Juno News - The pandemic is over when Canadians say it is

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.

00:00:12.740 Coming up, the demonization of the unvaccinated.

00:00:15.340 Quebec weighs a three-dose vaccine passport and Aaron O'Toole's vaccine mandate flip-flop.

00:00:22.840 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.420 Hello and welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show on Friday, January 7th, 2022.

00:00:39.320 Yes, the 2022 year is still going on, although as I may have said a pretty dark tone for it a couple of shows ago,

00:00:47.840 I can't say things have improved all that much.

00:00:50.720 Even in Quebec, now we spoke about Quebec with Marie Oakes in the context of being one of the most locked down and restricted jurisdictions in Canada.

00:01:00.000 And they've managed to actually go more into the restrictions in the days since that interview.

00:01:06.640 Seriously.

00:01:07.020 So the latest news, and we heard whispers this might be happening, is that the vaccine passport in Quebec has been expanded to cover the SAQ,

00:01:16.780 which is the Quebec liquor store, which is quite a popular place because you need to have copious amounts of alcohol to cope with the fact that you live in Quebec.

00:01:24.440 So the SAQ is now going to require you to shop there to have your vaccine passport.

00:01:30.700 And it's also going to apply to cannabis stores.

00:01:34.100 So if you want to go and get some Quebec government-issued pot, you have to be fully vaccinated.

00:01:39.100 You've got to get the two doses to go and get whatever it is you buy at the Quebec cannabis store.

00:01:44.920 Now, Quebec's a little bit different than other parts of the country.

00:01:48.140 Not Alberta. You guys are free there.

00:01:50.340 But like Ontario, where...

00:01:52.140 I mean, formerly Ontario.

00:01:53.760 Ontario's come a little bit in the right direction on this.

00:01:56.960 In Quebec, you can go to the Depeneur and buy your beer and wine, whereas in other parts of the country, you can only go to the state-run liquor stores.

00:02:05.620 So in that sense, I guess it may not be the end of the world for some people.

00:02:09.240 But even so, we're now talking about an environment that, from a transmission risk, is no different than you going to a grocery store.

00:02:17.880 You're walking into a store.

00:02:19.380 You're not taking off your mandatory mask.

00:02:21.520 You're walking around.

00:02:22.360 You're buying something.

00:02:23.220 The interaction is very limited, and then you go on your merry way.

00:02:27.740 This has nothing...

00:02:29.000 I mean, I don't even think I need to say this anymore, but I do feel there are some people that don't quite understand this yet.

00:02:34.600 It has nothing to do with risk, nothing to do with epidemiology or virology, and everything to do with control.

00:02:42.060 They're not trying to reduce the risk of COVID at the SAQ.

00:02:46.020 They're trying to make life miserable for the unvaccinated so that slowly but surely, they feel they have no choice but to go and get the jab, even if they don't want to, because they can't even go and buy a 24-ouncer of whiskey or something. 0.85

00:03:00.760 That's what they're trying to do now.

00:03:02.340 They're trying to make life so miserable for the unvaccinated that they don't feel they really have a choice.

00:03:08.980 And this has been what's happening.

00:03:10.300 If you're unvaccinated in Canada, you, by and large, can't travel.

00:03:14.420 You have to quarantine if you do manage to get out of the country when you come back.

00:03:18.160 You can't go to restaurants.

00:03:19.360 You can't go to bars.

00:03:20.460 You can't do any of these things.

00:03:21.920 And now they're saying you can't even go to the liquor store.

00:03:26.220 How long until Quebec does what New Brunswick tried to do a few weeks back, which is make it so that grocery stores could even prohibit people from going?

00:03:34.220 Because Quebec's rules are moving towards the prohibition of the unvaccinated going to any non-essential retail.

00:03:42.200 And once you start down that road, the government's actually the one who decides what is essential and what is not.

00:03:47.140 They may say that going to a Home Depot is unessential or non-essential.

00:03:52.080 They may say that going to a gourmet food store is non-essential.

