Juno News - December 27, 2022The state of civil liberties in Canada
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Summary
Coming up, we check in with John Carpe of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) on the state of civil liberties in Canada. What happened in 2022, and what do we have to look forward to in the next year?
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, we check in with John Carpe of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
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What happened in 2022 and what do we have to look forward to in the next year?
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This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North, the Andrew Lawton Show,
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as we continue talking about the big picture issues, a way to cap off 2022 and head into 2023.
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And I think civil liberties has always been an issue in sharp focus, certainly on my show.
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But I'd say this past year, there's been a fair bit more to unpack in that regard.
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We had, of course, the Responding Emergencies Act and the freezing of various bank accounts,
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And in general, I think beyond that, we've seen some people that have continued to face charges
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and penalties of some kind for COVID infractions or supposed COVID infractions.
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So even if a lot of the mandates and restrictions are by and large gone,
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that doesn't mean we're out of the woods as far as the consequences of violating some of those restrictions are concerned.
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So I wanted to do what we did last year and have a check-in with John Carpe,
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who's the president of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,
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which has taken up a lot of these cases and has just grown exponentially in the last couple of years.
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Now, I should say, just in the interest of disclosure, I sit on the board of the JCCF.
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I would have done this interview regardless and was planning to regardless.
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But I think it's important for you to have that context and understand that I am a supporter
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But with that out of the way, John Carpe, it's great to talk to you, sir.
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Now, you and I spoke around this time last year in a very similar format.
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And the review we had on the state of civil liberties in Canada for 2021 wasn't exactly great.
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And I think the prevailing narrative that you and I talked about,
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and that certainly we've both discussed in our respective jobs throughout the year,
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has been that the COVID era has brought just absolutely unprecedented and continuous challenges
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And of course, this year we have the Freedom Convoy, which is certainly a symbol of hope
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for a lot of people, but also far more in the way of these government crackdowns.
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We have ongoing criminal charges against Tamara Leach and Chris Barber.
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We've got all of these offenses that pastors are still fighting.
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But this year, especially in the last few months, it seems like a lot of these things are getting
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Not all, but it seems like a lot of these are getting dropped.
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I mean, obviously, after the trucker convoy, Saskatchewan was the first province to drop
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its get rid of lockdowns, followed thereafter by Alberta and then other provinces.
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Quebec took a long time, but eventually even Quebec got rid of the curfews and mandatory
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So that's a very real difference that we don't have our privacy rights violated every day
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by being forced to provide private, confidential medical information to total strangers in
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We've also had the travel mandates lifted, the mandatory use of the arrive cam.
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People that have not taken the COVID shot can fly on airplanes.
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So a lot of positive things, but still pretty scary when you have a federal government that
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is entirely unrepentant about wrongful invocation of the Emergencies Act, using excessive force
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to crush a peaceful protest, freezing Canadians' bank accounts, and moving forward with threats
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So, you know, it's a mix of positive and negative that way.
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I mean, you and I both suffer from the same general pessimism about some of these issues.
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And I know it's difficult because both of us have to try to keep hope alive because, you
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know, obviously there's no point in doing what we do if there isn't hope.
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But did you even, with your pessimistic approach about some of these things, and I don't mean
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that as a character judgment, but just in general, you're aware of the problems.
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Did you imagine at the beginning of this year that we ever would have been in a situation
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where protesters' bank accounts were being frozen by the government?
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Like, is that something that you would have even put in your top 100 fears of potential
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It is the type of thing that happens in a repressive regime, and Canada is going in the
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wrong direction in terms of our fundamental rights and freedoms.
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So, it's the type of thing that you, it's like, wow, this is, we have slid so far so
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If you had asked me about it 12 months ago, right, in December 2021, you know, would the
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government freeze the bank accounts of the Prime Minister's political opponents?
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If the Prime Minister doesn't like your opinion, he's going to invoke the Emergencies Act and
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freeze your bank account because you've donated to some group that he doesn't like.
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Like, I would have said, well, you know, if we continue in the wrong direction for another
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I mean, this is like a, it's a banana republic with polar bears.
