Juno News - Trudeau won't take China's election interference seriously

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.940 Hello and welcome to you all. Canada's most irreverent talk show, the Andrew Lawton Show, here on True North.

00:00:20.900 on this Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023,

00:00:25.240 coming to the end of the shortest month of the year,

00:00:28.720 which is a little bit of month-by-month trivia.

00:00:30.620 Some months have 30 days, others have 31,

00:00:33.280 and February only has, I believe, four,

00:00:35.760 or so it's felt like in this little February here.

00:00:39.120 But we nevertheless proceed,

00:00:41.440 and it's been a surprisingly busy news week

00:00:44.560 for a short week that was a holiday in much of the country.

00:00:48.800 And we'll talk about China.

00:00:50.500 We'll also talk about the story that I have seen virtually no media coverage of, besides one write-up initially in the Toronto Star, which, again, there's nothing wrong with it.

00:01:00.440 They did, in fact, cover it.

00:01:02.240 But I would say that the media has not picked this up.

00:01:05.000 And even people you'd expect to focus on this haven't really been.

00:01:08.300 And that is the story of a man who was charged, he's been criminally charged, with second-degree murder after shooting a home invader.

00:01:18.080 that broke into the house that he and his mother were sleeping in overnight with a firearm.

00:01:23.300 He shot the intruder dead, and now he's the one who's been charged with second-degree murder.

00:01:28.400 So we are going to talk about that and a lot of other things on this program.

00:01:34.240 But let's start off with China, which has been the gift that keeps on giving as far as news coverage.

00:01:39.800 The Globe and Mail has done a bang-up job on this.

00:01:42.640 They had this bombshell on their front page, an A1 story on Friday, talking about the lengths through which the Chinese regime, the Chinese Communist Party, went to interfere in Canada's elections, specifically the 2021 election.

00:01:58.120 In this story, they cite a CSIS document that was given to them privately, that was leaked to them, that deployed a sophisticated strategy by China to disrupt Canada's democracy in the 2021 election campaign.

00:02:13.820 And China was backing Justin Trudeau.

00:02:16.060 I think that's something you very much need to understand.

00:02:18.760 That's a key part of the story, that China wanted Justin Trudeau to win.

00:02:23.380 Now, is this because Justin Trudeau is a Chinese puppet?

00:02:26.820 it? I don't think so. I think it's that Justin Trudeau is a puppet of a leader in general, 0.58

00:02:31.460 and China looks at him and says, that's the kind of guy we want going up against us. And the

00:02:36.140 contrast was Aaron O'Toole, who, whatever you think of Aaron O'Toole, and there are a great

00:02:40.660 many criticisms I've leveled about his policies and his leadership. One issue on which he was

00:02:46.100 unflinching was China. Aaron O'Toole understood China. He understood the dynamics. He understood

00:02:52.220 foreign policy. And China was clearly intimidated by that and didn't want Aaron O'Toole to win.

00:02:58.100 So they worked against conservative MPs in general. They specifically worked against some

00:03:03.200 MPs that were like Kenny Chu, formerly an MP in British Columbia, that were especially critical

00:03:10.420 of the Chinese regime. And all of this was to the benefit of Justin Trudeau. So this is part

00:03:17.180 of an intelligence operation that China ran that has been known to Canadian intelligence. Canadian

00:03:24.280 officials knew about it. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service knew about it. And what

00:03:31.580 happened there was they informed the Liberal government, who even with this information

00:03:36.440 has been publicly downplaying the idea that there is an interference issue. They've been publicly

00:03:42.320 downplaying the idea that this was at all something we need to worry about. They mocked critics who

00:03:48.400 tried to bring this up and as though they were trying to generate or concoct some sort of

00:03:53.740 boogeyman. And it was particularly offensive to anyone who looked at just the facts. You didn't

00:03:59.480 need to be an intelligence official to see this was going on. When the liberals had the audacity

00:04:05.220 to just downplay that this was a thing at all, to say, oh, well, and even when they eventually came

00:04:10.160 around to it their line seemed to be well you know there might have been an issue they might

00:04:17.180 have been trying to influence but they really didn't do a good job at it it didn't work and

00:04:21.400 all of this is to say that they refuse to accept there is an issue they refuse to acknowledge the

00:04:27.620 extent of the issue and i think the elephant in the room here is that it was the liberal government

00:04:32.600 that was benefiting from it so there really isn't an incentive for the liberals to get to the bottom

00:04:39.460 of an election that may have been an illegal that was an illegally interfered with election when

00:04:45.480 they were the ones who were beneficiaries now i should say i do not have any evidence to suggest

00:04:50.960 that if china's interference had not been there the election result would have been different i

00:04:56.940 am not making that claim the globe and mail's reporting is not making that claim but we'd be

