Juno News - January 31, 2024


Trudeau's national security adviser claims Convoy was rife with ＂violence＂ and ＂weapons＂


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

171.8612

Word Count

8,501

Sentence Count

475

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:05.440 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.820 Hello and welcome to another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show,
00:00:17.680 the Andrew Lawton Show, here on True North on this Wednesday, January 31st.
00:00:23.280 Coming to you live from D.C., I'll be giving you a little update
00:00:27.080 on the great climate change free speech trial of the century in a few moments' time.
00:00:32.420 I had yesterday one of my colleagues remarked that my chair looks very Klaus Schwabian,
00:00:37.060 so I assure you this is not just me holing up in Davos.
00:00:40.520 I am in Washington, D.C., which is a different type of elite-filled dungeon,
00:00:44.800 but we'll save that commentary for my return.
00:00:47.860 Got to make sure I get out of here alive.
00:00:49.680 It's good to talk to you. We have a few great things planned for the program today.
00:00:53.920 We'll do a deep dive into what the science is and, therefore, what it means to follow it.
00:00:59.920 Now, that's going to be an interview in the context of public health,
00:01:03.140 but kind of applies to the climate discussion as well, certainly.
00:01:07.020 And we're seeing, as we've talked about on the show in the past with Mark Marano,
00:01:10.460 an increasing overlap between the people that want to control you
00:01:13.360 under the auspices of public health science
00:01:15.380 and those who want to do it under the auspices of so-called climate science as well.
00:01:20.440 Well, but I want to begin talking about this rather, I want to say bizarre,
00:01:25.240 but I actually think this whole interview is par for the course.
00:01:28.520 This interview done by Jody Thomas, who was, at the time of the interview,
00:01:32.580 the National Security and Intelligence Advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
00:01:37.920 Now, Jody Thomas, just to put some context here, she's left the post now,
00:01:42.620 but she was in this job.
00:01:44.480 Now, she is not someone who had a background in intelligence or security or law enforcement
00:01:50.220 or anything like that.
00:01:51.060 She is a career bureaucrat.
00:01:52.460 I looked at her CV on the government website,
00:01:55.380 and she was a bureaucrat in Passport Canada,
00:01:57.840 and then she went on to the Coast Guard,
00:01:59.540 and eventually she ended up in the role she occupied for the last couple of years,
00:02:04.540 being Justin Trudeau's National Security and Intelligence Advisor.
00:02:09.720 Now, she's a bureaucrat, not a partisan,
00:02:12.120 so she's supposed to be somewhat more impartial,
00:02:15.120 although her job is to provide advice to the Prime Minister,
00:02:18.460 which the Prime Minister then filters into his own decision-making process
00:02:23.400 and turns into policy.
00:02:25.720 But we've seen from Jody Thomas in the past a desire to be,
00:02:30.700 I think, more in line with the government's talking points than anything else.
00:02:35.140 This was especially true when she testified before the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:02:39.200 She was one of the only experts that actually came forward
00:02:42.460 and started talking about why, yes, the government was right to put the Emergencies Act in play.
00:02:47.760 Now, you fast forward to the last week,
00:02:50.300 and the Emergencies Act has been ruled by the federal court
00:02:52.780 to have been unlawfully introduced, the measures unconstitutional.
00:02:57.700 And it so happens that Jody Thomas was doing an exit interview on CTV with Vashti Capellos.
00:03:02.980 Now, I'm going to play this whole clip for you.
00:03:05.300 It's not the entirety of the interview, but it's the entirety of the interview that has to do with the convoy.
00:03:10.900 And I was at first going to, like, do little snippets of it,
00:03:13.720 play, like, you know, 15 seconds react, 20 seconds react,
00:03:16.500 but I'm like, I don't want anyone to accuse me of taking this out of context or cutting it up.
00:03:21.840 I'm going to give you the full, like, two-and-a-half-minute-long segment here,
00:03:26.420 and we'll talk about it afterwards.
00:03:27.980 Please do bear with me from this, because this is incredibly revealing and dangerously so.
00:03:34.360 You were advising the government during the time that they invoked that act.
00:03:37.720 Why did you specifically feel it did meet that bar?
00:03:41.980 So, I think, as I said in my POG testimony,
00:03:45.220 what we were seeing in terms of activity on the ground and intelligence was very clear.
00:03:49.820 There was a huge, huge occupation here in Ottawa.
00:03:55.200 It was increasingly violent.
00:03:57.880 We were starting to hear language about weapons being in the trucks.
00:04:01.740 We had the arrest in Coutts, which was a significant weapons cache and very concerning.
00:04:08.220 The charges that have been laid there are indicative of what was going on and what was being planned.
00:04:14.480 And we were seeing daily pop-ups of, we're going to occupy this, we're going to occupy that.
00:04:19.940 Bridges, rail lines, more people moving across the country, east and west, to converge on Ottawa and Toronto.
00:04:25.900 In our view, it was national in scope.
00:04:29.500 It was growing, and we had to take action to end it.
00:04:34.960 There was an economic threat to Canada.
00:04:36.860 There was a security threat to Canada.
00:04:39.100 There was a reputational threat to Canada.
00:04:41.020 Canada, but what we didn't know was as concerning as what we did know, and we knew a lot.
00:04:48.200 What do you mean by that?
00:04:49.140 We knew a lot about what the plans were, that these people were going to stay.
00:04:55.440 There was the whole group of people who thought they were going to overthrow the government.
00:05:01.600 Obviously, that wasn't going to happen, but they were here to stay,
00:05:04.520 and they were using intimidation and violence and threat to ensure that the occupation persisted.
00:05:13.500 And we were seeing increasingly what we would call radicalized language from people about,
00:05:21.500 we're going to kill, we'll do whatever we need to do.
00:05:24.220 And the connectiveness or the inspiration that the pop-ups were getting from what was going on in Ottawa
00:05:34.080 left us very concerned for the national stability.
00:05:37.320 And economic security is national security.
00:05:39.660 National security is economic security.
00:05:41.980 People couldn't work.
00:05:43.040 People couldn't go to work.
00:05:43.900 People couldn't walk the streets.
00:05:45.040 People couldn't cross bridges.
00:05:46.520 The economy wasn't being affected in the auto industry.
00:05:49.600 Those things are significant.
00:05:50.520 Where do I even begin?
00:05:54.540 So what Jody Thomas is saying there, and let me just point blank say,
00:06:00.840 it is dangerous to me that we have someone who is in this role in this country who just makes things up.
00:06:07.580 That's literally what she was doing there.
00:06:09.860 This is a woman who either is so woefully unaware of the reality and the facts on the ground
00:06:15.800 that she says govern her decisions, or just does not care.
00:06:19.060 At the very beginning, she talks about the convoy, and I'll use her words here,
00:06:23.140 being, quote, increasingly violent.
00:06:27.100 We were starting to hear language about weapons being in the trucks.
00:06:32.800 This was a rumor.
00:06:34.720 And she says language.
00:06:35.820 Okay, maybe someone said it.
00:06:37.740 If all the police actions that took place there,
00:06:40.540 I am not aware of any weapons charges,
00:06:43.180 certainly no significant weapons charges, if there were any at all.
00:06:47.040 But this idea that there was this cache of weapons in Ottawa in the trucks,
00:06:52.120 which she's alluding to there being language of, is fundamentally untrue.
00:06:55.620 Now, she, of course, mentions the Coutts situation.
00:06:58.100 And in the case of Coutts, yes, we did have police make arrests and seize a large cache of weapons.
00:07:02.800 Now, those charges are still pending.
00:07:04.920 The trial's underway.
00:07:06.080 This is another issue entirely.
00:07:08.780 But Coutts and Ottawa were separate entities.
00:07:11.640 And Coutts was, by the way, dealt with without the Emergencies Act at all.
00:07:16.780 But increasingly violent is the line from the one-time National Security and Intelligence Advisor in Canada.
00:07:24.120 You go to the next little bit of her interview here,
00:07:26.640 and she talks about why it was necessary,
00:07:29.300 why the government needed to step in to do something to end.
00:07:32.620 And she lists three things that were happening.
00:07:36.040 The first is a security threat.
00:07:39.200 The other is an economic security threat.
00:07:42.540 And the other is reputational harm to Canada.
00:07:47.260 Now, the Emergencies Act, by the way, does not really apply to economic harm.
00:07:51.900 This is a government talking point that she's parroting,
00:07:54.640 a Trudeau-Freeland talking point that she's parroting,
00:07:57.260 that economic harm constitutes a threat to the security of Canada,
00:08:00.800 when that's not really a plaintext reading of the legislation.
00:08:04.220 But then reputational harm.
00:08:06.760 So if Justin Trudeau is embarrassed, that's a national emergency?
00:08:11.480 And that's something that we all need to have soldiers,
00:08:14.700 well, not soldiers, but we all need to have riot police in the street to deal with
00:08:18.020 because Justin Trudeau is embarrassed?
00:08:20.180 No, a reputational harm to Canada,
00:08:23.180 if such a thing existed there, is not a national emergency.
00:08:26.540 But she lists that in the same breath as a security threat,
00:08:29.880 which doesn't really exist because, as we know,
00:08:31.680 there were no violent acts that were increasing.