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One of the big dangers I see in the public opinion sphere on this is that there are a lot
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of people in this country that can't separate their dislike of a particular group or particular
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person from what they believe the law should be.
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And I think the vaccine passports are a great example of this.
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I don't really respect people who aren't vaccinated.
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So, I don't care if they're denied the right to board a plane.
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Or with free speech, people that say, you know, I don't like what that person says.
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So, I don't really care if their free speech rights are trampled upon or curbed in some
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And with the convoy, there was a fair bit of that, I think, as well.
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You know, well, you know, I didn't like the protest.
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But there did seem to be from that a group that emerged in between that was a bit more
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on that principled side of, I may not like the protest, but I think this was an overreach.
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And I was wondering if you had a sense of how large that group was and, you know, whether
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you believe that, generally speaking, Canadians did respond to the Emergencies Act the way
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Well, one manifestation of what you just described was that the Canadian Civil Liberties
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Association, which has been supporting the violation of charter rights and freedoms by
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way of lockdowns for the past, you know, two and a half going on three years, or at least
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maybe not supporting, certainly not opposing in any meaningful way, these massive violations
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Yeah, I don't think I would say they supported it, but they certainly weren't sounding the
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alarm about it and definitely not in the way you were.
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So, they, and what was interesting is with the Public Order Emergencies Commission, so
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that, which I prefer to call it the public inquiry, it's a little bit of a shorthand
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term, the public inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act, the Canadian Civil Liberties
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Association was present and was concerned about the federal government overreach.
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So, that to me shows that there's a difference there, that there, I think that is representative
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of some Canadians who may have not opposed lockdowns, but when the government so trivially
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in such cavalier and completely unnecessary fashion invoked the Emergencies Act, that for
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a lot of Canadians, that was a bridge too far.
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And a lot of people did, even if their own bank account was not frozen, there was a bit
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of a run on the banks, which is apparently why the Prime Minister changed course, because
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there were so many banks were getting cleaned out, because there's a lineup of people wanting
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Yeah, and that was interesting as well, and I don't know how closely you followed, because
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I know you've got other cases you're working on right now, but the day-to-day of the Public
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Order Emergency Commission, but some of the details about the conversations that Chrystia
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Freeland, the Finance Minister, had with bankers were quite interesting.
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And it was actually quite unfortunate, because you had a couple of the banking CEOs that we
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saw in meeting minutes were saying, you know, designate these people terrorists.
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Let us, you know, completely throw the book at them.
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And there was only one banking CEO on that call that said, hang on, why are we weaponizing
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Maybe what you should actually do is announce a transition out of mandates.
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And it was not made public who that banker was, but I'm like, man, I want to transfer my
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I think tyranny requires either the support or at least the acquiescence of a lot of people.
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The greatest evils in history take place when there's cooperation, right?
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If you're one person or a small group and you're trying to do something evil, you're not
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going to get very far unless you get a lot of cooperation.
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And so it's tragic and very sinister to see banks that have apparently zero respect for
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their customers and that are just this totalitarian mindset that let's just crush anybody who gets
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in the way of what the government has deemed to be some important objective.
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And that's just the biggest task for those of us who love freedom.
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The biggest task is the ongoing project of educating and re-educating Canadians about our
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rights and freedoms and why the free society is superior to a repressive regime, be it, you
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know, communist, fascist, Nazi, theocratic, what have you.
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There's many different varieties of repressive regimes.
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But their common characteristic is a lack of respect for our fundamental freedoms and human
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One of the real dangers I saw coming out of the COVID era is that the government was the
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one that put these mandates and restrictions in place.
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But in almost all cases, it wasn't the government that was responsible for enforcing, well, enforcing
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in the broadest sense, but the day-to-day enforcement of it fell on other people.
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I mean, for example, vaccine passports were by and large enforced by 16-year-old restaurant
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And, you know, the vaccine mandate for air travel was being enforced by airlines.
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And you had all of these different restrictions and mandates were in place that fell on other
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It was the businesses that had to go along with these.
