The woke takeover of Canada (Ft. Ari Goldkind)
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Summary
In this episode of the Rupa Subramanya show, I am joined by Ari Golkind, who is a criminal defence lawyer and host of the SiriusXM show, True North, where he provides commentary on social, political, and cultural issues of the day. In this episode, we cover a range of topics, including the recent death of Toronto police officer Richard Bilkstow, race-based sentencing in Canada, and the growing problem of carjacking in Canada.
Transcript
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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Rupa Subramanya show.
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Today, it's a great pleasure to welcome back my friend, Ari Golkind.
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Ari is a criminal defense lawyer based out of Toronto,
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and he's one of the sharpest and most thoughtful people that I know out there.
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He provides amazing commentary on key social, political, and cultural issues of the day,
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and I think has a very interesting take on just about everything in the news.
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Ari hosts his own podcast on SiriusXM, where I've had the pleasure of joining him,
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and today it's great to have him back on my podcast for True North,
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and we're going to cover a lot of ground on a range of issues that have been in the news recently.
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Hey, Ari, it's great to have you here once again.
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I believe it's like your third appearance on my show, and, you know, it's always fun to have you back,
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and I really enjoyed being on your show last week to talk about my story for the Free Press.
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Well, you do such great work, and you write about things that others won't touch.
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You're sort of the third rail of journalists, which I kind of admire the electricity,
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so it's always good to talk to you, and the last time we talked, the response was overwhelming.
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I actually looked at it, so it was really great to see how many people watched us,
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and I think really appreciated our conversation, and I don't take people watching you or myself for granted.
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Yeah, no, absolutely, and I think we're going to have a great conversation,
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so I'm hoping that, you know, we'll talk about the story that I worked on for the Free Press on DEI
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and the tragic suicide of Richard Bilkstow, but first, you know, I wanted to ask you about, you know,
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going to your area of expertise as a well-known criminal defense lawyer based out of Toronto.
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We've seen, for example, in Canada, we've seen criminals.
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They get the release from jail on bail despite, you know, a high risk of re-offending,
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and, you know, and what exactly is going on here.
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One of the things that I've also worked on is a story on race-based sentencing, if you remember.
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You know, I wrote the story for the Free Press about how these impact of race and cultural assessment reports
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are playing an increasingly important role in letting go of people who, you know, have spent time in jail.
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What is happening within the criminal justice system?
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I start my answer with the Seinfeldian, not that there's anything wrong with it.
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As much as I'm going to speak freely here as a citizen, as a lawyer, as somebody who works in the criminal, I think, injustice system,
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I just want people to understand I'm still very proud of what I do.
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I would defend anybody I'm about to criticize if they called me in 10 minutes.
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I would do it to the best of my abilities, and I'm very proud of it.
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We call ourselves the Western world, that we are preferring the rights of criminals over the responsibilities of what it means to be a citizen.
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We are preferring people who come from afar and pretend that they're refugee applicants over Canadian taxpaying, law-abiding citizens of all races and religions, mind you.
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That's why the argument that so many people put up here is a straw man argument, as if Canada is some white, you know, aristocratic country that isn't really a majority-minority country filled with people of all races and religions.
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And when people of all races and religions who are here, who are citizens, who are paying taxes, now have to put clubs.
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Remember going to Canadian Tire and buying a club for your car because now car theft is so rampant.
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Now you have to put your keys in a bag so that they don't operate that.
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You worry about getting carjacked when you're driving.
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And the only time the carjacking becomes a story is when it happens to a Toronto Maple Leaf.
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We're a country where police officers, this is insane to me.
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I want to be very clear and passionate about this.
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We used to live in a country where if a police officer was gunned down by a monster who was out on probation or parole or just a ne'er-do-well, there'd be a national funeral.
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But now police officers are gunned down so often that the prime minister or the premiers of provinces don't even go to the funeral.
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They'll go to the opening of a door, but they won't go to a funeral for a police officer gunned down.
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And you just asked me a moment ago, Rupa, about the bail system.
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As much as people watching us right now think the bail system is broken, they actually don't know just how broken it is.
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Because you're going to hear about the big story, the guy who stabbed a teenager on a subway in Toronto.
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He was out on six bails and the revolving door of bail.
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And you get bail, you get charged with fail to comply, you get bail again.
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And most people think, well, wait a minute, if you get charged with a crime and you get bail and a judge says to you, and I'm going to look right in the camera and says to you, sir, because it's almost always a sir.
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When you get bail from me, make me a promise that you will not commit any crime.
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Their sureties, what that means in English, is somebody signs a bail that says, I'm going to make sure they don't misbehave.
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I'm going to be their prison warden in the community.
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Those sureties make promises to courts under oath that they don't keep.
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Nobody really goes after the sureties, the bail person for screwing up.
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So the bail system has become sort of a mirage.
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And to your last part, Rupa, is you asked me about race-based sentencing or issues in the criminal justice system.
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This is the lie that the Canadian people are told, which is that either the country or the criminal justice system is systemically racist.
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Now, you're not allowed to hold a contrarian view to that, but I do.
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I can tell you that the criminal justice system bends over backwards, then does gymnastics, then does cartwheels, to actually give preferential treatment to one race and one cultural background.
