00:01:19.220I'm going to be speaking very shortly with lawyer Lisa Bildy, who is organizing a takeover,
00:01:25.640Not in the hostile coup d'etat sense, but a democratic takeover of the Law Society of Ontario, pushing back against political overreach in that regulatory body.
00:01:36.680And as we've seen in the last little while with the College of Psychologists and Jordan Peterson, these regulatory bodies have a tremendous amount of power.
00:01:46.020So we will talk about that with Lisa very shortly.
00:01:48.840Also going to talk about this story of Justin Trudeau giving what I think is the worst financial advice I have ever heard, which is probably not surprising if you've looked at this federal government's track record on spending and budgeting.
00:02:04.400So I can't say I'm shocked by it, but we still have to talk about it. And what else is going on? I don't know if I'm going to get to this Dalai Lama thing. Everyone's talking about the Dalai Lama, which is not normally what happens in my line of work.
00:02:18.300So if we if we have time, I may talk about the Dalai Lama thing. If you really don't want me to, I don't want to either. So let me know in the comments and then I can just skip over that grotesque story. But I do want to talk about the CRTC here, which is again, I know a big snooze fest a lot of the time. But the CRTC is the body that regulates television and radio stations in the country.
00:02:41.440So if you want to go and open up Joe's radio station, if you want to, you know, CJOE, I guess would be the radio station.
00:02:49.260I don't know if those call letters are taken.
00:02:50.980You would need to get permission from the CRTC.
00:03:06.060So when Sun News Network was on the air, they actually needed to go hat in hand to the CRTC and demand permission to get the same treatment that other news networks in Canada had.
00:03:16.920Now the CRTC turned them down and ultimately this was what, among other things, cost Sun News their business, which is why they had to fold up and go home.
00:03:26.780So the CRTC is the gatekeeper, to use the Pierre Polyev language, of being a broadcaster in this country.
00:03:34.100And that just doesn't stand for Canadian companies that want to broadcast, but even foreign TV stations that want to be on the airwaves in Canada, like Fox News.
00:03:46.520So an LGBT activist group in Canada, a gal Canada, is calling on the CRTC to rescind the broadcast license of Fox News.
00:03:58.700So a gal has published a letter calling on the CRTC to begin public consultations on the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programming authorized for distribution in Canada.0.98
00:04:10.600So they're basically saying, just, you know, get out of there, you dirty foreigners, we don't want you.1.00
00:04:16.520You are transphobic, basically, is the crux of their argument.
00:04:21.380Now, if you read the letter from a gal, which is directed to the chairperson, because you can't have a chairman anymore, the chairperson and CEO of the CRCC, Vicky Etreeds, I don't know the pronunciation, but they specifically take aim at this clip of Tucker Carlson on his very popular primetime show, Tucker Carlson Tonight.0.63
00:04:47.100The trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence.0.70
00:04:54.060Most Christian leaders in this country don't want to admit that.1.00
00:04:57.500Admitting it might force them to take deeply unfashionable positions.1.00
00:05:01.660But it is true, and anyone who's paying attention knows that it's true.
00:05:10.220Now, this was part of a longer discussion that took place on Tucker's show.
00:05:14.700His crux was that there is a trans activist-led crusade against Christianity.
00:05:21.180Obviously, he was talking about the horrific Covenant Christian School shooting in which it was a transgender shooter that went in and killed all those children.
00:05:28.800And I didn't talk about that because I don't feel there's any need to join in on the politicization of a tragedy that seems to be the left's go-to after everything.
00:05:37.700Anything is just prime gun control fodder for them, and they don't actually care about human life the way they say they do.
00:05:44.560But all of that aside, a gal Canada looks at Tucker Carlson talking about this story and they say, you know what, the time has come to get him off the airwaves, to get Fox News off.0.86
00:05:55.580They say the coverage is aimed to provoke hatred and violence against 2SLGBTQI, or it's the Roman numeral for one.
00:06:06.820You can never be too careful. Communities, particularly those who are two-spirit, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming, which is an acronym I've never seen, 2STNBGN.
00:06:19.960So we have significant bigotry from Tucker Carlson towards the 2SLGBTQI and 2STNBGNCUMMUNITIE, sorry, communities. I can say that one without acronymizing it.