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And I've always taken the view that I don't personally fault businesses that did what they
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And now the government's saying, we're going to fine you $20,000 or take away your business
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But I commend those that took a stand and said, I'm not going to go along with that.
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But it was, I think, the real insidious part for me, where government was putting these things
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in place, but it fell on other people to turn on each other.
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Well, we saw a very unhealthy snitch culture that emerged early on in 2020 when the kind of
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the first wave of lockdown measures, we had people, you know, getting a ticket for sitting
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We had this frightening yellow crime scene tape put around playgrounds.
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I mean, and the snitch lines were alive and well, because there's a dark side to human
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They think it's good for the government to treat us like sheep, treat us like farm animals
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and tell us exactly how to live and what to think.
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There's a book called Escape from Freedom, might be called Flight from Freedom, one of the
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And he wrote in around 1943, and he wrote about the Nazi regime in Germany, and he said
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there are many Germans that enthusiastically gave up their rights and freedoms because life
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can become a little bit easier if somebody else tells you how to live and what to think,
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what's important and how you should live your life, what goals and objectives you should
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So there were a lot of Canadians, they liked the COVID, they liked the lockdowns because
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And it was Big Brother, you know, alleviating you of your responsibility to have to think
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The government's going to tell you, the important thing is that we put all of our time, effort
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and energy into, you know, this quest to stop the spread of a virus, and no matter how much
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it costs, no matter how much harm is inflicted.
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They want somebody else to do their thinking for them.
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And that's the part that I think will, I fear, outlive COVID.
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It's a situation in which we've basically just abdicated some of the most fundamental
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I mean, something as fundamental as what we put into our body to the government.
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And when you do that, you're licensing the government to make a heck of a lot of other
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And I mean, for the longest time, my hill to die on has always been free speech.
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And I think that a lot of these things are connected.
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Because again, when you're talking about free speech, the question is, do I think I
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should be responsible for determining the limits of my speech?
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And there are a lot of people completely willing to give that up.
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It goes back to Mr. Frum's book, that not everybody loves and cherishes freedom.
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And I think our rights and freedoms are safe only to the extent that they are understood
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by Canadians in our minds and cherished in our hearts.
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And apart from that, no court, no judge, no charter, no constitution is going to save you.
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I'm sure you've heard the old saying, I don't know who came up with it, but the price of
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And I think that the last two and a half years have exposed how far we've declined in our
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Yeah, and I also think that a big dimension here is, what does your car do when you take
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the hands off the steering wheel, metaphorically?
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And the neutral direction that society seems to be headed is one that is towards less freedom.
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I think if people that stand up for freedom stop doing so, they're going to continue to
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So the left has that advantage that just the natural order of things seem to shift in its
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And the corollary to that is that conservatives are always swimming upstream.
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And when we stop swimming, we just get right back to where we started.
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And I know you are on the front lines of this in the legal sense, and your team is just growing
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And you put out one fire, and in the time that it's taken you to do that, three more have
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I don't, I think there's been a big realignment that the traditional left, right thing has
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I, a few months ago, I had lunch with a lawyer who's based in Vancouver, who has done lots
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of labor law, lots of human rights law, and very progressive, probably voted NDP all of
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her life, I didn't ask, but just kind of reading between the lines.
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And she was so disappointed in her colleagues not standing up for fundamental human rights,
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like this basic idea that, you know, we're, we're not going to get terrorized by by false
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And when I say false information, just this whole notion that COVID is as dangerous as
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the Spanish flu of 1918, which is not true, that there are no treatments for COVID other
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than lockdowns and vaccines, which is not true, that the vaccine is effective, which I
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think, you know, when people left, right and center are getting sick with COVID.
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There's limits to how effective these, these vaccines are, that the vaccines are safe, when
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there is no long term safety data, that that lockdowns are wonderful, and not causing much
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All of these government lies were the pretext for taking away fundamental rights and freedoms.
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So this, this left wing lawyer that maybe three years ago, she and I, our paths would not
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have crossed because I'm, you know, big on the charter freedom, smaller government, you know,
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and she's moved for big government, but she's passionate about how we need to win back these rights
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And she's very disappointed in her human rights lawyers, labor lawyers, all of these people that
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she's associated with for decades, she's very disappointed in them.