00:03:56.180 And then at a certain point, you actually, as an unvaccinated person, are relegated to your own home.

00:04:01.540 You can't do anything else, go anywhere else.

00:04:04.000 And that's exactly their plan.

00:04:06.660 And it's not because they think you're a disease vector that's going to infect everyone when you go out into the world.

00:04:11.800 It's Omicron era.

00:04:12.800 Everyone is infected.

00:04:14.080 Fully vaccinated, unvaccinated people, pretty much everyone is getting infected as of late.

00:04:19.500 No, what it actually means is that they are punishing you for a choice you've made that goes against the choice the state wants you to make.

00:04:29.080 And when the state wants you to make a choice, it's really not a choice.

00:04:32.060 But that's what's happening here.

00:04:33.560 And Emmanuel Macron, his line on this was actually incredibly honest.

00:04:39.120 He said in a newspaper interview that his goal is to, I won't use the translation of the word, it's MLD is what he used.

00:04:48.400 And if you know the French for the S word, you'll know exactly what that means.

00:04:52.580 But basically, if you even do a crass or English translation, he wants to piss off the unvaccinated.

00:04:58.920 He wants to piss off the unvaccinated.

00:05:01.500 That's his goal.

00:05:02.100 So at a certain point, I mean, that is my friend Mark Stein said on his show on GB News, it's saying the quiet part out loud.

00:05:09.540 You're supposed to pretend that this is all about reducing risk and reducing transmission.

00:05:13.600 But he's admitting that it is purely punitive.

00:05:17.120 And there was another comment in that interview.

00:05:19.140 Because everyone was focusing on the pissed off part, no one caught this.

00:05:23.580 And I had actually missed it the first time until my producer flagged it for me.

00:05:27.080 It was the same interview.

00:05:28.220 Macron said, quote, irresponsible people are no longer citizens.

00:05:34.460 Irresponsible people are no longer citizens.

00:05:36.840 So his position, and he's being very transparent about this, is that you are no longer a citizen of France if you are unvaccinated.

00:05:45.820 Because in his view, you are irresponsible.

00:05:48.540 Now, I mean, I'd say most people who voted for Emmanuel Macron are irresponsible.

00:05:53.780 So I don't think we want to say that they are no longer citizens.

00:05:57.120 But that's the point.

00:05:58.000 And they're being very brazen about this.

00:05:59.920 I know it's a few, actually, it's a few months old now.

00:06:02.220 But it was recirculating earlier this week.

00:06:04.680 This line from Justin Trudeau that fits into this broader narrative here that you absolutely must hear.

00:06:09.880 Yes, we're going to get out of this pandemic for the vaccination.

00:06:13.820 And we know all those people who are trying to hesitate a little bit.

00:06:18.220 We're going to try to convince them.

00:06:19.520 But there are also those people who are far away from the vaccination.

00:06:23.640 Who are extremists.

00:06:24.640 Who are not in science.

00:06:25.980 Who are often misogynes.

00:06:27.720 Who are often racistes also.

00:06:29.260 It's a small group, but who takes place.

00:06:34.220 And there, there is a choice as a leader, as a country.

00:06:37.180 So that's Trudeau's view as well. 1.00

00:06:54.260 That if you're unvaccinated, you're a racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, bigot. 0.98

00:06:59.360 I'm adding the derisive terms there because that's basically what he's doing. 0.99

00:07:03.700 You're just a terrible person if you are not vaccinated.

00:07:07.180 Now, I want to talk about this from two angles.

00:07:09.160 One is just that it's morally wrong to start castigating and demonizing people in your country in this way.

00:07:15.620 Especially over a choice that they're making.

00:07:18.140 But even if, even if we agree that 100% vaccination is the goal.

00:07:22.760 And that's the target.

00:07:23.640 And that's what we're all striving for.

00:07:25.260 Do you think this is turning people on to your side?

00:07:28.620 Do you think that any of these unvaccinated people are sitting at home?

00:07:32.540 And by this point, they've resisted PSAs, advertising campaigns, in some cases, calls from public health officials, check-ins, signs everywhere.

