Juno News - Trudeau is getting us ready for never-ending boosters

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

00:00:10.400 hello and welcome to you all it is tuesday september 6 2022 you are tuned in to canada's

00:00:18.480 most irreverent talk show the andrew lawton show here on true north watch your auto correct sometimes

00:00:24.720 it will sneak in canada's most irrelevant talk show which you know what may be the case to some

00:00:30.480 of the critics but i'd like to think we strive for irreverence and profound relevance but that's

00:00:35.760 just me hope you had a great and safe labor day weekend whatever you were doing wherever you were

00:00:42.080 it is the unofficial end of summer which i i realize can be depressing for some people so

00:00:46.800 hopefully we'll lift up your spirits which when i think of the topics i have in mind i might not

00:00:52.400 actually do. But we'll give you some hope and give you some purpose about it all. I will say

00:00:57.440 that I'm going to be speaking a little bit later on with Sia Hassan and Ava Chipiak. They are

00:01:02.880 lawyers with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms who are right now fighting a charter

00:01:08.440 challenge against the Arrive Can app. So that's going to be coming up in a little bit of time.

00:01:13.680 But I first want to talk about this comment made by Justin Trudeau this week, which I feel I could

00:01:20.600 probably do a whole show on but at the very least i want you to hear it if you haven't already this

00:01:26.280 is when justin trudeau is once again dangling a carrot of normalcy in front of you and i telling

00:01:33.960 us what we need to do because the onus is on us of course what we need to do to prevent governments

00:01:39.480 like his from putting in place restrictions take a look if it's not done with us yet we might want

00:01:48.200 to be done with it, but it's still around. And yes, we have a lot more tools, a lot more

00:01:53.480 understanding, a lot more knowledge on how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe that have

00:01:57.720 allowed us to get back to regular life in a lot of ways for a whole bunch of people.

00:02:02.920 But we also know that as winter comes and as people get pushed back indoors, there is a real

00:02:09.240 risk of another serious wave of COVID. One of the best things we can do to prevent

00:02:17.080 that way, prevent the pressure on our healthcare systems, prevent provinces from having to take

00:02:23.000 decisions around restrictions and mandates, is to ensure that everyone is up to date in their

00:02:29.400 vaccinations. The recommendation is, you know, you should be up to date in your vaccinations

00:02:35.720 if you have had a dose within six months. Everyone who has been a while since their vaccination,

00:02:42.040 today's vaccination, should look at the fact that we have new vaccines coming out this

00:02:47.380 month that are tailored against Omicron that will provide better protection and everyone

00:02:54.580 should get out and get vaccinated. If we are able to hit that 80, 85, 90 percent of Canadians

00:03:00.980 up to date in their vaccinations, we'll have a much better winter with much less need for

00:03:07.460 the kinds of restrictions and rules that were so problematic for everyone over the past years but

00:03:12.900 every step of the way government's responsibility is to keep people safe to prevent our health care

00:03:19.460 systems from getting overwhelmed and that's where individuals choosing to make sure they're up to

00:03:24.100 date in their vaccinations with these new vaccines he's sorry that was cut off at the end there but

00:03:31.220 actually we're doing a public service and never you don't even get like a millisecond more of

00:03:34.980 of Justin Trudeau than you need on the Andrew Lawton show. I wanted you to hear that whole clip

00:03:40.840 because every cliche is in the book there. This idea that we all need to have up-to-date

00:03:46.360 vaccinations. So you'll notice that fully vaccinated has gone the way of the dodo bird.

00:03:50.200 I was speaking back last week, last Saturday, so nine days ago or so, at the rally at Western

00:03:57.700 University in London, Ontario. And I did a little survey at the beginning of my remarks. I asked

00:04:02.580 everyone to put up their hand if they were fully vaccinated, noting that there are lots of people

00:04:06.780 who are fully vaccinated and against mandates. And a bunch of people put their hands up. And I said,

00:04:11.100 no, no, no, it's a trick question. No one's fully vaccinated. You're never fully vaccinated anymore.

00:04:15.880 You know that song that was from Annie, You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile?

00:04:19.680 Well, you're just never fully vaccinated with or without a smile does not matter.

00:04:24.160 The idea that you have to be up to date, vaccinated every six months, Justin Trudeau said,

00:04:30.880 Which means that if you got boosted back in January, February or March of this year, which is when the governments, I think for the most part, were first rolling out boosters to the general population, you are now unvaccinated in the government size.

00:04:45.240 So you should be on your fourth dose right now by the federal government standards.

00:04:50.120 And if you get your fourth dose in September, like right now, you've got to get another one in March.

00:04:56.280 Otherwise, you go back to being four dosed and unvaccinated.

00:05:00.160 This is how it works.