00:06:36.080But they say it's a clear violation of Canadian broadcast standards, has no place on Canadian broadcasting networks.
00:06:43.480They say he's made false and horrifying claims.
00:06:46.320He's painted trans people as violent and dangerous.
00:06:49.500He's made the inflammatory claim that they are targeting Christians.
00:06:53.560To position trans people in existential opposition to Christianity is an incitement of violence against trans people that is plain to any viewer.
00:07:03.440which is not actually playing to any viewer and i say is actually playing to no viewers except for
00:07:09.720those of a gal who are writing these letters but they go on to the technicalities of this and say
00:07:14.780that if you want to have a tv station that is authorized for distribution in canada
00:07:21.380it is the crtc that is responsible for authorizing that they don't license it but they say that
00:07:27.820non-canadian broadcasters have to be held to the same standard and there's a little line in here
00:07:33.340that they cite that you can lose your license or be fined if you broadcast, quote, any abusive
00:07:39.880comment or abusive pictorial representation that, when taken in context, tends to or is likely to
00:07:47.320expose an individual or a group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis
00:07:53.140of race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, yada, yada, yada, yada.
00:07:58.620So all of the human rights lingo there. And they say that there is firsthand,
00:08:03.340experience on their part of hate from that single segment on Fox News. By the way, before I get on
00:08:11.020with this letter, they're not even trying hard. I mean, if they really wanted to take down Fox
00:08:17.320News, I watch Fox occasionally. I like some of it. I don't like some of it. I don't really care about
00:08:22.620the substance of it. I find what MSNBC broadcast to be tremendously objectionable, but I don't want
00:08:28.100them taken off the air. And the thing is, like, if you really wanted to go after Fox, you could
00:08:33.320probably go and find a clip a night of Greg Gutfeld making this joke, Tucker Carlson making this point,
00:08:39.560Laura Ingram saying this, and make like this whole compendium of content. They aren't even
00:08:45.260doing that. They're saying, you know what, this one clip alone, this one clip alone should just
00:08:49.740have Fox News vaporized from Canadian airwaves. They say they've experienced firsthand the hate
00:08:54.780that this clip caused. Nowhere do they articulate in this letter what that hate was or how they
00:09:00.460experienced it or who was harmed, who actually took this as a call to violence, like they say
00:09:06.120it is. And then Helen Kennedy signs off and says that Fox News needs to be held to the same
00:09:11.720standards in Canadian broadcasting. By that, I guess they mean it needs to be painfully boring.
00:09:15.620But nevertheless, they want the CRTC to begin public consultations on the removal of Fox News.
00:09:21.580Well, let me commence my own contribution to the public consultation.
00:14:19.700Lisa, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
00:14:23.520Thanks, Andrew, for having me. I don't know about Mastermind, but I seem to get messed up and everything anyway.
00:14:29.000Well, because you're not satisfied sitting on the sidelines, which is good,
00:14:32.340because I think most people are ready to throw in the towel on a lot of these things.
00:14:35.740So this is the campaign. It's called fullstoplso.ca, and people can check it out for themselves.
00:14:42.780But explain to me, first off, what the issue is here,
00:14:46.000Because I know there was a fair bit of momentum around the stop SOP slate that you had a few years back, and I think a lot of your candidates were successful, and I think a lot of people on the outsides probably thought, okay, great, the battle's won.
00:14:58.540right well that was only just a small taste of the battle because if you you may recall the
00:15:05.980statement of principles was one of 13 recommendations that were brought in in 2016
00:15:12.140under the previous convocation which is the name for the the board of governors um so the these
00:15:19.460were based on something called the stratcom report which was um basically it it concluded
00:15:25.700that there was systemic racism in the profession it was questionable in terms of their methodology
00:15:30.420and the statistical validity of all of this and then they of course uh they extrapolated um to
00:15:37.700say that all equity seeking groups should be entitled to to the benefits of what they were
00:15:43.220pushing forward which without defining which equity groups and you know so it wasn't really
00:15:48.020just about racism but in any event uh there were 13 recommendations that were brought in by the
00:15:53.540convocation one of which was the statement of principles actually there were uh and that was
00:15:59.380only one of like a sub section so so there's like 12.75 more percent more or 12 12 and three quarter
00:16:08.020more uh suggestions that need to be implemented they're just basically waiting in the wings
00:16:12.180to to bring these back in some of them include things like an inclusion index where law firms
00:16:17.700are ranked based on their um you know on all the boxes that are checked in the satisfaction of
00:16:24.260of staff and lawyers who um who who happen to be coming from these equity seeking groups whichever
00:16:31.700they are so basically it's a naming and shaming kind of exercise for for large law firms and of
00:16:38.100course for a lot of large law firms this is part of what they do anyway uh they have you know edi
00:16:43.540departments and this is this is the kind of thing that their clients expect and so on uh and so
00:16:48.340basically it's free marketing then for those law firms to be given this stamp of approval by the
00:16:53.220law society uh at the expense of of the smaller firms and sole practitioners i mean that's just
00:16:58.740one more and then the statement of principles is supposed to be incorporated into the rules
00:17:03.300of professional conduct and there's other other measures that i could go on um but there's an
00:17:09.700an awful lot of data collection and processes involved that all emanate from the same source.