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And she's, she and I are sitting down for coffee together, and we're on the same side.
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And certainly you've seen governments that with a so-called conservative name, especially in Quebec,
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right, the Coalition Avenir Québec is, is supposedly a conservative party, right, not a left wing party.
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And Quebec had the worst lockdown restrictions in Canada.
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So yeah, just a bit of a twist or a spin on that, that the left wing versus conservative
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is kind of, it's still there, but it's in the background a bit, I think, because there's
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lots of people who would call themselves left wing that are against, totally against the tyranny
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that we've experienced in the last two and a half years.
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And there's lots of right wing people that have been enthusiastic cheerleaders for all
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And I mean, there's that old sort of observation that the political spectrum is not a straight
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And I think you also have to work in some things like authoritarianism.
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And I don't even mean that in a style of government, but as a personality trait.
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And, and there are people on the left and the right that have that authoritarian impulse.
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And, and, uh, as you know, the flip side of that people on the left and right who don't.
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And I think that that was a big part of why there's been this coalescing between libertarians
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and social conservatives in the last couple of years, because, you know, you had a lot
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of these libertarians who may or may not be particularly religious that are saying, yeah,
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I, I support your right to keep your church open.
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And then you had a lot of, you know, supposedly religious, you know, traditionalist law and order
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conservatives that said, we're going to shut down your church.
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And I think Danielle Smith is a great example of this.
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She's not a social conservative, but I think a lot of social conservatives have found a
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lot more in common with her on the question of liberty than they have with Jason Kenney,
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who is, uh, demonstrably a social conservative in, in, uh, many of his statements, but that
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wasn't how people felt his government was behaving.
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Well, Daniel Smith has, uh, spoken out against human rights abuses, uh, a lot more than, uh,
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They were pretty much silent when we were being degraded and dehumanized by having to
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reveal personal, private, confidential medical information to total strangers, uh, becoming
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second-class citizens, uh, for, uh, for anybody not getting this, this vaccine for which there's
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And, uh, and, uh, you know, with few exceptions, most churches cooperated with this.
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And then we have somebody who's, as you say, quite accurately, not a social conservative
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is saying, Hey, this is, uh, this is not right.
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She said, these are the worst human rights abuses that she has seen in her lifetime.
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And I think that that's, uh, that's entirely true.
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I mean, you'd have to go back, uh, quite a few decades, uh, to, uh, to, to, to, to, to
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see this kind of abuse, even, even the battles that were fought in the fifties and sixties
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and seventies, uh, where, you know, for, for women, for visible minorities, for LGBTQ, uh,
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this whole notion of, of equality and we have human rights, uh, legislation to protect these
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Uh, when was there a time in Canadian history when you had to, uh, uh, because of your skin
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color or your gender or your sexual orientation, you were barred from restaurants and,
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and, and gyms and participating fully in society.
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You'd have to go back a long ways in time to come up with actual real examples of that.
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And here, uh, just within, within the past 12 months, uh, people were subjected to, to
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And that was everybody, by the way, it wasn't just people that didn't get this COVID vaccine.
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If you did get the COVID vaccine, you also had to be subjected to telling some, you know,
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16 year old hostess at a restaurant, uh, personal, private medical information.
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And one of the things that justice center is going to keep on doing is we're not going
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to forget about this because it's incredibly dangerous.
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There's some people that say, well, I don't want to talk about it.
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You know, it's, it's over and done with, well, maybe you don't want to talk about it,
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but if we don't talk about it and think our way through as to, uh, how we went wrong and
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why and where we're going to repeat exactly the same errors.
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And we're going to have a situation in 2023 where the government comes up with something
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else that's scary, maybe, uh, maybe another virus, maybe something other than a virus.
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And the government's going to go, oh, look, here's this really scary thing.
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So give up, give up all your rights and freedoms so that we can protect you from this scary
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And that is the narrative that we have to, uh, watch out for and get rid of.
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We know that, you know, takes time to navigate through the justice system.
