Juno News - Trudeau’s crumbling case against the Freedom Convoy (Ft. Ari Goldkind)

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome back to the show thank you for tuning in once again and i hope that you're

00:00:22.800 all doing well wherever you are and enjoying the fall wherever you are in the country

00:00:28.880 we're now into the second full week of hearings into the public inquiry into the emergencies act

00:00:35.040 now such an inquiry is automatically triggered when the act is invoked i've shared my initial

00:00:40.960 impressions of the public inquiry so far i wrote a column in my regular national post column

00:00:47.760 do check it out if you can in my opinion at the time of writing the government's rationale for the

00:00:54.560 emergency for invoking the emergencies act has fallen flat on its face based on the testimonies

00:01:02.400 of some key expert witnesses who have essentially disagreed with the official narrative that the

00:01:08.000 protesters were violent insurrectionists bent on overthrowing the justin trudeau government

00:01:15.680 um and i feel that with each passing day into the inquiry and more and as more and more testimonies

00:01:23.520 uh are heard uh the government's rationale uh the government's case for invoking the emergencies act

00:01:30.400 is looking extremely weak however i'm no lawyer and today i have a great guest with me um he is

00:01:38.080 a well-known attorney well-known criminal lawyer uh who's been on the show before ari goldkind um and

00:01:45.600 he is here to share with us uh his impressions uh and his professional judgment as a lawyer about what

00:01:53.360 we've learned so far from the public inquiry and where we're likely to go from here so please welcome

00:01:59.600 ari goldkind to the show so hey ari welcome back uh to my show it's great to have you here again and uh

00:02:07.120 today we're gonna talk about uh your thoughts on the um ongoing public inquiry into the use of the

00:02:14.160 emergencies act by the trudeau government this past february uh to get rid of the freedom convoy 0.98

00:02:20.320 protesters who uh had uh were in the city for almost three weeks protesting the vaccine mandates and other

00:02:28.400 pandemic restrictions so um it's great to have you here ari it's great to be with you rupa and i know

00:02:35.200 our last conversation about tamara leach being an enemy of the state i i saw how many people

00:02:40.320 watch that i think that's more of a compliment to you than me but i don't think i've gotten as much

00:02:45.600 positive feedback from an interview in 10 years of doing tv that has clips watched by millions of

00:02:52.240 people so it must mean you're doing something right and that was a great conversation and i'm

00:02:56.800 looking forward to this oh you're too kind ari i think you you were the real star there i just asked a

00:03:02.400 bunch of questions but uh you know you just uh it was it was what you were saying and it resonated

00:03:08.000 with a lot of people uh my my local noodle uh guy noodle uh chinese noodle place uh he recognized me

00:03:16.400 and he said oh i saw that show with that lawyer and uh so you're you're the real real celebrity here

00:03:22.480 are i i don't know that that's the case but i often get called that lawyer and i'll take that as a

00:03:26.880 call all right so so ari so we're going to talk about the public inquiry into the use of the

00:03:34.160 emergencies act we're now into the second full week of witness testimony and cross-examinations

00:03:41.120 at the inquiry i found it very striking that so far at least in my opinion there seems to be

00:03:48.320 very little support for the government's case especially from public officials uh and not the

00:03:54.560 politicians um but i want to get your view what do you think we've learned uh and not yet learned so

00:04:01.040 far in these first couple of weeks uh what's your general impression so i have a bit of a different

00:04:07.120 number of takeaways to me that jump out from the first week or two of this i don't think the things

00:04:12.560 i think are things most canadians turn their mind to or even talking about it basically comes from my

00:04:18.640 life as a criminal defense lawyer which i sometimes separate from the politics i mean anybody should hear

00:04:23.760 me go off about crime you know you'd be hard-pressed to think oh he defends people so my takeaways and

00:04:30.720 i'll give you the number one uh one group and then we'll get into some other ones the number one takeaway

00:04:36.800 for me of the last two weeks is that for canadians who are paying attention to this inquiry and i think 0.92

00:04:42.720 a lot are i think most aren't we're worried about inflation another stupid interest rate hike that's 0.83