00:05:02.080 remiss to not point out that it is a minority parliament and justin trudeau didn't win the

00:05:07.020 popular vote despite winning the most seats. Small changes in one or two ridings could have made a

00:05:13.220 difference in the overall landscape politically. Really small changes in a number of ridings in

00:05:20.160 tight races could have made a significant difference. But we know there were a handful

00:05:25.020 of races in particular that the Chinese regime was targeting, ones that they thought needed to

00:05:30.840 be the choke points or were the weak links. So if you look at the facts here, CSIS reports on this

00:05:38.540 were shared with Canada's intelligence partners in the so-called Five Eyes community. So these

00:05:43.720 are the governments of the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and Canada. Now of

00:05:49.360 those five, New Zealand is absolutely a Chinese puppet. New Zealand has been a pathetic and 1.00

00:05:56.900 shameful shill for the Chinese regime when it comes to foreign policy. But Australia, the US 0.99

00:06:03.260 and the UK have actually been quite strong on this. So it's no surprise that those three

00:06:08.280 created a separate alliance that has been somewhat facetiously called the Three Eyes Alliance. It's

00:06:15.040 formerly AUKUS that cut out Canada and cut out New Zealand. So I think it's very telling that 0.86

00:06:22.100 these nations that have significant intelligence operations don't trust Canada. So what they saw

00:06:29.740 is an intelligence report from Canada that suggests the election was being interfered with.

00:06:34.740 And then they also saw public comments from Justin Trudeau saying, oh, there's no election

00:06:38.720 interference. What are you talking about? There's no big deal. Democracy is protected in Canada.

00:06:43.220 And that's actually not the case. So let's talk about today how Justin Trudeau made this problem

00:06:50.140 so much worse because he gets up, well, it starts off with Jennifer O'Connell, who's a liberal

00:06:56.360 member of parliament who decides to take the approach that the left loves, which is accusing

00:07:02.240 anyone they don't like of being Trump-like. This was her comment in the House of Commons the other

00:07:07.560 day. The information that has been reported in the media is extremely serious, but it's something

00:07:17.540 that has never been denied by the fact that these reports have been tabled in the house of commons

00:07:25.620 this is sadly not new information the only thing that's new is the conservatives i guess

00:07:34.180 are not happy with the other business that proc is doing and they simply want to only talk about this

00:07:41.780 because they have one candidate in particular that they feel this has been affected by but

00:07:48.740 foreign interference isn't about one candidate or 11 candidates about it's about canadian

00:07:55.380 institutions and this is the same trump type tactics to question election results moving forward

00:08:04.980 when i mentioned earlier that justin trudeau was not a chinese puppet but he was someone that

00:08:15.940 uh the chinese government clearly thought uh would be preferable to the alternatives i i should tell 0.98

00:08:21.300 you about this term that came up in the soviet era called a useful idiot now a useful idiot and 0.89

00:08:30.640 I'm reading the Wikipedia definition here. A term currently used to reference a person 0.60

00:08:35.100 perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goal and who is

00:08:41.320 cynically being used as the cause's leader. Talking about neo-communists that were particularly

00:08:47.340 susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation in the Cold War. That was the

00:08:51.140 origin of the term. But when I hear Jennifer O'Connell speak about that and say that it is

00:08:57.420 trump style to talk about electoral interference and the conservatives shouldn't be raising this i 0.98

00:09:02.620 i think useful idiot i mean i think idiot first off uh useful might be a bit of a stretch but i 0.99

00:09:08.220 think of the term useful idiot and i i don't like being unkind to people and i really don't like 0.98

00:09:14.940 making comments like that on a show that i feel strives for some level of intellectual heft not 0.96

00:09:21.260 always do we reach it but we strive for it but how else are you to parse someone that has just

00:09:27.180 such a blind spot for such a big problem and says well the conservatives only want to talk about it

00:09:33.660 because they're mad about it but it's not about them it's about democracy uh but if the conservatives

00:09:37.340 bring it up and no you're undermining democracy then we have justin trudeau taking that point

00:09:43.260 that perspective that jennifer o'connell puts forward and just running it across into the end

00:09:47.980 zone today take a look foreign governments and foreign actors are trying to undermine people's

00:10:00.140 confidence in democracy itself and amplifying and giving reason giving partisan reasons

00:10:11.500 uh to mistrust the outcome of an election mistrust the experts at elections canada and in our security

00:10:20.920 services and our top public servants who are saying that the election integrity held

00:10:26.800 that's something that we've seen from elsewhere is not a good path to go down for society or for

00:10:34.640 democracy. Okay, so just to make sure I understand this, democracy is important. Okay, we can all

00:10:44.740 agree on that. Undermining democracy is ergo a bad thing. Okay, we can all agree on that.