00:08:35.440 There was no violence in general that was increasing.
00:08:38.100 And this language of weapons wasn't the case.
00:08:40.520 But she uses that in the same breath as economic harm and reputational harm.
00:08:46.160 Now, she does talk about the fact, which I would agree with her with,
00:08:49.100 that people in this demonstration said they were not going anywhere.
00:08:52.160 They wanted to stay.
00:08:53.080 They wanted to entrench.
00:08:53.980 Now, that was a stated goal of the Freedom Convoy.
00:08:57.280 We aren't going to go anywhere.
00:08:58.820 But then she goes on to say that they were using,
00:09:02.120 and again, I'm quoting Jody Thomas's words here,
00:09:04.900 they were using intimidation and violence and threat
00:09:08.740 to ensure that the occupation persisted.
00:09:12.740 She says this with no evidence or justification or support whatsoever.
00:09:17.120 We're supposed to just take her at her word that this was taking place.
00:09:21.140 It's intimidation and violence and threat.
00:09:24.940 And then to cap it all off, she says,
00:09:27.320 and again, I'm quoting directly from Jody Thomas,
00:09:29.480 we were seeing increasingly what we would call radicalized language about,
00:09:35.860 quote,
00:09:36.320 we're going to kill.
00:09:38.140 We'll do whatever we need to do.
00:09:40.660 I listened to hours and hours and hours,
00:09:45.160 days and days,
00:09:45.880 weeks and weeks of testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:09:49.520 And this did not come up.
00:09:51.220 This idea that there was an increasing rhetoric of people making serious threats
00:09:55.420 connected to the protests that they were going to kill.
00:09:57.880 Now, I'm not saying there weren't people on Twitter or an email inboxes
00:10:01.480 that may have said things as they say throughout the year.
00:10:04.880 And is, by the way, unacceptable and unjustifiable and threats should be prosecuted
00:10:10.120 and investigated in the other order.
00:10:12.260 But this was not representative of the convoy protest.
00:10:17.400 So we have a government now that has lost a major court battle
00:10:21.540 in terms of whether it had the legal and constitutional right
00:10:25.360 to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:10:27.180 The chief advisor on national security and intelligence issues,
00:10:30.620 a woman who is basically giving the Trudeau line to justify what the government did
00:10:37.020 has been entirely consumed by this narrative that is fundamentally untrue.
00:10:42.980 Now, look, maybe she's got access to all of these details
00:10:45.780 and all this information that has never been made public.
00:10:47.840 But given that there had never been any charges
00:10:49.740 that reflect what she has described seeing and experiencing,
00:10:54.500 which she's just described and we're supposed to take her word for,
00:10:57.440 there are no charges to support that any of this was happening.
00:11:02.520 So I don't know who's going to replace this woman
00:11:06.160 in terms of what their approach to the role is going to be.
00:11:09.760 But this is not a country that we can have a great deal of confidence in
00:11:14.160 as taking national security and intelligence seriously
00:11:17.100 when this is what advice is being passed to the government.
00:11:20.620 No surprise, the Emergencies Act ended up being put in play
00:11:23.800 when this was just such a distorted and one-sided view of what was going on
00:11:28.160 that anyone who was on the streets themselves knows was not there.
00:11:31.500 Again, I mean, economic harm.
00:11:32.780 She wasn't even talking about borders.
00:11:33.980 She's saying people weren't allowed to like walk down the street and go to work,
00:11:36.800 which is also untrue.
00:11:38.120 You had members of parliament that were walking back and forth
00:11:40.420 through this thing all day, every day.
00:11:41.720 Doesn't mean it was always pleasant because these people just didn't like you
00:11:45.200 and didn't want you to be governing in the way that you were,
00:11:49.180 but they were allowed to come and go.
00:11:51.260 This was not a situation in which people were being prevented from going.
00:11:56.000 Now, some businesses chose to close down themselves.
00:11:59.300 By the way, the businesses that decided to stay open during the convoy
00:12:02.660 made a ton of money.
00:12:04.380 I'm thinking in particular of that one shawarma shop on,
00:12:06.720 I think, Albert Street, which just had like a lineup out the door all day, every day,
00:12:10.440 because they weren't afraid of a few truckers in downtown Ottawa.
00:12:15.160 So that, again, this is, I saw that interview and it was just a couple of days ago
00:12:19.460 and I was in disbelief.
00:12:21.120 Now I'm just assuming everything's like AI generated because I was like,
00:12:24.500 there's no way.
00:12:24.980 But then I remembered her public order emergency commission testimony
00:12:27.540 and was saying, yeah, okay.
00:12:28.960 That was probably a pretty genuine reflection of what she thinks.
00:12:32.840 But had to start off on that.
00:12:34.720 As I mentioned at the outset, I am right now in Washington, D.C.,
00:12:39.080 where we are about halfway through the third week
00:12:42.100 of Michael Mann's defamation lawsuit against Mark Stein and Rand Simberg.
00:12:47.120 I gave you yesterday and Monday a bit of a primer on the case.
00:12:50.420 So I'll just, instead of rehashing that, I'll just defer you
00:12:52.940 or refer you back to those if you want a bit of a catch-up here.
00:12:56.580 Yesterday we had the plaintiff, so that's Michael Mann,
00:12:59.280 who's suing Mark Stein and Rand Simberg, continue to make his case.
00:13:03.180 They're almost done on their side, but the delays on this have been quite something.
00:13:06.920 So they had Rand Simberg, who's Mark Stein's co-defendant
00:13:10.460 and someone I'm not as familiar with on the stand.
00:13:13.940 And he had written that initial blog post that compared Michael Mann to Jerry Sandusky.
00:13:19.220 And so far as the school's cover-up of Jerry Sandusky's conduct, which was atrocious,
00:13:25.880 he was basically saying, well, if they're going to cover that up,
00:13:28.120 what won't they cover up?
00:13:29.120 And he was linking that to the academic issues.
00:13:31.740 Again, you can agree or disagree, but there is a fair comment question here
00:13:35.600 and a free speech question.
00:13:38.680 And then by the end of the day, Rand Simberg is done,
00:13:41.840 and they brought in this expert who I feel like the jury was just,
00:13:44.640 their eyes were glazing over because he was going on about like thermodynamics.
00:13:48.060 And they're trying to make this case that, oh, well, Michael Mann is the eminent scientist
00:13:52.640 and he's so eminently eminent that he's the most science-y scientist out there.
00:13:56.440 And anyone who criticizes him has to be some, you know, backwoods right-wing climate science-denying yokel.
00:14:02.160 And it's been interesting to see how transparent Michael Mann's team has been
00:14:06.900 and trying to basically make him out to be the gatekeeper of science
00:14:10.040 because there are plenty of scientists who have disagreed with his rather alarmist
00:14:14.660 and extreme view of global warming.
00:14:17.260 This idea that there was never any global warming,
00:14:19.360 and then in the last century, it just shot up.
00:14:22.040 And then we had the, again, it's literally the graph that was at the core of the Al Gore movie,
00:14:27.500 An Inconvenient Truth.
00:14:29.300 And even when scientists, not, you know, climate denier scientists,
00:14:33.180 but, you know, normal scientists have said,
00:14:34.720 well, yes, you know, I agree with global warming,
00:14:36.560 but I don't quite take it as far as you do.
00:14:39.940 He has vilified them.
00:14:42.160 He has maligned them and tarred them.
00:14:43.780 And some of those scientists are actually going to be speaking for the defendants
00:14:48.920 because they're saying, listen, I'm not like one of these right-wing Fox News types,
00:14:52.680 but I have grave concerns with the methodology and the conclusion of this research,
00:14:58.400 which was the research that Mark Stein was criticizing that got him sued for defamation.
00:15:04.820 So all of this, again, I go back to, it's a jury trial,
00:15:08.860 so watching the jury is always a bit interesting.
00:15:11.060 But I go back to wondering what on earth the point of it is in their view
00:15:16.300 because they're going to be thinking, hang on,
00:15:18.480 a guy said something you didn't like about you in a blog post 12 years ago,
00:15:21.880 and your life has just improved at every step of the way beyond then.
00:15:28.580 Your life has just continued to improve.
00:15:30.540 You've made more money.
00:15:31.540 You've become more famous.
00:15:33.160 Your work has been incorporated in more government policy.
00:15:36.100 Not that I support that, but that's what's happening here.
00:15:38.740 And that's basically where we are on this.
00:15:41.200 So the jury, I'm thinking, like, how do we have a defamation case
00:15:45.280 in which the person who has allegedly been defamed has not suffered anything
00:15:49.380 and has, if anything, come out better off on the back end of it.
00:15:53.440 So there was, yesterday, again, there was a fair bit of procedural stuff
00:15:57.220 that I don't think is worth going into because they're debating,
00:15:59.880 oh, well, can this witness testify?
00:16:01.980 And is this going to be an expert witness or a fact witness?
00:16:04.220 So hopefully in tomorrow's update,
00:16:05.840 I'll have a bit more of a substantive set of details and chronologies to share with you.
00:16:12.900 But I did want to get to that.
