Juno News - The True North Report： What are the Liberals so afraid of？

00:00:00.420 Hi everyone, my name is Andrew Lawton, fellow with True North, here for another True North

00:00:05.920 report, broadcasting live on Facebook and later on on all these other platforms as well.

00:00:11.260 Someone else does that, he just uploads it and people watch it, but I focus on Facebook

00:00:15.420 and it's hard enough for me to make that one platform work than having to worry about all

00:00:19.960 of the others, but regardless of whether you're tuning in live or after the fact, thank you

00:00:24.120 for tuning in.

00:00:25.240 We're very grateful to have your support here.

00:00:27.260 And I've got to say, I was hoping to do this yesterday, and you may remember yesterday

00:00:33.440 there was a global Facebook and Instagram outage, and I was like ready to go live, I was excited,

00:00:40.420 I had my coffee, I had my water, I had all these tabs open, I had been researching for

00:00:45.380 three hours, I had done 27 push-ups, okay I didn't do any push-ups, but I mean I thought

00:00:49.480 about doing warm-up push-ups, and it was all ready to go, and then hit like go live, and

00:00:55.840 nothing happened, and then I had this moment of panic as I was staring at my computer screen

00:01:00.780 wondering if I actually was live, and I just didn't know it, so I was like getting very

00:01:05.720 concerned that, you know, I would just start swearing or rolling my eyes or something like

00:01:09.960 that.

00:01:10.600 But as it turned out, I was not live, Facebook was not cooperating yesterday, so all of my

00:01:15.560 preparations had to be put on ice, and 24 hours later, here we are, Facebook is working,

00:01:21.140 you're still here, I'm here, and the Justice Committee of Parliament is still an absolute

00:01:26.380 sham.

00:01:28.000 And it was just such a shameful display, you know, it's actually probably a better thing

00:01:32.800 that I'm going today instead of yesterday, because quite frankly, I was actually working

00:01:39.560 myself up a fair bit, because I was so frustrated having watched the 13-minute long Justice Committee

00:01:46.700 meeting at Parliament yesterday, and I was, because this is what I do all day, I just watch

00:01:50.980 Parliamentary Committee meetings, and I was watching this meeting, which was really pushed

00:01:56.960 for by four Conservative MPs on the Justice Committee, and the goal was very simple, they

00:02:03.820 wanted Jody Wilson-Raybould to have the opportunity to return to the Justice Committee to testify once

00:02:10.320 again.

00:02:11.440 It's that simple.

00:02:12.560 Jody Wilson-Raybould gave a very explosive testimony in that committee a couple of weeks

00:02:16.920 ago, and while she was there, laid out some pretty damning and damaging allegations against

00:02:23.740 Justin Trudeau, against Gerald Butts, against the Chief of Staff to Bill Morneau, against Michael

00:02:29.840 Wernick, who's the Clerk of the Privy Council, and she did this only because Justin Trudeau had

00:02:35.900 given her a very narrow authorization, a very narrow authorization to speak to things that

00:02:42.040 happened in the course of her being the Attorney General regarding the SNC-Lavalin case, so a

00:02:48.680 waiver of Cabinet confidence, a waiver of solicitor-client privilege, but it only applied to her time

00:02:55.620 as Attorney General.

00:02:56.440 It didn't apply to her resignation from Cabinet, and it didn't even reply to her time as Veterans

00:03:03.220 Affairs Minister, during which she still was having discussions about the fact that she'd be

00:03:08.120 resigning.

00:03:09.100 So I share that with you so you understand that she did share a lot in that committee hearing.

00:03:16.160 She answered a lot of questions from the Liberals, from the Conservatives, from the New Democrats,

00:03:20.460 I think one from the Bloc Québécois and one from the CCF, but there was a lot that she didn't say,

00:03:26.380 and there was a lot that, according to Jody Wilson-Raybould, she couldn't say.

00:03:31.500 And the fact is, after her testimony ended, there were so many accusations that needed to be responded

00:03:37.160 to, Gerald Butts requested, he requested, this is important, the opportunity to address the committee.