00:05:00.880 There's no such thing.

00:05:02.040 So we are on now a carousel of boosters

00:05:04.240 that's going to go effectively until the end of time

00:05:07.680 if the government has its way.

00:05:10.640 And this is the sort of thing

00:05:12.220 that you need to stand firm on now

00:05:14.240 because a lot of people were fine

00:05:16.280 to go along with the two doses,

00:05:17.740 even if they didn't necessarily want to

00:05:19.580 because the climate was different for COVID at the time.

00:05:22.620 The vaccine was being told to us

00:05:24.900 as though it was safe and effective

00:05:26.340 and would give you 100% guarantee

00:05:28.480 of not ending up in hospital.

00:05:29.700 And then we know, of course, as time has gone on, there are certain age groups where,

00:05:34.000 especially with younger people, the risk of the vaccine outweighs the risk of adverse effects

00:05:39.740 from COVID itself. So people know more now. COVID itself is less serious now. We've all learned how

00:05:47.560 to move on with our lives now. Well, not all of us. I just saw a clip from an interview on the

00:05:52.900 agenda with Steve Payton on TVO, and there was someone who was doing a Zoom interview wearing

00:05:56.620 a mask. So not everyone has managed to get on with their life as normal. But for the most part,

00:06:02.620 those of us who have wanted to move on have. So when Justin Trudeau says COVID's not done with

00:06:06.800 us yet, well, actually, a lot of people have decided they're done with COVID. The joke that

00:06:13.340 I've given on the show before, when you see someone masked in another country, what do you

00:06:16.860 call them? A Canadian tourist. Canada is basically the only country in the Western world that has

00:06:22.600 decided it wants to live permanently in COVID stand, irrespective of the science, irrespective

00:06:27.820 of the data, and irrespective of the level of control you're ceding to the government

00:06:32.420 when you permanently live your life in this COVID bubble and don't move on from it.

00:06:38.720 So the people that went along with the one doses and the two doses, and maybe even the third,

00:06:45.660 a lot of them did so not because they wanted to or cared or felt they needed to.

00:06:50.280 they did it because they felt they had to not for their health reasons but to live their lives

00:06:56.280 people that said well i need to fly so i need to be vaccinated or i want to go out to restaurants

00:07:02.020 with my friends so i need to be vaccinated or i work in an industry that has a vaccine mandate

00:07:06.520 so i've got to get my covid shot and a lot of people i feel for them by the way people that

00:07:12.280 didn't want to but for their own economic reasons financial reasons or whatever other reasons did it

00:07:19.040 out of a sense of obligation of some kind. But now people are starting to realize that this

00:07:26.060 lie that we were all told and have been told right back since two weeks to flatten the curve

00:07:32.780 is not going to become any more true now. And what I mean by that is that no one right now

00:07:41.740 should believe government when they dangle something in front of you and say,

00:07:44.980 this is what normalcy will cost you. This is what it's going to cost you to live your life.

00:07:52.020 Just going back to May of 2021, Justin Trudeau said Canada was going to have a one-dose summer

00:07:58.280 and a two-dose fall. And he said 75%, 75% of the country needed to have one shot before COVID

00:08:07.880 restrictions would ease. And then we got to the point when 90% of the country had two shots,

00:08:14.160 just about. And despite 90% of the country having two shots, we still had a vaccine mandate for air

00:08:20.200 travel. We still had a mask mandate for air travel and rail travel. We still had a vaccine mandate

00:08:25.480 for the federal civil service. So this idea of setting a number, which Justin Trudeau did in

00:08:31.200 that clip I just showed you, he's at 80, 85, 90% of the country needs to have been boosted in the

00:08:38.600 last six months for maybe, maybe governments not putting more restrictions on us in the fall and

00:08:45.040 winter? Is this filling you with a lot of confidence? It certainly shouldn't. So let's

00:08:51.560 look at the actual data here because the federal government's own numbers say a little over 50%

00:08:56.480 of the country have received three doses of a COVID vaccine, 50%. So let's say that we're

00:09:02.780 talking about half the country here, half the eligible populations, or not even half the overall

00:09:07.480 country, but half the eligible population, I believe that's 12 and up. So they've lowered

00:09:12.620 eligibility, but we'll stick with those numbers for now. What happens from there is that the

00:09:18.920 government has, if you looked at it, knowledge that most of those people who are really eager

00:09:24.180 and really keen got vaccinated early on when boosters were available, like right out the door.

00:09:29.640 Booster uptake has been incredibly low, which means the people that really wanted it were

00:09:33.480 really enthusiastic. They got it in January, February. As I mentioned earlier, these people

00:09:38.760 are to the government unvaccinated now. You can be a three dose, dirty, unacceptable fringe 0.97

00:09:45.360 anti-vaxxer in Canada, which is quite a feat of mental gymnastics. You could have three doses. 0.97

00:09:50.300 You could even have, if you got your fourth dose six months ago, you can still be an anti-vaxxer.