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And your listeners and your viewers right now who are watching us, Rupa, they pay for the privilege of this through what are called enhanced sentencing reports, $5,000 a pop.
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So if a person who's of one race or one cultural background gets charged with a crime, even that arguably has nothing to do with their background, and let me be very clear, there are a number of Indigenous people who were born into circumstances that you and I could never dream about.
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Born with fetal alcohol syndrome, born with no parents, abused, left homeless at seven years old, I have great sympathy for that person getting a bit of a different look given sort of the cultural issues in our country.
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But when you're now calling everything in our criminal justice system, when you're now saying simply because the colour of your skin is different than mine, you deserve different or preferential treatment in the criminal justice system for no reason other than we live in a woke world.
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That is a criminal justice system that increasingly is losing the confidence of the public.
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And when the criminal justice system does not have the confidence of the public, and it's a criminal justice system, Rupa, that, as you know, people don't look at it this way, is meant to reflect moral blameworthiness.
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It's meant to say society looks at certain actions and says, no, when you have the pendulum swinging so that innocent people riding the subway, innocent people riding a bus to go to work, again, Rupa, all races and religions, look at who rides the bus.
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And if somebody remembers, and we stop being the nation of excuse makers, we're never going to put this country on the right track.
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So someone who believes in race-based sentencing.
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Let's stick with race-based sentencing for a minute here.
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a proponent of race-based sentencing will say, well, look, you know, systemic racism is a real
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issue. There's been historical racism that certain communities have experienced, especially
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Black Canadians, for example. And because of that, these historical injustices that they've
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experienced, you know, that's had an effect on how they've been brought up and it's had an effect on
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their lives. And so we have to be a little more understanding of their circumstances, of their
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history. And this is why race-based sentencing or the impact of race and cultural assessment reports
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matter, just like they did with the Gladue reports for Indigenous people. So if you can have that for
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Indigenous people, why can't you have that for Black Canadians, for example?
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Okay, so very good point. Let me say one, I don't accept the premise of what these so-called people
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say, that we run around and live in a country that's systemically racist. The conversation is
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much more nuanced. It's much deeper. I'll say something now that I'm sure 10% of your viewers
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will not like. I'm Jewish. I'm not religious, but I'm proudly Jewish. Six million of my people
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were wiped out between 1939 and 1945. Wiped off the map. But I can tell you that if a Jew gets
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charged with a crime, they don't march into court and start complaining about the Holocaust or their
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background or that there used to be signs, no dogs, no Jews. I'm being serious, by the way. And I've
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walked the tracks at Auschwitz. It was one of the most formative moments of my life. I'm being serious
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about that. There are a number of races and religions in this world that bad things have
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happened to. But there seems to be one magical race and one magical background where there's no
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agency. There's no, we have choice. We have autonomy. We don't get to use excuses forever. At what point
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do you start to have Lady Justice be blind? And the rules apply across all people. I'm not saying a judge
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shouldn't be able to take into account what any lawyer like me says when I'm singing for my
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client's supper. But when you have it codified by the criminal code, that if you're a certain race
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or background, you should get bail before another one does, or it's a special consideration, even if
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your crime is heinous, god-awful, you're on three bails. I mean, my goodness, what are we doing? What's
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the statute of limitations in a country where our new Justice Minister, Rupa, let me make this point.
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Our new Justice Minister, Arif Varani, I went to law school with him. That's completely true, by the
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way. Very hardworking, very nice guy, but came out with some ridiculous comments when he first got his
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appointment. We won't get into those unless you want to. But he said something that nobody picked up
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on in the press, which is, I came here as a child, and I'm an Ismaili Muslim. This is him speaking.
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And he said, if I can rise to be the Justice Minister of Canada, and an MP for many years,
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this isn't his first rodeo, then that shows that this is a country that anybody of any background,
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any skin colour can do anything in. So if we're going to premise the whole conversation that we're
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a racist country, or systemically racist, which is essentially a sentence that means nobody can
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argue it, you can't ask for proof, you can't ask for the ingredients, you can't ask for anybody to
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back it up, or they'll give you an isolated example. Well, sure, I'll give an isolated example back.
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There may be young black children who are born out of wedlock to parents that abuse them. But that
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happens to Caucasian people, too. You know, we don't have to just be in Appalachia
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to understand that certain things are more class than they are the melanin or melatonin or whatever
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the word is in your skin. There are going to be Native Canadians, Indigenous people who were born
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with fetal alcohol syndrome, as I said, and they never had a chance in life that I did. I'm not lost
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on that. I had a better head start in life than somebody born to parents that beat them and have
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fetal alcohol syndrome. And the court should always take that into consideration. But why should it be
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open season on somebody who is violent, won't change their behavior, is incorrigible, is unstoppable,
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so that they can go out and offend and rape or murder or stab or shoot other innocent Canadian
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people. And as I've said, and I've put this out on my anti-social media group many times, I don't call it
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social media, I never will. If you wanted the system to change, it would change in a nanosecond
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if this violence happened to people that the Justice Minister or the Prime Minister of any party, this is
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not partisan, of any party actually knew. If it happened to your wife, your sister, your brother,
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your grandfather, your dog walker, you'd have a view that's different. I see the effect
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of people who come to court who have been raped, stabbed, carved up. It's one thing by when it's
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somebody that nobody ever saw it coming, the typical cliche from the movies. He was a quiet
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neighbor. That is one thing. But when you have, as we're seeing now, the revolving door of bail or
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parole lead to innocent, and again, Rupa, this is the key point, not famous Canadians, not rich Canadians,
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just ordinary, average law-abiding people wanting to ride the TTC bus in Toronto to work without having
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15-year-old teenagers. We all have to use this codified language, setting off fireworks in their
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face or gang swarmings. Somehow we've lost the thread that our fellow citizens don't matter.