00:10:50.880 When China undermines democracy, we're to believe that's a bad thing. But if the conservatives talk

00:10:57.580 about China undermining democracy, then they're the ones undermining democracy because people's

00:11:03.960 faith in democracy is shaken. Okay. So Justin Trudeau is more concerned about conservatives

00:11:12.440 talking about this than he is concerned about the thing that conservatives want to talk about,

00:11:19.240 which again, I remind you was to Justin Trudeau's benefit. So they're not even trying anymore.

00:11:27.420 They're not even trying to conceal that they just don't seem to care.

00:11:32.960 When they're talking about something very specific and very concrete, where there's

00:11:37.500 a very tangible effect, we have facts, we have reports from intelligence agencies.

00:11:43.940 They're talking about it in the abstract.

00:11:45.920 They're talking about it in generalities, in this esoteric way, as if to say, oh, yes,

00:11:50.340 you know, in general interview.

00:11:51.780 Well, no, let's talk about the specifics.

00:11:53.720 Let's talk about the specifics of China trying to manipulate a certain outcome in Canada's

00:12:00.340 elections.

00:12:00.880 And China tries to do this all over the world.

00:12:02.860 Canada is not special, but all we're concerned about here is Canada's elections, the integrity

00:12:07.580 of Canada's democracy.

00:12:10.240 And by the way, the liberals who are getting all pearl clutchy right now at complaints

00:12:15.160 of Chinese interference would have been the first ones to jump up and down and say, oh,

00:12:19.240 Trump was influenced by Russia.

00:12:21.040 Oh, the freedom convoy in Canada was a Russian psy-op.

00:12:25.240 I mean, these are the people that would absolutely call their political opponents foreign influences without hesitation.

00:12:34.320 But when it comes to concrete, tangible evidence of interference in Canada's elections by the Chinese regime,

00:12:41.860 they do not want to talk about it.

00:12:43.660 And then they start delegitimizing and denigrating those who dare talk about it.

00:12:48.580 And I mentioned Aaron O'Toole a few moments ago, and I have a number of criticisms with how Aaron O'Toole handled his time as conservative leader, but he was a very strong voice on China. He kept that up through to the election, and it was clear that China didn't want that around.

00:13:03.640 So the reason these discussions are important to have is because we are going to have another

00:13:08.760 election at some point, whether it's this year or next year, or I suspect given the fecklessness

00:13:13.780 of the NDP in like 2037, when they finally decide to just move on from this. But the NDP that is,

00:13:22.120 but what's happening is the NDP also don't particularly care about this, it seems,

00:13:29.080 because I think some of them probably have the posters of Mao up in their offices,

00:13:33.540 probably a couple of them.

00:13:35.180 But if we look at this, it's only the conservatives that are really talking about China.

00:13:41.480 And even then, I would say they could probably talk about it a lot more.

00:13:44.600 It's a very important issue.

00:13:46.120 It is a country that is going to be striving for and is striving for global domination.

00:13:52.820 And it's unfortunate that so few people realize what's happening, 0.88

00:13:56.400 Whether it's the Belt and Road Initiative in which China is economically colonizing the less developed world with this trillion dollar plan where they have new ports and airports popping up in places like Barbados and Eastern Europe that are all Chinese owned.

00:14:12.820 And then also other dimensions of this that are, I think, incredibly significant for people to be talking about. 0.98

00:14:18.560 I mean, the way that China is the link between the very worst countries of the world and their 0.92

00:14:27.240 aspirations, China and Iran, China and North Korea, China and Russia. So China is not just this

00:14:35.180 emerging member of the liberal order, like Chairman Xi Jinping tries to claim whenever he's

00:14:41.260 speaking at the World Economic Forum or whatever. China, I mean, to say nothing of the demand for

00:14:46.800 justice that we need to be seeing from Western leaders about what China has done to the world 0.68

00:14:51.200 in the last three years. We should also be very concerned about what China is continuing to do to 0.88

00:14:56.240 the world. And we're all looking up at the spy balloon flying over and it takes a week for the 0.99

00:15:01.260 United States to shoot the thing out of the air. Meanwhile, let's look at the ballot boxes where

00:15:06.700 no world leader wants to shoot China's influence out of the ballot boxes metaphorically. So all

00:15:12.480 of this is to say that right now we are in the midst of this tremendous global geopolitical

00:15:19.260 gaslighting, where China is incredibly transparent about what it wants. China is very open about what

00:15:27.220 it wants. China does not hide the fact that it strives for this level of economic and political

00:15:33.400 control over parts of the world. And they often are able to do this with relative impunity.