00:16:14.680 But as I said, I mean, what we have now in society
00:16:17.260 are these gatekeepers in the science world,
00:16:21.160 people that believe they are the only ones,
00:16:22.920 they are the oracles,
00:16:23.800 they are the only ones that can hold the truth,
00:16:26.120 and we are supposed to all just fall in line behind them.
00:16:29.620 And this is especially true on public health issues.
00:16:32.880 So I wanted to kick to an interview I recorded
00:16:35.620 just before I left for Washington, D.C.,
00:16:37.840 which we'll get to right after the break.
00:16:39.800 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:16:49.380 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:16:52.220 Well, what has been one of the most common refrains of the last few years?
00:16:57.140 Some variation of trust the science or follow the science,
00:17:01.520 as though science is this universal and clear oracle
00:17:05.540 that we can all take our cues from on anything and everything.
00:17:08.120 Well, was science itself the problem in a way?
00:17:12.880 There was a fascinating essay from the C2C Journal
00:17:16.100 written by public policy analyst Margaret Coppola
00:17:19.620 that makes that very point.
00:17:21.960 The essay is called A Pandemic Caused by Science with a...
00:17:26.200 I've tried to do the inflection there
00:17:27.560 so as to indicate the question mark at the end of the piece's title there,
00:17:31.640 but it was a fascinating read,
00:17:32.980 and I thought I would dig into it with Margaret herself,
00:17:35.320 who joins me now.
00:17:36.040 Margaret, wonderful to talk to you.
00:17:37.740 Thanks so much for coming on today.
00:17:39.540 My pleasure.
00:17:41.080 Now, let's refer to...
00:17:43.460 Let's talk first off about what it is you're referring to.
00:17:45.840 When you say or suggest that science itself may have been to blame,
00:17:49.440 what are you getting at?
00:17:52.300 The crux of the argument boils down to the use of a technology
00:17:57.340 called gain-of-function science.
00:17:59.980 And what gain-of-function is it involves the pulling together of different viruses
00:18:06.280 and taking out different bits of them,
00:18:09.060 splicing and dicing them,
00:18:10.300 so that you come up with the worst and worst of each virus.
00:18:15.420 So you end up with a synthetic virus
00:18:17.540 that has the attributes of the other two.
00:18:21.840 Now, in this case, it is near certainty that gain-of-function technology
00:18:28.860 was involved in whatever was going on at the Wuhan labs
00:18:35.920 and between American and Chinese scientists in Wuhan,
00:18:43.300 working on this mysterious virus,
00:18:46.700 which turned out in the end to have all the properties of SARS-CoV-2,
00:18:53.200 which, of course, as we know, was the final cause of COVID-19.
00:18:59.560 That, I mean, let's talk about that lab for a moment,
00:19:02.700 because at the beginning, we were all told that the culprit
00:19:05.340 was a bat or a pangolin, basically,
00:19:07.700 was some horrendous twist of fate that led to a very unfortunate situation
00:19:13.260 at one of the wet markets in Wuhan.
00:19:15.340 And very early on, people were skeptical of that
00:19:18.800 and suggested that this could have been a creation of a lab
00:19:22.740 intentionally or unintentionally leaked.
00:19:25.160 And what was fascinating with that argument
00:19:26.900 is that as more and more evidence mounted,
00:19:30.320 this thing that was a conspiracy theory
00:19:32.520 at some point in 2020 has effectively become an accepted fact,
00:19:38.880 or at least the most plausible scenario here.
00:19:41.760 Now, do we know anything beyond that
00:19:45.460 as far as was this carelessness?
00:19:48.020 Was it perhaps intentional?
00:19:52.220 Difficult to say.
00:19:53.720 Everybody is erring on the side of giving the Chinese,
00:19:58.280 you know, giving the Chinese a lot of leeway.
00:20:00.380 That is, that it was an accidental release or an accidental leak.
00:20:06.040 Release implies it wasn't accidental, an accidental leak.
00:20:11.240 And, I mean, certainly, whether this is done
00:20:14.520 in the name of prudent geopolitical maneuvering
00:20:19.280 or whether it's another kind of cover-up,
00:20:24.540 we won't ever know.
00:20:25.780 My sense is that both the Chinese and the Americans
00:20:31.720 are caught in a stalemate of mutual culpability.
00:20:37.340 That is, in the sense that we knew, though, for certain
00:20:41.020 that the Americans funded the work that was going on in Wuhan
00:20:47.180 through a series of elaborate and arcane roundabout ways
00:20:52.680 of getting money to Wuhan
00:20:54.200 through an intermediary called Echo Health Alliance,
00:21:01.040 an NGO, that an NGO.
00:21:03.640 So, A, the Americans financed it.
00:21:07.300 There are people coming out and saying that boldly,
00:21:10.120 although not everybody.
00:21:11.280 The official word from the American government
00:21:14.500 is that they had nothing to do with it.
00:21:17.800 But there are some who are being intellectually honest,
00:21:20.760 like, for instance, Robert Redfield,
00:21:22.680 who was the former director of the Center for Disease Control
00:21:27.600 of one of the arch agencies within the American government
00:21:31.660 on the health side,
00:21:33.220 who was saying out loud and in your face,
00:21:36.880 we funded it.
00:21:39.100 And then, on the other hand,
00:21:40.760 you had the work that was going on in Wuhan,
00:21:42.980 which is not being denied by the Chinese.
00:21:46.040 Shi Zheng Li, who was the chief scientist,
00:21:48.540 again, a geneticist of Mary,
00:21:50.720 an accomplished geneticist,
00:21:52.560 again, who's good at the splicing and the dicing of genes.
00:21:58.860 And she's not denying that they did the work there,
00:22:01.500 but she is denying that it was their fault
00:22:03.680 or that it was ever leaked.
00:22:04.780 And she's saying, no, no, no,
00:22:06.720 it came from the bats over in this mine.
00:22:10.940 And that was the real source.
00:22:13.640 At least that's the last excuse I've heard from her on this one.
00:22:17.940 So, but yes, now, in all fairness,
00:22:22.500 you know, it made a lot of sense to think in the first instance
00:22:25.480 that it might have come from an animal or bat host.
00:22:29.420 This is where a lot of pandemics have come from.
00:22:33.080 This is what the Spanish flu was originated with,
00:22:38.580 you know, flea-infested rodents.
00:22:40.920 And they jumped to,
00:22:42.740 that then jumped to humans.
00:22:45.660 So this is not abnormal for this kind of thing to happen.
00:22:50.360 I mean, just even thinking in terms of rabies.
00:22:52.580 I mean, that's a virus that jumps to a human from an animal.
00:22:55.620 So, I mean, it made sense for a lot of people to think that right away.
00:22:59.260 So fair enough.
00:23:00.440 But, you know, getting down to brass tacks
00:23:04.000 and getting into the science of the actual virus itself
00:23:08.280 and the fact that it has certain genetic components,
00:23:12.760 which now other scientists have sliced and diced and said,
00:23:17.080 hey, wait a minute,
00:23:18.620 this looks like it was pretty well man-made.
00:23:22.200 And now, even since the writing of my article,
00:23:25.620 there has been additional information has come out.
00:23:27.980 You'll remember in the article,
00:23:30.080 I refer to two key, key scientific papers.
00:23:34.720 Nobody was hiding this, by the way,
00:23:36.480 that this science was going on.
00:23:38.660 Papers dating way back to 2005,
00:23:41.660 you know, they were looking for viruses in bats
00:23:43.980 and the Zheng Li and a renowned geneticist
00:23:51.080 located in the University of North Carolina, Ralph Baric.
00:23:54.740 They had been working together for quite some time
00:23:57.140 on stuff like this.
00:23:59.480 So, you know, nobody was being untoward
00:24:02.920 or, you know, trying to hide anything here.
00:24:08.820 There were two papers that were absolutely devastating.
00:24:12.840 One that said, hey, we've created this great thing,
00:24:16.840 a chimera.
00:24:17.600 We've come,
00:24:18.040 we figured out how to put two viruses together
00:24:19.900 to come up with a virus that's even worse.
00:24:23.820 And in this case,
00:24:24.960 it was pulling together the elements of the SARS virus,
00:24:28.200 which caused the pandemic in 2002 to 2004.
00:24:32.500 They took that virus
00:24:33.700 and then spliced and diced it with another virus.
00:24:36.680 We're not sure where that one came from.
00:24:38.800 And lo and behold,
00:24:41.140 it came out looking an awful lot like SARS-CoV-2,
00:24:44.460 or at least became SARS-CoV-2.
00:24:46.960 I want to just go back to the fundamentals here,
00:24:49.440 because, I mean,
00:24:50.360 it's easy when you're talking about a term
00:24:52.140 that's not familiar to people,
00:24:53.360 which I think gain of function is certainly,
00:24:55.420 or a few years ago was not familiar to a lot of people.
00:24:58.580 And you're describing the function very,
00:25:00.320 very calmly and very accurately.
00:25:02.080 But a lot of people would hear this and be like,
00:25:04.100 what on earth would you expect to happen
00:25:06.000 if you're mucking around in the engine room like that?
00:25:08.920 And I'm wondering,
00:25:10.160 what are the noble intentions of this?
00:25:12.560 If there were to be any,
00:25:14.160 or is it about trying to understand
00:25:16.740 the virulence of these things to protect against them?
