Juno News - Trudeau accuses India of murder

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.360 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here on true north

00:01:29.820 the andrew lawton show on this tuesday september 19th it is the end of an era and i am telling you

00:01:36.920 this era is not a particularly big one it just means this is the first time i had to like dig

00:01:41.360 to the back of the closet and pull out the sweater because it was just so darn cold and

00:01:46.380 now I have to just lament that summer is over. Now, if you're in Alberta, you've been like wearing

00:01:51.620 your sweater since like August 4th already. So you're already on the ball, unlike us Easterners

00:01:57.340 who, despite having to deal with terrible governments, do a little bit better on the

00:02:01.360 weather than our friends out in Alberta and other parts of Western Canada do. But nevertheless,

00:02:06.620 whether you are sweatered or t-shirted or perhaps just lying around in the nude, as many people

00:02:12.640 enjoy taking in my podcast. They may not. Don't actually trust me on that. I welcome you very

00:02:17.440 much to the show here. Going to talk a little bit later on about firearms and the fact that

00:02:21.740 this sweeping ban on guns, assault rifles, as the Trudeau government said in May 2020,

00:02:29.240 that they said was so important because they needed to get these dangerous guns that were

00:02:33.160 killing people left, right, and center off the street. That has now resulted in an amnesty that

00:02:39.140 has gone on well over three years.

00:02:42.060 That amnesty period is ending in October

00:02:44.780 in just about five, six weeks time.

00:02:46.740 And still this vaunted and announced buyback program

00:02:49.920 that the government has promised does not exist.

00:02:51.940 So we'll talk about that with our friend at the CCCC.

00:02:55.260 I added like an extra C there, CCFR Rod Giltaka.

00:02:59.360 But the big story that I wanted to lead off on is India

00:03:02.860 and Justin Trudeau's bombshell accusation

00:03:05.460 against the Indian government.

00:03:06.880 Let's take a listen here.

00:03:09.140 Now to speak with all Canadians.

00:03:13.140 Over the past number of weeks,

00:03:15.140 Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing

00:03:19.140 credible allegations of a potential link

00:03:22.140 between agents of the government of India

00:03:25.140 and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

00:03:32.140 Canada is a rule of law country.

00:03:35.140 The protection of our citizens and defence of our sovereignty

00:03:38.140 are fundamental our top priorities have therefore been one that our law enforcement and security

00:03:46.260 agencies ensure the continued safety of all canadians and two that all steps be taken

00:03:54.540 to hold perpetrators of this murder to account it's a very explosive accusation and one that

00:04:03.360 puts a bit of a different light on the stories we discussed last week about Justin Trudeau's

00:04:08.640 rather chilly reception in New Delhi for the G20 summit. When you may recall, I shared a video of

00:04:14.960 Modi's reception of the various G20 leaders, the dignitaries, and I noticed that Justin Trudeau

00:04:20.260 was the only leader present for that who had been excluded, who had been left out. Now,

00:04:25.520 it isn't all that surprising when you learn that behind closed doors, Justin Trudeau was going to

00:04:29.800 the Indian government and saying, you guys killed a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, you broke

00:04:35.360 international law, and we have had weeks of intelligence agencies working this up. Now,

00:04:41.540 as it stands, Justin Giroux has not provided any inkling of what that evidence is. He's made the

00:04:47.120 allegation. Pierre Polyev, the Conservative leader, seemed to yesterday take it at face value and said

00:04:53.560 in the House of Commons that this is outrageous, it's a violation of Canada's sovereignty, and I

00:04:58.700 agree. If a foreign government, an ally or otherwise, but certainly an ally, were to execute

00:05:04.240 on Canadian soil a Canadian citizen or execute anyone on Canadian soil, that would be a big 0.94

00:05:11.780 problem. But we're talking about a way that this allegation has been made that is by its nature

00:05:18.020 explosive, that does jeopardize the already strained Canada-India relationship. Now, you may

00:05:23.380 say India's own conduct, if the allegations are true, did its part to jeopardize that. Right now

00:05:29.300 we've seen the usual diplomatic expulsions taking place. Canada expelled an Indian diplomat yesterday

00:05:35.380 and India expelled a Canadian diplomat today. But we're still not having the opportunity to hear

00:05:42.840 what the evidence or intelligence was that formed the basis of this. Now I want to play a different

00:05:48.520 clip. This is from Justin Trudeau today. And it's interesting how there's been, I don't want to say

00:05:53.640 a walk back, but a bit of a different tone to his comments, even just 24 hours after first lobbing

00:06:00.280 this grenade. That is so important today is that India and the government of India takes seriously

00:06:08.220 this matter. It is extremely serious and it has far reaching consequences in international law

00:06:15.940 and otherwise for canada as i said yesterday we're going to remain calm we're going to remain grounded

00:06:22.980 in our democratic principles and values we're going to follow the evidence and make sure

00:06:28.100 that the work is done to hold people over the course of the summer we have been working closely

00:06:38.500 with our intelligence agencies who are moving forward in their analysis we wanted to make sure

00:06:44.020 that we had solid grounding in understanding what was going on in analysis and indeed in facts.

00:06:51.160 We wanted to make sure we were taking the time to talk with our allies, to share what we knew.

00:06:55.780 We wanted to make sure that we fully shared with the government of India

00:06:59.760 the seriousness and the depths of our preoccupations and indeed conclusions.

00:07:06.340 But Canadians have a right to know and need to know when things are going on like this

00:07:11.960 And that's why we made the decision to do this.