00:09:54.060 Congratulations. You can have like anti-vaxxers that are sponsored by Pfizer now. That's how

00:09:58.780 great these gymnastics are. So what's happened is that if you got boosted more than six months ago,

00:10:05.460 you've got to get another. And notice how he didn't say, and it's just to get us through to

00:10:11.120 the winter. Because they're not even going to try that anymore. They're not even trying to move the

00:10:15.880 goalpost to a point where they say, this is where it ends. This is the last hurdle. Because all of

00:10:22.120 this, all of this is putting us on a treadmill that is never going to stop moving until Canadians 1.00

00:10:29.540 jump off the treadmill. Now, if you look at me, it won't surprise you that getting off a treadmill 1.00

00:10:35.140 is something of a skill set for me. In fact, getting on it usually doesn't happen. So I'm

00:10:38.820 not in that situation. But nevertheless, the point that we're having to deal with right now

00:10:43.240 is that we are literally seeing before our eyes, government set the parameters for what will

00:10:48.640 become a permanent framework we'll be talking about arrive can in just a few moments which

00:10:53.380 the government is not even hiding it's going to become a permanent permanent feature of entering

00:10:57.460 the country covid restrictions and covid mandates whenever they've been lifted in the last six

00:11:03.940 months they haven't even said this is gone it's over they say we're suspending we're re-evaluating

00:11:09.060 we got to keep an eye out for what's going to happen in the winter and justin trudeau is here

00:11:12.740 saying now dangling your liberty in front of you as though it's his to take away claiming that

00:11:18.480 You have to get not just you boosted, but you have to get everyone around you boosted.

00:11:25.140 And 80, 85, 90% of the country has to get a third dose or a fourth dose or a fifth dose

00:11:30.920 within the last six months for maybe governments to not give us restrictions.

00:11:37.120 So no one at this point should believe any of this.

00:11:41.360 And to be honest, I don't think many people do believe it, which is why the government

00:11:46.720 has had to resort to these insane cliches like what we heard from Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos

00:11:52.540 late last week. You mentioned in the summer, earlier this summer, that the federal government

00:12:02.140 was going to be trying to work on some campaigns to convince people to get boosted. What can we

00:12:08.300 expect to see now that these biovalent doses are going to start to arrive to encourage people to

00:12:13.220 actually get them a national campaign will start next week the uh the the title is

00:12:25.140 protection wanes action is required just like a phone battery your phone battery

00:12:33.060 wanes no needs to be recharged for your thanks for your phone to work to have appropriate power

00:12:39.620 to operate and for your vaccination protection to be affected so you recharge your phone battery by

00:12:46.900 plugging it to the electricity you recharge your vaccine protection by taking action

00:12:53.860 and getting vaccination protection so that's going to start next

00:13:02.980 sorry i was just seeing if this was like a pfizer or a moderna charger but i got the

00:13:06.900 generic version. So mine's actually not sponsored by any of the pharmaceutical companies. So yeah,

00:13:12.700 you got to charge your phone battery. You got to charge your phone battery every six months. And

00:13:16.000 just when you think you have it charged and you think you got the battery pack on there,

00:13:19.880 oh, well, what do you know? You got to charge it again. So look, if they have to do that to sell

00:13:25.700 the boosters, I think it's clear that Canadians aren't taking them. And you have to ask why.

00:13:31.140 And there are a lot of reasons for this. And we talked about this last week a little bit

00:13:34.860 on the panel I did on university vaccine mandates,

00:13:37.800 which I would encourage you to look up

00:13:39.160 if you haven't seen it already.

00:13:40.600 We had Bruce Party, we had Kendra Hancock, 0.97

00:13:42.660 who's the student activist at Western University.

00:13:45.660 We had Dr. Martha Fulford, we had Professor Julie Panessi.

00:13:50.420 And one of the big takeaways from this discussion

00:13:53.020 was that you can't impose vaccine mandates

00:13:56.520 for a number of reasons, medical or moral or ethical.

00:14:00.760 But one of the key reasons

00:14:02.480 is that there are so many situations

00:14:04.920 in which someone may decide a vaccine is not for them.

00:14:08.340 And it may be because of medical reasons.

00:14:09.960 It may be because of cultural reasons or religious reasons.

00:14:12.820 But the whole point is it's not the government's decision.

00:14:15.920 It's not the government's right to make that call.

00:14:19.280 So when you challenge these mandates,

00:14:21.800 when you ask the government why they're justifying them,

00:14:25.860 they can't do it.