00:04:47.280 going to take apart the middle class we're in the middle of a real problem in the western world right now 0.71

00:04:52.560 so i appreciate people are not distracted by the newest shiniest object there's a lesson to be

00:04:58.720 learned here that i don't think canadians are learning and that lesson is the importance of

00:05:04.000 cross-examination and i know that sounds a little bit boring or legal easy but let me try and explain

00:05:10.640 why to me that's what this emergencies act inquiry should be demonstrating to the canadian people we

00:05:17.200 don't have cameras in the criminal courtrooms canadian people didn't watch gomeshi's trial

00:05:23.680 and watch how people that were complete liars were decimated we're not watching the kevin spacey

00:05:29.840 trial where his accuser was decimated and the jury came back in an hour this is a man whose career was

00:05:35.840 destroyed we don't have cameras in the courtroom now what's the link with my answer to you on that

00:05:42.160 versus what canadian should be taking away here and this does tie into doug ford refusing to testify

00:05:49.600 i'm sure you're going to ask me about that later there is a connection here and much to your

00:05:55.120 audience's chagrin and i'm going to link this all together i have to give justin trudeau credit

00:06:01.440 for being willing to do what doug ford isn't willing to do we'll get to that because it ties into

00:06:07.360 the theme here of why this inquiry is important i don't think the result of it will be important

00:06:13.040 you certainly saw jagmeet singh basically act in the most ideologically dishonest way and say

00:06:19.280 even if it comes back that this should never have been invoked the government usurped

00:06:23.600 uh its power this was completely undemocratic freezing canadians bank accounts was horse manure 0.67

00:06:29.760 rounding people up and pretending they were violent was disgusting and kafka-esque 0.99

00:06:34.480 you see jagmeet singh go no no i want to stay in the hell in the halls of power there's all 0.52

00:06:38.880 connections here the reason i say i give justin trudeau some credit here is because he's willing

00:06:44.800 to be on the hot seat and my takeaway from the first two weeks is look at how we've come to all of

00:06:52.000 the answers where canadians are actually seeing that the emergencies act was a bit of a cluster you can

00:06:59.280 fill in the rest of it you have a an officer from the opp i think his name is pat morris i'm having a

00:07:06.320 brain cramp any canadian interested in this who's ideologically honest not tribalistic not partisan

00:07:16.240 should watch pat morris's testimony where he basically in one fell swoop decimated the rationale for

00:07:24.160 the invocation of the act and the point that i'm making to this and then i'm going to take it to a

00:07:29.440 little detail which i don't know how many of your viewers have seen they should watch it the clips are

00:07:33.600 out there where some disingenuous full of crap witness was testifying in english he had a bit of a 0.75

00:07:41.600 french accent but he's testifying in english he's more well-spoken than me and i'm a pretty well-spoken 0.96

00:07:47.360 guy but then he gets caught by one of the lawyers for the convoy people and he gets cross-examined

00:07:53.520 and the person running for mayor who lost the other day whispers to him answer in french answer in

00:07:59.440 french and the reason i mentioned cross-examination again just for people who don't understand why i'm

00:08:06.240 saying this is because we live in a country where there's a movement to do away with cross-examination

00:08:13.360 holding people to account not believing all women not believing all politicians cross-examination is

00:08:21.120 not rupa it is not standing at queen's park press gallery and deciding who you're going to take

00:08:27.840 questions from or saying the minister only has five minutes to answer two softballs every moment of

00:08:34.800 this inquiry has come because well-prepared well-skilled intellectually curious lawyers

00:08:45.760 are putting people on the hot seat and they don't get to get out of the chair like politicians do where

00:08:51.600 their assistant their young parliamentary assistant comes yank them and say oh the minister has a two

00:08:58.000 o'clock this to me is my number one takeaway that i don't think is going to be talked about enough there

00:09:04.560 is an actual camera in a quasi courtroom here justice rouleau is the former uh justice from the

00:09:11.120 court of appeal these are all lawyers that are trained litigation lawyers and the public needs to wake

00:09:17.440 up and here's the link back to the interview we did about tamara leach and the enemy of the state and

00:09:23.600 covet all roads lead back to the search for truth yeah the search for truth for two years has been put on