00:03:44.740 Michael Wernick, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and Nathalie Drouin, the Deputy Minister for the Attorney

00:03:50.800 General, had already testified before the Parliamentary Justice Committee, and they returned.

00:03:58.300 They came back to testify a second time, responding to allegations made by Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:04:05.780 Now, in the responses given by Michael Wernick, Nathalie Drouin, and Gerald Butts, there were accusations

00:04:13.300 made against Jody Wilson-Raybould that I think Canadians not only have an interest in, but have a moral

00:04:20.200 obligation to be allowed to hear. But that right has not been given to Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:04:27.420 And this is where, and I'm talking about process here, and I regret that this story is now one that

00:04:32.580 is about process, because it's gotten a lot more murky. When it was initially just scandal and

00:04:37.660 pressure and interference and these things, it was a little bit easier for people to understand.

00:04:42.480 But now we're talking about the intricacies of Robert's Rules of Order, of parliamentary procedure,

00:04:47.640 and all of these other things. And I've actually, I've got on, I don't think I can reach it here,

00:04:51.320 and I'm going to knock over my computer if I try. But I've actually got on my bookshelf a copy of the

00:04:56.580 big green-binded, the green-bound book of parliamentary procedure and rules. The rules that govern the

00:05:04.420 parliamentary process in Canada. And I'm one of like maybe seven non-members of parliament in the

00:05:10.040 country that has a copy of that book, because I'm one of the seven non-members of parliament in the

00:05:14.620 country that finds parliamentary rules interesting. Most Canadians are not like me, and the country is very

00:05:20.320 grateful for that fact. But when it becomes a process story, people don't really pay all that close

00:05:25.960 attention to it. So yesterday's Justice Committee meeting was an absolute sham, and here's why.

00:05:32.380 Because Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Member of Parliament from, I believe, Nepean-Carleton, or

00:05:37.340 Ottawa West Nepean, it's one of the two, put forward a motion that the committee calls on Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:05:44.480 to testify once again. He puts forward this motion, it was going to lose. I hate to say it, but it was

00:05:52.440 going to lose. It was going to lose most likely because the liberals, which dominate the majority

00:05:57.660 of the committee, have been voting as a bloc throughout this entire scandal. So Ikra Khalid and

00:06:04.100 El-Assassi from, I forget his first name, I think it's Ahmed, Ahmed Assassi from Toronto, and these people,

00:06:11.600 they're voting as a bloc. They're not letting anyone get through. Randy Boissoneau, same thing.

00:06:16.620 So what happened is Pierre Poiliev introduces this motion, he speaks to it. This became a bipartisan

00:06:22.800 effort. The NDP spoke in support of this motion. And what happens? They're midway through the debate,

00:06:29.300 midway through the debate, and a Liberal member of Parliament, who's not even a regular fixture at

00:06:35.680 that committee, steps up and says, I introduce a motion to adjourn. Pierre Poiliev has introduced

00:06:44.360 the motion, they're debating the motion, they haven't yet voted on it, and the Liberal says,

00:06:49.460 motion to adjourn. We're going to talk about this on the 19th, motion to adjourn. I'm done here.

00:06:54.680 And what happens? Point of order is called by Pierre Poiliev, point of order is called again,

00:07:00.060 the chair of the meeting, who again, I thought was actually doing a very good job at being the chair

00:07:05.080 during the testimonies and the questioning of Jody Wilson-Raybould, Gerald Butts, and Michael

00:07:10.260 Wernick. I thought Anthony Howe's father was doing a very good job in that role. But yesterday,

00:07:16.460 he participated in what the Conservatives and the NDP rightfully and justifiably called

00:07:21.740 a cover-up, despicable, and a sham, because it was all of those things. So he allows this to be

00:07:29.240 voted on, allows this to be voted on, not Pierre Poiliev's motion, but the Liberal motion to adjourn.