00:14:27.100 They can't show any scientific basis.

00:14:29.320 and and the voluntary becomes the involuntary and this is what a lot of people are wising up to when

00:14:36.180 when they start to do what they're doing now which is oh everyone has to get vaccinated we just have

00:14:39.920 to get to 80 85 90 percent well what happens when we're at 85 percent and we're just coming up to

00:14:45.980 the winter flu season we see a surge in cases and that's causing people to get a little bit nervous

00:14:50.480 and all of a sudden you need a vaccine mandate to coerce vaccination because the whole dangling

00:14:57.540 the carrot thing at a certain point doesn't do enough and they have to just start beating you

00:15:02.700 with the stick. And this is what people are expecting. This is what people I think are

00:15:07.740 fully aware of now. There are lots of folks who haven't gotten vaccinated with the booster shot

00:15:12.040 because they don't feel they need it medically, but we'll probably go along with it if they need

00:15:15.360 it for work. And there are other people that genuinely feel lied to. They genuinely feel

00:15:20.220 deceived. And you know what? They absolutely were. They were lied to. They were deceived.

00:15:24.740 The government told us all, maybe they didn't even know it was a lie at the time, that we could buy our normalcy with two doses of a COVID vaccine.

00:15:34.120 And then it's three, and now it's four.

00:15:36.580 And now the transition from fully vaccinated to up-to-date is a very insidious one because it means that all of these restrictions that they've suspended now, like the vaccination requirement for avoiding quarantine when you come into the country, they're all going to come back.

00:15:51.760 And when they come back, they're going to have a new definition.

00:15:53.860 And all of a sudden, the realm of the unvaccinated will just balloon to a size it hasn't been since 2019.

00:16:01.080 And I want to, just along that vein, turn to ArriveCan here, which has become, as people travel, as more people leave the country and for some reason come back into it, has become something that more and more Canadians and foreigners are facing.

00:16:14.160 And it's this app that the government originally thought would be a pandemic management app.

00:16:19.240 It felt like it was an easy way for them to get people to give their vaccination certificate when they come in and it saves time at the border and saves time with the public health officials and all of that.

00:16:29.260 And now they're making it a permanent fixture in entry.

00:16:33.300 So I'm glad to see it's being challenged, not just by Canadians that are not complying and are taking huge fines as a result, but even in the courts.

00:16:41.260 The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has filed a legal challenge, a charter challenge against ARRIVECAN.

00:16:47.940 And JCCF lawyers Saya Hassan and Eva Chepiak join me on the program live.

00:16:54.200 Saya, Eva, it's great to talk to you both.

00:16:56.720 I'll ask, I don't know which one of you wants to take it first, but what is this case about?

00:17:01.040 Because it's one thing to not like ARRIVECAN, it's one thing to find it annoying.

00:17:04.360 But fundamentally, what is it that this challenge is going after?

00:17:09.000 Thank you, Andrew, for having us on your show. And I guess I'll go first. And I want to talk

00:17:14.380 about what this case is not about, because we have seen so much division in our society,

00:17:20.100 vaccinated versus unvaccinated. This case is not about whether you're vaccinated or you're not

00:17:25.680 vaccinated, because the RIF can applies to everyone. And even if you're fully vaccinated,

00:17:31.680 but you choose not to use RIF can because of privacy concerns, you're still going to be

00:17:36.660 compelled to quarantine for 14 days, you're still going to be given a fine of $5,000 or more.

00:17:42.900 So it's really important, I think, to point that out that this is not a case of whether you're

00:17:47.840 vaccinated or not. This impacts all Canadians. And one of the major things, major concerns of a lot

00:17:54.300 of our applicants and Canadians is the privacy aspect. And we have applicants in our case that

00:18:01.540 are fully vaccinated who simply don't want to use arrive can because they're concerned about privacy

00:18:07.380 we don't know what's going to happen to this data we don't know who has access to it we don't know

00:18:11.860 who's storing it where is it getting stored this is a major concern for canadians and that's the

00:18:17.940 kinds of questions that we're going to be asking the court to answer i think the privacy aspect

00:18:24.420 is key and i'll ask you about this eva because i i know that when i have come into the country

00:18:28.420 and i've used arrive can basically it's tied to my passport or my nexus card so when i scan that

00:18:35.380 at the point of entry they already have my arrive can so it's in a database and it looks like the

00:18:40.820 government has done a fair bit of integration on the back end which is not the kind of thing you

00:18:45.060 do with just this temporary public health measure yeah so we've heard a lot of concerns of course

00:18:51.460 about the arrive can and you know the utility of it um i think in your intro you mentioned that it

00:18:58.020 was meant to speed up the process and everything we've heard about it is it's delaying travel into