00:07:41.140 But by this point, if you're not vaccinated, it's not for lack of opportunity.

00:07:44.800 It is by choice.

00:07:46.020 It's a choice that I defend.

00:07:47.100 But there's no one who's like accidentally unvaccinated right now.

00:07:50.700 So do you think that any of those people who, for the last year, have been saying no to being vaccinated are sitting at their homes and saying,

00:07:58.160 Well, you know, I'm really firm on this.

00:08:00.400 I can't go to the restaurant.

00:08:01.420 I can't go to the bar.

00:08:02.560 All of that I'm living with.

00:08:03.960 I'm surviving.

00:08:04.620 But you know what?

00:08:05.160 Justin Trudeau called me a racist.

00:08:06.600 By gosh, I'm going to show him. 0.95

00:08:08.300 I'm going to go out and get vaccinated to prove that I'm not a white supremacist neo-Nazi.

00:08:13.340 Like, maybe they exist.

00:08:15.700 Maybe there are so people.

00:08:16.700 But again, the problem with demonizing people, apart from the moral wrong, is that eventually you're giving them nothing to motivate them to do what you want them to do.

00:08:27.040 Because you're proving that you view them as unworthy of, I was going to say breathing the same air, which has never been more literal than it is right now.

00:08:34.780 They're unworthy of breathing the same air as you.

00:08:37.040 They're unworthy of living in the same country as you. 0.98

00:08:39.940 And that's the direction this is headed.

00:08:42.740 And again, right now, the goalposts are shifting yet again.

00:08:46.560 Kelsa Preeze and Quebec has become the first jurisdiction in the country to start talking about a vaccine passport being a thing that requires three doses.

00:08:56.080 So we were talking about the places they're expanding the vaccine passport to.

00:08:59.740 Well, all of the people in Quebec who are fully vaccinated will not even be fully vaccinated unless they get the third dose.

00:09:06.260 So they have been unvaccinated.

00:09:08.560 And all of this vilification of anti-vaxxers, it's going to be quite hilarious. 1.00

00:09:12.400 When in three months time or so, the government is calling two vaxxers anti-vaxxers, basically. 0.91

00:09:18.700 Oh, if you've got two vaccine doses, yeah, you're just an evil racist anti-vaxxer.

00:09:23.160 Yeah, you only like the three vax people are the ones who we truly decide are worthy of living in this country. 1.00

00:09:28.340 And this is why the endlessness of this is something that people are criticizing.

00:09:34.320 And this is crossing against left-right lines, truly.

00:09:37.700 The number of people...

00:09:38.480 I had a tweet that I may...

00:09:39.960 I don't think I showed it.

00:09:40.780 I'll show it now.

00:09:41.480 In which I talked about the fact that if the vaccine passport is being warranted in all of these places,

00:09:48.900 which later get shut down, it's proof that the vaccine passport wasn't helping. 0.92

00:09:52.600 That tweet went absolutely viral.

00:09:56.020 I was hearing about it from people in my life who are not political at all,

00:09:59.800 who, for whatever reason, don't follow me, don't follow my work.

00:10:03.280 They're saying, oh, yeah, I saw your tweet.

00:10:04.660 Oh, yeah, I saw your tweet.

00:10:05.660 I said, where'd you see it?

00:10:06.360 Oh, I saw it on Instagram.

00:10:07.360 Like, people were sharing that beyond Twitter because they're so angry right now.

00:10:14.000 And that's something that's not going to go away.

00:10:16.120 Now, again, Ontario has an election in about five months' time.

00:10:19.980 The challenge for a lot of Ontarians who reject what the government is doing

00:10:24.000 is that there's not really any party that could say they'd be doing it better.

00:10:29.220 If anything, the criticism that Doug Ford is getting from the Liberals and the NDP

00:10:33.020 are that you're not going far enough.

00:10:35.160 You're not shutting down enough.

00:10:36.360 You're not locking down more.

