Juno News - November 03, 2022


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


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

165.2994

Word Count

5,165

Sentence Count

353

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 If the Emergencies Act powers were granted in the most limited way, the tow truck drivers
00:00:06.220 were forced, go get rid of the big rigs, line them up, tow, maybe I'm okay with that.
00:00:13.140 But when you start freezing the ordinary bank accounts, the non-money laundering, tax evading,
00:00:20.740 I mean, this is a country where 27 million people out of about 30 something pay taxes.
00:00:25.360 Most evade taxes. The money laundering in this country is insane. Check the housing markets if
00:00:31.460 you don't believe me if you're in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal. But when you have ordinary
00:00:36.000 people giving 25 bucks or 50 bucks to a cause that they believe in to protest mandates and
00:00:43.080 lockdowns, which look at where the science has us now. Just look at where the science in quotation
00:00:48.840 mark, science trademark, has us now. That to me is where the Emergencies Act became disgusting.
00:00:57.460 It wasn't limited in its scope. It was an excuse for Freeland to go do what she wanted to do
00:01:03.320 in her plutocratic way, which by the way, is a betrayal of who she was 11 or 12 years ago.
00:01:09.380 As a journalist, that too.
00:01:10.920 As she wrote her book. So for me, full disclosure, I have trouble believing something was a terrible
00:01:18.420 crisis emergency in a civilized Western country because a downtown part of Ottawa was messed up.
00:01:27.180 And look, I sympathize with the people who had to hear the horns. I do. But when you have on the
00:01:33.100 weekend or week of the emergency being invoked in Ontario, let's not just call it Canada,
00:01:37.780 in Ottawa, Ontario, but the premier of the province is snowmobiling. He's out snowmobiling. I'm not
00:01:46.060 knocking him more power to him. I wish I had a snowmobile. But when you have the premier of the
00:01:51.520 province in the middle of this dire, federal, provincial emergency snowmobiling, you can make
00:02:00.140 all the intellectual, ideological, esoterical arguments that you want to me. I have real skepticism
00:02:07.580 that this needed to be invoked. And who backs me up on this? A lot of the OPP members who
00:02:14.280 have testified so far.
00:02:32.500 So just shifting gears a little bit, Ari, what do you think of the conduct of the inquiry so far?
00:02:40.520 What do you think of Justice Rouleau's handling of this? Do you think he's coming across as fair-minded
00:02:47.000 and impartial to you?
00:02:48.420 I think it's too early to say. I mean, look, he's a justice of the Court of Appeal. He's used to being
00:02:52.980 fair-minded and impartial. I do think that this has too much of a tinge of politics. Freedom convoy,
00:03:00.560 bad. Residents of Ottawa, good. Lawyers for Ottawa residents, good. And fighting justice and sort of
00:03:09.260 Superman versus freedom convoy people and lawyers, bad and Lex Luthor-like, that's not what the
00:03:17.120 invocation of the Emergencies Act is about. It's not about whether you like either side. I've made
00:03:24.280 this point repeatedly. I would be saying the same thing if this was a Black Lives Matter protest.
00:03:30.800 I'm not a fan of that violence. Sorry, let me use the Seinfeld not that there's anything wrong
00:03:36.700 with an addendum. The mostly peaceful protests that you always have to say. I don't care if it
00:03:43.340 was some far-left Antifa protest. If it was on the streets of Ottawa, in downtown, there wasn't
00:03:50.320 violence. There was freedom of expression, freedom of assembly. These charter rights that used to matter
00:03:56.480 or in today's day and age, the freedom to not be offended. That seems to be now like in the Bill
00:04:02.520 of Rights or the Charter is that I can't say anything that offends you. Well, if I can't say
00:04:06.900 anything that offends you, there is no free speech. There is no freedom of expression. So back to your
00:04:12.880 Justice Rouleau question. I think it's too soon to know. I think he's going to do his best to do his
00:04:20.160 best. But no judge descends from the mountaintops, Rupa. They're not immune to the politics,
00:04:27.600 the partisanship, the pressure of the day, the idea that one side is light, the other side is dark.