00:19:03.860 canada and in a significant way too um so what is it actually achieving is a really good and

00:19:10.740 important question that we're going to be asking the government to answer on our end

00:19:16.500 is this uh being fought i mean i know it's a charter challenge but but what's really the key

00:19:21.140 sections of the charter that you think are impugned by this i'll take that so i think that

00:19:27.380 one of the most important one is section eight which deals with privacy that's a major concern

00:19:33.540 another charter section is section seven and the 14-day quarantine and one of our arguments is that

00:19:41.860 people are arbitrary being being detained arbitrarily for 14 days we've had applicants

00:19:48.660 who are fully vaccinated there is no scientific reason and we can't see any legal reasons why

00:19:53.860 they have to quarantine and yet they've been asked to quarantine so it's very arbitrary

00:19:58.980 and we know about the glitch in the rif can in july where 10 000 people who were fully vaccinated

00:20:05.220 who had no issues were told by the app that they have to quarantine for 14 days and then it took

00:20:10.820 the government 12 days to contact these people to say oh this was a glitch it was a mistake so

00:20:16.340 section seven section eight and another important section which is dear to my heart because i was a

00:20:21.540 former criminal defense lawyer is the right to counsel because we have law-abiding citizens

00:20:27.620 some of our applicants included who are being stopped they're being detained by police officers

00:20:33.780 not by border service agents not by a fac agents police officers they're being detained they're

00:20:40.100 not being allowed to leave and yet they're not being told that they have a right to speak to

00:20:43.940 council at that moment that's really scary really intimidating and it's an issue that's been coming

00:20:49.220 up with the quarantine cases constantly so that's another very important issue that we're raising

00:20:55.620 one of the challenges too with arrive can as i see it is that the government has offloaded

00:21:00.980 some of the enforcement to airlines so if you are wanting to get on a plane and go from you

00:21:07.060 know heathrow airport to toronto or from geneva switzerland to montreal air canada or west jet or

00:21:13.380 whatever will not let you board the plane unless you show that you've done the arrive can so even

00:21:18.740 for people that are willing to fight this that would protest it at a point of entry you're

00:21:23.220 actually denied the right to even get to canada unless you go along with this well there we you

00:21:30.180 know we've get we're getting a lot of conflicting information and what we've seen too is just a lot

00:21:35.540 of very differing cases and facts scenarios and that's been incredibly uh telling as to what is

00:21:44.100 going on the fact that people are being denied uh entry onto an airplane outside of canada

00:21:50.180 doesn't seem to fit what the law says um my read of it it says that the airlines are asked to notify

00:21:57.540 people there's nothing about not allowing people to board so i have heard a couple of those stories

00:22:04.180 not as many. Certainly the issue that we're facing in this legal challenge is once they've arrived

00:22:10.000 here, what's happening. And something I just want to add to what Saya was saying is a lot of these

00:22:16.760 people are really good law-abiding Canadian citizens that, you know, are surrounded by these

00:22:24.360 security customs agents, then public health officials. You know, it's intimidating. Then

00:22:31.260 they're being told mandated to go quarantine then they're being given these hefty fines and they're

00:22:37.800 trying to do the right thing in many cases they're showing proof of vaccination in some cases um

00:22:44.420 they're you know they're just trying to go about their daily lives and come into the country that

00:22:50.120 they are citizens of and really getting a hard time with that so it's the stories are incredibly

00:22:56.760 compelling. And unfortunately, that's what we're facing right now. I know there's a bit of a pilot

00:23:03.260 project. I don't know how widespread it is that your customs declaration that you'd give to,

00:23:08.660 you know, I'm not bringing anything from a farm or I'm not bringing anything over $10,000,

00:23:13.020 that sort of thing has been integrated to in some cases with arrived again. And this is where we

00:23:17.940 could see it becoming more permanent. Is that something that you believe is part of the challenge

00:23:24.060 or is it just the COVID vaccination aspect that you find particularly problematic?

00:23:29.780 I think the problem is we don't really know what data is being collected

00:23:34.240 and how it's being stored and who has access to it.

00:23:38.100 Because if it was simply about the vaccine,

00:23:40.240 then people who are vaccinated could simply show their proof of vaccination

00:23:44.660 and they could come in, there would be no issue.

00:23:46.820 But this doesn't seem to be about the vaccine.

00:23:49.240 It seems to be something more.

00:23:51.020 and it's not clear what information is being collected why is it being collected who has

00:23:56.320 access to it and those are the concerns that a lot of Canadians have including our applicants

00:24:01.820 the privacy issues. We've seen throughout COVID in the cases that have made their way to court

00:24:08.580 including some that you have fought I'm thinking in particular of your I thought very good case

00:24:13.680 against the hotel quarantine sometime back Saya that the government has gotten a lot of deference

00:24:19.740 and a lot of latitude from the court because of COVID.