00:10:38.300 He was getting people angry at him last year, I guess two years ago, December 2020,

00:10:42.960 because they thought that he should have shut down things right before Christmas

00:10:46.700 instead of right after.

00:10:48.680 How dare you let people have Christmas dinners was basically the primary critique of Doug Ford

00:10:53.540 in 2020.

00:10:55.140 And throughout 2021, it's been the same thing.

00:10:57.380 Now, with kids in schools, that seems to be where there's a bit of a divide further happening.

00:11:03.720 I've not heard from any parents.

00:11:05.840 The only people I've heard from are deranged Twitter users.

00:11:08.820 I've not heard from any parents who say, yeah, I want kids at home, right?

00:11:12.960 Now, every parent, every parent, even the parents that are double vaxxed, triple vaxxed, 0.91

00:11:18.880 full mask wearers are saying, yeah, kids need to be in school because parents with children

00:11:24.560 are seeing more than anyone else, the devastating and ongoing effects of lockdown.

00:11:30.840 They're seeing it.

00:11:32.120 They're seeing it.

00:11:32.820 Children that have no idea how to socialize because for the last two years of their lives,

00:11:37.640 they've not been able to with any degree of regularity or consistency.

00:11:42.720 So absolutely, that's going to be the make or break factor, I think.

00:11:47.140 And just I want to go through some of the dates here, some of the thresholds that have been set,

00:11:51.520 because a lot of this is really coming down to a line in the sand.

00:11:56.880 Some provinces are saying, yeah, we're sending people back.

00:11:59.360 Others are saying, no, just a couple of weeks.

00:12:01.980 But I don't think anyone believes they're going to go back in that couple of weeks.

00:12:06.580 So Quebec claims that they're going to reopen for in-person learning on January 17th.

00:12:11.040 So that's 10 days from now.

00:12:12.500 I'm not buying it, given all their talk about these extreme vaccine passport measures.

00:12:17.000 Alberta going back January 10th.

00:12:19.560 Saskatchewan, they never took them out of class.

00:12:21.260 They've said, no, we're staying in class.

00:12:23.160 We're remaining that way.

00:12:24.720 Quebec, and we already talked about Ontario, says it's going to be in two weeks' time,

00:12:30.540 or I guess just over a week now.

00:12:32.940 But like I said, no one believes that's happening.

00:12:35.280 Nova Scotia, January 17th.

00:12:38.480 Newfoundland is indefinitely online now, I believe.

00:12:41.600 New Brunswick as well has done this two-week thing.

00:12:44.060 So all of these provinces are banking on, you know, January 17th or something or so,

00:12:49.780 thereabouts, being this magic day at which they'll wake up and say,

00:12:52.560 OK, COVID's not a big issue.

00:12:54.300 COVID, we're done.

00:12:55.380 We're out of the woods here.

00:12:57.040 And we've been down this road before.

00:12:59.980 We've been down this road before.

00:13:01.320 So anyone who thinks that there is going to be a magic point this month at which these

00:13:06.780 overlords that we have now put so much of our faith into for two years, that they're just

00:13:11.040 going to say, well, yeah, I guess you're fine.

00:13:12.860 I guess you're safe.

00:13:13.540 It's not going to happen.

00:13:15.560 So I don't think kids are going back to school in most of the large provinces anyway

00:13:19.780 until February.

00:13:22.100 At the very least, I don't think we're going to see a lifting of restrictions by February.

00:13:28.140 In fact, I'd say we're closer to March now.

00:13:31.120 And what are people going to do?

00:13:32.820 Like, we talked last week a little bit about people who have fled the country, literally.

00:13:36.320 And I've had a lot of emails from people in the days since then saying, yeah, I wish.

00:13:39.940 I'm trying.

00:13:40.480 I want to.

00:13:41.740 A couple of people asked me for immigration advice.

00:13:43.940 And I'm like, hey, I'm still in Canada.

00:13:45.120 Don't ask me for advice on how to get out of here.