00:17:16.080And so we did get rid of that statement of principles. And the opponents that we have
00:17:20.620this time who have formed a slate of their own say that the SOP is dead. We will not be bringing
00:17:27.180that back. But they haven't said anything about these other measures. One of the big things that
00:17:32.820I brought up earlier on in the show that I think is important to note here is that regulatory
00:17:37.720colleges have oftentimes operated in the shadows, because if you're not a lawyer, you think, okay,
00:17:43.000well, what does the Law Society of Ontario matter to me? And I realize there's a bit of a difference
00:17:47.560there if you're someone who has to make a complaint about a lawyer and all that. But we saw with
00:17:51.920Jordan Peterson recently, when the College of Psychologists decided to go after him, that these
00:17:56.580groups are very much politicized. And I think when the Trinity Western case came up a few years ago,
00:18:02.060and the law societies were effectively blocking Trinity Western from setting up a law school,
00:18:07.920you have people starting to see, OK, these groups are entering the culture wars.
00:18:12.480These aren't just focused on, you know, do you have the right insurance and are you qualified to practice?
00:18:19.360Right. And that is obviously a big concern. We are seeing it in a lot of other institutions.
00:18:23.760I, having sort of taken the position I did on the statement of principles,
00:18:28.320ended up attracting a lot of clients who were also being essentially punished for their views
00:18:33.580in other regulatory bodies across the country. And so I'm seeing this in a lot of places. It
00:18:38.500isn't just this institution. And what's happening is, you know, they're being weaponized in effect
00:18:44.920by activists who don't like the views of members. And they've now discovered there's this disciplinary
00:18:50.700process they can tap into. And so we saw this with COVID, we're seeing with gender issues,
00:18:55.360if somebody expresses a view that doesn't fit with the orthodoxy of the day on on any of those topics
00:19:01.140well then a group of activists or even a single activist can send a letter of complaint and then
00:19:08.020suddenly if if it falls to you know on a receptive audience which it increasingly does as more of
00:19:13.500these same thinking people move into the bureaucracy um then you know suddenly this this
00:19:19.660licensee has has a whole disciplinary process to deal with as a result of their views in the public
00:19:25.880square you have nothing to do with with patients or or what have you so uh so it is dangerous and
00:19:31.340in fact the law society is proposing to bring in similar sort of powers to what we were seeing with
00:19:35.340the jordan peterson case which uh um would would essentially force a lawyer when there's no
00:19:41.800reasonable and probable grounds for discipline to still come before a committee of their peers to be
00:19:47.220re-educated chastised whatever and that this will also be made public on their record without any
00:19:53.900input from them so it's you know you like to think that it would be used for things like competence
00:19:59.560making sure people are doing their you know they they aren't um you know handling mortgages badly
00:20:05.680for real estate clients or or missing limitation periods or that kind of thing but the temptation
00:20:11.320will always be there to use it for other purposes and that's really what our group is trying to do
00:20:16.520We're trying to say, look, this has to be a neutral body.
00:20:20.520If we want to self-regulate, it needs to be neutral.
00:20:24.600And so we cannot be going down this path of regulating people's political opinions or amassing power in the bureaucracy to go off on all these other tangents.
00:20:36.680I remember, it would have been however many years ago now, I can't recall, I was covering the Ontario carbon tax challenge before the Court of Appeal.
00:20:44.460And it was at Osgoode Hall, which is this beautiful building that everyone only knows about now because of this fight over trees or something.