00:24:22.560 And obviously, the longer this goes on,

00:24:24.780 the less acute that COVID issue is,

00:24:26.740 or at least we would hope a court would see it that way.

00:24:29.920 But are you concerned that this is another area

00:24:32.720 where the courts will, again,

00:24:34.080 just continue to let government take section one

00:24:36.380 of the charter and justify all of this

00:24:38.980 as a reasonable limit on our freedom?

00:24:42.220 I could take that one

00:24:43.560 because I've experienced similar things

00:24:45.560 with some of the cases I've been dealing with.

00:24:47.600 And, you know, we do understand that at the early phase of the pandemic, there certainly should be deference given. Where I have a hard time with the connection here is the longer we're into this pandemic, the more we should know.

00:25:03.860 And I actually feel like we're understanding and we know less. And I don't think that we can continue where the courts can continue to give deference when the information, the evidence just isn't there.

00:25:19.880 At some point, courts are going to have to take a stand and say, you know, you need to it's been now three years or now four years.

00:25:29.540 Where is the information that is backing the mandates that you are enforcing?

00:25:35.880 Now, I know that some people have been fined thousands and thousands of dollars for not completing the arrive can when they enter Canada.

00:25:44.200 Is your case proactive, or are you also dealing with some of the people that have had tickets that are challenging them?

00:25:50.920 All of our applicants have received tickets for either refusing to use RIFCAN,

00:25:56.460 or some of them have actually made best efforts to use RIFCAN,

00:26:00.920 and there was a glitch, there was a problem, and they were fined anyway.

00:26:04.940 There was at least one applicant who felt really compelled to use the app

00:26:09.200 because he was surrounded by police

00:26:11.060 and he just didn't feel like he had any other options.

00:26:14.580 And he was still fine because there was a glitch

00:26:16.660 with the Arrive Can app.

00:26:19.700 If this were an option, something that you could do

00:26:23.620 but didn't have to, would your case be insignificant

00:26:27.720 in your view?

00:26:28.380 Would your case be moot?

00:26:29.220 Or is your issue the existence of this app at all?

00:26:33.080 I think it's the mandatory nature of it

00:26:36.320 and the extent that it's being pushed on people and the fact that it's incredibly arbitrary.

00:26:43.920 So when the court is going to look at whether or not this law makes sense,

00:26:47.520 they're going to look at what kind of laws, mitigative measures were put in place.

00:26:55.840 And in this case, we just see so many different, like I mentioned earlier,

00:27:00.000 the cases are just so varied. Like Sia mentioned somebody that there was a glitch

00:27:05.920 with the program so they get fined. My favorite, which is like a very unfortunate circumstance,

00:27:12.000 is one of our applicants tried to get into the United States, was denied entry into the United

00:27:17.440 States, is turned back into Canada, doesn't leave the country, and is still ordered to quarantine

00:27:24.160 for 14 days. So just the wide variety of the cases and the fact that there is no

00:27:32.800 discretion given to the people, I think that's where it is. And that's going to, if it was

00:27:38.300 not mandatory, and if it was an option, then we would be in a totally different scenario.

00:27:44.200 Definitely. I think it's also worth pointing out that the government has changed its rationale,

00:27:50.040 or at least the way it communicates its rationale for this at at least a couple of points. I mean,

00:27:55.040 I remember at one stage when they said that ArriveCan was authenticating vaccination records,

00:28:01.060 Whereas when you take a picture of your vaccine certificate, whether it came from somewhere in

00:28:06.340 Canada or theoretically outside of it, it would do that. But it actually does no such thing. It

00:28:10.800 just takes a photo of it and looks, okay, does this look like a vaccine record? Which is the

00:28:15.540 exact same thing that a border officer could do, to your point earlier. So you are right when you

00:28:20.700 say that this doesn't really align with the it's about vaccination thing. It doesn't align with

00:28:26.640 speeding things up if we find it's actually slowing people down has the government really

00:28:31.440 given in its defense or response to you or in any other public record that you've seen a definitive

00:28:36.860 explanation of why this is so necessary that we cannot have an immigration and entry process

00:28:43.180 without it they haven't and that's because we haven't filed our evidence yet and the government

00:28:49.280 has not filed their evidence i think that'll be interesting to see but i think they're going to

00:28:54.720 have some problem explaining for example why somebody who has never left the country has

00:28:59.760 to quarantine for 14 days or why does someone who's fully vaccinated have to quarantine for 14

00:29:05.520 days because they don't want to use the sap i think they're going to have some difficulty