00:13:48.600 And again, you have to, if you're unvaccinated, you have to pick a place that you don't need 0.81

00:13:52.200 to fly to because you aren't going to be allowed on the plane still if you're not

00:13:56.020 vaccinated and this is a problem that society has to contend with because right now, all 1.00

00:14:01.600 of these things that people might have only accepted because they were temporary are proving

00:14:07.700 to be permanent.

00:14:09.260 And it's like I said about the vaccine passport.

00:14:11.260 This was in Ontario, supposed to be, and you can take a look right there, supposed to

00:14:15.340 be lifted this month.

00:14:17.600 So we're talking about more restrictions, third doses for vaccine passports, kids being

00:14:22.660 out of school indefinitely.

00:14:23.600 This was supposed to be the month that the vaccine passport had served its time and was 0.50

00:14:28.460 gone.

00:14:28.920 We were back to being a desegregated society. 1.00

00:14:31.580 Ha! 0.89

00:14:32.080 Who believed that?

00:14:32.920 I didn't.

00:14:33.800 I didn't believe that.

00:14:34.860 But a lot of the people that may have only gone along with it because of its so-called

00:14:38.240 temporary nature are finding that all of these temporary war measures, they're all proving

00:14:43.340 to be like the income tax.

00:14:44.620 That's basically where we are now.

00:14:46.280 And they are here with us for the long haul.

00:14:49.260 As I've said, I mean, my big fear is that masking is always going to be here, that the

00:14:55.660 flu shot is going to become part of the vaccine passport every year, and more and more of these

00:15:00.420 measures are going to prove to be enduring.

00:15:03.480 So this is why you can't start ceding territory on these things, even if you think it might be

00:15:09.560 a so-called minor inconvenience, because all of these things combined reshape the world in a way

00:15:15.160 that we can never come back from.

00:15:17.980 And also, by the way, I mean, at this point, the polarization is such that if you do not go all

00:15:23.980 the way and, you know, promote double masking and triple dosing of vaccines and all of that,

00:15:28.040 if you don't do all of that and support it being mandatory, you get vilified just the same.

00:15:33.420 So yesterday, Aaron O'Toole, conservative leader, emerged from his slumber, saw his shadow,

00:15:38.260 declared six more weeks of winter, and decided to do a press conference in which he talked about

00:15:42.760 how he thinks we need to be accommodating when it comes to truckers, because right now,

00:15:47.080 the Liberal government is looking at giving truckers or getting rid of their exemption from

00:15:51.300 the vaccine mandate.

00:15:52.620 So right now, if you're a cross-border trucker, essential to our supply chains,

00:15:56.320 you don't need to be vaccinated.

00:15:57.840 The Liberals are thinking of getting rid of that.

00:15:59.760 So one of the points that Aaron O'Toole made is that we need to accommodate individuals,

00:16:03.680 and I think that's a very valid point.

00:16:06.220 So he makes this comment, and then no one gives him credit for this comment,

00:16:10.960 in which he was defending the vaccine mandate for members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:16:16.820 As a former member, I'm curious about your position on this now.

00:16:22.020 Do you support a vaccine mandate for regular and reservist members,

00:16:27.640 particularly when some of them are now being deployed in Quebec today, for example,

00:16:33.180 to help with the COVID response?

00:16:36.060 With the service above self that we see in the Canadian Armed Forces,

00:16:40.060 there will be a requirement for many and most operators to be vaccinated.

00:16:44.720 This is a critical job that attaches with it the potential risk that you take by serving your country in uniform.

00:16:51.680 So balancing off, making sure that as many people are vaccinated as possible,

00:16:56.860 needs to be the priority for the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:17:00.400 Both Dr. Ellis and I are veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:17:04.420 And actually, Glenn, this issue has been looked at many times in the past

00:17:08.040 because of previous vaccinations that caused higher hesitancy in the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:17:13.380 So my message to the military and the military families right now is simple.

00:17:18.360 Thank you for your service.

00:17:20.120 The vaccines we have are safe and effective.

00:17:22.480 Ask questions to military docs like Dr. Ellis was years ago.

00:17:26.640 And make sure you're part of our fight against COVID-19.