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So as I understand it, there has not been, uh, any Supreme court of Canada ruling on a
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Although the chief justice, unfortunately has made it very clear publicly, uh, where he
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stands on vaccines, having announced proudly that, that he and his colleagues and all the
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Um, and he also spoke inappropriately, uh, against the, uh, peaceful protests in Ottawa
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in February, but I remember that, yeah, by saying they caused chaos.
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Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but as a judge, you should not be making those kinds
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of pronouncements, uh, ahead of time when it's very, it's quite possible that the Supreme
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court will have before it, the justice centers court action that we filed in February, uh, seeking
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a declaration that the prime minister had no legal basis for declaring a national emergency.
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It's very likely to go to the court of appeal because whoever loses, whether that's us or
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the government, uh, is going to, you know, appeal it to the court of appeal.
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After that, it could go to the Supreme court of Canada.
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There have not been any Supreme court of Canada rulings, uh, directly on, uh, lockdowns or
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Are, are we expecting that this year or is it still perhaps a couple of years out to get
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I know this past year, of course, there was the vaccine mandate trial, which the federal
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court had unfortunately determined was moot, despite the government's own language saying
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But are you expecting that this year on, on some of your bigger cases?
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I think it'll be another year or two before anything goes into the Supreme court of Canada,
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just the, just the trial division or the first, the first court that you go into the litigation,
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typically you're lucky to get a judgment in less than two years.
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Um, you know, and, and, and three or four years is not uncommon when you've got all the
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This, by the way, this is a serious problem in Canada that, that governments need to correct.
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The reason we have this sort of permanent backlog, the reason it takes years instead of months
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to have your court case heard and get a ruling is because we don't have enough judges.
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Uh, and secondarily, I don't know if we have enough courtrooms or not, uh, but we don't
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have enough judges in Canada and, and it's, it's a disgrace and it's a shame because it
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should take months, not years, uh, whatever your, whether it's a criminal law thing or
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family law or constitutional law or civil litigation, you know, somebody cheated you out of a thousand
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dollars in a contract, whatever the court action is, we should be able to get a decision,
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even a decision you might not like, but at least there's resolution, right?
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We should be able to get a decision in months, not years.
00:26:40.500
And so that's, that's a big problem that, that, that, that the, uh, the federal government
00:26:46.100
primarily, but the provinces as well need to fix.
00:26:49.200
What are either on specific cases or even just in general policy discussions that are coming
00:26:54.540
up, uh, what is it you're looking out for in the year ahead?
00:26:57.420
I know in February, we're going to have the report from the public order emergency commission.
00:27:01.040
And as I've said to listeners, I, I think you need to lower expectations, not that the
00:27:05.820
decision that he releases, the commissioner will, will be a good one.
00:27:09.340
It may or it may not, but even if it is just this scathing indictment of the government, it
00:27:13.720
doesn't actually on its own come along with any action or consequence.
00:27:17.640
So, uh, that will fall on politicians and by extension Canadians to determine, but is there
00:27:23.040
anything else that you have that's on your radar for the coming year?
00:27:25.500
Well, we're hopeful that, um, the dismissal of Brian Peckford's court action is going to
00:27:32.820
Uh, we think it's absurd that government should be able to turn our rights and freedoms on
00:27:38.560
and off like a light switch, you know, on, off, on, off, and turn off our freedoms.
00:27:43.060
Uh, and then when a government gets sued and litigation is not going very good for the
00:27:48.280
government, uh, which is what happened in Brian Peckford's case, we had government officials
00:27:52.300
admitting under oath that there was no medical or scientific basis for banning unvaccinated
00:27:59.520
That was thanks to the justice centers court action.
00:28:04.460
And, um, so we're, we're hoping that the federal court of appeal will reverse that decision because
00:28:10.460
certainly these, uh, violations of their millions of Canadians had their mobility rights taken
00:28:17.140
Uh, they're in, in charter section six, the right to enter and leave Canada freely, the
00:28:22.440
right to travel within Canada, uh, those rights are violated on a massive scale.
00:28:26.900
So we're, we're hoping for reversal and, um, uh, that, that Mr. Mr. Peckford is going to
00:28:32.780
get a ruling, hopefully a favorable one, but at least get a ruling that he deserves.