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We have a charter of rights that, in my view, has essentially destroyed the country. That's a big part
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of the crime picture. What we really need to have is a charter of responsibilities.
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And if we had a charter of responsibilities that went along with the charter of rights,
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which basically means whatever somebody defines it to be today, tomorrow, whichever judge you're
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lucky enough to get, remember, the news came out last week, Rupa, about who gets appointed to the
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superior court. It's all liberal donors. That's fact. That's freedom. You don't have to trust me on it.
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We need to have a social construct, Rupa, where we stop bending over backwards as a country
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to ignore the person working two jobs to support their family, the person taking their kids to
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daycare, the mother in Leslieville who gets gunned down next to a safe injection site that shouldn't
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be there anymore. Why are we preferring the people that are destroying Canada versus ignoring the
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contributions of the Canadians that made this a place that the entire world happens to want to
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come to and which we seem to have an open red carpet for them?
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Do you think that, I mean, you've diagnosed the problem very well. The question is why?
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Why is this happening? And even if you were to just take race-based sentencing as an example,
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which really is quite atrocious when you think about it, I mean, justice is supposed to be
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colorblind. And, you know, this one person that I spoke to for my story, she lives in Ottawa,
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tragically lost her partner to a hit-and-run accident, a hit-and-run accident, and the guy just
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fled the scene. And eventually when he was caught, he said it's because he was black and he had
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That was part of his impact and race and cultural assessment that happened during the course of his
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trial. And she said something very, she raised a very important question. Rupa, I get racism exists.
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I understand that, you know, there are people who experience racism. I also recognize the atrocities
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that were committed against certain people, you know, 100 years ago, or my ancestors were responsible
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for that. But why am I being penalized for this? You know, for me, you know, as a taxpaying citizen of
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this country, why isn't justice colorblind? Why am I being held responsible for something that
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Well, let's go into that story. I know you didn't plan to do it, but I actually know that case,
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Rupa. I actually know it. And that man that you're talking about didn't just make an instant mistake.
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He did a hit-and-run. He left somebody essentially to die. He drives away. He then does a cover-up.
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He then does more cover-up, more cover-up, more cover-up, and then some more cover-up,
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and then comes into court and starts trotting out the racial card. It's the get-out-of-jail-free card.
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Now, there may be certain instances where that's appropriate, but it's become the de facto,
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du jour, you know, main course of the day. And we live in a country that, because we live in a woke,
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identity-politic, stupid country, and we are stupid, there is nobody that I would be unwilling
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to debate now that can say to me, Canada is better off than it was eight years ago.
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There is no metric that this country is better off, and here's the kicker, Rupa, for ordinary,
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average, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens. If you're not in that group, Canada is the greatest
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place you could ever come. We are a complete joke. We have no rules. If you land at Pearson or Montreal
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Airport or Vancouver Airport you're in, we don't turn anybody away. We have 1.5 million new people
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come a year. We're not allowed to have a conversation about that. You have the absolutely
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imbecilic Minister of Immigration yesterday. Whenever people watch this, at the time you and
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I are speaking, yesterday he said, we need to have an endless amount of new immigrants to build homes
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to address our housing crisis. Now, think that through. That's the federal government saying to
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Canadians, we don't have anybody here to build homes. The demand for homes is outstripping supply.
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I wonder why. 1.5 million new people a year. But now our argument is going to be, we can't build these
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homes unless we let 1.5 million people in. It's literally insane, but I'm not diverting from your
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question about your friend. It's because we live in a country where you're only allowed to speak
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openly. You're only allowed to use your inside voice outside if you hold one set of views.
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If you hold another set of views, you are in danger of losing your job, your reputation,
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being called far right, like that debacle yesterday with Pierre Polyev, where somebody said an expert
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calls you far right. I read who those experts are. I wouldn't trust them to butter my bagel.