00:25:20.080 Because certainly it's easy to understand
00:25:21.760 in a military context or a biowarfare context,
00:25:25.240 what the value of this is.
00:25:26.880 What's their defense
00:25:28.180 for why they're doing this research in the first place
00:25:30.580 and why it justifies the alliance
00:25:32.820 between United States scientists and Chinese scientists?
00:25:36.020 Well, ostensibly it was to create,
00:25:40.340 the gain of function is justified
00:25:42.960 by the argument that if you create a virus,
00:25:47.360 then you can create the vaccine
00:25:48.820 that will address it if it ever,
00:25:52.160 whatever reason becomes.
00:25:54.080 But you are willing the virus into existence
00:25:56.340 that might never have appeared in doing that.
00:25:58.480 Yeah.
00:25:59.120 What's, you know,
00:25:59.740 the point is here we are dealing with a virus
00:26:02.440 that never would have existed
00:26:03.660 unless these scientists had put it together
00:26:05.780 in the first place.
00:26:06.620 So, hey,
00:26:07.780 reading the second paper,
00:26:10.580 the diffuse paper,
00:26:11.600 I refer to two papers,
00:26:12.600 the second paper that came out
00:26:13.900 and actually new information
00:26:15.180 has just come out
00:26:16.020 since it was,
00:26:16.980 since I wrote the article.
00:26:19.660 And again,
00:26:21.020 what they were apparently trying,
00:26:23.080 what they argued
00:26:23.780 that they were trying to do
00:26:24.880 was they were trying to put together
00:26:26.440 a virus that would reinfect bats
00:26:30.080 and make them in turn immune
00:26:35.280 and unable to then pass on the virus.
00:26:39.120 Okay.
00:26:39.440 There was some sort of immunological thing
00:26:41.460 that they were trying to,
00:26:42.920 hoping to achieve
00:26:43.860 where bat populations were concerned
00:26:46.000 because bats are the largest,
00:26:49.360 largest population of mammals
00:26:52.500 that harbour this coronavirus.
00:26:55.880 And I mean,
00:26:56.360 and there are all kinds of coronaviruses
00:26:58.200 that have been recognised,
00:27:00.580 but I mean,
00:27:01.220 apparently there are estimates
00:27:02.240 there in the thousands
00:27:03.100 of kinds of coronaviruses
00:27:04.480 that are out there
00:27:05.280 and some with varying degrees
00:27:07.600 of lethality.
00:27:08.840 So that was one argument
00:27:12.040 about why it was necessary
00:27:13.480 to do this.
00:27:15.420 The second argument
00:27:16.700 and the more common one
00:27:18.060 is that it's there to create,
00:27:22.480 you know,
00:27:22.760 you create something
00:27:23.920 so that you can create a vaccine
00:27:25.140 to deal with it.
00:27:26.360 And now you can see
00:27:27.580 how this would make sense
00:27:28.700 in a military sense,
00:27:30.240 in a military context.
00:27:31.900 I mean,
00:27:32.260 if you've got people out there,
00:27:35.060 enemies,
00:27:35.540 enemies who are developing
00:27:40.120 their own biological warfare,
00:27:43.240 you know,
00:27:43.600 biological weapons,
00:27:44.640 and you've got to try
00:27:45.840 to anticipate
00:27:46.380 what the heck
00:27:46.900 they are trying to,
00:27:48.620 going to hit you with
00:27:50.240 and so you want to come up
00:27:51.620 with a vaccine
00:27:52.200 that's actually going
00:27:52.980 to deal with it all.
00:27:56.340 That makes some sense.
00:27:59.580 The,
00:28:00.200 but there was a point,
00:28:01.400 but the bigger risk is,
00:28:03.380 in all of that,
00:28:04.320 is,
00:28:05.320 you know,
00:28:06.340 in the course of doing this,
00:28:08.220 you end up with what
00:28:09.140 we ended up with with COVID.
00:28:11.560 Well,
00:28:12.020 and also just to jump in there,
00:28:14.080 Margaret,
00:28:14.440 if I may,
00:28:15.200 I mean,
00:28:15.740 the idea of developing that
00:28:17.860 to protect against
00:28:18.660 what your enemies may do
00:28:19.860 with China,
00:28:21.140 who maybe we don't call an enemy,
00:28:23.040 but is certainly not a friend,
00:28:24.940 does not strike me
00:28:26.120 as the wisest course of that.
00:28:27.480 And I mean,
00:28:27.720 in Canada,
00:28:28.160 we've certainly seen front and center
00:28:29.720 about what happens
00:28:30.560 when you let people affiliated
00:28:32.260 with the Chinese regime
00:28:33.780 into our top security labs.
00:28:36.560 Absolutely.
00:28:37.340 Absolutely.
00:28:38.020 So,
00:28:38.700 no,
00:28:39.140 none of this makes
00:28:40.500 any sense whatsoever.
00:28:42.100 I mean,
00:28:42.320 and there are various theories
00:28:43.380 about why
00:28:44.000 and how this might have taken place,
00:28:45.700 that it was a CIA
00:28:46.780 covert operation
00:28:47.980 of some kind.
00:28:48.620 We were trying to figure out
00:28:49.480 what was going on
00:28:50.080 in their labs
00:28:50.720 and they compiled.
00:28:52.520 The drugs on us.
00:28:53.500 They ended up,
00:28:54.520 as usual,
00:28:55.660 with our technology,
00:28:57.380 right?
00:28:57.580 Yeah.
00:28:58.140 So now they have all this
00:28:59.260 gain-of-function technology
00:29:00.880 with which,
00:29:01.500 and I'm sure they're underway,
00:29:03.040 you know,
00:29:03.380 the gain-of-function technology.
00:29:05.720 Xi Zhengli
00:29:06.340 knows everything
00:29:07.940 that Ralph Barrett knows.
00:29:10.120 And,
00:29:10.240 hey,
00:29:11.500 and she's the,
00:29:12.600 she's the coronavirus authority.
00:29:14.540 She can actually go out.
00:29:16.220 I mean,
00:29:16.740 she's got immediate access
00:29:18.400 to all kinds of bats.
00:29:20.400 There are a prodigious number
00:29:21.660 of bat caves in China.
00:29:24.280 So the,
00:29:26.040 so,
00:29:26.380 you know,
00:29:26.620 none of it really makes
00:29:28.200 a lot of sense
00:29:28.820 and,
00:29:29.260 and,
00:29:29.960 and,
00:29:30.300 which is all the more worrying.
00:29:33.480 Yeah.
00:29:33.940 Because if you could ascribe
00:29:35.900 some clear motive
00:29:37.600 to what was going on,
00:29:39.020 it might be easier
00:29:39.780 to deal with.
00:29:40.580 The one thing
00:29:41.460 that is clear out of it,
00:29:42.700 this is what do we do
00:29:43.780 about these gain-of-function labs,
00:29:46.620 because this is going on everywhere.
00:29:48.180 It's not just in China.
00:29:50.360 As Redfield pointed out,
00:29:52.300 universities everywhere
00:29:53.240 are playing around,
00:29:54.600 tinkering around
00:29:55.260 with these viruses
00:29:56.240 and these,
00:29:57.200 these kinds of technologies.
00:29:59.640 And yes,
00:30:00.340 there are,
00:30:02.280 leaks are routine.
00:30:04.840 These are not,
00:30:05.480 I didn't mention that
00:30:06.280 in the article,
00:30:06.680 but I mean,
00:30:07.120 I think there was something
00:30:07.760 like 200 lab leaks
00:30:08.860 every,
00:30:09.960 you know,
00:30:10.380 every few years.
00:30:11.820 And okay,
00:30:12.900 they don't count anything,
00:30:14.720 but one might.
00:30:17.280 And all that takes
00:30:18.400 is one,
00:30:18.960 right?
00:30:19.700 That's right.
00:30:20.600 That's right.
00:30:21.160 Absolutely.
00:30:22.000 So,
00:30:22.780 so yes.
00:30:25.100 Now,
00:30:26.140 I mean,
00:30:26.680 the other side
00:30:27.340 of the whole,
00:30:27.980 whole equation
00:30:28.880 is not just
00:30:29.900 that this virus
00:30:30.760 was created
00:30:31.740 and somehow
00:30:32.560 rather got out
00:30:33.720 into the,
00:30:34.240 into the world.
00:30:35.280 You know,
00:30:35.860 the other side
00:30:36.800 of the equation
00:30:37.280 is how the world
00:30:38.160 reacted then.
00:30:40.060 And that's equally disturbing.
00:30:41.640 I found that very disturbing
00:30:42.760 as well.
00:30:43.740 Well,
00:30:44.040 yes.
00:30:44.540 And,
00:30:44.700 and that,
00:30:45.200 I mean,
00:30:45.380 has been covered
00:30:46.280 exhaustively on this show,
00:30:47.840 not nearly enough by,
00:30:49.280 I would say,
00:30:49.620 legacy media sources
00:30:50.680 and C2C Journal
00:30:51.780 and yourself
00:30:52.300 have been very strong
00:30:53.900 on that.