00:07:16.120 So that response right there is a wee bit different.

00:07:20.200 He's now talking about following the evidence.

00:07:22.820 He's talking about it as though there's an ongoing investigation that they're trying to get to the bottom of.

00:07:28.560 They're still trying to figure it out.

00:07:29.980 They're, you know, working up the leads and all of that.

00:07:32.440 But they're talking about it as though this is still very much a live issue and not a settled one.

00:07:38.360 Now, that is not the way that...

00:07:41.380 Oh, I'm sorry. Apparently there's an audio issue here I have to resolve. You'll bear with me.

00:07:45.240 Oh, now we're changing the camera too. We're having all sorts of technical fun today.

00:07:51.180 There we go. My apologies. I don't know what happened. We used this system and we thought

00:07:56.180 things were working and they appear to be now resolved. But in any event, one thing that I was

00:08:02.420 going to bring up there is that we have, it's not resolved now. Okay. Well, we'll hopefully get to

00:08:08.520 the bottom of that but I'm going to in the meantime while we sort this out play a clip of

00:08:13.720 Pierre Polyev's response to this his response which not the one he gave yesterday in the House

00:08:20.720 of Commons but the response that he gave today when he addressed reporters this morning on

00:08:27.160 Parliament Hill. India does Canada need to change its relationship with India in light of the

00:08:33.300 intelligence the Prime Minister shared yesterday? I think the Prime Minister needs to come clean

00:08:38.000 with all the facts. We need to know all the evidence possible so that Canadians can make

00:08:42.700 judgments on that. They just expelled an Indian diplomat. Should they do more in response to this

00:08:48.740 news? I think we need to see more facts. The Prime Minister hasn't provided any facts. He provided

00:08:55.520 a statement, and I will just emphasize that he didn't tell me any more in private than he told

00:09:01.460 Canadians in public, so we want to see more information. What is the risk if he doesn't

00:09:07.740 provide more information or these allegations

00:09:09.620 are found somehow to be untrue or uncredible.

00:09:12.340 What is the risk?

00:09:15.180 Real.

00:09:16.780 What specific

00:09:17.600 information, what specific facts do you think

00:09:19.620 Canadians and yourself need to know in this situation?

00:09:22.340 We need to have

00:09:23.560 the evidence

00:09:24.800 that allowed the

00:09:27.740 Prime Minister to come to the conclusions he made

00:09:29.600 yesterday.

00:09:31.640 Do you agree with the government's decision to go public

00:09:33.780 with the intelligence? And if so, why?

00:09:35.940 Do you agree with the government's decision to

00:09:37.700 public with the intelligence and if so why i would i would have to have more evidence to make a

00:09:43.940 judgment on that i do find it interesting that he knew about vast foreign interference by beijing

00:09:53.460 for many years at the same time as beijing had kept two canadian citizens hostage and he said

00:09:59.540 nothing and he did nothing just a very very interesting that that was the approach he took

00:10:03.620 in that case. So again, a little bit more subdued than what we heard yesterday. He's not disputing

00:10:11.780 that the allegation may be true or is plausibly saying, look, Justin Trudeau made the allegation

00:10:16.540 he needs to, in Paliyev's words, come clean on the evidence. I want to welcome into this show

00:10:21.920 an expert on Indian politics and a wonderful contributor to True North, host of the Rupa

00:10:27.200 Subramanya show, the aptly named Rupa Subramanya. Rupa, it's good to talk to you on this. I mean,

00:10:33.160 And obviously, the domestic politics in India are far more complex than we can delve into on this show.

00:10:40.780 And I know that diaspora politics in Canada, which has multiculturalism as its official mandate, tend to seep into our affairs here.

00:10:48.120 But at its core, I mean, an allegation of this nature without accompanying evidence is a huge problem.

00:10:55.160 Absolutely, Andrew. And the manner in which these allegations were made were rather dramatic. You know, in the House of Commons, the prime minister makes these allegations against an ally.

00:11:09.740 You know, this is the kind of treatment that you would you this is how you treat a tin pot dictatorship like North Korea, not an ally. 0.68

00:11:19.640 And as I've been commenting on X or Twitter, whatever it's called right now, that, you know, there were ways in which Justin Trudeau could have handled this.

00:11:30.440 He could have handled this more diplomatically. You know, there's all kinds of private back channel talks.

00:11:35.860 he could have, I think he raised this with Modi at the G20 summit last week. But, you know,

00:11:42.540 there's a lot more that could have been done. But instead, you know, he just really just,

00:11:49.220 you know, launched these allegations in this very dramatic manner, alienating an ally. I mean,

00:11:55.280 where the relationship is already on the, you know, on the brink. And now it's really like,

00:11:59.600 I don't even know how we recover from this. Well, far be it for me to give Justin Trudeau

00:12:04.740 with his track record on India and on foreign policy in general, the benefit of the doubt.

00:12:09.000 But if he did raise this with Modi, he did raise it directly, he raised it with Indian officials,

00:12:14.220 and they were not getting any response or any pushback or any cooperation,

00:12:19.020 what is the right way of dealing with it?

00:12:21.060 Well, as I mentioned, I mean, there's a lot that could have been done.

00:12:26.520 He could have continued with these talks.

00:12:30.580 He could have continued engaging with Modi and the officials in foreign affairs or global affairs could have reached out to their counterparts in India at their foreign ministry.

00:12:48.800 The point is, Andrew, you know, if this intelligence, if it is credible, there's a way of working with an ally, you know, on this.