00:07:35.720 And the motion carries, because of course, the Liberals vote as a block to adjourn, which means

00:07:40.420 that the meeting was shut down like 13 and a half minutes after it started, because the Liberals decided

00:07:47.200 to have a hissy fit, because the Liberals didn't want to get to the bottom of it. The Liberals do not

00:07:52.520 want truth. They don't want Jody Wilson-Raybould's truth. They don't want the truth. They don't want

00:07:57.620 anything about this on the table, because they know that it will make their boss, Justin Trudeau,

00:08:03.260 look bad. And you know, as much as people think politics is hyper-partisan, I've got to tell you,

00:08:09.160 as someone who worked in Ottawa, committee work has always been where cross-partisan activity thrives.

00:08:15.400 You know, a lot of MPs will say, most Canadians don't see it, but on committees, they all work

00:08:19.920 together. Liberal, NDP, New Democrat, Block, I said Liberal, I said NDP twice. Conservative,

00:08:25.120 NDP, Block, they all work together on committee to try to get what's best for the country and what's

00:08:30.100 best for legislation. But the Liberals have put an end to that. The Liberals put an end to that.

00:08:35.160 They've created in committee this little mean girls clique, where they're the ones that get to run the 1.00

00:08:42.180 show. And if someone wants to even bring a witness in that they don't approve of,

00:08:46.720 they're not just going to vote against it, they're going to shut down the meeting,

00:08:50.020 so it can't even be discussed. This is what they did yesterday. They didn't just vote against

00:08:55.400 Jody Wilson-Raybould. They voted to stop talking about the possibility of Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:09:02.380 being asked to come back. This is them not just opposing an outcome, but them even opposing

00:09:09.820 debate of an outcome. Which is such a disgusting thing. And again, I say so-called justice committee.

00:09:16.980 At this point, they have to put justice in quotation marks, because no justice is actually

00:09:22.040 being sought here. This is a committee that's been tasked with investigating and getting to

00:09:27.240 the bottom of the SNC-Lavalin affair. And instead of getting to the bottom of it, they're more interested

00:09:32.140 in burying it. They don't want to dig, they want to bury. So when the conservatives shout that it's a

00:09:37.520 cover-up, they could not be further from a lie in saying that. That is exactly what this committee

00:09:43.640 meeting became. And I had other things that I was doing. I wasn't staring at my computer screen

00:09:50.320 watching it. I was listening to it. And in the arguments, I'm listening to it, I'm listening to

00:09:54.380 it. And I had to do a double take, and I had to watch the video a second time, because I hear

00:10:00.280 motion to adjourn, and I'm like, oh wait, did I just fall asleep and woke up and they've already done it?

00:10:04.540 No. The motion to adjourn came halfway through the discussion on the motion to bring Jody Wilson-Raybould

00:10:11.300 back. So here's what's needing to happen now. Justin Trudeau needs to waive solicitor-client

00:10:17.480 privilege and cabinet confidence for a longer period of time. But even if he does that, the committee

00:10:22.800 still needs to allow her to speak in that capacity. So they're conspiring. They are absolutely

00:10:32.040 conspiring. And I'm going to get back to ranting here, but I want to read a few of your comments

00:10:36.000 first. You've been very patient. Blaine writes, hey. Well, hey Blaine to you as well. Debbie writes,

00:10:41.540 we have to keep this going. Nothing good comes easy. You're very right. And you know, I wrote a

00:10:46.380 column that was published today in Looney Politics, which you should go check out. But the point that I

00:10:51.380 make in the column is that I think that now that this has become a process story, people in the general

00:10:57.060 public in Canada are going to lose interest or are already losing interest in it. And I fear that is

00:11:03.240 probably meaning that Justin Trudeau will escape on this one. But yes, the antidote to that is people

00:11:09.480 not letting them get away with it. People continuing to put the pressure on. David writes, there's an

00:11:15.740 oxymoron in those words. Justice committee. Yeah. You know, in all honesty, this idea of justice

00:11:22.660 justice is no longer a priority to the so-called justice committee. Corey writes, the liberals are

00:11:28.520 afraid of her. Yeah. And you know, in the title of this video, I actually say, what are the liberals

00:11:33.400 afraid? Did I say that? I meant to say that. Yeah, I think I said that. I like tried a couple of titles

00:11:39.440 and I ended up with what are the liberals afraid of? Because in all honesty, I made a joke in my video

00:11:43.960 yesterday of that old Jack Nicholson line, you can't handle the truth. But in all honesty, maybe the

00:11:48.560 liberals can handle it. They certainly don't want it. I mean, they're actively sabotaging the very 0.74

00:11:54.200 idea of truth. They are not interested in getting to the bottom of it. They just aren't. They aren't

00:12:01.340 interested in it. Thomas writes, if they cared about our country, they would seek the truth.