00:09:31.040 hold where you can't question anything you can't ask questions the science you're told is from fauci

00:09:38.080 and nobody else even though he gets everything wrong all of the time and twice on sunday

00:09:43.360 you're not allowed to ask questions doctors who have a good faith basis and hippocratic oath

00:09:49.600 we're not allowed to challenge the science the whole point of science rupa is that it's constantly

00:09:55.520 questioned and the emergencies act inquiry this is why i'm so passionate about what canadians

00:10:01.520 should be seeing don't worry about whether the the horns were honking or whether steve bell the

00:10:07.840 interim police chief butchers the term violence which was one of the most disingenuous moments in

00:10:13.280 the hearing again cross-examination steve bell who's a master linguist a very cunning linguist people

00:10:20.400 can get what i just said comes to the inquiry there you go comes to the inquiry and says well we had

00:10:29.120 all this intelligence i use that term loosely that people were going to be violent now there is no

00:10:35.120 violence here you can you can sit here i'll debate any listener who says differently yes the horn honking

00:10:41.120 was disgraceful no i'm not in favor of it no i don't not in favor of blockades just so people have full

00:10:46.960 disclosure but he comes and says there was violence and we were worried about violence and the cross

00:10:53.360 examination which wouldn't have happened if steve bell was at a press conference this is the key

00:11:00.240 if steve bell wasn't under cross-examination the following exchange wouldn't have happened well wait

00:11:05.120 a minute sir what kind of violence do you mean do you mean horn honking do you mean having trouble

00:11:11.360 walking down the street or do you mean criminal code defined violence i know i'm getting into the

00:11:17.760 weeds rupa but there's a point here and it's only it's only because the cross-examiner didn't accept

00:11:25.280 the pablum that steve bell who is again very good at doing this i've experienced it personally in cases

00:11:32.960 i've done with the ottawa police service where he's extraordinarily gifted at communicating but saying

00:11:40.720 actually nothing and when the cross-examiner the lawyer pushed back and said well wait a minute

00:11:46.640 you're here under oath do you mean violence like annoying people or do you mean violence as defined

00:11:52.480 in the criminal code remember he's a police chief he knows what violence is he resiles from it and goes

00:11:58.240 no no you're right i don't mean criminal code violence i mean the annoyance the intimidation the

00:12:04.080 yelling at people about masks why is that important rubel that's important because so much of

00:12:09.920 the subtext of this inquiry because you did ask me at the beginning what do i think about it i think

00:12:15.120 it's a bit of a kangaroo court i think it's a charade i think it's become partisan and political

00:12:20.400 freedom convoy people bad people in ottawa inconvenienced in the main drag of the main city in

00:12:26.960 the main province of the place that you're supposed they're they're all good that's what this has been

00:12:33.680 the smear of the right wing the white supremacist bullcrap i'm not going to swear on your air but all of 0.55

00:12:39.360 this has become partisan and the only reason we're we're seeing that the narratives don't add up

00:12:46.400 the pieces of the puzzle don't come together we'll see what trudeau does he'll probably be better than

00:12:51.120 people think he'll be but right now we have no justifiable theme other than we don't like the

00:12:58.720 freedom convoy people why this emergencies act needed to be invoked and all of the other powers of

00:13:06.000 the state couldn't that will lead me into a little bit of doug ford in the summons issue but let me

00:13:11.520 pause there that's my takeaway rupa of really what this act is about for canadians who look more deeply

00:13:19.280 into what they're seeing not just myopically at do i like the convoy do i not yeah no that's a great

00:13:26.480 summation ari of uh you know what what's happened so far it's uh it's excellent but um i will get to

00:13:34.400 doug ford in a in a little bit but uh but but do you think that so far the government's rationale for

00:13:41.360 invoking the emergencies act looks extraordinary just looks really really weak i mean they just uh

00:13:47.440 this was overreach if just putting it mildly so let's look at that and i like that term overreach one of

00:13:54.480 the things that has bothered me the most about this the fundamental lack of due process that

00:14:01.520 came into this and the way ordinary average canadians were treated if the use of the

00:14:07.120 emergencies act rupa full disclosure was limited to forcing the tow truck drivers who didn't really