00:12:59.440 I mean, it's also in Canada's interest to be able to identify potential terrorists.

00:13:09.320 You know, let's not forget, and a lot of Canadians forget this,

00:13:12.420 one of the worst terrorist attacks on Canada was the Air India bombing of 1987.

00:13:19.140 More than 300 people died in that bombing, and most of them were Canadians.

00:13:23.720 and that was perpetrated by Kalistani separatists living right here in Canada. So we've kind of

00:13:31.700 normalized the Kalistan separatist movement, which India continues to treat the Kalistan

00:13:37.480 separatist movement as a serious security threat. We've unfortunately in Canada not taken it very

00:13:42.620 seriously, but for India, it's a very serious issue. Of course, I mean, you know, one doesn't 1.00

00:13:47.780 want to excuse extrajudicial killings, I absolutely abhor them. And, you know, nothing can justify

00:13:54.520 that. But, you know, the point is that, you know, we've come to this point where India, you know, 0.96

00:14:01.680 actually did when Justin Trudeau visited India in 2018, I believe the then chief minister of the

00:14:08.800 state of Punjab gave a list of, you know, people that India was concerned about. These were,

00:14:15.800 uh you know some uh and that included uh hardeep singh uh nijar and and this this list was given

00:14:23.080 to uh justin trudeau by an opposition leader uh by by by by not by not a member of the ruling party

00:14:31.800 it was uh given to um justin trudeau by a member of the congress party uh which is you know which

00:14:40.040 is opposed to the current ruling party. So the point is that in India, across political lines,

00:14:46.200 across partisan and ideological lines, the Khalistan separatist movement is considered

00:14:51.240 a serious security threat. And it's been a longstanding issue with Canada that Canada

00:14:56.840 just doesn't take this seriously. I share, by the way, your contempt for extrajudicial actions and

00:15:03.720 extrajudicial killing. So I don't want any one of the people that are out there that just want

00:15:08.760 to you know crap on this show and true north and you and i to just say oh they're defending it it's 0.65

00:15:12.920 not actually that i'm defending here due process and when you bring up india's attempts to have 0.55

00:15:18.120 these issues brought up with trudeau in the past it's worth noting on that 2018 trip that uh trudeau

00:15:24.200 literally brought along in his delegation a man who had been convicted of the attempted assassination

00:15:30.520 of ujal dosanj a former liberal health minister and former bc premier again the exact type of

00:15:36.680 person that india is here saying hey you've got this problem we'd like to help you that canada

00:15:41.160 was not dealing with absolutely and let's take uh hardeep singh uh nijar uh now you know i didn't

00:15:48.120 know these details about him till you know i began reading about him yesterday um and so apparently

00:15:53.640 he comes to uh canada on a false pretext on a false passport um he applies to become a refugee

00:16:00.600 and the refugee panel rules that his story of being tortured in India by Indian police

00:16:07.800 and experiencing brutality at their hands was completely fabricated, so they reject his

00:16:13.160 application. I think he makes a couple of attempts at trying to remain in Canada, but he gets

00:16:20.680 rejected. He marries a woman in BC, and the immigration panel once again rules that this

00:16:27.480 is a marriage of convenience so they reject his application uh but he eventually goes on to become

00:16:32.440 a citizen in 2015. um by the way i mean there were also reports that he was on a no-fly list

00:16:40.040 uh so you know it's it it's mind-boggling to me you know as an immigrant who's been here since

00:16:47.560 the late 90s um you know i came here as a young person and just the just just how hard i had to

00:16:54.040 work to remain in Canada, to be in a country that I love so much. But, you know, whereas someone

00:17:02.520 like Khardeep Singh Nijjar, you know, he finds himself in all of these situations, but he's a

00:17:08.080 Canadian citizen. It's just mind boggling, you know, what exactly happened there? And my sense

00:17:14.180 is that reading between the lines, you know, when I hear Melanie Jolie talking about, you know,

00:17:18.720 this issue and um and i saw a tweet by mark miller you know they're they're actually trying to

00:17:24.780 portray this guy as some kind of a saint and and and he wasn't and i have no reason to uh dispute

00:17:32.220 um you know uh you know concerns that india had on this guy that you know i i have no reasons to

00:17:41.300 disbelieve indian intelligence on this person i you know i i i but i have no reasons to disbelieve

00:17:47.120 the CSIS allegations that, you know, that there were some high, you know, some agents of India

00:17:54.060 who may have been responsible for this. But at this point, these are just allegations. Where's

00:17:58.340 the proof? You know, you're jeopardizing a very important bilateral relationship. Keep in mind

00:18:04.840 that India is seen as a counterweight to China. And you have all of these major powers like the

00:18:09.920 U.S., the U.K., Australia, courting India in a really big way. But, you know, Justin Trudeau has

00:18:17.540 been doing the opposite since his failed India trip in 2018. And since then, there's been a

00:18:23.540 complete deterioration in the bilateral ties. Remember, Andrew, back in December 2020, when

00:18:30.880 the farmers' protests was happening in India, where, you know, there was a similar tactic to

00:18:36.460 the Freedom Convoy protests where tractors and trailers just blocked, like, highways and the

00:18:43.400 capital city of Delhi, Trudeau actually condemned the Indian government. And, you know, and that was,

00:18:49.940 you know, the Indians did not take that. Yeah, I mean, imagine if roles were reversed and Modi 0.96

00:18:55.340 was out there talking about the Emergencies Act to rein in the Freedom Convoy. I mean, he would 1.00

00:18:59.800 say, that's domestic meddling, get out of our backyard. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think

00:19:04.020 Modi even weighed in on the freedom convoy. 0.81

00:19:07.100 But the hypocrisy of it was just astounding.