00:12:06.400 And Daniel writes, it's shameful. Kay writes, this guy, Francis Duran, was a special assistant to

00:12:13.260 Dalton McGinty for four years. Here's the Wikipedia excerpt. He was a special assistant to Ontario

00:12:18.500 Premier Dalton McGinty, then joined as a government relations firm as a communications consultant.

00:12:24.500 Yeah, so Kay points out, I think, very actively, very accurately, rather, that not only did this

00:12:30.000 guy work for Dalton McGinty, which is, if you're an Ontarian, you know how bad that is. If you're not

00:12:34.980 in Ontario, well, be grateful for it. But then he was a government spin doctor, which, look, I know a

00:12:40.760 lot of people that work in government communications. I don't fault them for that. But the guy who did this,

00:12:45.880 Francis Duran, again, not even a regular member on this committee, was not there for the questioning

00:12:51.680 of Jody Wilson-Raybould, was not there for the questioning of Michael Wernick, was not there for

00:12:56.080 the questioning of Gerald Butts, but magically shows up to do a motion to adjourn, as though he's some

00:13:01.160 sort of, you know, like procedural superhero that just flies in and says, we're, hey, you down there,

00:13:06.320 stop that meeting, and then he flies on. I mean, this guy thinks he's the Superman saving Canadians

00:13:10.940 from the punishment of actually investigating something, which is just such a gong show and

00:13:19.540 such a farce that this is, again, what passes forward. I'm going to keep going back to the air

00:13:24.160 quotes, justice. Thomas writes, you're doing a great job at True North. Well, thank you very much.

00:13:29.260 Maurice writes, it is a dictatorship and a cover-up. It's funny, I don't like using terms like

00:13:36.480 dictatorship lightly. And I don't think that this meets the description of a dictatorship.

00:13:42.240 But it is interesting how dictatorially these committee meetings have been run. And look,

00:13:47.280 I'm not going to look back and say conservatives haven't taken advantage of this, and other liberal

00:13:51.800 governments haven't as well. Because quite frankly, if you've got a majority government,

00:13:56.340 that means in most parliamentary committees, you also have a majority. But the part that I'm

00:14:01.540 trying to establish here is that it's about the spirit of these things. Even if committees are

00:14:07.000 typically dominated by the majority party in parliament, committees are also the place where

00:14:13.560 bipartisan, tripartisan, quadripartisan, and panpartisan, and transpartisan, and all of these

00:14:19.180 things. Transpartisans when you cross the floor, I think. But all of these things are where 1.00

00:14:25.120 workers come together and work for the good of the country. Committees are not meant to be

00:14:31.080 partisan. And I know that if you have a life, like most Canadians, unlike me, you don't watch these all

00:14:36.640 day. I don't watch them all day. But when I do watch them, it's actually great. You know, whether it's

00:14:40.740 marijuana legislation or other things, people work across the aisle. So even if other parties have

00:14:47.420 taken advantage of this in the past, or the liberals have in the past, in this particular context,

00:14:52.140 the Justice Committee is not analyzing, you know, which sections of the criminal code we're going

00:14:57.180 to take a comma away from. The Justice Committee is investigating a matter of great importance and

00:15:03.800 significance to Canadians. And the Justice Committee is supposed to be when presenting itself in an

00:15:11.740 investigative capacity, independent from the whims and whimsy of the government. And they're not.