00:17:29.960 And I think everyone in uniform should be vaccinated.

00:17:32.560 Now, incidentally, I disagree with his position on the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:17:36.900 But the whole point is that he goes along with the Liberals on that.

00:17:40.220 He goes along with the government.

00:17:41.320 He goes along with the narrative that says, yes, vaccination must be mandatory in this space.

00:17:45.920 And that's despite all of these previous claims that he's made during the election

00:17:50.820 that it should be a personal choice resisting the Trudeau vaccine mandate, like here.

00:17:56.180 Well, let me repeat.

00:17:57.140 Vaccines are a critical tool to fight the pandemic.

00:17:59.800 They're safe and effective for use.

00:18:01.680 And Canada's Conservatives have been fighting for over a year for better and swifter access to vaccines.

00:18:07.460 We do feel that Canadians have the right to make their own health care decisions.

00:18:12.180 And we encourage people to get vaccinated.

00:18:14.680 But we also have to make sure we have the tools to protect all Canadians from some people that will not be vaccinated.

00:18:22.300 Rapid testing, masks, distancing, all the tools.

00:18:25.580 But rapid testing in particular, on a daily basis, can be very effective to make sure we reduce the spread.

00:18:32.400 So O'Toole was against the vaccine mandate before he was for it.

00:18:36.120 That's fine.

00:18:36.780 But then everyone jumps down his throat when he says something that's perfectly reasonable, like,

00:18:41.180 hey, maybe we shouldn't be banning truckers from entering the country.

00:18:45.860 One point here, if you look at Britain, Britain's a fascinating case.

00:18:48.800 So they don't have a vaccine mandate for NHS workers just yet.

00:18:52.600 That's their national health system.

00:18:54.260 They're doing one, I think it's in April, but right now they don't.

00:18:57.600 They're finding without a vaccine mandate that their staffing levels are insane, insanely bad.

00:19:04.100 And part of it is because everyone's getting home because they are isolating due to testing positive for COVID

00:19:10.740 or being a close contact of testing positive for COVID.

00:19:13.580 And the NHS just doesn't have the staff so bad they're thinking of calling in the military.

00:19:19.320 Now, this is without a vaccine mandate.

00:19:21.140 Now, Britain, imagine what's going to happen when they say, all right, all of you who are working,

00:19:25.360 who are unvaccinated, you're getting fired.

00:19:28.940 Because right now we have this two-pronged effort.

00:19:31.300 All of these places are complaining about having a huge staffing crisis.

00:19:34.800 And all of a sudden, no one's prepared to say, well, okay, maybe we shouldn't have fired all those people.

00:19:40.000 I shouldn't say no one.

00:19:41.380 One example of a backtrack on this comes from Niagara Health.

00:19:45.240 They actually dropped their vaccine mandate for workers because they just didn't have the workers.

00:19:51.960 We remain committed to a fully vaccinated workforce at our hospital,

00:19:55.460 and we will proceed with the implementation at a later time to be determined.

00:19:59.740 That's a line from President and CEO Lynn Guerriero of the Niagara Health executive team.

00:20:05.980 And they're finding that they just do not have the staff to deal with all of the health challenges.

00:20:11.560 So consistency is very important here.

00:20:15.080 On one hand, if you're going to say that we have no people, we have no staff,

00:20:19.140 you can't, on the other hand, justify terminating all of your staff,

00:20:23.540 which is exactly what's happening in all of these fora and all of these venues.

00:20:29.080 But this is where we go back to the separation from reality of a lot of these measures.

00:20:34.940 People are not interested in what makes sense, what's the most scientifically or medically sound.

00:20:39.480 They are interested in penalizing and vilifying people who have made a choice with which they disagree.

00:20:46.500 And I cannot stress enough that this is not an argument against vaccination.

00:20:51.300 This is an argument against coercive vaccination, against mandatory vaccination,

00:20:57.160 and an argument against these efforts which are counterproductive to vilify and demonize those who are unvaccinated

00:21:03.360 because of something that is legally and morally their choice or should be legally their choice.