00:19:10.200 But again, he was really playing to the Sikh diaspora here.

00:19:14.620 They are an important constituency.

00:19:16.800 My point is this is just absolutely mind-boggling.

00:19:20.080 It's diabolical.

00:19:21.280 You're risking jeopardizing a very, very important bilateral relationship

00:19:26.780 when the rest of the world is like knocking on India's door.

00:19:30.680 And here you are making these serious allegations.

00:19:34.020 And now today, as you played that clip earlier, he's kind of climbing down from what he said yesterday.

00:19:43.460 Yeah, and I should just say here, I mean, in international relationships, there's a term called the realpolitik, which is to basically discuss the political landscape as the world is, not in this idealistic way you want the world to be.

00:19:55.560 And this means that often when you're picking your friends and allies, you aren't looking for perfect people.

00:20:00.480 you're looking for people that you need in a particular situation, which is why the West 1.00

00:20:04.340 gets along with Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia is a necessary counterbalance to Iran.

00:20:10.160 India is a very interesting country because geopolitically, internationally, it's not,

00:20:16.340 I'm being simplistic here, but it's not particularly ideological in the sense that

00:20:20.880 they'll work with whoever it's in their best interest to work with, which means

00:20:24.360 India is available as a partner for China or Russia or the United States or Canada. And I think

00:20:30.220 To have a country with a billion people, with the English language, with a democracy, with a rule of law, not as our ally is a profound tactical and moral failure.

00:20:41.560 But economically, it's an incredibly important relationship.

00:20:45.300 And if we do distance ourselves from this, it is going to be to the benefit of China, for example.

00:20:51.100 Yeah, no, absolutely. And speaking of real politic, I mean, I was just, I just saw this tweet that the U.S. has actually been very, very reticent about, you know, about condemning, of taking Canada's side in this because...

00:21:11.500 Same as the U.K., just within the last hour, they've said we're not getting into this.

00:21:15.360 Absolutely. The response from Canada's allies has been very lukewarm and tepid. So you really

00:21:23.540 have to wonder what was Justin Trudeau thinking in making these allegations? Did he seriously

00:21:28.780 think that the U.S.? I have a million problems with the Biden administration, but I know one

00:21:35.100 thing for sure. Whether it was Trump or Biden, there's been a continuity in their Indo-Pacific

00:21:40.780 policy. And, you know, they both recognize that India is an important player and as a counterweight

00:21:48.140 to China. So, you know, you really have to wonder, like in making these allegations, did he think

00:21:53.560 that he would have all of these countries on Canada's side and condemn India? You know, who's

00:21:58.680 advising him? You know, who's advising him on India? Well, I mean, that's an important question

00:22:03.820 that I'd love to hear the answer to, which is what, if any, the discussions were between Canada

00:22:08.540 and everyone else at the Five Eyes table.

00:22:11.160 I mean, when he sat down, assuming he did,

00:22:13.260 and I certainly hope he did,

00:22:14.220 and presented it to the UK and Australia,

00:22:17.240 New Zealand and the US, how did they respond?

00:22:19.980 And did he think that they were going to fall in line?

00:22:22.280 Did they warn him against going down this road?

00:22:24.420 I don't know.

00:22:25.520 And a part of it is that it's incredibly difficult

00:22:27.680 to really ascertain any aspect of this

00:22:30.180 without knowing what the intelligence is.

00:22:32.500 Because Justin Trudeau did not say

00:22:34.360 that there are people that may have ties

00:22:37.300 to the Indian government.

00:22:38.280 He said the Indian government. He specifically said they were responsible here. Now, that, to the average person, is drawing a direct line between the killing of this man, of Hardif Singh Nijal, and Modi himself, or people at the higher levels. And that is a huge allegation. And when you look at India's response to this, they didn't do the whole Saudi Arabia thing of, oh, well, we're going to look into it, and oh, maybe someone down the road. They're saying, no, this is absolutely patently untrue.

00:23:06.860 Yeah, I think so. Look, I mean, I, you know, these are allegations until someone actually tells us, you know, gives us more evidence. And I think Pierre Polyever made a statement to that effect this morning. These are very serious allegations.

00:23:25.200 And, you know, Trudeau this morning, you know, I sensed a climb down with Pierre Polyevre.

00:23:34.460 You know, he was basically buying Trudeau's story yesterday.

00:23:39.600 And this morning he was also asking for more questions.

00:23:42.820 You know, where's the evidence?

00:23:44.280 And how did you tie this to the Indian government?

00:23:47.740 You know, whether the Indian government did this or not, I mean, if they did this, I mean, it's absolutely, you know, no uncertain terms.

00:23:55.100 You must, you know, you must oppose it. And I say this as someone who comes from India originally, you know, there's no room for this kind of extra, you know, there's no justification for this kind of extrajudicial operation.

00:24:12.180 But having said that, you know, where exactly is the evidence?

00:24:17.160 Yeah, very well said. I know we'll continue on this as I expect you will as well.