00:28:39.900
And I mean, that was the particularly, I I've said on the show time and time again, and
00:28:44.140
if I've said it to you, please, uh, I beg your pardon on it, but you know, the mootness
00:28:47.980
thing has always bothered me because government will use this, get a court action off the table
00:28:52.560
and then repeat the identical behavior later on.
00:28:55.560
I mean, a personal example in my case is in 2019, when we had, uh, the JCCF representing,
00:29:01.100
uh, true North, uh, and, uh, there was also rebel in that case on the leaders debates commission
00:29:08.640
It, we're trying to get a ruling on the record after the election was over because we won
00:29:13.160
the injunction and then the government says, no, no, no, it's moot.
00:29:18.360
And then the same thing happens in the 2021 election with a bunch of rebel reporters.
00:29:24.740
And the vaccine passport for air travel, same thing.
00:29:27.980
This is a case where the government by its own language could be bringing this back, but
00:29:38.220
It's tragic on, by the way, in the, in the 2021 election, uh, did the rebel apply for,
00:29:44.340
uh, go to court to get themselves back into status or standing and, and were they successful?
00:29:50.400
Yeah, they got an injunction and they were able to go in.
00:29:52.380
And I, I don't, I don't recall what happened after that.
00:29:54.820
I think they've tried to proceed with the case, but I, I'm not aware of a trial or anything.
00:29:59.000
Well, you know, I wish them well, and I hope that they can refer to, uh, the, the other
00:30:05.320
cases to show like that, that, yeah, for, for elections.
00:30:08.540
I mean, just because the election's over does not mean that the government should not be held
00:30:12.640
to account for excluding media that it dislikes, you know, media that are not government funded.
00:30:23.940
And I mean, we have obviously organizations like the JCCF that are on the front lines of
00:30:29.760
And I, I mean, the, the, the, the laughable part of this is that I am speaking for you
00:30:34.640
here and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure you would love to have no work.
00:30:38.420
I'm sure you would love to be able to say mission accomplished, no need for the justice
00:30:43.540
I get asked sometimes, you know, John, you must be really happy with the growth of the
00:30:49.640
And my response is always, well, I mean, sure, I guess, however, why has the justice center
00:30:55.720
grown because governments have been so disrespectful of our fundamental charter rights and freedoms
00:31:02.300
that we've had adequate funding to expand the number of lawyers and, um, uh, so on and so
00:31:10.620
But I, I think, I think it's important to be engaged in, in the battle.
00:31:19.040
Uh, we've had a lot of success with our ticket cases.
00:31:21.960
Uh, there have been, uh, in British Columbia, uh, in every province in Canada, we've seen
00:31:27.260
the crown back away from, uh, tickets that people, you know, got a $5,000 ticket for not
00:31:33.640
using a Rivecan app or, uh, the, you know, $2,000 ticket for peacefully protesting outdoors.
00:31:40.960
Uh, all, all these tickets being withdrawn because we're in court every day.
00:31:45.960
We're challenging the crown and we're saying to the crown, if you want to proceed to trial,
00:31:49.780
we're going to subpoena the chief medical officer to come into court and justify the health
00:31:57.380
This is so difficult because, you know, a lot of the people that I've met in this country
00:32:02.500
get, they, they get so sucked into this idea of, you know, they are concerned about COVID,
00:32:07.540
they support the vaccine, all of that's absolutely fine, but you should be able to at the same
00:32:12.320
time, hold those beliefs and stand up for civil liberties.
00:32:14.620
And are you finding that when you talk to people, when you go out that, that you're able
00:32:20.980
I mean, yes and no, you know, this gets back to an earlier point about, and it's, it's so
00:32:26.040
true that, that people have a tendency to, to be short-sighted, look only at their own,
00:32:31.940
um, look only at, at, at their own personal rights and freedoms and not think through the
00:32:40.600
There's this, uh, social conservative activist that you've probably heard of named Bill Watcott.