00:30:54.380 And it's easy
00:30:55.280 to point the finger
00:30:56.100 at,
00:30:56.700 you know,
00:30:56.980 the American government
00:30:58.000 and,
00:30:58.560 you know,
00:30:58.680 the Fauci regime
00:30:59.600 and all of that.
00:31:00.200 And certainly easy
00:31:00.740 to point the finger
00:31:01.320 at the Chinese.
00:31:02.420 Canada has never
00:31:03.360 been immune from this,
00:31:04.880 no pun intended.
00:31:05.740 I mean,
00:31:06.060 I mentioned
00:31:06.540 the case
00:31:07.280 of Canada
00:31:08.040 and China
00:31:09.280 cooperating
00:31:09.980 at that biolab
00:31:11.120 in Winnipeg,
00:31:12.100 but Canada
00:31:12.680 has been a part
00:31:13.400 of a lot
00:31:13.760 of these,
00:31:14.360 you know,
00:31:14.740 cross-cultural exchanges
00:31:16.020 of research
00:31:16.980 as well,
00:31:17.460 has it not?
00:31:17.840 Yes,
00:31:18.240 absolutely.
00:31:19.120 And,
00:31:19.460 I mean,
00:31:20.380 and it looks
00:31:21.340 like we're going
00:31:21.860 to get even more
00:31:22.720 if the,
00:31:23.300 if the WHO
00:31:24.700 pandemic treaty
00:31:25.940 goes through,
00:31:26.740 because they'll
00:31:27.400 be calling
00:31:27.880 on everybody,
00:31:29.140 all the global
00:31:30.380 partners,
00:31:31.100 to go get out
00:31:32.380 there and gather
00:31:33.620 up their viruses
00:31:34.580 and send
00:31:36.040 them into their
00:31:36.580 labs.
00:31:36.940 And by the way,
00:31:37.620 send them also
00:31:38.220 to the WHO
00:31:39.240 where the,
00:31:41.180 where the major
00:31:42.060 pharmaceutical companies
00:31:43.340 will,
00:31:44.240 of course,
00:31:44.480 have a lot of fun
00:31:45.740 with them as well.
00:31:47.360 We'll see it all
00:31:48.020 over again.
00:31:48.780 So this is very
00:31:49.860 disturbing.
00:31:50.600 And I,
00:31:50.980 you know,
00:31:51.840 if,
00:31:52.400 if at one level,
00:31:54.640 certainly the big
00:31:56.180 issue that needs
00:31:57.100 to be discussed here
00:31:58.200 is whether or not
00:31:58.880 we should be doing
00:31:59.520 this stuff at all.
00:32:02.720 President Obama
00:32:03.920 called a moratorium
00:32:05.900 on gain-of-function
00:32:07.460 research.
00:32:08.080 Well,
00:32:08.220 it was at that
00:32:08.780 point then that
00:32:09.420 they figured out
00:32:09.980 how to use an NGO
00:32:11.240 to get the funding
00:32:12.580 to another part
00:32:14.360 of the world
00:32:15.100 to keep doing it.
00:32:16.960 Yeah,
00:32:17.200 they just start
00:32:17.640 outsourcing it
00:32:18.420 at that point
00:32:18.960 and it makes it
00:32:19.540 worse because you
00:32:20.160 lose that oversight
00:32:21.020 and transparency
00:32:22.100 that normally existed.
00:32:23.460 Exactly.
00:32:24.380 So,
00:32:24.840 you know,
00:32:25.260 that,
00:32:25.640 so there was
00:32:27.240 that certain
00:32:28.300 big,
00:32:28.820 big downside
00:32:29.480 from that.
00:32:31.160 But,
00:32:31.200 but the question
00:32:32.360 then becomes,
00:32:33.180 well,
00:32:33.260 how do you monitor
00:32:34.160 this?
00:32:34.560 How do you
00:32:35.180 guarantee,
00:32:35.700 you know,
00:32:37.440 check for safety
00:32:39.060 and what have you?
00:32:40.440 Incidentally,
00:32:41.260 we had in,
00:32:41.800 what we do know
00:32:42.460 about Wuhan
00:32:43.040 is that
00:32:43.760 most of the work
00:32:44.960 was done
00:32:45.520 in substandard
00:32:46.580 biosafety securities
00:32:47.940 at labs.
00:32:49.000 They had a fabulous
00:32:50.080 new lab,
00:32:51.320 a BSL,
00:32:52.500 highest level safety,
00:32:54.040 a new lab
00:32:54.940 had been built
00:32:56.040 very recently,
00:32:57.700 but it turns out
00:32:59.060 most of the work
00:32:59.700 on the SARS
00:33:01.500 viruses were
00:33:02.860 being done
00:33:03.580 in biosafety lab
00:33:05.200 two and three.
00:33:06.700 So,
00:33:07.420 again,
00:33:08.040 you know,
00:33:08.420 how do you monitor?
00:33:09.460 How do you,
00:33:10.000 how do you keep
00:33:10.880 track of all of this?
00:33:12.000 And how do you,
00:33:12.840 why are we allowing this?
00:33:14.460 So,
00:33:15.400 there,
00:33:15.840 there are,
00:33:16.480 I mean,
00:33:16.700 reading and reviewing
00:33:18.080 the voluminous evidence
00:33:20.020 to date,
00:33:20.620 there are really two paths
00:33:21.940 that are facing
00:33:22.940 governments.
00:33:23.500 I mean,
00:33:23.620 you could look at this
00:33:24.260 and say what you're saying,
00:33:25.440 which is,
00:33:26.080 this is a cautionary tale.
00:33:27.740 We should not do
00:33:28.540 this type of research,
00:33:29.600 not put ourself
00:33:30.400 in this position again.
00:33:32.740 But I fear that
00:33:33.700 too many lawmakers
00:33:34.620 and so-called experts
00:33:35.880 are doing the opposites
00:33:36.940 and saying,
00:33:37.800 ah,
00:33:38.040 see,
00:33:38.240 this is why we need
00:33:39.340 to do the research.
00:33:40.280 This is why we need
00:33:41.180 to do it.
00:33:41.600 And they're looking
00:33:42.560 at the same premise
00:33:43.520 and correct me
00:33:44.420 if I'm wrong,
00:33:44.980 Margaret,
00:33:45.180 but they're drawing
00:33:45.820 the opposite conclusion.
00:33:48.280 Exactly.
00:33:49.260 And as Redfield says,
00:33:50.820 you know,
00:33:50.980 the next pandemic
00:33:51.780 will come from a lab
00:33:53.160 somewhere
00:33:53.700 and it'll be worse.
00:33:55.080 And who knows
00:33:56.320 whether or not
00:33:56.880 we can
00:33:57.520 or will be ready for it.
00:33:59.380 Let's hope we are.
00:34:00.800 And heaven knows,
00:34:02.300 we have a lot
00:34:03.660 of salutary lessons
00:34:05.320 to be obtained
00:34:06.080 from our past experience here.
00:34:08.840 Not least
00:34:09.660 that individual
00:34:11.020 health authorities
00:34:11.920 really,
00:34:12.620 really need
00:34:13.220 to drill down
00:34:14.100 and decide
00:34:14.900 and,
00:34:15.240 you know,
00:34:15.760 take all this information in
00:34:17.540 and decide really
00:34:18.480 where they stand on it.
00:34:19.860 Because what ended up
00:34:21.140 happening last time
00:34:22.260 was the Americans
00:34:22.920 and the pharmaceutical
00:34:24.220 companies ran
00:34:25.880 slipshod over everybody
00:34:27.480 and without offering
00:34:32.360 fully tested vaccines.
00:34:34.880 And of course,
00:34:35.280 we're still paying for that
00:34:36.360 and we're likely
00:34:36.840 to pay for that
00:34:37.560 for a long time
00:34:38.220 with our health conditions.
00:34:41.220 So there is a lot
00:34:42.880 to think about here
00:34:43.900 and I'm hoping
00:34:45.280 that our health authorities
00:34:47.520 are having this discussion
00:34:48.820 and our governments
00:34:49.980 are having these discussions.
00:34:51.460 And at the most local level,
00:34:55.340 which is where
00:34:55.720 these discussions
00:34:56.440 have to take place
00:34:57.440 and where decisions
00:34:58.220 need to take place.
00:34:59.320 I'm a great believer
00:34:59.840 in subsidiarity.
00:35:01.660 You know,
00:35:01.900 decisions at the local level,
00:35:03.360 not at the global level
00:35:04.900 for sure.
00:35:06.300 Yeah,
00:35:06.780 we can all agree on that,
00:35:08.080 I would hope.
00:35:09.160 A pandemic caused by science
00:35:11.120 is an essay
00:35:11.680 in C2C Journal
00:35:12.620 you could read
00:35:13.180 written by Margaret Coppola
00:35:15.140 who's with me now.
00:35:16.040 Margaret,
00:35:16.320 thank you so much
00:35:16.940 for your time on this.
00:35:17.680 Really appreciate it.
00:35:18.680 Good to be here.
00:35:19.280 Thanks, Andrew.
00:35:19.800 That was Margaret Coppola.
00:35:22.500 You can read her work
00:35:23.420 in C2C Journal
00:35:24.660 and I would encourage you
00:35:25.440 to do it.
00:35:25.840 She's quite a lovely writer.