00:04:35.800 I always use a very cliché term, the other shoe test. If you don't think that X should happen
00:04:44.800 because you don't like X, substitute them with Y. If it was a protest, if Trump was the Prime Minister
00:04:53.600 of Canada and he flew in in his West Palm Beach 757 right into Sussex Drive and landed improperly
00:05:03.560 without permits and 50,000 people with special pink hats did the very same thing with Priuses and
00:05:11.320 Subarus and blocked up those streets in Ottawa and did all the noise and dances and megaphones and all
00:05:19.480 of that, would the very same people say that Canada for the first time in its history should have invoked
00:05:26.420 the Emergencies Act because the OPP, the RCMP, the politicians provincially, federally and municipally
00:05:33.920 were so feckless to these people with their bouncy castles or these weird charges that Tamara
00:05:40.920 Leach charges and all of these things that Justice Goodman, Justice Goodman, go back to our last
00:05:46.800 conversation for anybody who thinks this is just my view, talking about some of these charges and
00:05:53.140 how politically motivated they are. If you don't think it should be good for the goose,
00:06:00.580 you have no business thinking it's good for the gander. That being said, as you and I speak,
00:06:06.740 this is not over. There's a long way to go. I'm worried that the report will be bureaucratic speak.
00:06:14.080 I'm worried that the conclusion of the report will be so judicial, so deferential to government,
00:06:20.760 so deferential to the choices they had at the time being, we don't look at things in hindsight.
00:06:27.360 I have a feeling that will be part of the decision, which will render the whole point of the inquiry
00:06:33.100 moot. We absolutely must look at things in hindsight, and I think there will be a tremendous
00:06:40.200 amount of deference from Justice Rouleau to the liberal powers of the day, the Prime Minister
00:06:47.960 Freeland and her Deputy Prime Minister Trudeau. I think there will be a tremendous amount of...
00:06:53.820 No, no, I did that on purpose.
00:06:55.160 Okay.
00:06:55.720 That wasn't a misspeak. I did that on purpose. I think that there will be a tremendous amount
00:07:02.900 of deference. There often is in these kinds of cases, Rupa. It wouldn't be new. If the facts
00:07:11.360 lead us to Justice Rouleau... Let me add a moment of levity. I'm a WWF, WWE fan. Stone Cold Steve Austin
00:07:20.440 used to say, open a can of whoop-ass. If Justice Rouleau heard enough to say, look, this is so
00:07:26.300 serious, so much of an infringement and a front to the rights of ordinary average Canadians, the way
00:07:32.320 these people have been smeared, the bank accounts, the lack of due process, the ex parte this, the ex
00:07:37.740 parte that means without notice. If Justice Rouleau thought that, I'd be very shocked to see him write
00:07:45.060 that. And I think that's going back to what I said at the beginning of Jagmeet Singh going, well,
00:07:50.300 I'll have to see what the report says. Even if maybe the act shouldn't have been done, or maybe
00:07:55.220 we had other options, I just have to see how it's written before I decide to part ways with Mr. Trudeau.
00:08:02.360 Well, he actually said that even if the report concludes that...
00:08:06.840 His words. His words were a little bit nuanced. I have to read it first.
00:08:10.540 Okay.
00:08:10.860 He's a former criminal defense lawyer, Jagmeet Singh. People forget that. I used to see him in court.
00:08:16.020 Okay.
00:08:16.860 Now, he's gone on to bigger and better and greener pastures, muzzle-tove to him.
00:08:20.840 But that's because I'm worried about getting a 700-page report here that basically just,
00:08:29.560 even if he says there were other options or whatever, I have a feeling it will be so deferential
00:08:35.040 that both sides will be able to claim victory. And to me, that will render the whole point,
00:08:40.280 the expense. This is a very expensive process. I mean, everybody's in hotels. Everybody's there.
00:08:45.860 Everybody's there in person. Lawyers, this. Remember, they didn't want to pay for the convoy
00:08:49.340 lawyers, which was horse manure. They had to go to court to get those monies opened up. That tells
00:08:54.180 you something about this. That's an interesting point for another day, which is that you were going
00:08:58.840 to have all the money in the world for the government lawyers, but the convoy people had to beg to have
00:09:05.240 some of their money made available to them to defend themselves. Think that.