00:29:09.840 presenting that evidence to the court just finally here i'll ask you this eva i mean

00:29:17.200 you have to keep hope and you have to believe that you know judges are going to see the right

00:29:21.520 uh the right path forward here you're not of the view that government will do what they've

00:29:26.880 done in some other cases here and say okay we're gonna get rid of it and uh then your

00:29:31.520 challenge has to get thrown away because it's moot no you have to keep hopeful but we are dealing

00:29:37.840 with exactly that issue before the federal court which is the same place that we filed the arrive

00:29:43.360 can application on the vaccine travel ban so as we're all very aware the government has now

00:29:49.600 suspended the vaccine mandate um and at the same time or a few days later the government lawyers

00:29:57.040 filed uh an uh sorry a notice of motion saying that we want to strike your lawsuit because it's

00:30:03.600 now moot uh you know talking to any canadian regular canadian not lawyers they're like but the

00:30:08.960 the mandate is just suspended and i'm like yes that's our biggest argument so i think as well

00:30:15.200 given the national importance and the extent of the charter breaches that we're claiming,

00:30:21.600 courts are going to have to listen to these arguments at some point and make a decision so

00:30:27.040 that Canadians are aware of what the government can and can't do, and the government is also

00:30:32.560 aware of what they can and cannot do. There's only so much that we could stay in limbo about as

00:30:37.920 Canadians and our rights, and I think it's very important for us to have an open, transparent

00:30:44.320 debate and um a decision coming from a court that goes over all of these details and the evidence

00:30:50.960 that you know we put in a lot of time and effort for on that case and we'll be doing the same for

00:30:55.600 the arrive can case eva chibiak saya hassan with the justice center for constitutional freedoms

00:31:02.160 best of luck and thank you so much for coming on today thanks thanks bye andrew all right thank you

00:31:08.560 that was fantastic and again you always have to keep your fingers crossed on the earth as much as

00:31:12.400 as I hold the judiciary in Canada in low esteem at some point, you have to make the case and you

00:31:18.720 have to fight these battles on multiple fronts. And this is so key. You have to fight it politically.

00:31:23.620 You have to fight it in the legal system. And I think there has to be public pushback. There

00:31:28.500 has to be consequences when governments put these insane measures in place that take away your

00:31:35.260 freedom. And one of the prevailing themes of the pandemic is how so many people have welcomed

00:31:41.200 infringements on their liberty and on the liberty of those around them. They've invited it. They've

00:31:46.060 asked for it. They've said, restrict me harder, daddy. That's what people throw their hands up

00:31:50.620 and say. And they actually want more limitations on their own actions, their own conduct.

00:31:56.980 And I would love to do a deep dive into exactly why that is. I think there are different theories

00:32:01.520 and there are different measures at play. But the whole point is most people, it seems like,

00:32:08.160 certainly at the low points of the pandemic, have abandoned that idea of just choosing for

00:32:12.880 themselves. If we want to use an app that's going to supposedly streamline your re-entry to Canada,

00:32:17.520 great, do it. Alternatively, if you want to just go and show your paper passport and your paper

00:32:23.680 vaccine certificate, then do that. Or here's a better idea. How about we get rid of the bloody

00:32:29.220 vaccine mandate for entering your own country without having to hide in your home for two days

00:32:34.400 altogether when by the government's own admission, fully vaccinated doesn't exist.

00:32:39.920 So this idea that the government, the same government that tells us a two-dose vaccine

00:32:45.180 doesn't exist in any meaningful way that keeps you vaccinated is also putting quarantine

00:32:51.020 restrictions in place still to this point. I just saw the other day there was a tender out. The

00:32:57.020 government had a tender for some service at their designated quarantine facilities. Did you know

00:33:01.400 government was still apparently operating designated quarantine facilities i don't know

00:33:05.560 how full they are i don't know where they are i don't particularly care but this is not over

00:33:12.360 and the number of people in this country still either because of they they are just simply

00:33:17.400 delusional or they're just trying to gaslight all of us who claim that restrictions don't exist

00:33:22.680 would astonish you i try to avoid twitter conflict because i find it's not particularly constructive

00:33:28.920 But I got into it.

00:33:29.880 I had a weak moment a little bit before the show.

00:33:32.300 And I was talking about, actually, how it started.

00:33:36.140 I played an ad that I'll share with you just before we wrap things up.

00:33:39.460 A Ron DeSantis campaign ad in Florida.

00:33:43.020 And he was talking about the importance, or other people actually were talking in the ad about the importance of Florida resisting lockdown.

00:33:49.700 And I said, I would love to see a Canadian premier put this ad out, but they couldn't because it would be a lie.

00:33:55.220 And someone responded to me on Twitter, and I don't want to dox them.