00:15:40.100 and you know it used to be that interfering in a country's elections would be a very significant

00:15:46.520 thing it is a very significant thing but it used to be that it would be treated as such

00:15:50.820 and I don't want to say the media has not focused on that I mean that clip I played a moment ago

00:15:55.740 from Justin Trudeau he was being asked about this by a reporter clearly it is something that is

00:16:01.420 being handled in some sense but it's not permeating through the political discourse in the way that it

00:16:09.320 should i mean here was a michael cooper who's going to be on the show in a moment um a conservative

00:16:14.260 member of parliament accusing trudeau of avoiding answering questions and i think he's bang on if

00:16:19.420 you listen to what he's saying the prime minister again using carefully crafted words talks about

00:16:28.800 how the last two elections were not compromised as if to say that anyone is alleging that those

00:16:35.640 elections were compromised. That's a very different question than what appears to have

00:16:43.200 happened, which was interference targeting certain ridings and certain candidates.

00:16:51.040 The fact that the overall result of an election was not compromised does not negate the fact

00:16:56.320 that there are serious issues of interference that may have had an impact on the outcome

00:17:03.420 of the election in certain ridings.

00:17:12.160 I think that's the point here.

00:17:14.260 We're not actually making a claim

00:17:16.000 that Justin Trudeau would have been out

00:17:18.520 and Aaron O'Toole would have been in.

00:17:19.880 And there were a number of other things in that election

00:17:21.860 that were driving voters than Chinese influence.

00:17:24.900 So again, I don't want you to misunderstand my point here,

00:17:27.420 but I think it is also very important

00:17:29.760 that the idea of influence

00:17:31.580 and the concrete examples that it's happening are part of the problem.

00:17:36.340 They are the problem, regardless of how successful it was.

00:17:39.880 So Justin Trudeau's approach has historically been,

00:17:41.960 well, you know, it didn't work, so it's not a big deal.

00:17:44.460 We can just move on from it.

00:17:46.220 Stephanie Levitz at the Toronto Star had a great piece this week,

00:17:51.280 or today actually, I think it came out, or maybe last night,

00:17:53.580 about how Conservatives debated going public with the election misinformation

00:17:58.800 and election influence warnings in 2021, specifically information that was spreading

00:18:05.660 within the Chinese diaspora in Canada, targeting conservative candidates that had been critical

00:18:11.180 of China. And they instead sent it to the intelligence officials. So they didn't decide

00:18:19.480 for whatever reason to make a public stink about this. Maybe that wasn't their strategy. That

00:18:23.660 wasn't the direction that we thought we were going to head as a party was effectively what

00:18:28.520 they were saying. But it sounds like, just reading through what Stephanie Levitz wrote here,

00:18:34.520 that the conservatives were seeing this happening in real time. And they had the choice of how they

00:18:41.920 should do it. And their internal deliberations were basically that they didn't want to raise

00:18:48.440 this issue and then have it blow back on them to look like, I don't know, they were race bathing 0.73

00:18:53.380 or something to look like they were being sore losers, whatever the case is. And if you read 0.92

00:18:58.660 through some of it, so that she has Stephanie Levitt's internal conservative memos, which had

00:19:03.660 examples of some of the Chinese language materials that were spreading in the election, misinformation

00:19:09.000 about Motul, misinformation about the conservatives. Some of these apps, there's an app called WeChat,

00:19:15.720 which believe it or not, when I ran for office in 2018, I used WeChat because we had a large number

00:19:21.040 of volunteers on my campaign who were of Chinese origin that were very critical of the regime.

00:19:27.700 They loved democracy. They loved Canada. They wanted to contribute. And WeChat is the app that

00:19:32.460 the Chinese community uses in Canada and in China. Now, of course, I deleted WeChat the second the

00:19:37.140 election was over because I did a little bit more reading into it and found that China was probably

00:19:41.320 looking at all of my messages. So they may have an Andrew Lawton brochure or two that they've

00:19:45.460 intercepted in which I say have at it. But on WeChat in these groups, it's like Telegram,

00:19:51.440 basically, they were seeing all of this information spread in the Chinese language and presumably

00:19:58.260 Mandarin, maybe Cantonese about the conservatives. And it just wasn't true. It just wasn't true what

00:20:05.360 was being said here. And O'Toole said he would ban WeChat. So, you know, clearly, if you're

00:20:11.920 communicating on WeChat, you might not like the conservative leader that's saying he's going to

00:20:15.400 ban that app. And what was also happening is that he had a hawkish stance in general on the Chinese

00:20:22.620 regime. And I think that what was interesting is that they all tried to draw a comparison

00:20:29.240 in these groups, the people that were critical of O'Toole, between O'Toole and Trump,

00:20:34.400 which I find to be hilarious because there are probably a lot of Trump fans that are saying,

00:20:38.320 I wish O'Toole were more like Trump. So some of this stuff is political discourse. It's not

00:20:43.960 misinformation, but other parts of this were. And certainly the campaign that was going after

00:20:50.840 Kenny Chu, I think was a very significant one that people needed to pay attention to. So

00:20:56.020 all of this is to say that this is an issue in Canada that you'd be foolish to not take 0.98

00:21:03.840 very seriously. And by that, I do not just mean China's influence in the 2021 election,

00:21:10.380 but China's influence in the 2025 election, China's influence in Canadian institutions

00:21:15.580 between elections, China's influence more broadly in Canada and on the world stage.