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But somehow he has to answer that experts, experts. Well, I'm an expert, Rupa. It's right in my
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anti-social media profile. So am I. Right, so are you. But there's no viewer that could come on here
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right now who said, you know what, Ari, your view is stupid. I disagree with it. Where I'd say, okay,
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let's not debate and discuss it. But again, I'm tying this into your friend. Your friend now in
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expressing, well, wait a minute. You know, sometimes there's a reason why a certain race or a certain
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cultural background may deserve a bit of a more fair shake or a little bit more leniency. I agree
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with that. There's no problem with that. But when it's every single time and you have your friend
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now espousing views that will now be called far right, this is where I'm going. If you're not far
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left in this country, which has a much clearer definition than far right now, nobody even knows
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what it means. It's like a bully a base. Define what goes into a bully. Nobody can do it. But
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define far left, you're going to get woke, idiotic. You know, everybody can determine what pronouns they
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get called. I want to be called handsome and brilliant. I demand that everybody watching this
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calls me handsome and brilliant. By the way, that's a great Matt Walsh line. This is the insanity
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that we live in. And again, I'm still on your friend. Because your friend is an ordinary, average,
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taxpaying Canadian, probably not on welfare. People don't understand the extent of welfare fraud
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in this country, money laundering, the Ontario Disability Support Program. I can give you 20 names
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right now that are all getting checks every month from the ODSP program that are healthier than you and
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me put together. And I assure you, Rupa, I'm very healthy. I can go run a marathon right now if I
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wanted to. They're healthier. And they're on the dole. Your friend has to deal with this because she's
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the forgotten. And I talk a lot about this concept of the forgotten. There are a lot of videos coming
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out in the States, Rupa. I don't know if you saw that man somewhere in Appalachia who put a song out
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talking about being a working man. And it went viral. There is nothing special about your friend
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or that man. But because we've gone so far to the left with insanity, post Me Too, post George Floyd,
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anybody simply saying criminals don't get to have more rights than victims. Canadian citizens
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shouldn't have less rights than men between the ages of 21 to 27 who flood here, don't work, hate gay people,
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hate Jews, big problem for me, hate women. Why do Canadian citizens go to the back of the bus? So to end
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this answer, what your friend is experiencing is the personalization of crime. And until ordinary,
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average people experience the personalization of it, they don't tend to understand it the way I do.
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I live and breathe it every day. Or they have a security detail, like Prime Minister Priti,
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who takes a photo op on the TTC surrounded by 20, this is true, by the way, surrounded by 20 RCMP secret
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service, whatever you call them, and pretends he's a man of the people, when the actual people who are
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too scared to speak out, are literally sitting on a subway car while a monster on bail runs up and
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down the car with a knife in his hand as if we're in some third world country, and starts butchering a
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human being in front of them. The problem is, is the silence of the people whose inside voice is sane,
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is sound, is commonsensical. But because of the advent of Twitter, let's call it X now,
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things that trend, or things that we're told are what most people think, which is horse manure,
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horse manure, you're now cowed into silence. And that's why, in my view, so much of the commonsensical
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stuff that we'd all agree about if we were sitting at a dinner table together, you're not allowed to
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talk about it out loud. And if you're not talking about it out loud, guess what happens to the
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popular culture? That's the moment we're in. That's why my city is dying. That's why I think this country
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So, I'm sure you've heard of this Bill C-48. The federal government is proposing changes to,
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I think, the bail system. It would make it harder for those accused of certain offenses to be
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released on bail. Bill C-48 would amend this criminal code so that those charged with a serious
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violent offense involving a weapon, I believe one with a maximum penalty of 10 years in
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imprisonment, who were convicted of a similar offense within the last five years, will face
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a reverse onus to get bail. So, a reverse onus apparently means the accused would have to show
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why they should be released instead of the prosecution having to prove that they should
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remain behind bars. So, what do you make of this? I mean, is this going to do anything to address
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So, let me explain to your audience how the sausage is made. Because they hear these words,
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well, the government's going to reverse the onus. And, you know, you hear something like that,
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it's like somebody talking to me about a hedge fund. I don't get it. I can hear it, I just don't
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get it. I don't understand it. When somebody is charged with a crime, the premise is they should
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be released from the police station. You're presumed innocent, you should get out, especially if you have
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no record, a husband and wife get into an argument, custody disputes, somebody pushes somebody. You
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shouldn't go to jail for three nights. Now, as I say that, you and I had a very interesting
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conversation about Tamara Leach. And she spent more time in pretrial detention for her Mickey
00:27:23.900
Mouse alleged crimes that weren't even crimes. I invite people to go back and watch you and I
00:27:27.940
talking about that. Because that really is a reflection of just how stupid our bail system is.
1.00
00:27:32.420
She spends more time in jail, pretrial, presumed innocent, than people who have raped women,
1.00
00:27:39.040
abused children, and stabbed innocent human beings. Think that through. It's not a joke,
0.89
00:27:43.600
by the way. It's actually completely true. But now let's talk about this bill. There are,
00:27:49.620
and again, the onus is who has to do the heavy lifting on the day of the bail hearing. It's really
00:27:55.600
a legal fiction. It doesn't make a huge difference. If you have mommy and daddy coming to court and saying,
00:28:01.980
I'll sign a bail for my precious loved one, who the police arrested falsely, or the cops are racist,
00:28:08.880
the person is likely to get out. Now, let me explain, because as much as people should know,
00:28:13.700
I think our current federal government is horrid. I also say that there are positive things in this
00:28:20.240
bill. I also think the next federal government, whomever it may be, may be equally horrid on a number
00:28:26.120
of issues, because so much of this is the bureaucracy. So much of this is never going to change. You saw
00:28:31.420
Pierre Polyevby asked about immigration, and said, would you consider lower numbers than the Trudeau
00:28:36.340
government? And he wouldn't answer. And I'm a fan of his. So if anybody thinks there's going to be a
00:28:41.780
magical change in Canada, I don't think that's coming. So it's good to reverse the onus for certain
00:28:48.060
things, particularly if you've had a serious violent defense in the last five years. But judges and
00:28:53.080
justices of the peace are aware of all of this. We're not reinventing the wheel. My answer,
00:28:59.480
is a much more blunt one. Until we get rid of what I think would have made Martin Luther King Jr. go
00:29:06.940
nuts, which is the color of your skin determines more than your character. Character, by the way,
00:29:13.340
is also your criminality, your ability to follow the rules, your ability to respect authority.