00:14:13.520 want to yank out some of their friends in the big rigs of forcing that ottawa protest convoy whatever you

00:14:21.280 want to call it i'm not talking about the blockades those were being moved out coots and others even

00:14:27.520 certain provinces didn't think they needed the act to deal with that let's look at downtown ottawa because

00:14:33.040 you have people and lawyers making their living off of basically turning this into january 6th you've seen 1.00

00:14:39.680 people invoke that idiotic asinine absolutely ridiculous stupid comparison even though i think january 1.00

00:14:49.920 6th was a big nothing burger uh i have my own views about that i saw somebody on msnbc the other 1.00

00:14:56.000 day compare january 6th and say it was worse than 9 11. anybody who says that should be taken up to the

00:15:03.040 92nd floor of a burning building with no fire escape or root out and be forced to sit there and stew in it

00:15:10.400 i mean that literally anybody who makes that comparison the reason that i say that is because

00:15:17.360 if the emergencies act powers were granted in the most limited way the tow truck drivers were forced

00:15:25.440 go get rid of the big rigs line them up told maybe i'm okay with that but when you start freezing the

00:15:32.400 ordinary bank accounts the non-money laundering tax evading i mean this is a country where 27 million

00:15:40.160 people out of about 30 something pay taxes most evade taxes uh the money laundering in this country

00:15:46.800 is insane check the housing markets if you don't believe me if you're in vancouver toronto montreal

00:15:52.080 but when you have ordinary people giving 25 bucks or 50 bucks to a cause that they believe in to protest

00:15:59.520 mandates and lockdowns which look at where the science has us now just look at where the science

00:16:05.440 in quotation mark science trademark has us now that to me is where the emergencies act became disgusting

00:16:14.800 it wasn't limited in its scope it was an excuse for free land to go do what she wanted to do 1.00

00:16:20.800 in her plutocratic way which by the way is a betrayal of who she was 11 or 12 years ago as a journalist

00:16:27.440 she wrote her book so for me full disclosure i have trouble believing something was a terrible

00:16:35.920 crisis emergency in a civilized western country because a downtown part of ottawa was messed up

00:16:44.160 and look i sympathize with the people who had to hear the horns i do but when you have on the weekend

00:16:50.800 or week of the emergency being invoked in ontario let's not just call it canada in ottawa ontario but

00:16:57.200 the premier of the province is snowmobiling he's out snowmobiling i'm not knocking him more power to

00:17:04.800 him i wish i had a snowmobile but when you have the premier of the province in the middle of this dire

00:17:12.880 federal provincial emergency snowmobiling you can make all the intellectual ideological esoterical

00:17:21.040 of arguments that you want to me i have real skepticism that this needed to be invoked and who

00:17:26.560 backs me up on this a lot of the opp members who have testified so far so let's talk about doug ford

00:17:35.360 uh i believe that um that um that you know he would he and uh doug ford and sylvia jones and

00:17:42.960 she was a solicitor general at the time at the time yeah and she's the current health minister um

00:17:48.800 they've been summoned uh to testify at the emergencies act uh inquiry and uh and i i believe

00:17:56.080 ontario i mean this is breaking news from from earlier today has filed an application uh for judicial

00:18:02.320 review seeking to uh squash the summons um so let's let's talk about what you know why why do you think

00:18:12.560 that doug ford why do you think doug ford uh should be uh present at the inquiry um the attorney general

00:18:20.880 says in documents filed in the federal court that irreparable harm will occur if ford testifies can you

00:18:26.720 tell us could you explain to us what this harm would be and uh and and and of course the optics

00:18:33.360 of doug ford not testifying versus just a trudeau testifying sure so let me break it down for people

00:18:40.480 who hear judicial review stay of proceedings quashing a summons let's make it more easy to understand i

00:18:46.480 think it's important because these big words tune people out if i say quash judicial summons you know

00:18:52.880 everybody's eyes glaze over if i say kanye west everybody wakes up that's the shiny object world

00:18:59.200 that we live in so what's happened here is that anybody who underestimates doug ford's political