00:35:27.460 Had not seen much of hers before,
00:35:29.800 but I believe she's written books
00:35:31.180 on similar subjects as well.
00:35:33.440 So it was good to have her
00:35:34.340 talking about that.
00:35:35.220 Yeah,
00:35:35.400 how follow the science
00:35:36.300 has just become this refrain
00:35:37.480 when science itself
00:35:39.460 may well have been the problem
00:35:41.740 or at least a large part of it here.
00:35:44.380 But again,
00:35:44.920 we are not anti-science.
00:35:46.100 We are not knuckle-dragging
00:35:47.280 science-denying yokels
00:35:48.780 or at least we try not to be.
00:35:50.980 Oftentimes,
00:35:51.720 science is what the people
00:35:53.380 who claim they're following
00:35:54.740 the science
00:35:55.340 are wanting nothing to do with.
00:35:57.580 And I think this is true
00:35:58.520 among a lot of the
00:35:59.680 climate change folks.
00:36:01.060 We hear from the federal government
00:36:02.760 right now,
00:36:03.300 as we talked about yesterday,
00:36:04.420 this call for a so-called
00:36:05.780 just transition.
00:36:07.620 Now,
00:36:07.960 this is,
00:36:08.580 there's nothing just about it,
00:36:09.820 which is why we've called
00:36:10.600 this interview series.
00:36:11.860 I'm about to introduce
00:36:12.580 today's installment
00:36:13.600 of the unjust transition
00:36:15.500 because it is a transition
00:36:17.400 predicated on politics
00:36:18.620 and not science.
00:36:19.740 It's a transition
00:36:20.380 that presupposes
00:36:22.120 oil and gas
00:36:22.960 are the problems
00:36:23.620 in society
00:36:24.340 and that we can just
00:36:25.880 solve all these things
00:36:26.760 by getting them
00:36:27.400 out of the picture.
00:36:28.440 So,
00:36:28.980 we set out at True North
00:36:30.240 to tell the story
00:36:31.200 of Canada's energy sector
00:36:32.960 and we're doing this
00:36:33.640 through interviews
00:36:34.280 with leaders
00:36:35.580 and CEOs
00:36:36.620 in this very sector.
00:36:38.640 And I often use
00:36:39.660 oil and gas
00:36:40.520 as a stand-in
00:36:41.800 for energy
00:36:42.440 and vice versa.
00:36:43.460 And I realize
00:36:44.440 that I'm cutting out
00:36:45.320 a key part
00:36:46.280 of this discussion
00:36:47.000 which is mining.
00:36:48.520 So,
00:36:48.940 I decided we would,
00:36:50.480 well,
00:36:50.780 we started the series
00:36:51.440 yesterday with Michael Binion
00:36:52.560 but I decided today
00:36:53.620 we would air the interview
00:36:56.060 of Mike Young
00:36:57.780 of Northback
00:36:58.920 which is a mining company
00:37:00.200 with roots
00:37:00.700 in Canada
00:37:01.840 and Australia
00:37:02.740 as you'll hear
00:37:03.320 in a moment.
00:37:04.320 And to learn a little bit,
00:37:05.400 I actually learned
00:37:05.960 quite a bit
00:37:06.400 from this interview
00:37:07.140 about mining
00:37:07.660 that I didn't know
00:37:08.300 so hopefully you will
00:37:09.220 as well.
00:37:13.460 sitting down
00:37:21.000 with Mike Young
00:37:22.540 here.
00:37:23.020 Now,
00:37:23.420 before we get going
00:37:24.400 I want to talk
00:37:24.880 about the name
00:37:25.420 of your company
00:37:26.020 because you shared
00:37:26.640 something rather amusing
00:37:28.140 that ties into
00:37:29.000 our audience
00:37:29.600 here at True North
00:37:30.600 I think.
00:37:31.500 Sure,
00:37:31.780 so we are
00:37:32.860 a Canadian company
00:37:33.880 that is Australian-owned
00:37:34.960 and we were looking
00:37:35.960 for a new name
00:37:36.820 for the company
00:37:37.340 that reflected both
00:37:38.440 and so we came up
00:37:39.900 with Northback
00:37:40.620 and so that's
00:37:41.360 a combination
00:37:41.940 of the True North
00:37:43.020 strong and free
00:37:43.880 and the Australian Outback
00:37:45.100 and that is literally
00:37:45.900 where the name comes from
00:37:46.920 and our logo
00:37:48.100 is the Maple Leaf
00:37:49.540 and it sits above
00:37:51.060 the Commonwealth Star
00:37:52.060 of Australia.
00:37:52.780 Okay,
00:37:53.160 and that's what you have
00:37:54.020 on your lapel there.
00:37:54.460 On my lapel.
00:37:55.620 Okay.
00:37:56.120 The coal pin,
00:37:56.780 yes,
00:37:57.040 that's right.
00:37:57.580 Well,
00:37:57.900 you brought up
00:37:58.580 the coal pin.
00:37:59.200 Let's talk about that
00:38:00.160 because that's
00:38:00.820 so often treated
00:38:01.860 as I think
00:38:02.480 a dirty word
00:38:03.280 by a lot of people
00:38:04.840 that are in this space
00:38:05.920 on the political side
00:38:06.840 of things
00:38:07.260 but where is your
00:38:08.820 perspective on the industry?
00:38:10.620 It's a great question.
00:38:11.780 So,
00:38:12.620 I want to change
00:38:14.140 the name of
00:38:14.680 metallurgical coal
00:38:15.540 to steel carbon
00:38:16.640 because 75%
00:38:19.480 of the world's steel
00:38:20.120 is made using
00:38:20.920 metallurgical coal
00:38:21.720 or steel carbon
00:38:22.580 and a lot of people
00:38:23.640 don't know that
00:38:24.160 and they don't understand
00:38:25.520 that there's quite a difference
00:38:26.600 in terms of
00:38:27.540 use,
00:38:28.740 value and use
00:38:29.360 and emissions
00:38:29.880 between thermal coal
00:38:31.040 and metallurgical coal.
00:38:32.180 So,
00:38:32.400 our company
00:38:32.740 is a metallurgical coal project.
00:38:34.220 We have a project
00:38:34.820 in Crowsnest Pass
00:38:36.360 of southern Alberta
00:38:37.300 and we're looking
00:38:38.580 to develop that project
00:38:39.760 to really feel
00:38:40.960 the need
00:38:41.360 coming up.
00:38:43.000 So,
00:38:43.680 steel production
00:38:44.400 is going up
00:38:45.080 and it's going
00:38:45.460 to continue to go up.
00:38:46.380 It's one of the four pillars
00:38:47.400 of modern civilization,
00:38:49.400 western civilization,
00:38:50.820 eastern civilization.
00:38:52.040 If you build something
00:38:52.920 with concrete,
00:38:53.740 you're building with steel.
00:38:55.100 Steel is fundamental
00:38:56.300 to our lifestyle.
00:38:58.500 Oftentimes,
00:38:59.460 I mean,
00:38:59.680 we've heard in Canada
00:39:00.960 for the last few months
00:39:02.620 very aggressively
00:39:03.340 the need to build housing.
00:39:04.700 We have
00:39:05.120 high density housing,
00:39:06.600 all of these
00:39:07.280 construction projects
00:39:08.460 that governments
00:39:09.040 and, you know,
00:39:09.660 all political parties
00:39:10.420 are promising
00:39:10.940 that are all
00:39:11.800 requiring steel.
00:39:12.980 So,
00:39:13.280 that doesn't happen
00:39:14.160 without coal,
00:39:14.820 you're saying?
00:39:15.600 That's correct.
00:39:16.260 So,
00:39:16.760 as I say,
00:39:17.380 most of the world's steel
00:39:18.240 is made using coal.
00:39:20.080 People talk about green steel.
00:39:21.960 It will certainly happen,
00:39:23.560 but it will not be
00:39:24.560 a fundamental shift
00:39:25.500 in the way steel is made.
00:39:27.340 The companies,
00:39:28.360 the countries
00:39:28.860 that make the steel
00:39:30.000 worldwide
00:39:30.560 are dominated by Asia
00:39:32.240 and they have blast furnaces.
00:39:34.080 Look,
00:39:34.360 those countries
00:39:35.640 are definitely
00:39:36.420 looking to reduce emissions
00:39:37.680 and that would be
00:39:38.980 through carbon capture
00:39:39.840 and other uses
00:39:40.440 of the CO2
00:39:41.180 that's released
00:39:41.720 when you make steel
00:39:42.720 with coal.
00:39:44.720 But,
00:39:45.320 that's not going
00:39:46.120 to slow down
00:39:46.640 and as you say,
00:39:48.180 we're continuing
00:39:48.860 to build houses.
00:39:50.460 They have basements.
00:39:51.620 The basements
00:39:52.020 are made out of concrete
00:39:52.880 and concrete
00:39:53.600 is always reinforced
00:39:54.820 with steel.
00:39:56.320 So,
00:39:56.960 why is that part
00:39:58.380 of the story
00:39:58.980 never told?
