Juno News - August 04, 2022


Trudeau’s vaccine mandates were about politics, not science (feat. Rupa Subramanya)


Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

168.36632

Word count

8,343

Sentence count

545

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Justin Trudeau wants everyone to wear surgical masks in public places like airports and planes. But Rupa Subramanya argues that the government should be allowed to make its own masks. She explains why this is a bad idea, and why we should all wear them.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:04:37.980 happened, though, about a month ago, three weeks ago, the government very quietly eased the mask
00:04:43.160 mandates for airports, as I just mentioned. So I didn't realize this until I got off my plane in
00:04:49.200 Montreal. And I was walking around, looking around, and I wasn't wearing a mask, because in my
00:04:54.460 experience, no one at the airport was really enforcing the mask rule, like they are in the
00:04:58.640 planes. And I was looking around, I'm like, no one else was wearing a mask either. I'm like, oh,
00:05:02.280 this is great. Okay, you know, a little libertarian paradise, not normally what Quebec is.
00:05:07.000 And then I saw staff were also not wearing their masks. Staff were not, like Air Canada staff,
00:05:13.480 airline staff, even a couple of airport security people. And I'm like, has Quebec just had enough
00:05:19.260 with this? And then I looked into it and realized that, oh, actually, in Quebec, people do not have
00:05:24.640 to comply with the social mask requirement. And what they have done is gone along with what the
00:05:30.580 government said. But then it struck me at Pearson Airport, very different story. Pearson Airport is
00:05:35.660 still telling people wear their masks. Ottawa Airport, I'm told, is still telling people wear
00:05:40.240 their masks. So the airports are going beyond the federal mandates now, which I don't think they
00:05:46.240 should be allowed to do. Because again, the airports are entities of government. They didn't
00:05:50.180 have the latitude to say no to the mask mandates when the government was mandating them. So why do
00:05:54.380 they get to unilaterally put their own on? So I never thought I'd say this, but good for Montreal Airport
00:05:59.440 for actually not imposing this mask theater on people when the federal government is not making
00:06:05.920 them. And when I say mask theater, it's not just the mask mandates. The vaccine mandates for air
00:06:10.820 travel, very similar, no longer in effect, but we know it could come back at any moment, which is,
00:06:16.800 I think, the critical problem here. These things are still hanging over us like the sword of Damocles.
00:06:22.340 And I want to just remind you, if you haven't heard it a bajillion times right now,
00:06:27.120 this is what Trudeau says he's doing throughout the entirety of his COVID response.
00:06:33.920 Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this pandemic, we have followed science.
00:06:38.140 We have had Canadians' backs. We've actually seen a less severe impact on lives, on livelihoods,
00:06:46.380 and our economy than many other countries, including the ones that the leader of the opposition named.
00:06:51.440 We will continue to follow the science. We will continue to lean on each other as Canadians
00:06:57.000 as we make it through this pandemic. We know that it's tiring. We know it's exhausting. But we also
00:07:04.420 know that having each other's backs is the way through this pandemic.
00:07:09.640 Having each other's backs, okay, you can take a drink for that one. Follow the science. You
00:07:14.340 definitely got to take a drink for that one. I think you're in an alcohol-induced coma now,
00:07:17.700 if you take a shot anytime. Justin Trudeau says, follow the science. But that's been the message.
00:07:22.380 Follow the science. Follow the science. Why are you mandating vaccination? Well,
00:07:26.280 we're following the science. Why are you mandating masks? Well, we're following the science.
00:07:30.560 Well, are they actually? There was a tremendous piece this morning in Common Sense. That is the
00:07:36.300 substack that Barry Weiss launched by my friend and colleague Rupa Subramanya, host of the Rupa Subramanya
00:07:42.340 show here on True North. And she says that Canada's travel ban did not have a scientific basis. Now,
00:07:48.140 this isn't just Rupa's own opinion or conclusion here. This actually comes from court documents that
00:07:53.920 the federal government has filed revealing their approach to these things. Rupa joins me now. Always
00:07:59.540 good to talk to you, Rupa. Thanks for coming on. And what a tremendous piece. Congratulations.
00:08:03.440 Congratulations. Oh, I'm having trouble hearing you, Rupa. I don't know if it's just on my end or if