00:24:21.560 Rupa Subraman. You can catch her show Saturdays at True North, the Rupa Subramanian show. Thank

00:24:26.460 you so much, Rupa. Thanks, Andrew. All right. Thank you very much for that. And I should just

00:24:32.300 say, I mean, there were some questions swirling today about Nijal's citizenship. And I should 1.00

00:24:37.080 just point out, or Nijal rather, citizenship. And one thing that I'll note on this is that there are

00:24:43.260 some really, really weird things that happened. A guy who, as Rupa said there, entered Canada and

00:24:49.880 used fraudulent information, lied on his application, was identified as like a co-conspirator

00:24:56.660 in a terrorist incident by Interpol, which is quite significant, and then somehow manages

00:25:01.920 to get Canadian citizenship.

00:25:03.560 So how that happened, I don't know.

00:25:05.620 And before you blame Justin Trudeau, it happened allegedly in March of 2015, which means Stephen

00:25:12.060 Harper was the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister at the time was Chris Alexander.

00:25:17.380 Now, True North has reached out to former Minister Alexander just to get some context.

00:25:22.160 I'm not saying he personally signed off on it, but it would be useful to get a sense of what the process was by which this guy in 2015 could have become a Canadian citizen.

00:25:32.240 Because what's interesting here is that if he were not a Canadian citizen, there would have been tools available, tools available to perhaps extradite if he had violated Indian law.

00:25:44.980 And that could have been a discussion.

00:25:46.060 Now, again, I am not justifying what happened here, whether India was involved or someone else.

00:25:52.580 I'm not justifying that at all.

00:25:54.420 I'm saying that there is a process by which these things are followed.

00:25:57.480 And as Palliev pointed out, the double standard in how Justin Trudeau has dealt with China's interference

00:26:03.660 versus how he's dealt with these allegations against India is quite something.

00:26:08.480 In China, everything is like, oh, hush, hush, we got to keep it quiet and we don't want to rock the boat. 1.00

00:26:13.100 That was the whole Canada MO when the two Michaels were being detained, Michael Cobrig and Michael Spavor in China.

00:26:20.400 It was don't condemn them. Don't get loud. Don't get boisterous.

00:26:23.400 Well, it's and anytime someone said, why are you not going harder on China? 0.93

00:26:26.520 It was, oh, oh, well, we we don't want to rock the boat.

00:26:28.580 We got it. And now with India, we're not just rocking the boat. 0.99

00:26:31.560 We're talking about like chucking an iceberg at the boat.

00:26:34.380 That's what Justin Trudeau has done with India.

00:26:37.000 And it's bizarre that a country who is, in every sense of the word, an ally gets a worse treatment for its conduct, alleged or otherwise, than China, who is in no uncertain terms not an ally of this country. 0.51

00:26:51.800 Maybe not an enemy, but certainly an economic foe.

00:26:54.920 So that is a story we will continue to stay on top of, along with others.

00:26:59.820 We'll have to get Rupa back as well.

00:27:01.160 Her insight on this was quite wonderful.

00:27:03.880 Pivoting to something entirely unrelated, though.

00:27:07.000 I wanted to talk about the firearms file because you may know I am a gun owner and I have one of

00:27:12.260 those evil scary AR-15s that the Liberal government banned in May of 2020 in response to a mass

00:27:19.780 shooting, well not a mass shooting, a spree killing in Nova Scotia which involved no legally owned

00:27:26.360 firearms which is a very key part of this distinction. So as a result it would not have

00:27:31.020 been prevented by anything that the Liberals have put into force either through that order and

00:27:35.880 council or in subsequent legislation, but never let facts get in the way of the government's

00:27:41.080 narrative on this. At its core, the government said, we're going to do a two-year ban. We're

00:27:46.500 going to put in a permanent ban, but a two-year amnesty period. And in that two years, we're

00:27:51.300 going to set up a buyback program where we can buy back something that we never owned in the

00:27:56.020 first place, which is your lawfully acquired and licensed property. And instead, the government

00:28:01.760 has not managed to do it. They've spent millions of dollars, despite not actually setting up this

00:28:05.820 buyback program. They've extended the amnesty period. Now it is set to elapse in less than

00:28:11.600 six weeks and still not a single gun has been purchased by the government. I am still sitting

00:28:16.940 on one of these guns that I am not legally allowed to do anything with but look at. I can

00:28:22.360 ogle it perhaps, but that's about it. And business owners, as we chronicled in our documentary

00:28:27.420 Assaulted, Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners, have still been sitting for now over three years

00:28:32.880 on hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars in inventory that they cannot sell, they can't

00:28:38.040 return, and the government has given them no mechanism to offload to them. So it's a bit of

00:28:44.440 a problem, but we have a legal action from the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, whose head

00:28:50.720 Rod Giltaka joins us now. Rod, always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:28:55.300 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:28:56.560 So, I mean, I was going to have you on anyway to talk about this, but you've taken some action

00:29:00.660 here in the last day what's going on well we have uh prepared all the paperwork to file and um a

00:29:10.260 sorry to file an injunction uh against the federal government for um basically because

00:29:16.260 they're they're waiting every time this this uh this amnesty deadline rolls around the government

00:29:21.940 waits till the last couple of days and it's it stresses a lot of gun owners people like me

00:29:27.620 I understand the political consequences to the Liberals for not renewing the amnesty,

00:29:32.900 which I'm sure they're going to do it. But for the everyday gun owner, especially elderly people,

00:29:38.200 as that deadline approaches, they start to get very nervous. And some people might even turn

00:29:43.560 in their guns because they're worried they'll become criminals. So the reason why we file

00:29:47.680 these injunctions, even though it's not absolutely legally necessary yet, is because the government

00:29:54.800 is playing this game with people. And the reason I know that is I have, I don't know, I would say

00:30:00.380 20 to 40 people somewhere, somewhere in that region that contact the CCFR each time that this

00:30:08.260 amnesty was coming to an end. And these people are stressed. And it's, in my opinion, it's the

00:30:13.240 way that the government makes people feel small. You know, maybe we'll renew it, maybe we won't.