00:33:59.220 I don't want to out them.

00:34:00.100 I don't want to make it difficult.

00:34:01.820 But I want to illuminate and reveal the mentality here.

00:34:05.400 Someone responded, Canada didn't lock down.

00:34:08.500 We asked people to be considerate of others and mask up in public and stay home when unwell.

00:34:16.540 Canada didn't lock down.

00:34:19.260 Now, I just, this was like, you know, 10 minutes before I went on air.

00:34:22.360 So I just like hammered out.

00:34:23.260 Well, Ontario had a stay-at-home order that was accompanied by the threat of arrest.

00:34:27.800 Quebec had a curfew, and this crusader's response was,

00:34:32.560 a curfew isn't a lockdown since you can still go out.

00:34:36.440 We all had brief stay-at-home-if-you-can guidance during the first wave.

00:34:41.480 That was advice and not a mandate.

00:34:44.800 When you are threatened with a police fine for leaving your home

00:34:50.780 because there's a stay-at-home order, that I'm going to say is a lockdown.

00:34:54.820 When your businesses or business has been shut down

00:34:59.080 and you will be fined thousands of dollars if you dare serve a customer,

00:35:04.300 I'm going to say that's a lockdown.

00:35:06.000 If you are told that you cannot have your best friend over for Christmas dinner

00:35:13.440 without breaking the law, I'm going to say we can call that a lockdown.

00:35:20.140 If you're told that you can't go to church, I'm going to call that a lockdown. 0.95

00:35:23.960 If the sheriff will come and lock the doors of your church so that no renegade Christians assemble there, I'm going to say that's a lockdown. 0.87

00:35:34.200 So don't give me this garbage of pretending that Canada didn't lock down just because we didn't have things as bad as they might have had them in China, 0.92

00:35:41.240 where the drones are flying around outside your apartment yelling at you in Mandarin to not dare leave. 0.56

00:35:46.640 since when do we make what happens in China the benchmark for deciding if we are free or not free

00:35:52.240 we don't because we are supposed to be a free country and in a free country you shouldn't

00:35:58.320 have to download the government's app to get back into your own country in a free country you

00:36:02.760 shouldn't have to haggle over whether the word lockdown really applies because well in Italy

00:36:07.920 it was a little bit worse and no when you are having your mobility restricted your rights

00:36:14.020 restricted you are living in lockdown so anyone who says that this lockdown didn't exist is just

00:36:20.740 completely out to lunch and they are lying to you or they're believing their own lies

00:36:25.040 and this is why this ad from ron desantis was so powerful

00:36:31.340 ladies and gentlemen governor ron desantis today we deliver for the people of florida

00:36:43.900 yet again you saved our jobs and kept us going they tried to shut us down but you saved our

00:36:52.240 business thousand dollar bonuses you had our backs and honored our service you led by facts

00:36:59.000 not fear and you let us decide you let me go to school you gave me a voice you put us first

00:37:05.400 and didn't let them keep us apart you let us learn you let us compete all of us

00:37:13.900 you protected our right to worship together in person and you raised our

00:37:19.420 pay you protected our waters and kept Florida beautiful when they attacked you

00:37:23.980 you didn't pay you stood strong for Florida thank you thank you thank you

00:37:28.540 governor thank you thank you thank you thank you

00:37:32.780 governor DeSantis Ron DeSantis for Prime Minister of Canada I meant what I said

00:37:42.040 earlier, I would absolutely love it if an Ontario politician had run an ad like this, except none of

00:37:47.660 them have earned the right to do it. The most conservative provinces, supposedly, with, you

00:37:52.000 know, Doug Ford, the PC populist leader, Jason Kenney, the stalwart conservative, locked down

00:37:57.360 their citizens. They'd locked down their places of worship. They locked down their businesses.

00:38:02.820 So don't you dare tell me it didn't happen. And absolutely, I mean, maybe we aren't going to get

00:38:08.260 100% Ron DeSantis in Canada, but certainly would have been great to have one political leader

00:38:13.520 in a position of power, not in an opposition. I know Maxime Bernier did a lot, and I know there

00:38:18.480 were some conservative backbenchers who did a lot, but someone in a position of power that stood up

00:38:23.480 and said no, but it didn't happen. And that's a tremendous shame. And all we can do now with

00:38:28.960 citizens is stand up and make sure that they don't continue to keep us on this never-ending

00:38:33.840 roller coaster that does it for us we'll be back with more of canada's most irreverent talk show

00:38:38.900 later this week here on true north thank you god bless and good day to you all

00:38:43.060 thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:38:47.460 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:39:03.840 We'll be right back.

00:39:33.840 We'll be right back.

Juno News - September 06, 2022

Trudeau is getting us ready for never-ending boosters

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