00:15:19.060 They're not doing that. They're actually acting as an agent of the government, which is certainly

00:15:26.020 in their purview. They are liberal MPs. I don't expect them to no longer be liberals. But you would

00:15:31.700 hope that they would put on their independent hats and say, we're focused on the truth. And to go back

00:15:38.540 to the Jack Nicholson line, you can't handle the truth. You either can or can't, doesn't matter. You

00:15:43.080 don't want the truth. They don't even want to know it. And this is why it's such an unfortunate

00:15:50.600 and quite sickening display. And, you know, the point I made in my Looney Politics column,

00:15:56.800 and if you're not a Looney Politics subscriber, it's not affiliated with True North, but I write

00:16:00.540 there, lots of other great writers do. You can use my last name, Lawton, and get a discounted

00:16:05.240 subscription to read my piece today and every piece. But the thing is about that column that I'll

00:16:11.640 share a brief snippet of you with, I said that the public relations side of this. So the liberals

00:16:20.200 blocking Jody Wilson-Raybould makes people like me who have the parliamentary rule book to the House

00:16:25.660 of Commons on my bookshelf mad. But the average Canadian's not watching the Justice Committee.

00:16:29.960 The average Canadian doesn't care about this stuff or doesn't have time to care about it because

00:16:33.700 they're working, raising their family, feeding their family, all of that stuff. But the problem is

00:16:39.120 that if Jody Wilson-Raybould testifies again, it's very likely that that will break through

00:16:45.440 the Ottawa bubble. Average Canadians will see it. Average Canadians will, like the first time she

00:16:50.760 testified, be outraged about it. So there's, you know, a day or two of people being frustrated when

00:16:56.120 they block her or block the discussion of her like they did yesterday. But that is still less

00:17:02.900 politically damaging than the other side, which is letting her testify and then potentially having 0.83

00:17:08.360 two, three weeks of people talking about it. And, you know, it's not that long before we get to the

00:17:14.020 point where it's the summer and politicians are campaigning and all of that stuff. So it's a net PR

00:17:19.040 win. A net PR win for the liberals to do it this way. And, you know, people are, Marty mentions,

00:17:27.480 for example, that Justin Trudeau flew back, flew to Florida. This is great, by the way, he tweeted

00:17:32.800 about greenhouse gases this week. He also this week flew back from Florida to Ottawa for a day,

00:17:38.360 then flew back to Florida that night. So, you know, it's funny, whenever I've gone on a vacation,

00:17:43.560 you know, the flights are typically like the thing that I'm like, all right, you know, get the cheapest

00:17:46.840 possible flight. Whereas he's like, oh, you know, I forgot my keys, fly back to Ottawa, grab the keys,

00:17:51.680 and then fly back down to Florida or something. It's just insane. But that's an aside.

00:17:57.220 Because what's happening here is a lot worse than, you know, whether he's jetting to Florida

00:18:01.100 or something like that. We're talking about a prime minister who is either directing or at the

00:18:06.400 very least being the beneficiary of people that are putting their, what is supposed to be their

00:18:12.440 commitment to justice, to crown and to country, secondary or secondarily to their allegiance to

00:18:19.220 Justin Trudeau's ego and reputation. And that's why I find this to be such a,

00:18:25.360 a, it goes beyond partisan annoyance. And this is the point here. I mean, yes, I've run for a

00:18:33.040 political party. So obviously people are going to put a partisan label on me, but I believe that

00:18:37.200 all sides are capable of good and all sides are capable of bad. And I actually get quite annoyed

00:18:42.040 with the standards sparring over little stupid things. Like I don't like when, I'm not even going 0.99

00:18:49.080 to bring up an example, but I don't like the really stupid mundane issues. This is not that. 0.97

00:18:55.020 This is not one of those situations where, oh, they all do. And this is the problem. I mean,

00:19:00.020 there have been some tremendously bad columns that have been written. I mean, one of the worst I'd say

00:19:05.100 was probably from Michael Corrin this week in iPolitics where he was saying, ah, you know,

00:19:09.420 it's a, who can, maybe, maybe SNC-Lavalin's bad, but you know, this really doesn't matter.