00:32:46.620
But, and I remember vividly about 10 years ago, he was on a university campus and he was
0.97
00:32:52.300
handing, he hands out these, these tracts and flyers and he says that, you know, gay sex
0.98
00:32:59.480
And he's got photos of various human body parts and what the diseases do to the body parts,
00:33:05.840
So he was handcuffed, uh, and, and put into a car because he refused to leave campus.
00:33:12.900
And as he's being led away in handcuffs and being put into a police car to be escorted
00:33:17.340
off campus, there's a group of students watching and they cheered and they applauded.
00:33:25.720
If, if the authorities have the power to, uh, handcuff somebody and, and force them and
00:33:30.980
move them off of a university campus because his speech has disliked and unpopular, if the
00:33:37.600
authorities have that power, do you not realize that, you know, 30 years from now, 10 years
00:33:43.820
from now, or tomorrow morning, if you have an opinion that is not popular, the authorities
00:33:48.860
have, then evidently can handcuff you and escort you off campus, uh, because you're expressing
00:33:58.380
Uh, it's the same thing with firearms ownership.
00:34:00.640
Uh, I'm not a firearms owner, but I think it's absolutely frightening that the government
00:34:06.380
would attack a legitimate hobby that many Canadians pursue.
00:34:15.240
Uh, law abiding, uh, firearms owners that millions of Canadians are, pose no threat, no danger.
00:34:22.140
And you got this government crackdown to confiscate their, their property in some cases, even without
00:34:28.880
And now a lot of people will, I'm not a firearms owner.
00:34:34.020
Well, if the government can confiscate somebody else's private property that they have purchased
00:34:39.560
a legal product in good faith with their money, uh, they are enjoying that, that product,
00:34:51.520
And, and the government's going to, uh, you know, take away their hobby that, that their
00:34:59.660
And, and by the way, for some, for some firearms owners, like for farmers, it's a necessity.
00:35:03.860
If you've got a, a cow that's crippled because if she fell into the ditch or something, you
00:35:09.000
want to have a gun available to put the cow out of her misery, uh, immediately.
1.00
00:35:16.460
And, and, and, and in, in parts of Canada, you need a gun to defend yourself against a
00:35:20.860
bear or, or some other animal that might attack you, uh, or rural Canadians where it
00:35:26.800
takes 45 minutes for the police to show up because you're in some far off acreage, et
00:35:32.720
So it's, it's also a serious need, uh, but for most people, it's a hobby, but if, if
00:35:38.000
the government can, uh, take away somebody else's private property and prevent them from
00:35:44.320
engaging in a safe, peaceful hobby, well, the government can also do that to you.
00:35:50.640
So this is part of the, the ongoing educational thing that you have to stand up for the speech
00:35:56.040
that you don't like for the hobbies that you don't like, uh, for the associations that
00:36:00.580
you don't like for the, uh, religious beliefs that you don't like.
00:36:07.860
That's the key to, to, uh, to defending the free society.
00:36:10.980
Yeah. And as, as Mark Stein has said, you don't need protections for speech that everyone enjoys
00:36:16.180
because there's no threat of censoring it. You need free speech for the speech that you deplore.
00:36:20.340
And I think that dovetails nicely on what you said, which is a great point to end on and hopefully
00:36:25.300
something that can give people a little bit of hope and encouragement as we head into the new year.
00:36:29.940
John Carpe, president of the JCCF. Thanks so much for your time. As always, John, keep up the great work.
00:36:37.540
That does it for me. And as I said at the beginning, just so no one is, uh, thinking there's any funny
00:36:43.780
business, I want to disclose. Yes, I am on the board of the JCCF. Although I should say I invited
00:36:49.700
John to do this interview before I was on the board. I don't think that's why they put me on the board.
00:36:54.580
I'm just saying that it's an organization that I have covered a lot and will continue to, although always
00:36:59.860
with that a little disclosure there. Uh, we have to wrap up there. My thanks to all of you for tuning
00:37:05.220
in to this program back tomorrow with another edition. And then that's it for the year. I know it has just
00:37:11.300
flown by. Hope you all have a great day though. Thank you. God bless. We'll talk to you soon.
00:37:15.700
Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.