00:30:18.360 So we just wanted to force their hand, like we did last time around, to hurry up, renew it.

00:30:23.620 they don't have to cause stress and that kind of harm in people's lives, and let's just get on with

00:30:28.660 it. Yeah, the logic of it is that the government has prohibited these guns. They've given no

00:30:34.760 mechanism by which people can get rid of them. Obviously, they can't just turn around and start

00:30:40.220 doing mass arrests the day after because they're the ones who have failed. So I agree with you

00:30:44.460 wholeheartedly that we know they're going to do it. But at the same time, it's the uncertainty,

00:30:48.980 and I think it's the government trying to drive home this point that gun ownership is a privilege

00:30:53.200 that they can take away just as easily as they grant to remind you that your rights don't exist,

00:30:57.760 that your property is not your property. Well, yeah, and most people, and rightly so, 1.00

00:31:03.380 aren't involved in politics. Most people aren't following this stuff like you or I do, right?

00:31:08.240 And it terrifies them. And to me, the injustice of that is ridiculous. And it's yet another 0.96

00:31:16.980 example of how irresponsibly the Liberals run government. So that's the reason why we're

00:31:23.980 starting earlier than we did last time, now six weeks to go, to file that injunction and make

00:31:29.620 sure that they just do the right thing and they do it soon and not put people through any more

00:31:33.560 hardship than they're already experiencing in Canada. One thing that I would point out as well,

00:31:38.140 looking at the freeze more broadly, is that the government's view was that lawfully owned

00:31:44.700 firearms like AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles, and including many that were non-restricted

00:31:51.080 and used for hunting before, like Mini-14s, that those guns were a danger, even in the hands of

00:31:56.500 people like you and I who are vetted, who are licensed, who keep the guns in the cabinet.

00:32:00.660 And it's so counterintuitive that these things that are such a public safety risk

00:32:04.580 can just be allowed to sort of just exist out in the country indefinitely and keep renewing it.

00:32:09.360 And don't get me wrong, I'm happy they haven't done the mass confiscation, but it undermines

00:32:14.000 their own logic and their own basis for that order and council in the first place, which is that

00:32:18.260 these things had to be off the streets and out of people's homes as quickly as possible.

00:32:22.860 Well, of course. And three and a half years later, violence has done nothing but increase.

00:32:30.440 Disorder and chaos in the streets has done nothing but increase. A year, more than a year past the

00:32:36.000 handgun freeze, handguns are still being used in urban centers by the same people that were using

00:32:41.080 than before. So again, gun control is about 98% political. As a group, we know that there's a

00:32:50.640 place for regulation of firearms, but regulation has to be reasonable. And it has to have a

00:32:56.400 demonstrable positive effect on public safety. And what we've seen from the Liberals since day one

00:33:01.120 in 2015 is the exact opposite. And I think the most atrocious part of that is they're using

00:33:07.820 government power to do it. So you need to have a very high degree of responsibility if you're

00:33:12.780 going to run a G7 nation. And we've seen exactly the opposite. We saw a very different approach

00:33:19.460 given by the government in the May 2020 Order in Council to their subsequent freeze on handguns.

00:33:26.640 With the Order in Council, it was these guns are basically bricked. You can't take them to the

00:33:30.840 range. You can't shoot them. You can't buy them. You can't sell them. With handguns, it was a 0.95

00:33:34.880 little bit more lax and what you'd call the grandfathering where, okay, anyone who has one,

00:33:39.600 you can still use it, but you can't buy a new one. You can't transfer it. Do you think that was

00:33:44.480 because they view handguns in this different category? Do you think it was that they realized

00:33:48.560 how much they screwed up on the first one? I think so. I think so. There's nothing

00:33:53.200 stopping the government from pulling back on some of the provisions that they had created in the

00:33:59.620 May 2020 gun ban, letting people take their gun to the range. You know, I have to do a series of

00:34:04.740 videos this week with a very popular YouTuber at the range. I haven't been in the range in a long

00:34:10.060 time, but I would just love to take the guns that I would normally take. But now I have to take

00:34:14.580 other firearms because that are basically equivalent because the firearms that I can't

00:34:19.960 take to the range, you know, I'm prohibited from moving them. So if the government really wanted to

00:34:26.460 extend an olive branch to all the people like me and you that haven't done anything to deserve to

00:34:32.180 be treated this way, it would be to treat the May 2020 now prohibited firearms in the same way that

00:34:39.420 they treated handguns. And I think your point is really hits home when you think, well, the majority

00:34:45.820 of firearms used in criminal activity and firearm-related violence in Canada, the overwhelming

00:34:50.120 majority are handguns. But they're saying, well, you can still use your handgun as you did before,

00:34:54.720 just no new ones can come in the country and you can't transfer it so you i mean those things in in

00:35:00.640 in real life evidence that you can see with your own eyes show that all of this is a political

00:35:06.240 campaign it's not it's not about public safety it's about politics it's about getting urban

00:35:10.560 votes scaring urban voters uh getting their votes and then trying to mitigate the damage

00:35:15.360 uh among gun owners uh politically so um i i think i would really love to see the day