00:19:06.080 instincts does so at their own peril now doug ford has filed an application saying this is about what's

00:19:12.960 called parliamentary privilege which is if somebody in parliament such as a premier has to come before

00:19:19.920 a body and be cross-examined on how the sausage is made let's make it simple that that runs a problem

00:19:28.240 or an affront to the ordinary good workings of democratically elected officials that they won't

00:19:33.760 be able to speak freely do their business it will do damage to democracy now i think anybody hearing

00:19:39.280 me say that can probably say well i don't think that sounds all that compelling here here's the problem

00:19:46.240 the way the rules are written he's probably going to succeed in that challenge he's probably going

00:19:51.120 to succeed in having the summons quash there are rules about when parliament's in session uh not

00:19:58.800 parliament um the legislature you got to remember we're in ontario now there are rules about when it's

00:20:03.680 in session before and after somebody can't be compelled to do it no he's not going to go to jail

00:20:08.960 like steve bannon did for defying it what would be interesting to me is if the legislator

00:20:13.840 legislature actually drafted a motion saying he should go testify that would be really interesting

00:20:19.920 to me that the legislature itself passes something but he is probably going to be able

00:20:27.920 to get a court to agree that there's some kind of error of law here because the rules are clear

00:20:33.760 he can't be compelled to do it now whether i'm right or wrong on that and i'm hoping that i'm wrong by

00:20:40.080 the way i don't often hope i'm wrong i'm hoping i'm wrong the optics of this are really really

00:20:46.000 interesting and where does it take us back to rupa he and i've not spoken to him but i don't throw

00:20:52.320 him under the bus i think he's a lot more clever than people give him credit for okay he understands

00:20:58.160 that whatever he he's going to take being called a coward by people in ottawa somebody offered to drive

00:21:03.600 him there some mp or mpp offered to like literally pick him up like an uber and take him he understands

00:21:10.800 and you'll remember where this answer is going where he said he shouldered a shoulder

00:21:15.760 with prime minister trudeau the other day remember he said i stand as the guy who funds this province

00:21:21.600 or vice versa arguably was standing behind him he doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him

00:21:27.680 so the op the optics of being called the coward or the judicial state he has made a decision that

00:21:37.040 it's much more politically expedient for him to go this way and be called a bunch of names

00:21:42.880 some of them may be fair i think he'd be the first to say look i'm a man of the people but i can't come

00:21:47.280 testify before the people think through that i mean people always say and i was talking about this with

00:21:52.640 anthony fury the other day he's a man of the people he's a populist you know maybe rob ford was a

00:21:59.200 little bit more of that doug ford is a very wealthy man lived most of his life in chicago he's a

00:22:06.080 millionaire many times over i know he looks the part of you know the bob and doug guy at an arena but

00:22:12.960 he's really you know you know people say the new prime minister unelected in in britain you know is

00:22:20.160 the goldman sachs guy and married to the million you know if you're not a working person it's very

00:22:26.880 easy to say you're a working person and a man of the people and have a barbecue and a picnic

00:22:31.840 where a bunch of people show up because you're kind of famous it's another thing

00:22:37.520 to have the calculation to say look i know there's an inquiry i know i'm the premier of the province

00:22:42.880 where the emergencies act was invoked i know the opp it's not called the rcmp the opp was critical to

00:22:52.320 the decision making that went into the act he knows in my view he knows exactly what happened here

00:23:01.200 i believe and look i would say this to him respectfully he knows this wasn't an emergency

00:23:06.080 he knows this could be dealt with otherwise i don't think he wants to go be cross-examined because again

00:23:11.840 he's never been cross-examined the experience is one he does not want he has made that calculation

00:23:18.480 with the support of some law i don't want to spend time on it it's kind of boring but he could very

00:23:24.640 very easily have said i don't care whether there's privilege or not the argument that if i talk about

00:23:29.440 whether this act should have been invoked as the as the head of the province that's somehow going to

00:23:34.320 make the business of parliament be destroyed that's horse manure to me the point of the story

00:23:42.160 and why again this matters to me is because we're living through a climate group and i think there's

00:23:48.400 a bigger story here there's midterms coming up in the states right where we have a problem with