00:09:09.020 Well, I didn't know this. So can you.
00:09:11.540 Yeah. So this was a big, big story. It didn't get talked about enough, which is, it's sort of like,
00:09:17.960 you know, I don't want to be too long here. I don't know how much time we have left, but
00:09:20.660 you know, if the state charges Rupa or one of Rupa's viewers today with a crime, let's say you get
00:09:27.680 charged with a crime. Let's make it an easy crime. He said, she said, somebody says Rupa did X.
00:09:32.520 You get charged criminally. Well, Rupa, you make a little bit too much money. There's nothing to do
00:09:38.560 with what you make. You have to be way, way, way, way below the poverty line to get a lawyer paid for
00:09:44.380 for you. The government will have endless resources to prosecute you. Endless, endless prosecutors,
00:09:51.440 endless police, endless time in court, all on the salary fully paid. You will have to pay me.
00:09:58.100 And I assure you, I'm pretty expensive to get you out of this. Now, why do I make that link? You may
00:10:05.280 be completely innocent and you would like to defend yourself. And in a liberal democratic world,
00:10:11.700 it's supposed to be a fair fight. Well, the only way it can be a fair fight is if you basically
00:10:18.240 bankrupt yourself to fight back. Look at Danny Fortin. Anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about,
00:10:23.820 look at the machinery of the state against Danny Fortin, the army person charged with sex assault.
00:10:29.840 He's been bankrupted by his legal fees. It was a charge from 34 years ago. He's led an exemplary
00:10:36.340 life since. His cross-examination is showing there's real problem, but he's bankrupted from it.
00:10:41.640 He can't get hired, can't get a job. What's the point I make? At the Freedom Convoy or Emergencies Act
00:10:48.100 Inquiry, the government was going to have reams of lawyers, all the money in the world. By the way,
00:10:53.680 Rupa, paid for it by you and me. Yeah, of course.
00:10:56.620 The convoy people who have obviously skin in the game and a huge stake in this,
00:11:02.780 they were told they can't access the money they've raised. It was frozen via court injunction. Remember
00:11:10.480 hundreds of thousands of dollars raised? Yeah. It was frozen. That side didn't want them to have
00:11:17.920 money to be able to pay their lawyers to fight back. Think that through. Ordinary average Canadians
00:11:24.620 sent money to the Freedom Convoy people so that they would be able to afford legal representation.
00:11:32.080 So they weren't sitting there firing questions off because self-represented people or people who aren't
00:11:37.120 lawyers, they're not going to do well at this. I know people watch too much TV and see the moron
00:11:41.620 wanting to defend themselves. It never goes well. And so they had to go to court and seek an injunction
00:11:47.580 to get their own money back to level the playing field, to have legal representation, to do justice
00:11:54.400 to their cause. And the point throughout our discussion this week is if you look at the cross
00:12:00.040 examination done by people adverse in interest, adverse in interest to the government's use of
00:12:07.280 the emergencies act, you couldn't have done that without legal representation. The idea that they
00:12:12.720 had to fight to access their own money, their own money raised by their own donors was a story that got
00:12:21.140 very little attention. It came and went, but it bothered me very, very significantly as a citizen and as a
00:12:28.420 citizen. This has been bothering me for a while, Ari. What do you think of officials, politicians,
00:12:36.660 and even Chief Bell yesterday or the day before, when these people characterize the protests as
00:12:45.560 occupation and the protesters as occupiers, shouldn't they be sticking to technical legal language or
00:12:53.120 neutral language when it comes to something as big as this, which ended up being very, very polarizing?