00:35:21.760 uh happen in canada where we are making laws and policies uh with public with public safety in mind

00:35:28.240 rather than a political motivation we know that gun owners are just a demographic minority in

00:35:33.520 this country you know maybe two million gun owners legal gun owners and a country of approaching 40

00:35:38.960 million people we also know that polling uh shows thanks in large part to media misinformation that

00:35:45.440 gun control measures by governments can come across pretty well which is why the work you do on

00:35:50.880 education is so important but at the same time it would probably pull well for Justin Trudeau and

00:35:58.240 whoever the public safety minister is now to stand in front of a big giant warehouse full

00:36:02.960 of ar-15s and hold a press conference they we've just taken all of these things off the street 1.00

00:36:08.000 they would love to do that so I'm really curious why you think they haven't is it just general

00:36:13.680 bureaucratic ineptitude that has kept this so-called buyback from materializing well the

00:36:19.040 buyback was never reality in the first place right so the trudeau liberals look at countries like

00:36:24.720 australia or uh or new zealand new zealand is a tiny tiny country it's like i think half the size

00:36:31.360 of british columbia if i if i have my geography right but canada is a country that is 10 million

00:36:36.400 square kilometers so there there are canadians that are gun owners spread out over a massive

00:36:43.200 massive land mass and to create buyback opportunities in local communities across

00:36:49.760 a country so big and so just so vast is a task beyond certainly beyond this government

00:36:56.880 that's proven its ineptitudes in so many different ways but it's also incredibly expensive and even

00:37:03.440 just the administration cost plus it's a very specialized operation it's not like they're

00:37:07.680 distributing checks or something in the mail you have to have people that are qualified and legally

00:37:12.880 allowed to handle firearms, to make sure that they're unloaded or can't present any kind of

00:37:18.680 public safety issue when you receive them. They have to be secured because, God forbid, a gang

00:37:24.220 breaks into one of these collection centers and ends up with, you know, 250 AR-15s, plus all the

00:37:31.540 associated gear that people might inadvertently turn in. I mean, it's just, it was a huge, huge

00:37:35.840 task. And it also required a huge budget that could have easily spun out of control. And it

00:37:41.140 would have been a boondoggle for the liberals, just like the long gun registry was. So there's

00:37:45.500 even political risk there. So there's a number of reasons why they haven't done it. Some of them

00:37:49.980 legitimate and the other, I think, political. And I think another point, if I were to add

00:37:55.340 something else, Andrew, is that because this is political in nature, the liberals always want to

00:38:01.980 stretch things out so that they become a promise for the next election. They've done it twice

00:38:06.700 already so they're like don't worry urban voters we are the only political party that will you know

00:38:13.100 bring these terrible licensed gun owners to heal but you'll have to elect us one more time so 0.88

00:38:17.900 there's a lot of reasons i think why you see uh delays there's a and i think there's also a

00:38:23.180 compelling reason why you don't see so much gun control coming from them right now because towards

00:38:27.980 the end it wasn't playing well because they were banning firearms used generally used for hunting

00:38:35.180 and worse so you know i don't think it gave them the political boost that they thought i thought

00:38:39.660 i think that it was probably more damaging than they than they had imagined so i guess uh the

00:38:44.460 real question is what are we going to see from them in the next month or two well i would also

00:38:48.860 add too that because it's dragged on so long there have been other political changes in the

00:38:53.260 in the country and you now have provincial governments that are saying we will not allow

00:38:57.580 police resources in this province to be used in any gun confiscation i mean we've seen that in

00:39:02.620 in Saskatchewan and Alberta. I think Manitoba as well may have done that. So you've now got

00:39:07.020 provinces that are using kind of the one trump card they have, which is, you know, we can't

00:39:11.460 challenge the law itself, but we can say that our police officers will not be playing ball with this.

00:39:16.920 Well, unfortunately, the OPP does not reside amongst that group.

00:39:21.380 Sadly, as an Ontarian, I may have to like take up residence in Alberta when

00:39:25.760 this eventually does come.

00:39:27.420 Yeah, they're cooperating is my understanding. And in fact, it's my understanding that they're

00:39:32.260 wondering, hey, what's the holdup? So I don't know what that means for Ontarians, but yeah,

00:39:39.020 that's an unfortunate situation there. So I mean, look, you want an injunction. How long a delay

00:39:45.360 do you think is ideal? How long are you going to be seeking? Well, I mean- Until the next election?

00:39:52.000 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, 26 months is what we're after. But I think probably two years would be

00:39:59.800 acceptable. I mean, it's been three and a half years already. They haven't bought a single

00:40:04.880 firearm back and we haven't seen even a framework for a buyback. So I think two years would be the

00:40:11.360 appropriate amount of time. But again, what I would like to see from the liberals would be for

00:40:18.180 them to just say, okay, you know what? Don't worry about the buyback. We're going to treat these

00:40:22.920 firearms like we're treating handguns right now. Let the people use them. They haven't done

00:40:27.160 anything. All these firearms have been safely stored here for three and a half years and

00:40:32.300 everyone's gun safes. And let people use their firearms again. Let them use them until whatever

00:40:38.940 conditions at the end of their lives like they're doing with handguns and just stop punishing

00:40:44.980 regular people. And I think that would be probably a good policy for the Liberals to pursue in the

00:40:51.640 interim. And I'll just add one more thing. If you don't see that, because it was reasonable for

00:40:56.960 handguns, if you don't see it, it's because they're looking for a new election promise to

00:41:00.760 try to get reelected in two years. Yeah. And I think you're completely right about that, Rod.