00:39:59.880 Because,
00:40:00.160 I mean,
00:40:00.480 similarly,
00:40:00.840 when we're talking
00:40:01.460 about energy sources,
00:40:02.900 oftentimes,
00:40:03.480 we're being told
00:40:04.620 we need to rely
00:40:05.260 on these mythical
00:40:05.920 alternatives
00:40:06.480 that don't really
00:40:07.060 exist yet.
00:40:07.680 And in this particular
00:40:08.380 case,
00:40:08.720 you're talking
00:40:09.160 about something
00:40:09.660 where there really
00:40:10.580 isn't even a proposed
00:40:11.520 alternative to it.
00:40:13.120 Well,
00:40:13.280 that's correct.
00:40:14.460 Some steel is made
00:40:15.240 using electric arc
00:40:16.160 furnaces
00:40:16.540 and that's about
00:40:17.820 30%.
00:40:18.700 But,
00:40:19.680 the feed for that
00:40:20.920 is scrap steel
00:40:21.540 and recycled steel.
00:40:23.660 I mean,
00:40:23.820 that's one of the good
00:40:24.320 things about steel.
00:40:25.100 It's recyclable.
00:40:26.360 But,
00:40:26.580 that's not sustainable.
00:40:27.540 If you're growing
00:40:27.980 something,
00:40:28.460 recycling can't
00:40:29.480 inherently do it.
00:40:30.420 So,
00:40:30.620 we do need to
00:40:31.340 mine iron ore.
00:40:32.180 We do need to mine
00:40:33.300 metallurgical coal
00:40:34.000 to make the steel
00:40:34.820 going forward.
00:40:36.240 And most people,
00:40:37.560 as with a lot of metals,
00:40:39.400 people really don't know
00:40:40.400 where they come from.
00:40:41.240 And that's,
00:40:41.840 to me,
00:40:42.640 that's a failure
00:40:43.160 of the school system.
00:40:44.280 You know,
00:40:44.440 nobody takes geology.
00:40:45.900 Right?
00:40:46.320 Nobody understands
00:40:47.120 where the metals come from.
00:40:48.040 A lot of people think
00:40:48.760 they come from factories
00:40:50.620 powered by unicorns.
00:40:52.640 I don't know.
00:40:53.840 But,
00:40:53.940 you know,
00:40:54.200 what I do know
00:40:55.360 is they don't know.
00:40:56.380 And part of what I want to do
00:40:57.660 is educate people
00:40:58.440 on how steel is made
00:40:59.840 and the role of steel carbon
00:41:01.560 in that process.
00:41:02.860 And what's the breakdown
00:41:03.680 for Canada
00:41:04.360 of where the metallurgical coal supply
00:41:06.620 that we need
00:41:07.220 is coming from?
00:41:08.540 So,
00:41:08.980 most of the metallurgical coal
00:41:11.040 in Canada
00:41:11.340 comes from the west,
00:41:12.500 predominantly out of
00:41:13.660 the Elk Valley
00:41:14.280 in B.C.
00:41:15.740 The Crowsnest Pass
00:41:16.940 was once
00:41:17.620 a powerhouse
00:41:18.840 of coal mining,
00:41:19.580 both thermal
00:41:20.080 and metallurgical.
00:41:21.500 So,
00:41:21.880 it was discovered
00:41:23.500 when they drove
00:41:24.100 the railway through.
00:41:25.960 So,
00:41:26.120 that allowed,
00:41:27.520 you know,
00:41:27.760 coal played an important role
00:41:29.320 in maintaining
00:41:29.900 Canada's sovereignty
00:41:30.700 because a lot of people
00:41:31.600 don't know
00:41:32.160 that one of the reasons
00:41:33.380 the railway was built
00:41:34.380 was to maintain
00:41:35.180 the sovereignty
00:41:35.720 of the 49th Airline.
00:41:36.940 I mean,
00:41:37.440 coal is,
00:41:38.460 you know,
00:41:38.600 the history of Canada
00:41:39.320 is linked with coal
00:41:41.500 and we have coal mining
00:41:42.900 down east as well
00:41:44.160 in Nova Scotia
00:41:44.840 and that's mainly thermal.
00:41:47.200 But,
00:41:47.640 most of the world's
00:41:49.380 metallurgical coal
00:41:50.760 is from Australia,
00:41:51.900 so they're a big part
00:41:52.780 of the market,
00:41:53.460 but Canada has a lot of it
00:41:55.060 and we have
00:41:55.720 an opportunity
00:41:57.100 and an obligation
00:41:58.000 to make sure
00:41:58.560 that the world
00:41:59.000 is getting
00:41:59.440 metallurgical coal
00:42:01.200 from what is
00:42:01.800 basically the world's
00:42:03.240 best mining jurisdiction.
00:42:04.800 You know,
00:42:04.980 we have the best
00:42:05.580 environmental laws,
00:42:06.500 there's labour laws,
00:42:07.920 so if you're going to get,
00:42:08.860 if you're going to get
00:42:09.580 your coal from somewhere,
00:42:10.620 Canada is the best place.
00:42:12.500 What is the,
00:42:13.440 I mean,
00:42:13.620 what are the barriers
00:42:14.340 you're facing then?
00:42:15.620 Is it on permits
00:42:16.960 for the mining itself?
00:42:18.600 Is it on export?
00:42:19.840 What are the barriers
00:42:20.460 you're seeing in the industry
00:42:21.480 or just in your company?
00:42:23.120 Well,
00:42:23.520 in the industry,
00:42:24.500 as you say,
00:42:25.240 coal has a bad history.
00:42:26.820 A lot of people,
00:42:28.640 you know,
00:42:28.880 you look at Selim
00:42:29.660 and in the Elk Valley,
00:42:30.800 for example,
00:42:31.260 and those are real issues,
00:42:32.840 but those are legacy issues
00:42:33.960 from the way
00:42:34.480 that we used to do things.
00:42:35.560 One of the things
00:42:36.060 that people don't see
00:42:38.480 is just how modern
00:42:39.580 modern day mining is
00:42:40.760 of all metals,
00:42:41.560 not just coal,
00:42:42.400 but copper
00:42:43.060 and all the metals
00:42:43.840 that we call
00:42:44.260 the critical minerals.
00:42:45.960 Modern day mining
00:42:46.720 is nothing
00:42:47.400 like people imagine.
00:42:48.980 You know,
00:42:49.340 it's highly technical.
00:42:51.180 There is a lot of
00:42:52.220 what we call,
00:42:53.020 you know,
00:42:53.300 robotics.
00:42:55.100 And there's a,
00:42:56.360 look,
00:42:56.960 people think
00:42:57.660 we're not environmentalists.
00:42:59.120 One thing about
00:42:59.640 being a geologist
00:43:00.380 is I get to go
00:43:01.460 into the environment
00:43:02.260 and I spend a lot of time
00:43:03.560 in the bush
00:43:04.040 and we care for the environment.
00:43:06.060 We seem not to,
00:43:07.920 people seem not to think that.
00:43:10.300 Well,
00:43:10.380 I think you know
00:43:10.860 a lot more about
00:43:11.580 the environment
00:43:12.100 than so many of the people
00:43:12.960 trying to vilify your industry.
00:43:14.200 Well,
00:43:14.380 that's true,
00:43:14.960 actually.
00:43:15.380 That's a fair point.
00:43:16.860 But we can,
00:43:17.840 we can sustain,
00:43:19.040 we can sustain the mine
00:43:20.300 and protect the environment
00:43:21.720 at the same time.
00:43:22.500 I mean,
00:43:23.540 you know,
00:43:23.860 we make,
00:43:24.260 we make no,
00:43:25.540 make no mistake
00:43:26.600 when you,
00:43:27.200 when you do a mine,
00:43:28.100 you alter the environment.
00:43:29.600 But what you do afterwards,
00:43:31.500 if you do that
00:43:32.480 in consultation
00:43:33.240 with not only
00:43:34.160 the First Nations
00:43:34.940 and the rights holders,
00:43:35.900 but the people
00:43:36.520 of that area,
00:43:37.200 when you,
00:43:38.240 when you go,
00:43:39.060 you walk away
00:43:39.820 from that project,
00:43:40.580 if you work with them
00:43:41.940 to actually close
00:43:44.220 that project
00:43:45.040 in a way
00:43:45.540 that the land
00:43:46.120 is still usable
00:43:46.900 in whatever manner
00:43:48.420 that may be,
00:43:49.820 then that's a win
00:43:50.760 for everybody.
00:43:52.020 So when we talk
00:43:52.960 about the just transition,
00:43:54.200 oftentimes this is viewed
00:43:55.440 in the context
00:43:56.180 of oil and gas,
00:43:57.600 but it does apply
00:43:58.800 to mining as well
00:44:00.220 in a very real way.
00:44:01.580 So what's your concern
00:44:03.560 looking at the messaging
00:44:05.100 you've seen
00:44:05.500 from the government
00:44:06.040 on this federally?
00:44:07.960 So what a lot
00:44:09.060 of people don't realize
00:44:09.780 is that when you move
00:44:10.960 to renewables,
00:44:11.820 renewables inherently,
00:44:13.580 by the laws of physics,
00:44:14.980 have lower energy density.
00:44:16.640 That means that you need
00:44:17.980 more metal
00:44:18.500 to produce the same
00:44:19.820 kilowatt of power
00:44:20.680 as you would with,
00:44:22.220 say, a baseload
00:44:22.980 like coal, gas,
00:44:24.180 hydro, or nuclear.