00:13:03.680 What do you make of the fact that Chief Bell refers to the protests as occupation and the
00:13:11.880 protesters as occupiers? It almost seems like he already has his mind made up and he has an angle
00:13:20.420 here. Well, he does. He does have an angle here. He's made his own bias well known that he thinks
00:13:25.680 he needed the act and, you know, he couldn't have done it without it. But I'm going to answer your
00:13:30.400 question, Rupa, and you know when you have me on, you may get answers that you may not like and that
00:13:34.400 your audience may not like and you're well aware I don't care. I actually don't have a problem
00:13:40.340 with that term. I think he uses it because nobody's going to push back and he can,
00:13:45.920 because Freedom Convoy, bad. Citizens of Ottawa, police, good. Trudeau government, good. Freedom
00:13:53.340 Convoy, leech, conservative people, bad. White supremacist, misogynist, racist, to quote our
00:13:59.920 Prime Minister. So Steve Bell knows he has cover for that. The media is not going to push back
00:14:04.600 on that term. So he can use it with impunity. Imagine if it was a Black Lives Matter protest,
00:14:10.800 same cause, same way of doing it. Again, maybe not in big rig trucks, but same way. Park downtown,
00:14:18.640 not going anywhere. Do you think he'd call Black Lives Matter protesters occupiers? No chance. Do
00:14:24.400 you think if it was an Indigenous protest about residential schools or money or this, do you
00:14:30.360 think he'd call them that? Not a chance on the planet. But here's why my answer may run afoul with
00:14:36.680 the audience. And again, I don't care. They did occupy downtown Ottawa. It's a plain and ordinary
00:14:42.660 word. They were told to leave. They didn't. There were injunctions to leave. They didn't. They made it
00:14:48.480 clear that they're staying. Whether they should or shouldn't, that's probably a longer discussion for
00:14:53.280 today. If they shouldn't have been in downtown Ottawa, by the way, where should they be? Moose Jaw,
00:14:59.760 Saskatchewan, rainy river. If you want to protest the federal government and the federal government
00:15:07.200 destroying the country with mandates and nonsense about the vaccines. Again, I'm not an anti-vaxxer.
00:15:13.920 I'm vaccinated. Full disclosure, so nobody gets it. But if you didn't have the view that people should
00:15:19.060 be fired or lose their jobs because they don't want to take a jab that didn't prevent transmission
00:15:24.000 or infection, where should that protest happen in a free and democratic society? Again, if it
00:15:32.220 shouldn't have been in downtown Ottawa, by the way, the protest was effective. We keep forgetting in all
00:15:38.440 of this noise that the protest was effective. So many of these lockdowns, mandates, and rules changed
00:15:46.600 at the time of the convoy for right after. They won't admit it. And I see you nodding. So I think this
00:15:53.340 point brings some recollection back to you back to earlier this year. But nobody talks about that.
00:15:59.180 This wasn't an ineffectual protest. They didn't burn down police stations. They didn't burn down
00:16:05.040 Wendy's. They didn't shoot people. They didn't fight people. Everybody forgets that this was an
00:16:11.880 actually peaceful protest. Yes, you can mail me and say, oh, there were a number of charges and
00:16:17.380 weapons charges and mischief. I don't care. I think that's an ideologically pedantic argument.
00:16:23.340 But the point is, to your question, when he calls them occupiers, and again, he is a master
00:16:29.560 linguist for all of the reasons we've discussed. I'm not going to use the other term. It is completely
00:16:35.200 fine with me that he calls a spade a spade. My point to you is, it's fine that he called them that.
00:16:43.060 They weren't going anywhere. They were occupying downtown, just like Occupy Wall Street, Occupy this.
00:16:48.120 But there's no chance he would have used that term if it was a group on the left or far left. Now,
00:16:54.500 he'd never agree with me if he was here. But I must say, Rupa, in full answer to your question,
00:17:00.620 trying to be straight with every discussion I have, the use of that word does not bother me.
00:17:05.560 Yeah, no, I agree with you, Ari. I mean, occupying the streets of Ottawa, I have no problem with that
00:17:10.720 with that sentence. But I think what's happening here is that they're using this term in a denigrating
00:17:17.140 way, in a way that almost represents these people as outsiders, like an invading army.
00:17:23.060 So let me stop you. That's a good point. And that brings us to something that reflects the contempt
00:17:28.420 that we now see in Canadians. OK, I'm going to say this very clearly. And again,
00:17:33.680 you wrap me up whenever you want. I'm good. But I think you hit something that's very important.