00:29:18.200
So again, I think this would have Martin Luther King Jr. spinning in his grave. My answer is you're
00:29:23.820
never going to get meaningful change on bail until a number of things happen. One, you get rid of any
00:29:31.420
race or cultural-based preferences for who gets bail. The only question that matters is are you
00:29:39.200
dangerous or not? That's it. Are you a threat to your fellow citizen? And Rupa, there are going to be
00:29:45.400
viewers who are disagreeing with me right now. Let me point this statistic out. You go to any statistic
00:29:51.720
kept by any think tank, right, left, far left, left of far left, and even more left of that, and you take
00:30:00.260
a look at who the victims of most crimes in Canada are. They are not Conrad Black. They are not Justin
00:30:09.540
Trudeau. They are not Jordan Peterson. They are people who share the same background as the racial or cultural
00:30:19.720
offender. Why don't those people matter? The only thing that should matter is dangerousness. You must take that
00:30:28.040
out of the system and simply look at who can comply, who can be released safely, and who can't. Full stop. Two, you cannot
00:30:37.440
have a system, whether it's bail or criminal justice work, until you get rid of this nonsense idea that
00:30:45.000
certain races or cultures are over-represented in jail. That is the talking point of Lamedi, who was a
00:30:54.500
complete moron about this, and he knows he's lying. They all know they're lying through their teeth, because
0.99
00:31:00.000
the one thing you're not allowed to say when they tell you that a certain race and a certain cultural
00:31:05.660
background is over-represented in jails is you're never allowed to say, well, what race or religion
00:31:12.300
is over-represented in crime statistics? What race or cultural background commits more violent crimes
00:31:21.720
per capita, per their portion of the population, than others? What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed
00:31:30.020
to have in our jails and our penitentiaries an equal amount of Japanese grandmothers, Norwegian cousins,
00:31:38.980
Chinese entrepreneurs, Jewish accountants? I think I'm allowed to make that joke.
1.00
00:31:46.500
You know, Italian, make whatever joke you want. That is the stupidity of the argument. You are not,
1.00
00:31:53.140
and there's a person who does incredible work on this called Heather MacDonald. I invite people to
00:31:57.620
Google her name. She does incredible work. This is where we are in a society where the public is
00:32:03.860
being lied to that somehow police, when they get up at the morning and three in the morning,
00:32:09.700
they get down to the police division, they put on their uniform, and they say, well, I'm going to go
00:32:16.500
round me up and arrest two very specific groups. The race that we're told is over-represented in jail.
00:32:22.660
By the way, I won't say what it is, because, you know, nobody can guess who I'm talking about,
00:32:27.860
because nobody can, and I'm not going to talk about the cultural background,
00:32:31.940
that because nobody can guess, because people must be thinking, I'm thinking of people from Tahiti.
00:32:38.100
So in any event, until we get past this idea that police are racist, or they're arresting people who
00:32:46.100
are not committing crimes. Now, of course, there's problems in policing. I make a living cross-examining
00:32:52.580
police officers. I make a living calling them liars. I get it. But until we get this idea that we need
0.78
00:32:59.940
to have an honest conversation, Rupa, in this country, and in our friends south of the border,
00:33:07.700
as to who commits crimes, are there patterns, are there population groups that commit more than their
00:33:14.580
numbers? Are there issues with immigration? Are there issues with this? Are there issues with that?
00:33:21.700
We are never going to have meaningful change, and I will take it right back to where I started with
00:33:26.820
your friend. You are going to have ordinary, innocent, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens
00:33:34.580
sacrificed at the altar of wokeness. Now, I want to just say this, Rupa. I apologize for the longer answer,
00:33:40.660
but there is a price to pay for this woke nonsense. This is not benign. This is not a benign philosophy
00:33:49.220
that doesn't matter. It's killing children. It's allowing children to believe they're something
00:33:54.820
they're not. It's encouraging them to be morons. It's ruining universities and colleges, because this
1.00
00:34:01.060
is the generation coming up that's being indoctrinated to think the opposite of everything I think. And Rupa,
00:34:06.900
I don't think anything controversial. I'm simply just using my brain. And until we understand that
00:34:13.700
there are innocent men, women, and children of this country and our friends south of the border
00:34:19.860
that are being gunned down, stabbed, sexually assaulted, look what's going on in Sweden. Look
00:34:26.660
at the numbers there. Until we have an honest conversation about the price to pay
00:34:33.220
of being far left versus being even in the middle, being woke or far left is causing innocent people
00:34:44.100
to be sacrificed at the woke altar. And in my view, it's a disgrace because it completely ignores. And
00:34:51.780
again, Rupa, forgive the long answer, but I have to get into a bit of personal answer here. When I got into
00:34:57.540
politics about 10 years ago, and I did the whole anti-police thing, I'm a criminal defense lawyer,
00:35:02.260
the police are really bad, all of this, people can hold me to that. I went around to the community
00:35:07.300
because I wasn't not famous now, but I was less well known 10 years ago. And I pounded the pavement,
00:35:13.540
and I went to all these low income community housing, Toronto community housing, Jane and Finch,
00:35:18.820
and I thought that my anti-police thing would really resonate. It didn't.