00:21:22.820 And it's offensive to me and should be offensive to anyone else who loves liberty and loves Canada,

00:21:28.880 that this is an issue that seems to attract so little interest from people that should be very

00:21:35.080 passionate and dedicated about it so what i'm gonna do and we're gonna have to move on from

00:21:41.800 this i i'm fortunately i'm being told we've been having some technical issues getting uh michael

00:21:46.360 cooper the member of parliament connected which is incredibly disappointing because i love michael

00:21:50.600 cooper and the last time i saw him uh was actually in albania where uh one always runs into conservative

00:21:57.320 members of parliament but he was there with a delegation for a conference uh that i was

00:22:01.320 covering. And I was hoping to reconnect with him, not in Albania, but this is not necessarily

00:22:06.480 happening right now. We're going to try to get him on in just a moment for a few minutes before

00:22:11.000 we go on to our next guest who is standing by. But one thing I will just say in closing on the

00:22:17.420 China issue is that we are going through a tremendous turn of, I think, public attention 0.94

00:22:26.020 right now you see the whiplash and I was actually glad to see the balloon issue in this country and 0.96

00:22:33.120 in the world pop up because no pun intended popping never mind uh but the reason is because

00:22:39.400 it showed just how fickle people is like at a certain point so if I mentioned balloon now

00:22:46.260 you're probably like oh yeah there was the balloon yeah the balloon thing but but you know again for

00:22:51.680 week everyone's looking at it and nowhere else and then you know you pass a week and people are

00:22:57.680 talking about something else and then next week they'll be talking about something else remember

00:23:00.800 coney 2012 remember when that was the big moral panic 11 years ago so we all look at the balloon

00:23:06.400 and then we move on and no one actually cares about why the balloon was there what china was 0.83

00:23:10.800 doing uh what china continues to do and this is why this stuff cannot be a flash in the pan but

00:23:16.160 you need leaders and media figures who are going to keep up the pressure on this so i don't expect 0.94

00:23:21.120 all of us to be the ones who solve this problem, but we can certainly point it to the people who

00:23:25.860 are supposed to. My sincere apologies to Michael Cooper for the issues here, but we're going to

00:23:31.320 try to get him on any moment now, or not today, but in general, when we can get our system

00:23:37.460 functioning. Maybe China is on the system. Maybe China is taking over the Andrew Lawton show. So 0.75

00:23:42.640 we're not getting any sponsorship money from them, I assure you. Let's talk about this story

00:23:47.960 out of Milton, Ontario, which is very troubling. And I always have to put an asterisk here because

00:23:55.880 sometimes you learn more facts about these cases later on that change your perception.

00:24:02.240 So I'm going on an issue here that is very much focused on a limited set of information. But

00:24:10.100 I think there's a fair bit of detail here to draw a conclusion about something that's happened that

00:24:16.020 I find to be very concerning. To go back to this night of February 19th, specifically 5 a.m.

00:24:24.680 February 19th, a group of suspects, the Halton police say, approached a house in Milton, Ontario

00:24:30.720 with the intent of committing a robbery. They entered the residence. At least one of them

00:24:35.860 had a firearm with them. And when they entered, they were confronted by a resident of the house

00:24:42.820 who had a firearm. Now, this person's lawyer says it was a registered gun, which he used to

00:24:49.360 shoot the intruder. It was him and his mother that were home. The people that broke in,

00:24:55.880 allegedly, at least one of them is facing charges of break and enter, as well as

00:25:00.220 unauthorized possession of a firearm. But the man who lived in that house, who took a gun out

00:25:07.260 to shoot the intruders has been charged with second degree murder. This is not an outlier.

00:25:15.320 There have been a number of cases in Canada where people have used firearms in self-defense,

00:25:20.140 which is legal, yet have still faced charges, even if they end up getting exonerated from the

00:25:25.860 charges that takes years. They lose their firearms. They use their firearms license.

00:25:31.220 They have to spend a huge amount of money in legal fees, and they do this while they are, in some cases, being treated more seriously than the criminals that they were responding to were.

00:25:44.920 So we'll talk about the specifics of the case, but I also want to talk in general terms about self-defense here.

00:25:49.660 Lawyer Sam Goldstein is with me now.