00:17:38.240 When words like that are used, Rupa, and I feel very passionate about this. And nobody knows what
00:17:43.600 I really feel about the protests. Nobody knows. But when you use terms, I think occupant is more
00:17:50.840 benign maybe than you do. I think there are other terms used by the prime minister that these people
00:17:57.260 are white supremacists. If race had anything to do with it, I mean, look at the trucking industry.
00:18:03.640 Anybody need an explainer, an update on whether the trucking industry is white anymore? I mean,
00:18:11.060 just go to your Google machine and figure it out. Or if you're anti-lockdown or anti-vax or thinks your
00:18:17.240 kids should be in school and not becoming terrible at math and no social skills and not able to read
00:18:23.400 people's faces and visual cues and have friends and have outside time and not be glued to an iPad,
00:18:29.600 you're somehow now a misogynist, a racist, a white supremacist. There is from the highest powers
00:18:38.000 in this country, Rupa, there is, and they get rewarded for it. So don't get me wrong. It's a
00:18:44.140 political calculation. There is a war on certain segments of the middle class. It is open. It is
00:18:51.460 not hidden. There is a contempt for the ordinary average, more historically Canadian, take your kid
00:19:00.640 to hockey, go to Tim Hortons, work a couple jobs, maybe in manufacturing, maybe in your local town,
00:19:08.960 maybe you're not in IT, maybe you're not working at Intel, or something like that. There's a contempt
00:19:17.080 in this country for the people who make this country and made this country, whether you're an
00:19:23.120 immigrant and working 18 hours a day, whether you're black, whether you're Indian, there is a
00:19:29.720 contempt for people who are not insane, for people who are not woke. It is so easy, and you always see
00:19:37.140 the term white supremacist being dragged about in a country that the census yesterday described as a
00:19:43.340 quarter immigrant, none of them, by the way, 10% from Europe, down from 65%. This is a country that
00:19:50.180 is no longer white or run in that way, or white supremacist. Look at the people calling it out.
00:19:55.600 They're the people in the highest echelons of power. And so the reason that I want to say that
00:20:00.640 is because it's easy to go after the people that were in Ottawa. They're easy targets, nobody will
00:20:07.500 fight back for them, because they're worried about being called a name. And I'll make this point, which
00:20:12.440 you will say is a non sequitur, but I follow news around the world. If you look at the states, if you
00:20:18.220 look at Biden, if you look at the midterm races, there's only one race you can go after and say it's
00:20:25.200 evil. If you watch MSNBC, there's only one race you can go after and say it is evil. All of the
00:20:31.560 flyover people in Oklahoma, Arkansas, the Midwest, you can insult all of those people to your heart's
00:20:38.980 content, say anything about any other race, any other religion, any other minority, you're done.
00:20:44.400 You're toast. Why do I make this point? Look at what happened at the hurricane in Florida. You'll say,
00:20:49.820 what does that have to do with the Emergencies Act, to your point, about Steve Bell's language?
00:20:54.100 Look at the response from Ron DeSantis to the hurricane. Causeways destroyed, homes destroyed,
00:21:01.560 bridges torn out, everything destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Floridians of all voting persuasions,
00:21:10.000 their retirement, their homes, everything wiped out. Look at the response in the days after the
00:21:16.540 hurricane. Did you see Priuses showing up to fix the power grid? Did you see people in
00:21:24.080 Subarus showing up to fix the power grid? Did you see far left teachers from New York City
00:21:31.080 showing up to fix the power grid and fix the bridges? No. It's the Americans who have long been forgotten,
00:21:39.080 the guys with beards, the women that want to have children and have them get a great education,
00:21:44.880 the people that drive pickup trucks, the people that get up at six in the morning with a lunch pail,
00:21:51.880 go to work, don't get home till nine. They don't make a million off their 401k. They're never going
00:21:58.460 to run for office. They don't live on Twitter, Rupa. They're out trying to just be a decent person,
00:22:05.620 decent breadwinners, trying to get by on two jobs, shopping at Walmart. I know you may say,
00:22:10.900 and I understand why people say, what does that have to do with what we're talking about?