00:19:14.300 No, this does matter. This case does matter. This is not just one of the biggest political

00:19:18.300 stories of the year. And I say that realizing it's only March 14th, but this is the biggest

00:19:23.680 political scandal in Justin Trudeau's premiership. This is bigger than Mike Duffy. The media is not

00:19:29.820 treating it as that, but it is in fact more significant than Mike Duffy because in the case

00:19:34.940 of Mike Duffy, we had, uh, poorly, uh, you know, improper expenses that were reimbursed by

00:19:42.140 a private citizen. Whereas here we've got legitimately demonstrable pressure from the

00:19:47.600 prime minister's office, from the clerk of the Privy Council to the attorney general, which

00:19:52.040 thankfully did not materialize only because of that attorney general's, uh, fortitude and

00:19:58.360 quite frankly, backbone. So the reason I say this is because we as Canadians, I think have not just

00:20:06.560 seen this story go through a number of different stages, but it's been fairly consistent in that.

00:20:13.800 And even when the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick came out and, uh, clerk Larry David

00:20:18.560 decided to talk about, you know, oh yes, you know, we, of course we talked about jobs, but you know,

00:20:23.120 that's not politics. That's public policy. They're actually acknowledging that what Jody Wilson-Ray

00:20:29.000 Boldt alleged was true. They're just putting a rationalization on it. That's distinct from,

00:20:35.940 I think where a lot of Canadians would approach these things naturally.

00:20:40.240 And yes, this is a, a, she said, he said, he said, he said story. There are different perspectives.

00:20:45.240 And I think there is ambiguity about some parts of it. There's ambiguity about whether looking at jobs

00:20:50.660 is appropriate. There's ambiguity about whether this was legal or illegal. So there is enough

00:20:55.720 ambiguity that, yeah, I think it stands to benefit from having a detailed, in-depth, thoughtful

00:21:02.640 investigation that goes beyond partisanship. And I know the Conflict of Interest and Ethics

00:21:08.020 Commissioner is looking into this, but, but I also have my doubts that that process will really lead

00:21:14.180 to anything. Remember, Justin Trudeau, this is Justin Trudeau's government's fifth investigation by the

00:21:19.460 Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. And I'll do a little flash poll here in the chat,

00:21:25.360 if you're watching live, without Googling it. If you Google it, it's no fun. Can anyone name what

00:21:29.840 these five are? Can anyone name what the five are? So the one I just told you, it's SNC-Lavalin.

00:21:35.840 One's a giveaway, which is the Bahamas vacation. But can anyone name off the top of their head,

00:21:40.980 the other three Conflict of Interest and Ethics investigations that have plagued the Trudeau

00:21:46.060 government? I don't think so. I honestly don't think so. And, and I, the reason I say that is

00:21:53.480 because I don't consider myself the most brilliant person in the world, maybe third or fourth most,

00:21:57.240 but no, I don't consider myself the most brilliant or even the most astute person in the world.

00:22:01.800 But I follow the news very closely. And I've got a pretty good frame of reference for political

00:22:07.300 stories and political history because I read it every day. I mean, this is my job. This is my interest.

00:22:13.060 And when I heard someone say a couple of months ago, oh yeah, there have been five. I was like,

00:22:17.660 wait five. And, and I couldn't remember them all. And then when I went and read them, I was like,

00:22:23.000 oh yeah, that one, that one. But there were, there was one I hadn't even heard of that the

00:22:26.540 media barely reported. And you can look it all up after. I might even do like a video that kind of

00:22:31.680 gives the, the, the rundown of it all. But for the most part, I'm saying that Canadians move on from

00:22:38.200 these things very quickly. The Bahamas vacation seems like ancient history right now. And I remember

00:22:44.620 when that was the biggest political scandal that Justin Trudeau was facing. And again,

00:22:49.060 we're not talking about, cause that was just a, oh, the perception of a conflict. This is a very

00:22:53.380 legitimate episode of wrongdoing here. And Canadians are going to move on. And, you know,