00:35:23.700
They wanted to live as safely as I can live where I live. They wanted to live as safely
00:35:30.020
as Justin Trudeau can live with a detail. And until we all agree that whether you make a million
00:35:36.420
dollars a year or $30,000 a year, you have the right to the same immunity and safety from crime
00:35:46.420
as somebody who lives in Shaughnessy, Westmount, Forest Hill, Rosedale,
00:35:53.060
or near the House of Commons, we will never have common ground or a safe country.
00:36:00.180
Which leads me to my next question. And our final topic, you know, you spoke so eloquently about
00:36:07.860
what wokeism is doing and, you know, and it's actually killing people. And that brings me to
00:36:18.500
the story that I wrote for the Free Press a couple of weeks ago on the tragic suicide of Richard
00:36:24.900
Bilkstow. You and I were in touch for the story. In fact, I had the great honor of quoting you in my
00:36:30.740
story. And then I came on to your show and we talked about it at great length.
00:36:36.420
What do you think is going on here, Ari? Diversity, equity, inclusion. You know,
00:36:42.420
what do you make of these training sessions? Why is there, why is, do you think they feel that
00:36:50.580
there's a need for such training sessions? You know, and, and, you know, how, how is it that
00:36:57.860
we've allowed this to happen? Okay. So let's break this down because it does tie in my view,
00:37:03.940
Rupa. And again, your audience, we don't pre-tape, we don't pre-script. I don't know what
00:37:08.180
you're going to ask me, but this actually ties into what we were just talking about. Let me
00:37:12.180
make the link. I don't think it's tenuous. This ties into law and order and wokeness in the following
00:37:18.980
way. This is all a grift. The people that do this are all grifters. Now it used to be,
00:37:28.180
we would all agree that the double WF is fake. We all respect it. We understand these are athletes,
00:37:35.060
but we wouldn't all have to agree that when Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant get in the ring,
00:37:40.180
it's all left to, it's, you know, it's real. It's, it's all just not scripted. We now live
00:37:46.580
in a world where the double WWE has become sort of, we have to turn up. And I use the wrestling
00:37:51.780
reference because most people grew up with that. A lot of people watching us will know the Stone Cold,
00:37:55.940
the rock. I love wrestling by the way. So I like to throw it in because I am a human being
00:38:00.260
with a personality. You're now being told to ignore what you know is true. And I'm going to take this to
00:38:07.700
Richard in just a moment, but you asked me about DEI. And you'll remember about a half an hour ago,
00:38:13.780
I said, we all have to keep quiet. That's how this wins. That's how they win. You'll remember that this
00:38:21.620
whole issue with, you know, people who say they're trans competing in events that you weren't allowed
00:38:27.780
to say anything until a very brave young lady named Riley Gaines, who I've spoken to, I'm sure you know who I
00:38:34.420
am, who she is started to push back until people talk and say enough is enough. This doesn't stop.
00:38:42.660
What did Richard do? He tried to say, hold the phone. And a lot of your audience watching us Rupa right
00:38:50.900
now who hear my answer, they won't know what I'm talking about, but I invite them not while they're
00:38:55.220
watching us. But when we're done, go listen to how the monster who did that session spoke to Richard,
00:39:04.660
the condescension, the arrogance, the holier than thou, the complete reversal of I'm now a victim
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00:39:15.380
to I'm in charge of you, all these claims that are horse crap, I'm using nice language,
0.96
00:39:21.060
and everybody has to sit there and just take it. Because if you don't take it, you're going to lose.
0.95
00:39:29.620
And again, Rupa, I always talk about the Canadian who's not famous, who's not rich. If you're a middle
0.99
00:39:36.980
manager at a car dealership, if you're at an ad agency, if you're the manager of McDonald's and you
00:39:42.980
have to sit through this garbage, what are your options? Sit there and say, this is garbage,
1.00
00:39:50.420
or get fired. And when you have two children to feed, and you don't want to be one of these
1.00
00:39:55.540
Canadians who's on the dole, you don't want to be one of these Canadians who believe the government
1.00
00:40:00.660
check is how you live, you know to stay silent. And that's why I want to take it back to this all
00:40:07.460
being a colossal financial grift. It's actually a bigger grift than Bernie Madoff. It's a bigger
00:40:15.300
grift than Zelensky, which I think is the greatest grift in the history of grifting.
00:40:19.860
It's a grift where we all know it's a grift. But rather than doing or say anything about it,
00:40:25.940
we all say to ourselves, I hate it, it makes my blood boil. But it's just easier if I stay quiet
00:40:33.060
about it. And it's only when a few a small number of brave people say something that we get there.
00:40:39.060
The problem is it was too late for Richard. So while Stephen Lecce and the Ford government now,
00:40:44.740
and a number of people are coming out and sort of reacting to this,
00:40:49.060
you must understand, Rupa, it's almost too late. Now, it's never too late, but it's all a grift.