00:44:26.400 So yes,
00:44:27.560 we move towards
00:44:28.180 cleaner power sources,
00:44:29.600 but there is a cost to that.
00:44:31.180 The cost is you need
00:44:31.920 more metal
00:44:32.320 and you need all the metals.
00:44:34.080 And of course,
00:44:34.600 steel is the foundation.
00:44:35.960 It's the workhorse
00:44:36.940 of the just transition.
00:44:39.760 You're not moving
00:44:40.400 towards new power lines,
00:44:42.040 transmission lines,
00:44:43.660 solar panels,
00:44:44.900 windmills.
00:44:45.440 I mean, a windmill,
00:44:46.260 the foundation of a windmill
00:44:47.400 is just full
00:44:48.480 of reinforced steel.
00:44:50.960 And then we're back
00:44:51.420 to coal.
00:44:52.800 We're back to
00:44:53.380 steel carbon.
00:44:54.840 Yeah, steel carbon.
00:44:55.760 Yes, we'll go for
00:44:56.320 the rebrand here.
00:44:57.280 We are back to that.
00:44:58.400 And so that's the thing
00:44:59.360 is there are,
00:45:00.580 you know,
00:45:01.140 the foundations,
00:45:02.780 both metaphorically
00:45:03.660 and physically,
00:45:04.920 of renewables
00:45:05.780 is steel
00:45:06.320 and concrete,
00:45:07.760 both of which
00:45:08.780 have emissions.
00:45:10.980 So you ask yourself,
00:45:12.560 do you want to stop emissions
00:45:13.380 or do you want to manage emissions?
00:45:15.000 And I think
00:45:15.480 if you're going to have
00:45:16.180 a transition
00:45:16.720 to a cleaner power source,
00:45:18.600 then you're going to have
00:45:19.900 to think about
00:45:20.580 how we mine more metal,
00:45:21.820 but we do it in a way
00:45:22.660 that's sustainable
00:45:23.320 and environmentally,
00:45:25.320 you know,
00:45:25.660 less environmental impact.
00:45:28.240 Well, I mean,
00:45:28.600 some mining companies
00:45:29.380 would stand to benefit
00:45:30.200 a great deal from this.
00:45:31.180 I mean,
00:45:31.320 any company that's in lithium,
00:45:32.740 for example,
00:45:33.160 I mean,
00:45:33.460 the transition of battery.
00:45:34.420 So every now and then
00:45:35.140 you'll see a mining executive
00:45:36.080 that's up there,
00:45:36.820 you know,
00:45:37.060 speaking about,
00:45:37.780 you know,
00:45:38.080 the need to get away
00:45:38.960 from oil and gas.
00:45:39.680 Then you realize
00:45:40.200 it's because they're going
00:45:40.760 to be cashing in hugely on this.
00:45:42.300 But I think you're right
00:45:43.320 when you point out
00:45:43.940 managing versus eliminating
00:45:45.320 because there does seem
00:45:46.720 to be a rather fantastical view
00:45:48.660 by some people
00:45:49.400 that we can just get down
00:45:50.960 to zero
00:45:51.500 without obliterating
00:45:53.100 very large things
00:45:54.440 that we don't have
00:45:55.000 alternatives for.
00:45:56.740 Well, that's right.
00:45:57.300 And, you know,
00:45:58.280 one of the customers
00:45:59.640 that our project will have
00:46:01.580 is Japan and Korea.
00:46:03.340 And, you know,
00:46:03.940 those are modern
00:46:04.860 Western nations.
00:46:06.700 And they're still
00:46:08.040 building blast furnaces
00:46:09.780 and they're still going
00:46:10.560 to be producing CO2.
00:46:11.700 But they're looking
00:46:12.300 at carbon capture
00:46:14.020 and sequestration.
00:46:15.480 They're looking
00:46:16.160 at alternate uses of carbon.
00:46:17.580 I mean,
00:46:17.740 you can change
00:46:19.220 carbon dioxide
00:46:19.820 into graphite.
00:46:21.360 You know,
00:46:21.540 anything can be engineered out.
00:46:23.440 There's a cost to it, right?
00:46:24.860 And so this is the thing
00:46:26.220 people, I think,
00:46:27.360 are failing to realize
00:46:28.280 that, yes,
00:46:28.860 we can have clean energy,
00:46:29.920 but there's a cost to it.
00:46:30.800 Things will cost more.
00:46:33.700 And so, you know,
00:46:34.600 for us
00:46:35.140 and for all miners,
00:46:36.460 the lithium miners included.
00:46:37.720 Now, don't forget,
00:46:38.740 the lithium guys
00:46:39.380 only make batteries.
00:46:40.260 They don't produce electricity.
00:46:41.940 They only store it.
00:46:43.200 Yes.
00:46:43.420 But, you know,
00:46:44.280 the thing is,
00:46:44.800 is if we're going to go
00:46:45.820 to cleaner types of energy
00:46:47.900 of all sorts,
00:46:49.260 then it's going to require
00:46:49.980 more metal.
00:46:51.740 So to talk about steel carbon,
00:46:53.800 I'll try to see
00:46:54.660 if we can get some momentum
00:46:55.400 behind that for a moment.
00:46:56.800 Is there a market
00:46:57.800 for what Canada is mining?
00:47:00.300 I mean,
00:47:00.420 does Canada have enough supply
00:47:01.560 that we're competing globally
00:47:03.060 on this in a large way?
00:47:05.060 Not hugely.
00:47:05.760 I think we're about fifth
00:47:06.680 in the world.
00:47:07.340 We're still an important market.
00:47:08.820 And I think one of the reasons
00:47:09.880 we're an important market
00:47:10.720 is because the alternate markets
00:47:11.980 are places like Australia,
00:47:13.780 Mongolia,
00:47:15.100 Russia,
00:47:15.700 predominantly.
00:47:16.680 So, you know,
00:47:17.280 you can start to hear
00:47:18.180 the political aspects
00:47:21.020 of supply come in.
00:47:22.820 So with the rise of ESG
00:47:25.460 globally,
00:47:27.940 Canada becomes a good place
00:47:30.000 to be buying your metal
00:47:30.840 because, as I said,
00:47:32.020 it's one of the best,
00:47:32.940 you know,
00:47:33.100 Australia and Canada
00:47:33.780 are the two best
00:47:34.240 mining jurisdictions on earth
00:47:35.460 in terms of stewardship
00:47:38.440 of the land,
00:47:39.300 of your employees.
00:47:41.100 And so people are going
00:47:41.840 to look to these two countries
00:47:42.960 to be getting metal
00:47:45.080 that's sustained,
00:47:45.960 well,
00:47:46.360 not sustainably,
00:47:47.560 but responsibly mine.
00:47:49.980 Yeah,
00:47:50.140 because the demand
00:47:50.840 exists regardless.
00:47:51.900 So it's just about
00:47:52.580 where the optimal way
00:47:53.700 to get the supply is.
00:47:54.920 That's right.
00:47:55.560 And, you know,
00:47:56.480 ironically,
00:47:57.060 one of the things
00:47:57.700 that we saw in Australia
00:47:58.820 when I was living in Australia
00:47:59.860 where I spent 35 years
00:48:01.160 is that people
00:48:02.540 honestly believe
00:48:03.840 that if they stopped
00:48:04.720 a coal mine in Australia
00:48:05.820 that that coal somehow
00:48:06.800 would never get burned.
00:48:07.780 But it would.
00:48:08.180 It would come from
00:48:08.860 a place
00:48:09.680 where the coal
00:48:10.180 is less high quality
00:48:11.900 and would actually
00:48:12.500 be worse off
00:48:13.340 for the planet.
00:48:14.100 So when you start
00:48:14.760 looking at mining
00:48:16.600 and the requirement
00:48:17.360 for steel carbon
00:48:18.900 around the world,
00:48:21.200 steel carbon
00:48:21.960 coming out of places
00:48:23.080 like Australia
00:48:23.740 and Canada
00:48:24.220 are better for the planet
00:48:25.360 than coming
00:48:25.940 from ultimate sources.
00:48:27.580 Steel carbon,
00:48:28.520 we'll get it trending there.
00:48:30.080 Mike,
00:48:30.320 thank you very much
00:48:31.260 and best of luck
00:48:31.760 with all this.
00:48:32.420 Thank you very much.
00:48:33.680 That was Mike Young
00:48:35.040 of North,
00:48:35.660 back part of the
00:48:36.580 Unjust Transition series
00:48:37.840 here on The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:48:39.380 We'll have more
00:48:39.860 of that series for you
00:48:41.340 in the days to come
00:48:43.040 on this program.
00:48:43.780 But in the meantime,
00:48:44.520 I've got to get back
00:48:45.540 to court.
00:48:46.280 We will see you all later.
00:48:47.260 Thank you.
00:48:47.640 God bless.
00:48:48.460 And good day to you all.
00:48:50.100 Thanks for listening
00:48:50.700 to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:48:52.380 Support the program
00:48:53.200 by donating to True North
00:48:54.440 at www.tnc.news.
00:48:57.880 www.tnc.news.com