00:23:53.520 accountability in this world that's a really important word to me we have a problem with somebody

00:23:59.680 taking responsibility have any heads rolled because of the withdrawal from afghanistan no have any heads

00:24:06.400 rolled in the military industrial complex because we're pissing billions of dollars away on the

00:24:11.280 ukraine no are any heads going to roll because covid lockdowns mandates children's schools have any of

00:24:18.800 that those people being held accountable no because they're almost always on the left or the far left

00:24:24.880 doug ford says well there's two senior officials and a bunch of cops that can answer everything

00:24:32.320 are they as accountable as the leading democratic figure in the province that's where the story

00:24:40.720 becomes more interesting to me and what will be interesting to me is to whether ford's own base ford nation

00:24:47.520 cares a lick about this because to me you're if you're brave you testify if you've got something

00:24:57.120 to hide you don't it's got nothing to do with parliamentary privilege he knows the cross-examination

00:25:03.360 for him would either be his worst day because he doesn't want to say what he really thinks or he could

00:25:10.160 surprise us all if he's there and go you know what i'm not gonna kiss posterior i don't think this

00:25:16.800 should have been done i think the protesters were yahoos but there were other ways opp rcmp other

00:25:25.280 people to do it and the point that i want to close on on this so people understand i'm not partisan i

00:25:30.800 look at any issue and decide whether i think it's right wrong fair or not if justin trudeau can testify

00:25:38.240 the prime minister who literally has never been cross-examined and i think he will do better than a

00:25:45.760 lot of people think he will i really think people underestimate what he will do at his own peril

00:25:52.000 i give justin trudeau credit even though the inquiry is federal and people don't need to write

00:25:56.720 an email say it's federal it's this i i get but for justin trudeau to be willing to do it to get on the

00:26:03.040 hot seat where he will have convoy lawyers where this is the case of their life this is the cross

00:26:08.960 examination of their life this is the only way they're ever going to get on cbc city tv true north

00:26:15.200 youtube for justin trudeau to do it rupa and doug ford to be taking this albeit probably successful

00:26:23.520 path that troubles me not only as a person interested in transparency and accountability

00:26:30.000 it troubles me as an ontarian because i happen to live in ontario as well yeah i i fully agree with

00:26:38.720 you i yeah the optics of this look terrible for doug ford maybe this political expediency uh maybe comes

00:26:46.480 out of this uh comes ahead uh uh politically but i i don't see how that's that's going to be the case

00:26:53.520 maybe he's just uh you know the fact that he doesn't have to fight an election for a while

00:26:58.880 right that that's a huge it's a huge huge part of it rupa that's why i say because if he was sitting

00:27:03.920 here i wouldn't be saying any of this any differently than if he was sitting next to you i would say this

00:27:10.160 directly i i have an admiration for somebody who looks down the road sees the forest through the 0.99

00:27:15.280 trees he's going to be teflon this will not matter when some moron on the far left runs against him and 0.98

00:27:23.120 whenever the next election is he's made that calculation much better to do it through the 0.98

00:27:28.320 lawyers through the judicial review than having moments caught live on tape to use an old phrase

00:27:35.280 where he's tripped up on a question he says something that's demonstrably provably wrong

00:27:40.000 he's making a very very wise decision i would probably if i knew the details which i don't but if i

00:27:48.080 knew how the sausage was made i if i was his counsel probably give him the same advice which

00:27:54.560 is worse for you doing this through the lawyers letting it pass worrying about inflation talking

00:28:00.160 about crime handguns hunting rainy river uh the bus to this uh lrt subways or being literally under oath

00:28:10.800 and cross-examination where you can't get out of it and there may be a clip or two in this youtube 0.98

00:28:17.360 15 second youtube doug ford destroyed doug ford undressed all of these stupid things that become 0.99

00:28:23.920 viral i don't think he's making a stupid decision i'm not saying it sits well with me yeah but you 0.98

00:28:30.320 know you have to think a little higher level than all the people calling him a coward today that's not 0.99

00:28:35.440 gonna do anything

Juno News - October 28, 2022

Trudeau’s crumbling case against the Freedom Convoy (Ft. Ari Goldkind)

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