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But the point is that people are starting to see through all of these measures,
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COVID cases, if you use those as the benchmark, as the government does, continue to go down.
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Outdoor transmission has been proven to be negligible or non-existent, depending on the study, and even indoor.
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We're talking about a venue here that takes thousands and thousands of people.
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And the government was at first saying, no, we can't allow 550 in,
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So this actually proves they have to be somewhat responsive to bad PR.
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Although that hasn't really worked with all of the anti-lockdown bad PR that the government's been getting from people
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For pretty much all of the last six months, Toronto has been in lockdown.
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Other cities, other jurisdictions have had a bit of a different story here.
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But in Canada, we were promised that one dose summer without really anyone articulating what that would look like.
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Doug Ford has come out and said Ontario gets to have a two-dose summer.
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Based on what we know about upcoming shipments,
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everyone in Ontario who wants a vaccine could be fully vaccinated by the end of August.
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But that two-dose summer isn't really going to do anything
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if the restrictions, as the Ontario roadmap suggests, are going to be in place indefinitely.
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A reopening plan has to actually have reopening.
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And not just in a one-off, isolated situation to make the media happy
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but by actually reopening and letting everyone else in the province do the same thing.
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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Another day in Canada, which means still more attempts by government,
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specifically in Ontario, to go after churches for wanting to assemble
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as the Constitution guarantees and as their faiths have commanded them to for generations.
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Most notably, we see this happening in Elmer, Ontario with the Church of God.
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We've had the pastor there, Pastor Henry Hildebrandt, on the show in the past.
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And this week, the Church of God was back in court again at the behest of the Ontario government,
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trying to impose more penalties, more findings of contempt.
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And the judge, after a relatively short hearing,
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had actually imposed tens of thousands of dollars more in fines on the church and on its pastor.
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a lawyer with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.
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Lisa, good to have you back. Thanks for coming on today.
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So this was, I mean, as far as the long-standing back and forth we've seen on this case,
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was there anything particularly unique about this hearing,
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or was it just, you know, another round of fines?
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Well, it was a little bit different in that it feels like things are maybe settling down a little bit.
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And even though we were back in court on, you know, contempt proceedings, which is a very serious matter,
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the last time we did this, the government made sure to tell the court all about all the transgressions
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and, you know, right to the last minute telling about any other subsequent services that had happened
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And I thought that was interesting, and I noted it in court,
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that basically when they had their service on May 16th,
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which is what we were talking about in the contempt proceedings today,
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And then there were two more services, and there were more people in attendance.
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And so it seems like, as a public health measure, this isn't really working.
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the more people want to turn up and show their support.
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And so, you know, I think it's interesting that it felt a little bit more subdued this time.
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And I do hope that, especially as we're moving into the summer
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and things are starting to open up a little bit more, hopefully,
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and more outdoor services are going to be permitted in the near future,
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that the temperature will be turned down on all of this.
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I know it came up at the hearing a week and a half ago,
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which ultimately was the one that was adjourned to today.
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And the judge had mentioned, you know, there's not much more that can be done.
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We can keep putting these fines on, but if the church is going to keep continuing to assemble
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and having these services, which are now outdoor, the government has limited means on this.
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So in a lot of ways, is the government kind of conceding?
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I know that was the judge that said that, but is the government conceding that
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this is sort of just going to be this repetitive process?
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And that might be why, as you've just said, it's losing a bit of steam?
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Well, it could be this repetitive process, but they also could escalate things.
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And they could make this criminal contempt, and they could seek to have the pastor put in jail.
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But I think probably most people recognize now, and we've done this a few times in Alberta,
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it doesn't necessarily solve the problem, and it absolutely hardens people's positions.
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And in fact, probably triggers more people to say, you know, what's going on?
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Is this really a public health crisis, or is there something else going on?
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One comment the judge made at the hearing that stood out was that
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Pastor Hildebrandt has positioned himself as, and I'm quoting directly here,
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And then he went on to say there are consequences that must flow from that.
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And that, to me, seems to reinforce what you've said in court in the past,
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which is that the government does really seem to be targeting this particular church.
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I mean, we've learned of rallies that have been taking place elsewhere for any number of causes
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But they are continuing, or have been up until this week,
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to really devote a disproportionate amount of energy on this particular church and this particular pastor.
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Well, it certainly seems that way, and certainly to him.
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You know, there have been other rallies, as you know.
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And in the affidavit that I had quickly scrambled to put together,
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at the last minute before the hearing, when they first, the government had brought this,
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the government had brought a motion the morning of the court date that we were supposed to respond to.
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So I had thrown together an affidavit that had some articles about the recent Palestinian protests.