00:23:00.040 I've seen a lot of people circulating this idea of, uh, it's such a stupid, I mean, this idea that, 0.98

00:23:07.220 oh, Justin Trudeau is going to be calling a May election. There was a blog post from a Montreal 0.97

00:23:11.940 Magazine saying that sources are telling me, uh, that, uh, not me, but the, the writer that, uh,

00:23:18.920 who's, I think his name was Michael Cohen, but it's not that Michael Cohen. Uh, but sources were

00:23:22.820 telling the Montreal Michael Cohen that, uh, there's going to be an early election. And again,

00:23:26.920 no one but him was, was saying that. So I don't, I mean, again, anything's possible. I don't think

00:23:32.380 we're headed towards a May election, especially when this is all fresh. By the time October rolls

00:23:36.500 around, this'll be distant, distant memory, ancient history. Uh, Pat writes, Bill Morneau's

00:23:42.500 Villa in France. Yes. Bill Morneau's Villa in France. I didn't know the quiz was still going,

00:23:46.300 but that is very much correct. You win. Actually your grand prize is Bill Morneau's Villa in France

00:23:50.620 for guessing it. So, uh, call up Morneau Chappelle and they'll be able to get you the keys and then

00:23:54.800 Trudeau's jet will take you there and you'll have a grand old time. Uh, but you know, the reason I bring

00:23:59.960 this up is because as much as people that are really involved here, and I, and I'm not preaching to the

00:24:05.520 choir intentionally, but people who are really involved in politics, really active, follow this

00:24:10.140 stuff. The people, the Canadians who decide elections are not in that category. You know,

00:24:15.220 one brief story I ran, uh, in June, uh, in an election in Ontario, unsuccessfully, that's why I'm

00:24:20.480 here. And the thing is, as much as it was great fun talking to people and my team knocked on 21,000

00:24:27.000 doors in the course of the campaign, it was actually disheartening in some ways that educated,

00:24:32.540 affluent, smart, friendly, nice people. You'd reach them, you know, the day before the election,

00:24:38.900 literally the day before the election and say, Oh, you know, I wonder if I can count on your support.

00:24:42.460 I, you know, I haven't thought of it yet. That's well, or, you know, the election's in, you know,

00:24:45.980 four hours or something, but, but that's, and some of them were being polite. Some of them meant to say,

00:24:50.860 I'm not voting for you. Get off my step, uh, my front porch. But, uh, you know, there are a lot of

00:24:55.460 people that, again, that that's, that they look at the last, they look at the last thing they see

00:25:00.080 and that formulates their view. And as much as this story has legs in the sense of it should be

00:25:07.600 relevant until the election, I don't think it will be. And, and despite all the conservatives that

00:25:11.900 were saying, and Andrew Scheer, I mean, God love him. He was saying, Justin Trudeau's got to resign.

00:25:16.340 And I said, yeah, maybe it's true, but he's not going to. And right now there's been enough

00:25:21.440 of a rationalization for everything that happened given by Trudeau, by his team, by Michael Wernick,

00:25:27.260 that he's not going to have to step down before the election because of this.

00:25:31.580 If something else happens, if something else happens, great. Maybe that'll change.

00:25:36.140 But as of this point, that's not the direction that things are going in.

00:25:40.760 Rosemary writes, if there was any doubt in anyone's mind about the justice committee being serious

00:25:45.380 about finding the truth, that was proved false yesterday. Yeah. And again, if you're just tuning

00:25:50.400 in, I keep calling it the justice committee instead of the justice committee, which if you're listening

00:25:55.020 and not watching, you didn't get the joke. I did the air quotes beside my already novelty sized head

00:25:59.680 on this stream. But the justice committee, the so-called justice committee has proven that it's

00:26:05.460 not interested in its investigatory role. And imagine if, you know, the RCMP were to just one day say,

00:26:12.840 ah, you know, we, we just, yeah, we, we think we've heard enough. Well, there might be more out there.

00:26:17.300 No, no, no. I think we've heard enough. We don't need to talk to that witness again

00:26:20.200 because that's what's happened here. So person A makes allegations against persons B and C.