00:20:50.080But Osgoode Hall is home to the Court of Appeal for Ontario and also to the Law Society of Ontario.
00:20:55.560And there's like this, I recall this hallway that you go down.
00:20:58.560And once you go down that hallway, you're on the part that the Law Society governs.
00:21:01.900And I remember knowing that instantly because you pass this corner and it's the transgender washroom on one side and the Muslim prayer room on the other side.0.70
00:21:11.380and you sort of realize, okay, we're now in Wokistan here.
00:21:14.680So I look at the three pillars that you have for this full stop platform,
00:21:19.060stop bloat, stop creep, and stop woke.
00:21:21.960Are there people that you're finding that aren't as happy with that third category?
00:21:26.040They're saying, yeah, I'm on side with stopping the bloat, but I'm okay with the woke.
00:21:30.440Or are you finding that the legal community is pretty much in these two camps of,
00:21:34.980yes, this is all good, and no, we need to put an end to it?
00:21:37.960Well, I think there are some who feel a little uncomfortable with it.
00:21:41.380You know, again, it's a colloquial term that has taken on a whole lot of meaning and not perhaps the original meaning that it had back in the 20s and 30s when it was more of a, you know, a racial awareness campaign, which, you know, had some importance and value.
00:21:58.400But it's become what I like to call social justice fundamentalism now.
00:22:02.740And so a lot is being ushered in under that.
00:22:05.740And there's always there are always going to be people who still want to believe that the words that are being advanced in this orthodoxy mean what we think that they mean rather than what they actually mean.
00:22:17.880So, for example, equality, diversity and inclusion all sound like great words.
00:22:22.840I don't think there's a single person that I've met or and certainly not on our slate who don't think that those words by their normal meanings that we all kind of assume we're talking about would have any problem with those things.
00:22:34.760but those aren't the things that they actually mean and so when they say equality they really
00:22:38.840mean equity they mean equality of outcome they mean everybody needs to end up in the same place
00:22:44.520regardless of you know merit circumstances uh personal decisions whatever i mean you just need
00:22:51.560to have we just need to have a head count basically we need to have everybody at the end of the the
00:22:56.080finish line looking the way that they're supposed to look uh so that's what equity is and then
00:23:00.740inclusion again we only include people who think like us okay so it's not really inclusive and
00:23:05.680diversity well you know we can have an entirely female panel all females of the same you know
00:23:13.580racial background and that's considered diverse but that's not what most people think when they
00:23:19.140hear those words but the the activist meaning is really quite different and so to some degree it's
00:23:24.500a failure of education I suppose to to help people understand what we're really talking about and I
00:23:29.020I suppose we need to work on that. Yeah, I know. And I think that's fair. And I'm curious if you
00:23:33.960could shine some light on what voter turnout on these venture elections is. Do you find that
00:23:38.720historically lawyers just pay their ridiculous licensing fees and carry on and don't really
00:23:43.500care who they are? Or do you find that they do take a really active role in picking these
00:23:48.260ventures, as they're called? Well, you would think there'd be more. And the numbers have never been
00:23:53.520great um i think last election they were just under 30 which was a was particularly low and
00:24:00.680which was shocking to me when i heard that because yeah because that was the one that even non-lawyers
00:24:04.460had heard about right i mean it was it was a galvanizing issue normally there's nothing to
00:24:10.020even you know you just kind of vote for the names that you've heard of okay that lawyer sounds like
00:24:13.540somebody i've i've come across you seem all right um you know the but but people actively came out
00:24:18.980last time, I thought. But the numbers didn't demonstrate that. So I don't know what that says.