00:25:52.340 Sam, good to talk to you.

00:25:53.280 Thanks for coming on today.

00:25:54.780 Oh, you're welcome.

00:25:55.380 It's good to talk to you and see you again, Andrew.

00:25:57.880 I'm sorry.

00:25:58.580 I am not hearing you, Sam.

00:26:00.080 I'm just, that was on my end.

00:26:02.080 You're in the clear here.

00:26:03.880 I was paranoid we were having another Michael Cooper issue, 0.96

00:26:06.740 and then I would have blamed the Chinese government. 1.00

00:26:08.800 But thank you for joining.

00:26:10.720 Let's first just explain to me in the clearest possible terms,

00:26:15.140 what is the law in Canada about using a firearm in self-defense?

00:26:20.700 Yeah, well, simply put, I mean, you are able to use a reasonable amount of force

00:26:27.940 to protect a loved one, your property, yourself,

00:26:32.920 up to the point of lethal force.

00:26:35.980 That's as simple as I could put it.

00:26:37.840 It's all about the real black boxes in all the circumstances

00:26:42.860 and what's reasonable.

00:26:43.840 That's the real issue here.

00:26:45.480 And from what you told me, I was reading the story earlier,

00:26:48.120 and I didn't see the fact that one of the intruders,

00:26:51.080 or maybe even more than one intruder, had a firearm themselves.

00:26:54.460 I just saw that they had broken into the house.

00:26:57.200 Well, I should say they've been charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm.

00:27:00.520 So that's what I was drawing that from.

00:27:02.160 Right. So if they had a firearm, it seems to me it raises, you know, the circumstances a little bit more in favor of the of the person who's being charged.

00:27:12.680 Now, if someone's entering your home with a firearm, I guess it's some extent it depends upon what they were doing with that firearm.

00:27:19.180 Right. But if they were certainly pointing at the individual and threatening the individual,

00:27:24.960 even let's go further that they fired at the individual it would seem that you have the right

00:27:29.900 you know reasonable amount of force to protect yourself from firing back yeah and and i know

00:27:35.280 that there i mean the famous case that a lot of people uh certainly for me started paying attention

00:27:40.360 to this issue through the lens of was that one a few years ago in port colburn where a guy fired

00:27:45.500 warning shots because someone had basically firebombed his house and you know they burned

00:27:50.640 his dog's house down. I think he even singed his dog. He wasn't even shooting to injure anyone.

00:27:56.260 And this man is dragged through the ringer for years and years. There was a gentleman I interviewed

00:28:01.200 when I did a documentary about firearms in Okotok. Same idea. Someone's rummaging around his truck in

00:28:06.560 the middle of the night. He takes his firearms out. He shoots around at the ground. It ricochets and

00:28:11.820 hits one of the assailants. And then he's charged. And even though he's eventually exonerated,

00:28:16.500 it's the process is the punishment here so what i find to be troubling is how we have something that

00:28:22.980 is uh carved out in law that you're allowed to do that doesn't seem to stop these people from having

00:28:29.620 to really defend themselves against a charge well i mean let's just take i appreciate your point but

00:28:36.820 i mean let's just go back for a moment and look at a public policy perspective right you don't want

00:28:42.180 to allow any person to just simply say oh well they were coming into my house so i shot them

00:28:47.860 right i think you want the process to take place and i understand the punishment is the process

00:28:52.980 believe me i'm a criminal lawyer i understand that for my clients but i think they're i mean

00:28:57.940 i don't blame the the police in this instance or for any instance when there's a firearm being

00:29:03.220 discharged right to say well okay i know that's what you have to say and i know that i know it's

00:29:08.100 kind of funny here because the guy's in your home with the firearm you know and it's smoking and it

00:29:12.420 seems like he's discharged it against you but i think you know it makes some sense for the police

00:29:16.740 to initially say look we're going to charge you and we're going to let the process determine

00:29:21.380 what's the reasonable circumstances right now listen you know in this case andrew let's just

00:29:26.580 step back again for just a moment and look if this person was a lawful firearm owner

00:29:31.700 um then it would have been uh it would have been um you know there would have been locked

00:29:36.340 away somewhere right and his ammunition would have been locked away somewhere so it's a little

00:29:41.620 bit suspicious to me and i know nothing about the case other than what we've talked about is

00:29:45.940 if someone's coming into your home what i mean did he really have enough time to go and unlock

00:29:51.460 the ammunition and then unlock the firearm and load it right take maybe the safety lock off of

00:29:58.180 the fire uh yeah for for a handgun i mean just so people understand the storage laws for a handgun

00:30:03.380 it has to be double locked, basically.

00:30:05.640 So it has to be in a locked room or a locked case.