00:26:27.180 Persons B and C make allegations against person A and they don't go back to person A. They just

00:26:31.940 accept that it's done. They accept that the situation has ended. And Francis Drouin, the MP who

00:26:38.380 started this sham at committee actually had the audacity to say, and I forget the exact words,

00:26:45.620 but they were something along the lines of, I think we've heard enough. And he said that in a follow-up

00:26:50.340 interview or media statement that was given today where he said, ah, you know, I don't think there's

00:26:54.300 anything more. It's, and he said, it's time for Canadians to turn the page. That's the one line that

00:26:59.160 I do remember. He said, it's time for Canadians to turn the page on this. Do you think that the party

00:27:04.760 that's implicated in the scandal gets to decide when it's time to turn the page on the scandal?

00:27:09.880 Because the liberals do. I mean, the liberals think that they are the party most impacted by this.

00:27:14.720 So therefore they get to say, I don't know, we're done with this now. We're moving on.

00:27:19.120 Again, that's great to use the RCMP analogy again, you know, the RCMP, you know, beats on someone's

00:27:24.160 door, you know, take Felicity Huffman. And what is it? Lori Loughlin right now. They're, they're, 0.89

00:27:29.700 you know, Felicity Huffman's on $250,000 bail. Lori Loughlin's on a million dollars bail. They were late

00:27:36.160 arresting her in the college admission scam because she legitimately was on the yacht with the chairman

00:27:42.400 of the board of the school that her daughter got into. So talk about serendipity there. But again,

00:27:48.120 you know, they just go to police. You know, it's time for us to turn the page on this. You know,

00:27:52.720 you've heard enough. Stop listening. Stop looking. Stop talking to people. It's time to turn the page

00:27:58.120 on this. Don't investigate me anymore. You can't write this. Like people wouldn't believe you if you

00:28:05.460 were to write this because it is so unbelievable. But this is what's passing for justice in Canada.

00:28:13.680 This is what's passing for justice here. And you know, a lot of people and my colleague here at

00:28:18.660 True North, Leo Knight, who's absolutely tremendous on these issues. He's been, he's an ex-RCMP officer,

00:28:24.780 ex-Vancouver police officer. And he was talking about the fact that it's very possible from the

00:28:31.020 letter of the law that the law was broken here. And the RCMP will not confirm whether it is or is

00:28:36.180 not investigating. And look, I just hope someone is actually investigating. Because if the Parliamentary

00:28:42.520 Committee tasked with investigating has decided it's not worth investigating, my best hope as a

00:28:47.460 Canadian would be that someone is. That someone somewhere is looking into this. And you'd think in

00:28:53.800 Canada, a supposedly democratic nation, that that wouldn't be the bar that we just hope someone decides

00:29:00.000 they're not just going to turn the page prematurely. But that's precisely what's

00:29:03.600 happening here. I want to thank you very much for tuning in. Please do give us some help as we

00:29:09.160 cover the issues facing Canada in the months ahead and in the years ahead, hopefully, but we can't do

00:29:14.740 it alone. If you want to help us out, you can head on over to truenorthinitiative.com and join the

00:29:20.120 Andrew Lawton Heritage Club or the Andrew Lawton Patriot Club. Or if you find another Andrew Lawton

00:29:24.740 club, it's not real, but click on it and see what happens. I'm Andrew Lawton, fellow with True

00:29:29.820 North. We'll talk to you next week, folks. And also just a bit of a programming note. I'll be

00:29:34.460 actually going live next weekend. So not this weekend, but next weekend from the Manning

00:29:39.800 Conference in Ottawa. I am speaking there. I'll also be doing some stuff for True North. So if you

00:29:44.720 are at the Manning Conference, come and say hello. If you're not at the Manning Conference, say hello

00:29:48.420 through Facebook. Hopefully it will be working unlike yesterday. The one thing we can't blame

00:29:52.900 Justin Trudeau on. Folks, we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. God bless and good day, Canada.

Juno News - March 15, 2019

The True North Report： What are the Liberals so afraid of？

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