00:40:56.260
And when we live in a world where somebody who's late to Starbucks, or late to Whole Foods,
00:41:01.540
you'll know the famous story in the States, gets fired for being late 47 times, but then says being
00:41:08.260
on time is white supremacy, and then gets $11 million from a jury who's too scared to do anything
00:41:16.340
else. Or they all hire Ben Crump, the lawyer in the States, who basically, I think, I don't even
00:41:24.980
want to say because I'm a lawyer. It's just, it's the craziest thing ever. When we have a situation
00:41:30.900
where good people have to sit quietly by while we're all being lied to by people who are at the top of
00:41:38.900
Canada, who have more power than an oil worker in Alberta, who have more money than somebody
00:41:46.260
working two jobs in Walmart, somebody being paid $70,000 and $30,000 to train journalists at the
00:41:54.580
Toronto Star, a person who lives better, has a nicer home, but then walks around going,
00:42:00.420
the world is racist to me. This is insanity, Rupa. I don't think I'm saying anything controversial
00:42:08.100
at all. But the problem is, is that they've shut down discourse so massively that most people watching
00:42:16.100
this just have to stay quiet. And you'll remember, and I'll answer my, I'll end my answer here, Rupa.
00:42:22.980
50 years ago, being far left mean you were for free speech, you were against authoritarianism,
00:42:30.500
you fought the power. Now being on the left or the far left is the exact opposite Rupa. You now only
00:42:37.540
have conservatives saying, I don't want to cancel anybody, let's debate, let's argue. The left has
00:42:43.700
one Rupa, and I'm pessimistic that there's anything coming back from that, because anything that doesn't
00:42:49.380
toe that line, crime, immigration, family, sex, whatever you want to call it, it's not like they're
00:42:57.780
welcoming a debate and letting the marketplace of ideas win out. They have succeeded in making
00:43:04.420
all of us shut up. And when you take a democracy, and you take intelligent people who have brains,
00:43:10.900
and you make them shut up because the price is too high to be paid for saying anything, they win.
00:43:21.700
Okay, so Ari, I'm going to challenge you on a couple of things here.
00:43:24.500
You said two things. You said, we don't have, you know, these people don't have a choice but to
00:43:30.420
shut up. And that, you know, that you're, you're, you're basically, you know, you're afraid of losing
0.59
00:43:37.620
your job, you're losing your pension, you're losing everything. And you have hungry mouths to feed,
00:43:43.780
put food on the table, so on and so forth. But, I mean, I'm reminded of this culture of fear, and that
00:43:51.700
this is a term that often came up in the context of working on the story. There's a culture of fear
00:43:56.420
in the TDSP. These teachers and principals are so afraid to speak out because they're going to get,
00:44:01.940
they fear losing their jobs. It almost, you know, it almost feels like one is living in an authoritarian
00:44:08.980
regime where there's no protection of free speech. The constitutional protection of free speech,
00:44:15.300
you know, is obviously weaker here than in the US. But how sustainable is this? I mean, how, I mean,
00:44:24.660
people want change, but they're too afraid to be part of that change. And I look to our friends,
00:44:30.420
you know, in the US, where there's a lot of pushback against all of these things that we've
00:44:36.020
been talking about, whether it comes to the gender ideology stuff, whether it comes to DEI,
00:44:42.180
for example, there are several organizations, universities that are just getting rid of DEI
00:44:46.980
altogether. Why is it that we're not seeing that kind of pushback? I mean, why do I feel like this
00:44:52.740
cowardice at every level of society here in Canada? Okay. So, I'm glad you challenged me. I,
00:45:00.340
you know, I welcome that nothing. I don't even, I don't invite anybody to agree with anything I'm
00:45:04.340
saying. I'm just saying what I think. Let's look at the most famous example of a Canadian who pushed back.
00:45:11.060
Okay. And if I said to you, Rupa, and again, nobody watching this should think you and I talked
00:45:16.580
before this, who's the famous Canadian who pushed back on some of this a few years ago?
00:45:23.300
Not a trick question. Can you name one? Can you name two?
00:45:38.660
Um, I can't think of a second. Good luck to you. That's the point. That's the point I'm making.
00:45:44.420
And let's use Jordan Peterson for just a moment as part of my answer.
00:45:48.580
What did Jordan Peterson become famous and a multimillionaire many times over for actually saying?
00:45:54.900
Did he say anything crazy? Did he say anything far right?
00:45:58.660
Did he say anything about Jews, immigrants, marriage, marriage equality, abortion, um,
00:46:05.700
climate change, nothing. He said, you can't tell me what pronoun to call you.
00:46:11.220
That's all he said, Rupa. You can't force me to call you what you demand to be called.
00:46:19.540
Yeah, he's now a multimillionaire many times over. He's known the world over. He's the one person who
00:46:28.100
said something. Did it create a groundswell? No. Are there 10 Jordan Peterson's? No. You're right.
00:46:34.980
In the United States where there's a bit more of a blue state, red state thing, which is not the case
00:46:39.620
necessarily in Canada. There are different demographic setups there. I'm very well traveled
00:46:45.060
in the States, Rupa. There are places that you go and you don't think they're like Toronto.