00:41:06.040 And I would also point out that I'm in no hurry to have this done. I'm totally fine with just

00:41:11.140 delaying it indefinitely, except I would love to see the handgun approach, which is to say that

00:41:15.040 if you believe that gun owners are the problem, which the government does, and that, you know, 0.73

00:41:20.380 the safety requirements and the restrictions on where you can transport them aren't going to do

00:41:24.300 enough to dissuade crime it really doesn't matter whether you allow licensed gun owners to go to the

00:41:28.600 range or not like you uh do with handguns it's purely purely punitive and uh short-sighted and

00:41:34.720 i think a reminder that this order in council was really like scrawled out on a napkin when

00:41:39.380 liberal ministers were watching cnn and seeing oh well yeah maybe we could do something yeah well

00:41:45.340 they they came up with this whole plan in two weeks after the shooting in nova scotia right

00:41:50.200 So, um, and then they've been backpedaling ever since, you know, they said that they

00:41:55.160 were Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair said that they would come up with a buyback, you know,

00:41:59.340 at the earliest possible opportunity.

00:42:01.840 And, uh, like we've said several times just in this interview, those two.

00:42:05.280 And even if it were to be launched today to say that it could be done in the next six

00:42:10.580 weeks, like this is like, I think you'd even need over a year of the buyback being in effect

00:42:16.460 to round up every gun in Canada.

00:42:17.920 And that's a low ball.

00:42:20.200 Well, absolutely. I mean, think about how many collection centers you'd really need. You know, you'd need one in Nunavut, right? A collection center in Nunavut, even though you're probably going to get, I don't know, 50 guns up there.

00:42:33.100 You might need many in Nunavut, just because of the size.

00:42:36.560 Well, yeah. And then their other plan, if you remember, was to get Canada Post to participate and basically send people boxes that they can put an AR-15 into, a functional AR-15 into, and then stick it.

00:42:48.860 Send along your self-addressed stamped envelope and your AR-15.

00:42:51.720 Stick it in the mail, man.

00:42:53.340 Imagine when a bunch of those go missing, right?

00:42:56.940 And then, of course, Canada Post's concern was like, well, what are you telling us?

00:43:00.280 Are you telling us that we're going to have post offices around the country where these packages are going to come in for processing to go to a central location?

00:43:08.480 And we're going to have offices that have AR-15s and CZ-858 sitting around and our staff were the only thing between those guns and criminals?

00:43:18.860 like just it doesn't it doesn't yeah the canada post uh processing center in red deer alberta or

00:43:24.540 something is going to become like better armed than a u.s airbase so how are you going to provide

00:43:29.520 security for what i don't know 800 different postal locations even the vehicles that are

00:43:34.880 picking up these packages and going from a to b to the to wherever they're you know they're going

00:43:39.900 to receive them yeah because under the licensing i wouldn't even be allowed to walk the gun to the

00:43:44.160 post office. Yeah, there's a lot of details there that the government couldn't care less about when

00:43:51.740 they made that. They saw an opportunity and they grabbed it. And they've been living with the

00:43:55.760 albatross that they slung around their own necks for three and a half years. My producer Sean says

00:44:01.140 it adds a whole new risk of going postal, which when that's the level of humor we're getting on

00:44:05.780 the show, it's time to wrap things up. Rod Giltaka from the Canadian Coalition for Firearm

00:44:10.200 writes, great to have your cooperation on that documentary, Assaulted, which has stood the test

00:44:14.880 of time, I think, because the buyback is still nowhere to be seen. Businesses that we spoke to

00:44:19.240 there, I ran into a couple of them at your AGM back this summer, and they're still dealing with

00:44:24.680 the same inventory they were dealing with when I interviewed them in the spring of 2021. So thanks

00:44:29.700 so much for that and for coming on today, Raj. Thank you, Andrew. All right, that is it for

00:44:34.560 today i will give you another plug we are going to be uh meeting in calgary uh the true north

00:44:40.480 family and many of you i hope uh on october 21st that is true north nation our first ever live and

00:44:47.320 in-person event and i don't want to give you too many details right now but we've been talking in

00:44:52.080 our little group chat about that event all day today and planning like in intricate detail

00:44:57.660 the inclusion of something that i think will just make it a complete riot so i hope you'll come

00:45:03.380 and I hope we'll be able to,

00:45:04.780 I don't know if we'll announce it

00:45:05.980 or if we'll just make you show up.

00:45:07.080 So buy a ticket

00:45:07.840 and you can see what the fuss is about.

00:45:09.900 That is on October 21st

00:45:11.680 and you can get all the details

00:45:12.660 at truenorthevents.ca,

00:45:15.400 truenorthevents.ca

00:45:16.440 and I hope to see you there.

00:45:17.700 We'll see you tomorrow

00:45:18.280 at one o'clock Eastern,

00:45:19.600 11 a.m. Mountain,

00:45:20.840 10 a.m. Pacific

00:45:22.140 here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:45:24.080 Thank you, God bless

00:45:24.980 and good day to you all.

00:45:26.920 Thanks for listening

00:45:27.780 to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:45:29.380 Support the program

00:45:30.280 by donating to True North

00:45:31.520 at www.tnc.news.

00:46:01.520 We'll be right back.

00:46:31.520 We'll be right back.

Juno News - September 19, 2023

Trudeau accuses India of murder

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