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And, of course, those aren't subject to court order.
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But the reason they're not subject to court order is because nobody's bothered to ticket them
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But they have done that with a couple of the churches.
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And so I've been told, and so I didn't raise them in my submissions today,
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but, you know, that the judge isn't interested in hearing about, you know, what's going on with other protests.
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And so really, you know, the arguments that I can make in this context are extremely limited,
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and they were, because really it's kind of an open and shut case.
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And I think it's relevant to the broader question of if we're trying to protect,
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preserve the judicial integrity, the judicial system's integrity, the rule of law,
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we can't have certain rules applying to some people and not to others,
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because the people who are being targeted are, of course, going to take the position
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that they're being particularly singled out, that they're being oppressed by it.
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So it is important in a system that is grounded on the rule of law that there be equality of treatment.
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Now, I'm not saying that there should be fines for the people who are attending the Palestinian protests.
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They have a good cause, perhaps, that they want to protest it, in their view, or not.
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I mean, you know, that's part of the living in a democracy.
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People get to express, through peaceful protests, their views, and whether you agree with them or not.
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So, you know, I'm all for them having the right to protest, but there shouldn't be a double standard.
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And looking forward here, we know that the government has had the doors of the church locked.
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This is why, I mean, the weather's getting nicer, so it works out well,
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that if the church is very much passionate and dedicated about having outdoor services,
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it's a little bit more tenable now than it would have been, say, in mid-January.
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But long term, we're starting to see some restrictions ease in Ontario,
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and I say that with some reticence, and it's a topic that we've covered in different contexts on this show.
00:25:02.440
But suppose the restrictions lift to such a point that it would be viable and lawful
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in the government's eyes for the church to assemble inside.
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Are those locks automatically going to come off?
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Not automatically, but if we get to the point where we're allowed to have at least 30% occupancy in the building,
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we have a court-ordered right to come back to court on two days' notice in order to try and change the order.
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I don't think that they want to be, you know, the judge doesn't want to be unnecessarily punitive to the church.
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They're not trying to keep them out forever, but as we argued in a previous hearing,
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when it was at 30%, there really weren't enforcement issues,
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and so that seems to be a good threshold for allowing them to return inside their building.
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But unfortunately, you know, the government hasn't really laid out a framework that shows us
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when this is going to be done or whether it's ever going to be done.
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And what's going to happen in the fall is, you know, it's still very uncertain.
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I mean, I don't think we're through the woods on all of this yet,
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I mean, are you, I know you don't want to be in the prediction game necessarily,
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but from what you were saying at the beginning of the interview,
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that it seems like some of the heat's coming off,
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are you thinking that this is going to continue,
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this sort of, you know, lifting the foot off the gas pedal,
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Well, I don't know for sure, and I can't predict,
00:26:30.500
It seems like maybe people all need a breather all around.
00:26:41.760
the more that people, the more they're enforced against,
00:26:45.500
So maybe it's to their benefit on some strange level
00:26:50.520
and as Pastor Hildebrand has said in his services,
00:26:53.120
you know, they're coming and they're, you know,
00:26:58.200
His job, as he sees it, is to save souls, right?
00:27:10.000
to keep us coming back into court week after week after week.
00:27:13.800
It probably, it doesn't solve the public health issue.
0.95
00:27:16.140
It doesn't protect the integrity of the system,
00:27:39.560
You know, the relationship between the community
00:27:51.940
You know, these are guys walking around with guns,
00:27:56.160
and they need to earn the trust of their community
00:28:04.440
where they've got drones flying over the church
00:28:21.920
I know we talked last time you were on the show
00:28:33.540
So still a considerable period of time between now.
00:28:43.160
can point to these services they've been having
00:28:49.800
public health challenges or outbreaks from this?
00:28:53.800
when these are going to a full hearing on the merits?
00:29:02.560
is allegedly to control the spread of outbreaks.
00:29:10.640
have not really kept pace with what we've learned.
00:29:17.140
that asymptomatic spread is really not a concern.
00:29:20.840
It's not something in a meta-analysis of 54 studies,
00:29:38.340
where you're getting rid of a lot of the variables.
00:29:43.900
asymptomatic spread was found only to occur 0.7% of the time.
00:29:55.420
you know, we have to be fearful of healthy people
00:29:57.580
because they may unknowingly be spreading the virus.
00:30:17.620
So the fact that the churches have been largely,
00:30:27.080
I think it's going to be very relevant evidence.
00:30:30.060
And of course, we'll have our expert evidence as well
00:30:42.240
But when the government has positioned everything
00:31:18.960
as I think I joked with Lisa last time we had her on,
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00:32:00.560
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.