00:21:09.560 I agree.

00:21:10.180 That's the whole problem here.

00:21:11.400 In some cases, it's not actually their choice.

00:21:15.160 I want to talk about Aaron O'Toole for a moment on this because, as you know,

00:21:19.100 I've been trying for, oh, I don't know, two years or so to get an interview.

00:21:23.380 Not two years.

00:21:24.020 No, we had ample access to him during the leadership race

00:21:27.160 and had an interview with him in December of 2020.

00:21:30.940 But since December 2020, I have not been able to get any one-on-one time with Aaron O'Toole.

00:21:35.820 Asked him questions during the campaign.

00:21:37.420 That was fine.

00:21:38.460 I've tried to dial into press conferences and mysteriously, my questions have not been taken,

00:21:43.500 including that press conference yesterday.

00:21:45.800 What I wanted to ask him, because Aaron O'Toole decided to take a stand against lockdowns-ish.

00:21:52.100 He was talking about how Canadians don't deserve lockdowns and Justin Trudeau has normalized lockdowns.

00:21:58.540 There was this tweet he put out saying, yeah, Canadians deserve better than lockdowns. 0.99

00:22:02.140 Okay, great.

00:22:03.340 But what are you doing about it?

00:22:05.420 Because any time Aaron O'Toole has been asked about lockdowns or restrictions in the last two years,

00:22:10.460 he said, oh, I'm not going to interfere in political turf.

00:22:13.640 And that's what I wanted to ask him about.

00:22:15.360 Say, well, hang on.

00:22:16.180 Are you saying that you reject what provinces are doing?

00:22:20.180 And ultimately, he ended up defending lockdowns in a way.

00:22:24.060 Travis Dandrash of CBC had asked him a question of, like, you know,

00:22:27.660 why are you going after Trudeau when it's the provinces that are making these decisions?

00:22:32.260 And O'Toole just kind of blamed Trudeau for doing all these other things wrong

00:22:36.120 that he says have necessitated lockdowns.

00:22:38.880 Take a look at this.

00:22:40.080 You say that you respect the decisions of provinces to minimize the spread,

00:22:45.500 the decisions that they're making.

00:22:46.540 But the provinces are the ones determining whether or not lockdowns should happen.

00:22:51.220 It was Premier Ford and his cabinet here who decided to put Ontario back into stage two.

00:22:56.580 So why are you blaming the Prime Minister for lockdowns, which are provincial decisions?

00:23:01.780 And do the provinces hold any responsibility when it comes to these lockdowns, in your view?

00:23:06.360 In spring of 2020, Mr. Trudeau on his doorstep said he'd spoken to the provinces

00:23:13.600 and the federal government was taking responsibility for testing and tracing.

00:23:18.780 He actually said those measures would help keep the economy as open as possible.

00:23:24.240 That's what he said at the beginning of this pandemic.

00:23:26.320 He simply hasn't delivered.

00:23:27.380 The programs of support the federal government put in the budget last year is the substitute.

00:23:34.440 He's funding lockdowns as opposed to funding tools to actually help us keep some balance here.

00:23:40.300 The priority has to be the health and well-being of Canadians and keeping pressure off our systems as much as possible.

00:23:48.120 But he's also had two years to help develop surge protection for hospitals and ICUs.

00:23:53.640 I haven't seen any action from the federal government on the key tools that would have allowed the provinces to make some other decisions.

00:24:00.820 So in a way, I mean, the problem with that is that it kind of endorses that these things are so-called necessary evils.

00:24:07.980 When the reality is provinces have a choice here.

00:24:12.580 And I mentioned when I was doing the laundry list of schools and schooling decisions that provinces have made.

00:24:19.380 There's a range and a lot of them are kind of clustering around, okay, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks.

00:24:23.280 But you could do what Saskatchewan did, which is keep schools open, keep students in the classroom.

00:24:28.640 Do what Alberta's doing, which is delay it a week and then go back into the classroom and focus on making it safe to be there. 0.98

00:24:36.240 Provinces have choices.