00:46:49.060
They're very different. But when you have to rely on people in the States fighting the battle of
00:46:56.900
Canadians, when you have a newspaper reporter, I don't know, some kind of reporter just yesterday,
00:47:03.620
and a whole bunch of articles saying Pierre Polyev by talking about the World Economic Forum
00:47:09.060
is now far right. When it was Krista Freeland and Charlie Angus, one of the stupidest men on the planet,
1.00
00:47:16.260
but five years ago, Charlie Angus from the NDP, who now says you can't talk about Davos
0.99
00:47:21.940
or the World Economic Forum if you're far right, he was the one five years ago when it was du jour,
00:47:27.700
who came out and said, this globalization thing maybe isn't working for Canadians. Maybe all this
00:47:33.300
outsourcing isn't working for Canadians. Maybe a lot of this COVID policy
0.98
00:47:38.180
isn't necessarily what we needed to do. Everything has become crazy. And so when you have now Pierre
00:47:46.660
Polyev, who again, wouldn't say a word about immigration when he was asked about it, would
00:47:50.500
you reduce it by one person? Wouldn't answer it. You now have reporters doing a gotcha calling them far
00:47:57.060
right because some expert says by talking about Davos or the World Economic Forum or Krista Freeland and her
00:48:04.820
ridiculousness somehow makes you far right. What opening does that leave to the ordinary average
00:48:12.660
Canadian to say somebody's got my back? The problem in this country, Rupa, is it doesn't seem to me
00:48:20.740
that anybody has the back of the majority of Canadians who are smart, commonsensical, realistic.
00:48:30.580
I'm not talking about anything to do with anything other than common sense. No matter your race,
00:48:37.060
no matter your religion, Rupa, if I sat down tonight with 100 people, the most diverse group of people in
00:48:43.940
Canadian history, I guarantee you on 90 to 95% of issues, we would all agree if we broke bread together.
00:48:54.900
We would all agree. The problem is there is nobody who I think truly has the back of the 90 to 95% of
00:49:04.820
Canadians who I think have become forgotten in preferential treatment to the people like you
00:49:11.220
talked about the DEI trainer, grifter, fraudster, who gets to live the life of Riley, make all the money
00:49:19.460
in the world there is to make now, while somebody working on an oil rig or driving a truck, or working
00:49:26.340
two jobs, or having trouble getting daycare for their kids. Those people are there forgotten. And that
00:49:32.660
again, Rupa is why I'm very pessimistic about this country. I am not Mr. Sunshine, as much as I try and
00:49:39.380
speak with a smile on my face. Well, Ari, that's why your insights are so incredibly brilliant. And,
00:49:47.460
and, and, you know, and you're so always so insightful. And what a depressing note to end this
00:49:54.260
show on. But, but I, you know, but I, but I take your point that, you know, I, there are days when I feel
00:50:01.620
optimistic, I feel like the pendulum maybe shift swinging back a little bit. But, but most of the time,
00:50:08.580
you know, I'm just kind of really depressed about the state of state, just how things are in Canada
00:50:15.940
right now. And all I can hope is that we continue to have these conversations. And, and, and that,
00:50:23.700
you know, I know Jordan Peterson was a trail, trailblazer of sorts. But I think, I think you and I,
00:50:30.660
and many people like us out there, we're not as famous as Jordan Peterson. But I think we're doing our
00:50:35.540
bit to push the conversation in the right direction, as much as we possibly can at risk of censure,
00:50:42.820
by the way. And, and that's a risk that you and I face all the time. So it really, it really is,
00:50:48.260
Rupa, and I just leave on this note, the abuse that you take, and I see it. And again, I think you just
00:50:53.220
write about things that should be written about. I've said this to you personally, the Globe and Mail,
00:50:57.860
the Toronto Star should be writing the pieces that you write, they would have written them 15 years ago.
00:51:04.020
But now everybody seems to come out of the same journalism school, where it used to be you held
00:51:09.620
power to account. Now journalism seems to be the spokespeople for power. So I have a great admiration
00:51:18.100
for you, the Free Press, what Barry Weiss is doing, I've said that to you privately. And hopefully,
00:51:23.540
as the world changes, more and more people just hear different voices and go, they're not saying
00:51:28.980
anything crazy. They're not even saying anything controversial. They're simply what was they're
00:51:33.620
saying what was said 10 years ago, 15 years ago, until the events of me too, or Harvey Weinstein,
00:51:40.980
or post May 2020, or this or that basically made it so that people just had to ignore common sense. So
00:51:48.660
I have a great admiration for what you do. I have a great sadness for the abuse you take,
00:51:53.780
because I'm still waiting to read a column of yours where I'm like, what the heck is she talking about?
0.98
00:51:59.460
If it comes, you'll be the first to know and then I'll come in here and I'll lambaste you.
00:52:03.780
Thank you, Ari. Like you, I'm just using my brain, really. That's really it. Nothing extraordinary
00:52:09.220
here. But a real pleasure to have you back once again. And I can't wait to speak to you again.
00:52:15.860
Very good to be with you, Rupa. I really appreciate the time and I hope the people watching
00:52:21.380
us got something out of it. Yeah, I'm sure they did. Thanks, Ari. Thanks, Rupa.