00:30:08.040 And then the firearm itself has to be locked.

00:30:10.340 And there are people that practice this, that could do that very, very quickly.

00:30:14.400 But there have been cases, I'm aware of, where someone has done it

00:30:17.960 and then police have said, well, there's no way you could have gotten it in time.

00:30:20.780 So we're going to charge you with unsafe storage and stuff like that.

00:30:23.480 So I agree.

00:30:24.540 But I guess my, and I take you at your point.

00:30:27.240 I mean, if police walk into a house and you're holding a gun,

00:30:30.100 there's a guy dead in front, you know,

00:30:31.960 it would be very convenient if just saying, well, it was self-defense was just an automatic

00:30:35.660 exoneration where there's no further action. But I don't know, is there a way that we could

00:30:43.240 better enshrine this and better educate police about it? Because I think a lot of the times

00:30:48.320 when you look at what charges are, I wonder if police necessarily know how you do have these

00:30:55.580 rights to defend yourself in all these contexts. I think often in these self-defense type of

00:31:00.620 provisions of the criminal code it's very hard to start trying to narrow like to further narrowly

00:31:07.120 define them i think the fact that they're broad and they allow the discretion and really hand over

00:31:12.140 that you know the reasonable circumstances that black box to figure out what's inside or what's

00:31:16.560 reasonable in the circumstances over to the court system rather than the police i mean i i tend not

00:31:22.020 to trust the police so i don't know if really defining it further is really going to help you

00:31:26.560 help you because they may use it against you at the same time but you know let's go to another

00:31:30.720 point if you don't mind andrew listen to me to take your conversation forward a little bit and

00:31:35.440 i think you have a really good point about the fact that when people get charged with this and

00:31:39.600 the guy on colbert he then has to reapply for his you know to get his what weapons back right

00:31:45.360 and i see that in many cases where you know economist domestic assault where someone in the

00:31:50.640 the end is acquitted um and they have to go through all these hoops to jump through to get

00:31:56.320 their firearms back the real issue i mean not the real issue but the problem is that the police

00:32:00.740 once they try and get your firearm and once they get their hands on them they don't want to give

00:32:04.840 them back and i think that's another issue that you're pointing out and it's a really important

00:32:09.600 one right that often what happens is you have to go through all types of applications to court and

00:32:14.960 so on to try and get your arm your firearms back when in the end you did nothing wrong

00:32:19.680 So, I mean, what is the process supposed to be?

00:32:23.380 Because what I would assume is that if your firearms are taken away from you in connection with charges,

00:32:28.620 that the second you are no longer facing those charges,

00:32:31.380 your firearms should just be automatically returned to your doorstep with a bow on them

00:32:35.440 and perhaps not an apology card, but they should be back in your possession.

00:32:39.580 Is that how it's supposed to be and it's just not functioning that way?

00:32:43.180 Or is there actually in the regulations a more convoluted process for people to reclaim that property?

00:32:50.060 Well, another very good question, Andrew.

00:32:52.240 I can see why you're an award-winning journalist.

00:32:55.100 Well, thank you.

00:32:56.200 I'm very popular.

00:32:57.340 I'm just having trouble getting the word out, but carry on.

00:32:59.140 Well, I mean, I'm right now in a situation where my client had a firearm.

00:33:04.140 He was charged with domestic assault.

00:33:06.040 They took away his firearms.

00:33:07.880 He's been acquitted.

00:33:08.860 and despite the fact he's acquitted and this sort of 30-day appeal period is over where the police

00:33:14.480 or the crown has a right to keep the you know the the um at least the the evidence well this

00:33:19.560 wasn't evidence i'm having a very hard time getting the firearms back police officers want

00:33:24.720 to return my calls you know so you know i've got to go to court make some sort of application

00:33:29.580 to get the stuff back and you can make phone calls up the chief of police people ignore you

00:33:34.280 So there isn't really a process, right?

00:33:37.320 And to some extent, they could probably charge a police officer with theft himself

00:33:40.980 because he's trying to convert it or trying to detain the release of it.

00:33:45.540 But, you know, those types of things aren't really going to go anywhere.

00:33:48.620 But it's a problem.

00:33:49.760 There's nowhere in the – there are sections of the criminal code

00:33:53.660 which will allow you to go and get exhibits back or evidence back.

00:33:58.300 But it's mostly sort of in documentary type of issues, not so much in real evidence.

00:34:03.140 but it's a situation where there is a bit of a gray area and where there's a gray area the police

00:34:07.960 aren't going to help you out they're not you're not they're not your friends and you can see

00:34:11.540 the poster behind me right you see the police officer with the uh half the smiley face and the

00:34:17.820 wings you know and he comes across as being an angel but the reality is is if you look closer

00:34:23.180 he's got the the gun the handcuffs and so on the police are not your friend i i i have to just i

00:34:31.580 I have to push back against, I think, that generalization.