00:24:37.380 Quebec and Ontario as being the two most strict regions in this country.

00:24:43.320 No one's forcing them to keep their vaccine passports on the books indefinitely.

00:24:47.620 No one's forcing Quebec to expand the vaccine passport to require three doses.

00:24:52.280 Speaking of Emmanuel Macron, he's talking about boosters being an every four-month thing.

00:24:57.940 So a booster shot, I mean, that's, I don't think any booster is like that.

00:25:01.220 When I was younger, a booster was something you got, you know, after several years, not every four months,

00:25:06.240 at which point it's just like you're treating a chronic illness.

00:25:09.440 You're not getting vaccinated.

00:25:10.880 So if that's going to be the reality, most people are not going to go along with it.

00:25:17.340 I mean, right now, booster shots are finding there is a lot of people that want them.

00:25:22.360 But at a certain point, once that initial wave gets through,

00:25:25.980 we're going to be looking at a population that already was not vaccinated enough for what the government thought.

00:25:32.240 And even fewer will have gone to get the third shot.

00:25:34.760 So if the government's approach to getting more people vaccinated is to punish them and close off society,

00:25:40.300 all the government's going to be doing, we know it,

00:25:44.040 is further closing off society to people who only have two shots and not a third. 0.69

00:25:50.240 So, I mean, if you don't see where this is going, I don't know how you can't.

00:25:54.940 I don't know how you can't.

00:25:56.400 And then you may say, well, what's the big deal?

00:25:58.040 If you got the two shots, then why not just get the third?

00:26:00.020 The whole point is that we're moving towards a crisis that is being manufactured just to keep it going in perpetuity.

00:26:07.140 The never-ending lockdown, the permanent emergency, whatever you want to call it.

00:26:11.100 So, listen, I mean, I want to just make this very clear here that I don't think things are getting better.

00:26:18.900 I know that's not something that was really hidden.

00:26:21.400 That wasn't an obscured point at all.

00:26:22.900 I'm very pessimistic about things, but I also want to turn that into something that is a bit of an action item.

00:26:29.020 And I must restate the point that I made previously,

00:26:32.120 which is that I think most Canadians are starting to see that the emperor is not actually dressed.

00:26:38.160 The emperor is not wearing clothes.

00:26:39.460 Canadians are starting to see through the charade of advice and guidance and guidelines.

00:26:44.100 And I'm not calling for a rebellion in the streets here.

00:26:46.980 What I'm calling for is for Canadians to stand up and start challenging this.

00:26:51.660 Start challenging this.

00:26:52.660 And again, I mean, be very focused on who the problem is.

00:26:56.160 The problem is not the store that's trying to comply with these legislations from the government

00:27:00.880 because they don't want to get fined.

00:27:02.340 The problem is not the restaurant.

00:27:04.160 The problem, I mean, airlines are problems in other ways.

00:27:06.280 But in this case, the problem isn't necessarily the airlines.

00:27:09.000 The problem is government.

00:27:11.100 The problem is government.

00:27:12.600 And they're seeing a population that, generally speaking, has just been going along with it.

00:27:17.560 And there have been numerous, numerous situations where I think Canadians have started to turn on this.

00:27:24.440 Canadians who were, like I said, dutifully and diligently going along with whatever was asked of them

00:27:29.360 that reached a breaking point in this lockdown or the previous lockdown.

00:27:33.900 And I think we're going to see more of that.

00:27:35.320 So do take a stand.

00:27:36.740 Like I've said, the pandemic is over when you say it is over.

00:27:39.680 So we've got to end things there.

00:27:41.400 My thanks to all of you for tuning into the program.

00:27:43.660 We'll be back on Tuesday with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:27:47.220 Have a great weekend.

00:27:48.020 Thank you.

00:27:48.420 God bless.

00:27:49.080 And good day.

00:27:49.640 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:27:51.660 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:27:56.860 www.tnc.news.com

Juno News - January 08, 2022

The pandemic is over when Canadians say it is

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