00:24:24.680A certain amount of complacency in the profession, I guess. Or maybe people are just tired of the
00:24:29.320conflicts. But, you know, if you're tired of the conflicts, then I think you want a neutral
00:24:32.800regulator. So, you know, vote for us and we'll get things back on track is basically the position
00:24:37.580that we're taking. Just to look at the bigger picture here, how is this battle playing out
00:24:42.160in other provinces to the extent that you're aware? Is Ontario pushing further or is this
00:24:48.340just kind of already accepted elsewhere it depends some i think there's a variety of experiences
00:24:55.180i would say most institutions tend to attract the kind of people who who have an activist agenda
00:25:00.960and so they're in various stages of that unfolding uh in terms of the legal profession i i believe
00:25:06.180that you know ontario was was a leader in bringing a lot of this stuff in and and uh to the chagrin
00:25:12.420of some who who wanted that move forward um it's been basically on hold while our stop stop ventures
00:25:18.140have been around um you know this inclusion index for example was basically iced uh last year
00:25:24.540because by now the data is kind of out of out of um you know it's it's not current uh and so they
00:25:31.820they say well you know we're not going to do the inclusion index or they imply that they aren't but
00:25:35.820they will be back they they basically just put it on hold tour out of the way um so i don't i don't
00:25:40.940know where the others are starting to catch up a bit more but i haven't done an exhaustive analysis
00:25:45.900I heard that New Brunswick is bringing in a climate change committee in their law society.
00:27:29.380It goes on to say that the annual report disclosed that it receives $1.24 billion, the vast majority from the government.
00:27:36.040In the interest of transparency, I believe that Twitter should apply to the government-funded media label to the CBC's various news-related accounts, including CBC News and CBC Alert, Sincerely, Pierre Polyev.
00:27:56.320Sorry, the Honorable Pierre Polyev, leader of the official opposition.
00:29:15.280that would be what it looked like or felt like.
00:29:18.380So Pierre Baliev is saying to Elon Musk and to Twitter,
00:29:23.380you should really put that state media label on CBC.
00:29:27.140Now, this is, by the way, a cautionary tale to conservatives.
00:29:30.940When you do the leadership thing and you talk a big game, and then in the general election campaign, once you're the leader, you ignore everything you previously campaigned on.
00:30:36.040So, yes, you know, you know, if you're using your credit card the first time, you're using your credit card to invest in a huge flat screen TV home theater system for your basement.
00:30:49.220OK, you know, that's going to be something you're going to be paying off for a while.
00:30:52.540But if you use your credit card to go back to school, or if you use your credit card, you go into debt to build an expansion on your house, that you're then going to be able to sell your house for more.
00:31:04.620If you're making investments that are going to return, that is how you grow a strong economy.
00:31:09.620Because quite frankly, confident economies invest in themselves.
00:31:14.700And that's exactly what Canada has done, and that's why Canada is looking so good for the future.
00:31:19.620And our fiscal path is responsible, restrained, and is going to leave people with more opportunities, not burden, in the coming years.
00:31:35.220You know, I went through a fair bit of my own financial struggles when I was younger.
00:31:46.080I wasn't making responsible decisions.
00:31:47.820You give an 18-year-old a credit card, I think in general, and they're not likely to make responsible positions on it.
00:31:54.340But you learn your lesson, you move on from it.
00:31:56.780There are some people that by virtue of their situations and circumstances don't have the luxury of viewing, of treating credit cards the way they're supposed to be treated, which is, you know, emergency use only.
00:32:07.320Maybe you just want to put stuff on there for convenience and to get the air miles off of it and you pay it off right away.
00:32:12.920We have high, high consumer debt loads in this country, incredibly high.
00:32:18.300The statistic I bring up on the show all the time because it's a pretty constant one is that the majority of Canadian or not a majority, but I think it's like close to half of Canadian households are less than $200 away from not being able to pay for their fixed monthly expenses with their standard revenues that they have coming in.
00:32:37.740which means that everyone is one dental emergency or one pipe bursting or one car repair away from incurring debt.
00:32:44.680So when Justin Trudeau says, yeah, if you use your credit card to buy a TV, that's not good.
00:32:48.560But if you use your credit card to invest in something, that is good.
00:32:52.600Well, let's talk about the 19% interest rates on those credit cards, Prime Minister.
00:32:58.580If you do not have a path to actually make money on that, that is not sound financial advice.
00:33:04.920And it's really the kind of advice that you get from a guy who believes that the country's credit card is his own personal slush fund and that anytime he just wants to blow money on something, he can just use the word invest.
00:33:19.060And we're all to believe that it's prudent and responsible, which is far from the case at all.
00:33:23.440So do not take your financial advice from a guy who could not tell you when the deficit will be reduced to zero.
00:33:29.760I think that's the if I can reduce this episode down to a single lesson, that's it right there.
00:33:34.060Don't take financial advice from a guy that has no plan to balance the country's budget,
00:33:38.960which inexplicably he still presides over.