00:34:34.840 I think that in general, law enforcement has a lot of problems.

00:34:38.140 I don't like painting all police officers with that brush

00:34:40.780 and even all police services with that brush.

00:34:42.960 I think some are better than others,

00:34:44.280 although this veers into a more philosophical discussion

00:34:47.560 that we should have at another point because I think it's an important one.

00:34:50.440 But let me just ask in general here about where the change would be made.

00:34:56.620 I mean, is this something that the federal government

00:34:58.900 could just pass a single line bill that says when you're acquitted of a charge or charges

00:35:04.460 are withdrawn, any property seized in connection with that is returned to you? Would that be

00:35:08.480 enough? Yeah, I mean, certainly you could put in the criminal code, but I think it's actually more

00:35:15.900 provincial issue because the local police are more falling underneath the province than the

00:35:21.860 federal government. But look, I haven't given a tremendous amount of thought. All I have is in

00:35:27.940 many in the 24, 25 years I've practiced as a lawyer,

00:35:31.300 I'm constantly coming against the problem

00:35:34.180 with how to get my client's firearms back

00:35:36.420 after they've been acquitted of their charges.

00:35:39.080 So it's an ongoing issue,

00:35:40.760 whether it would be an amendment

00:35:44.260 in the criminal code federally, maybe.

00:35:47.300 But the reality is, Andrew,

00:35:48.540 is what party in Canada

00:35:50.180 is going to amend the criminal code

00:35:52.440 to allow an individual to get a firearm back?

00:35:54.760 well exactly i mean theoretically the conservatives uh might but i i think they're

00:36:03.500 more focused on just stopping the new regulations that are coming in now i don't actually think

00:36:08.620 there is a huge political appetite when you start talking about anyone who's ever been charged

00:36:13.200 with a a crime in canada because it's not a group that on the surface is sympathetic even if

00:36:18.100 someone's been acquitted of charges or the charges were withdrawn whatever the case is

00:36:22.520 And I think that you're right to point that out, that it's very difficult and you have people that fall through the cracks as a result.

00:36:30.640 Yeah. But let me go back to your initial question now about the issue of this individual Milton man. Right.

00:36:36.520 And I think you have another very good point, which is if these laws aren't somehow bolstered or supported in the courts, right, then you get a bit of, what's the word, like a chill type of factor in terms of people who are defending themselves and they're wondering if they can lawfully defend themselves, then of course they may be injured in an attack upon them, right?

00:36:59.260 so you make a good point um it's important that we have these laws and maybe it is important to

00:37:04.140 some extent to try and um uh you know beef them up a little bit uh i'm not a politician so i don't

00:37:10.540 necessarily know how to go about that's why we like you yeah you know but you just ask questions

00:37:15.500 i just answer them but uh you know but i think but again to your point it's an important point

00:37:20.300 i think there has to be some beefing up so people feel more uh comfortable when they exercise their

00:37:25.500 their lawful right to defend themselves. Yeah, and I put that disclaimer at the beginning of

00:37:29.380 this discussion for a reason, that I don't know the facts of the case. You know, the police have

00:37:33.300 released a certain set of information, and I would say just as a result, as a related point,

00:37:38.180 that home invasions are very, very rare. I mean, home break-ins are common enough, but armed

00:37:44.080 robbery is not a very common phenomenon, and when it happens, almost always, it's the house of

00:37:51.180 someone that's known to the assailants, or it's the wrong house, but they were going after someone

00:37:55.100 specific so uh you can read between the lines there and and see that there may be additional

00:37:59.260 context that police have that they haven't revealed but i'm also very keenly aware of these

00:38:04.420 cases in the past where people that were legitimately using firearm and self-defense

00:38:08.560 have been charged i would say unfairly as a result so we'll certainly follow this uh sam

00:38:13.840 goldstein always a pleasure sir thanks for coming on today you're welcome good speaking to you all

00:38:18.520 right thank you that does it for us for today we will be back uh on we'll all be back on friday

00:38:23.840 with Fake News Friday

00:38:25.060 and then more of The Andrew Lawton Show next week. 0.52

00:38:28.180 And Michael Cooper, being a true mensch, 0.73

00:38:30.720 as my Jewish friends say, 0.98

00:38:32.600 has kindly offered to come back.

00:38:34.200 So he hasn't been put off

00:38:35.420 by whatever technical glitches befell this program.

00:38:39.700 And we look forward to his return.

00:38:41.240 That's all coming up next week on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:38:43.700 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:38:49.060 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:38:51.580 Support the program by donating to True North

00:38:53.720 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - February 22, 2023

Trudeau won't take China's election interference seriously

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