00:22:14.260 It takes me right back to the convoy, the Emergencies Act inquiry, the use of the term
00:22:20.420 occupier, what Justin Trudeau called them, rather than saying, they're as Canadian as you and me,
00:22:27.900 even if they don't believe in this globalist, not conspiracy, this globalist agenda,
00:22:34.160 where every move we make always seems to have a disproportionately terrible effect on the middle
00:22:41.960 class and the hardworking and the taxpaying. But somehow the Jeff Bezos's, the Mark Carney's,
00:22:49.560 the Krista Freeland's, and the Justin Trudeau's born with a silver shovel in his mouth,
00:22:55.000 they always tend to do much better. Is that just a coincidence, Rupa? I think not. That's why I think
00:23:02.340 you have to take the language that they use to describe ordinary average Canadians who are just
00:23:09.060 trying to skate by. And you compare that to the actual reality of what you can and cannot say in
00:23:16.260 this country. And to me, it's greatly depressing, if not offensive. Yeah, well, that was brilliant. I
00:23:24.440 mean, I wanted to end on that, but I'm dying to get your take. This is a final question to you.
00:23:32.340 You know, you touched upon, towards the end, you touched upon the official narrative, so to speak.
00:23:38.900 Where do you see that today? What is the state of this official narrative
00:23:43.740 today based on what we've heard so far from the public inquiry?
00:23:49.800 In terms of where I think it's going, where I think it is, just help me understand so I answer
00:23:53.940 your question better. Yeah. In terms of where it is today, given that the official narrative,
00:23:59.100 at least in large sections of the legacy media, was very, very anti-protest and that they were a bunch
00:24:06.520 of violent insurrectionists. And they were basically towing the government line on the narrative
00:24:14.740 on the protests. But, you know, you mentioned Pat Morris. Pat Morris basically, you know, discredited
00:24:23.660 this narrative last week when he gave his testimony. So I'm just wondering where this,
00:24:31.080 I feel like that the official narrative is crumbling bit by bit. And I suspect it's just
00:24:37.780 going to get worse for that narrative going forward. And I wonder if you share that view.
00:24:43.880 My prediction, and up until now, is you're right again. And I'm glad we talked about Morris.
00:24:49.100 For people who are watching us, and I hope people are watching us, for people who are watching us,
00:24:55.460 when we're done, because you can't leave until Rupa and I are done, you really should go find
00:25:00.620 Pat Morris's testimony. It's really worth watching. I know it's not exciting. I know it's not a shiny
00:25:08.200 new object. But if you're really a person of deep conscience in this country, go find the clips of
00:25:14.780 him answering those questions. To your question of where it's going, I think it is crumbling.
00:25:21.000 I never thought it was that strong to start with Rupa. So I think we're starting with sort of a
00:25:26.000 straw man or a glass house. Okay. So I have to say, I never thought it had constitutional or
00:25:32.620 foundational footing. If it did, the narrative would have been much clearer, not this Jenga mix
00:25:39.860 of building blocks and Legos that don't match. And Peter can't speak to Paul and the right hand
00:25:45.760 doesn't speak to the left. Remember, we're talking about an extraordinary act. We are not talking about
00:25:53.560 something that, you know, every four or five years comes to play, or something that every 10 or 15
00:25:58.780 years, somebody so annoying that we have to invoke this document. Okay. We're not talking about that.
00:26:04.840 We're talking about something that was meant to be as rare as the dodo bird. And if something as rare
00:26:11.060 as the dodo bird or the proverbial unicorn descended on Ottawa, just Ottawa on that day, where all sorts
00:26:18.560 of police officers, we don't need the act. We've got what we need. Yeah. There wasn't unanimous
00:26:23.560 agreement, which is why Ford's testimony is desired. Did Ford think this was an emergency or was he
00:26:29.480 enjoying his heated snowmobile? I'm being facetious. But I never thought that this was that strong. So
00:26:35.160 I think it will continue on the path it is. I think you'll see more of an attempt to smear.
00:26:41.920 As it gets worse for the narrative, you'll see more of an attempt to smear the protesters.
00:26:47.140 To your point about media, how does the narrative get out that convoy is bad,
00:26:52.680 or that vaccine mandates are good, or that Pfizer and Moderna are heroes, unless it's on the six o'clock
00:27:00.060 mainstream news or the front page of the Globe and Mail. I did a whole piece last week. Again,
00:27:05.860 I'm not going to get into it. People can find it if they want. I'm not going to plug it.
00:27:09.300 But whatever happened to investigative journalism, where the whole idea of the press was to push back
00:27:15.520 against power. The whole idea of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star was to push back against power
00:27:24.720 and the elites and the ivory tower. Now, in many ways, shapes and forms, they are the spokespeople
00:27:31.300 with a quid pro quo to the people in power. That bothers me. I'm not knocking it. I do a lot of work
00:27:38.640 in that area. I think the people are incredible. But what would happen if the people said, look,
00:27:44.860 we're not going to lose ad revenue. If we challenge some of this, we're not going to lose
00:27:49.840 ad revenue if we're not in lockstep with everything Justin Trudeau tells us to do. We're
00:27:56.040 not going to lose ad revenue. We're already hemorrhaging ad revenue. We don't need to be
00:28:01.760 in lockstep or spokespeople as if it's the press gallery. So to your point about the media, that to
00:28:07.740 me, we've lost that in the last 10 or 15 years with the loss of local journalism, everything moving
00:28:13.920 to Twitter. I hate Twitter, full disclosure, anti-social media. I never call it social.
00:28:18.660 It's the opposite of that. Twitter, as your colleague Barry Weiss says, and I know you think
00:28:23.440 as highly of her as I do, is the masthead of the New York Times. If we just got rid of the insanity,
00:28:29.680 which is also called wokeness, we wouldn't be in this point of view. Here's the end of my answer
00:28:36.460 to your question, the denouement, if you will. As bad as I think the narrative is, the fact that
00:28:42.880 it's crumbling or mixed, maybe I'll say mixed to be fair, I wouldn't be shocked if Justin Trudeau
00:28:49.480 turns it around. I don't think he would be as prepared, even though he was going to testify
00:28:54.940 and should and all that. And I give him credit for this. I'm not a fan of his policies. I am a fan
00:28:59.780 of his hair. I continue to be jealous of it. But the point of it is, I think he, if anybody can do it,
00:29:07.680 I think people have such low expectations of his testimony, that if anybody can turn the narrative
00:29:14.760 of the previous weeks on its side, it may be him. I may be wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm going to be happy
00:29:20.320 to be wrong. But I think that's the moment where I think the people following this will have their
00:29:27.240 expectations affected. I don't know. We'll see. We'll talk about it in the future. But that is my
00:29:34.680 sense of where this is going. Well, Ari, I mean, I hope you're wrong. And but on that very depressing
00:29:42.360 note, you know, it's been a pleasure as ever having you on the show. Of course, we're just starting to
00:29:50.180 get a sense of what's going to happen with the inquiry. But I'm so glad that you agreed to
00:29:55.120 chat with me about the public inquiry into the Emergencies Act. And hopefully, you'll be back
00:30:01.680 again to talk about it some more as as as it unfolds unfolds in the coming weeks. And thanks
00:30:08.940 for being on the show again, Ari. It's been a real pleasure. And as ever, it's been phenomenal. And I'm
00:30:15.400 sure our viewers and listeners feel the same way. It's always great to be with you, Rupa, including a
00:30:21.500 lot of viewers and listeners who I think have been long forgotten and tune into you because I think
00:30:26.320 the conversations we have, Rupa, and I feel this very sincerely, I talk about it a lot. All we're
00:30:31.560 doing is talking about what people talk about at their dinner table, but have been pressured and
00:30:36.360 intimidated into not talking about publicly. I think that hurts democracy. I think it's illiberal.
00:30:42.000 And I think it's absolutely an affront to the people that have built this country of all shapes
00:30:48.200 and sizes, all races and religions. If you can't talk publicly the way you would at your dinner table
00:30:54.080 out in the public square, there is no longer any public square. So I'm happy that whoever listens
00:30:59.880 to us and follows you took the time to listen to you and I today. Well, I'm sure they did. And
00:31:06.320 I'm really grateful that you came onto my show and I hope to continue this conversation with you soon.
00:31:12.520 Thank you, Rupa.
00:31:13.600 Okay. Take care, Ari.