00:08:14.680 it's on yours. We will try to get that sorted out. But let me just say, first off, if you haven't
00:08:21.600 caught this yet, head over to commonsense.news. Commonsense.news. And the story is called Court
00:08:28.640 Documents Reveal. Canada's travel ban had no scientific basis. And you can see it there
00:08:34.020 by Rupa Subramanya in Common Sense. Now, actually, just on the note, before we get into the meat of
00:08:38.820 it and resolve the tech issues, Rupa wrote a fantastic piece during the Freedom Convoy that
00:08:44.100 I cited in my book and have also talked about on the show a number of times in which she talks to the
00:08:50.620 people of the convoy. And this was, again, something that you couldn't get from the mainstream media in
00:08:55.560 Canada. You couldn't get from CBC or CTV. You had to go to an American substack at the time to really
00:09:01.800 get that level of journalism that Rupa gave us. So my producer is going to tell me once we have Rupa
00:09:07.280 back on. But the point that I have to make here and that I think a lot of people need to realize
00:09:13.240 is that the point of these mandates was supposed to be about science. And when I say it's political
00:09:19.680 and not scientific, this is not groundbreaking information to people that listen to this show.
00:09:25.240 I think we've always known this is the case. We've always known it was political. I mean,
00:09:31.280 the fact that this was announced during an election, the air travel mandates, it was a campaign plank
00:09:37.440 on which Trudeau ran to get reelected, tells us exactly what he was trying to do here. He was trying
00:09:43.900 to win votes off the back of the unvaccinated, off the backs of the unvaccinated. He was trying to win
00:09:49.780 votes on this divisive policy that violates that sanctity of the individual, your ability,
00:09:56.920 your right to make decisions about your own body. And I think a lot of people went along with this
00:10:01.300 because they bought into the line that Teresa Tam was giving them at any point of the pandemic,
00:10:06.320 whether it was that, oh, we need to close the border because it's what the science says,
00:10:10.080 or earlier on it was, we can't close the border because that's racist. But then when they got over
00:10:14.100 that, they said, we need to close the border. And then, okay, masks don't work. We said,
00:10:17.660 okay, we won't take our mask. And then they say, okay, wear masks. And we say, okay, we have to do
00:10:21.700 it. And a lot of people, I think, were willing to give and prepared to give the government the
00:10:26.120 benefit of the doubt for far too long. And they did this because I think Canadians are generally 1.00
00:10:35.040 speaking or have historically been, generally speaking, more trusting of institutions, more
00:10:41.020 trusting of government. Remember, I mean, the idea of a chief public health officer,
00:10:45.440 a chief medical officer of health. This was not a job that most people in this country
00:10:50.040 knew existed. I think we have like the Surgeon General warning on cigarettes that we see, but
00:10:54.800 that is basically the extent of it. We have the American idea of what a head doctor is for a
00:11:00.480 country, but it's not a job that's had any relevance in our lives before. I think we have Rupa back on the
00:11:05.380 line now. Rupa, I'm not going to waste my opening with you and saying hello. I'm just going to say
00:11:09.260 hello and then move on to, why is it you wrote this piece in the first place?
00:11:15.420 Can you hear me?
00:11:17.840 Yeah, if we can.
00:11:19.460 Oh, okay. Perfect.
00:11:21.540 I thought that earlier. Sorry, question for me, please.
00:11:28.480 Basically, why did you write this piece? Why did you write this article?
00:11:31.300 Well, no, I mean, important pieces of work, and it was a lot of work that it was important
00:11:45.740 to bring them as concisely as possible. You know, as soon as the court got public, you know,
00:11:56.860 them, I spent my birthday, and so I spent a lot of writing about it, and by the end of
00:12:10.840 my reading, it just extremely...
00:12:13.280 Sorry, we're going to have to reconnect here, Rupa. Your audio is cutting in and out, so we
00:12:18.100 are going to try to get you back on and hear that, because it's an important piece, and
00:12:21.360 I know you did a lot of work on this, so we'll try to get you back on there, and I am sorry
00:12:26.140 to the audience for the inconvenience here. What I am going to say, though, when I came
00:12:31.060 in to Canada, and that experience I was describing earlier that very much ties in with this at
00:12:36.540 Montreal, where I actually tweeted about it. I don't think I have the tweet up, but I had
00:12:40.740 tweeted about it and said, you know, it was glorious to see people not complying, and at
00:12:45.200 the time, I didn't mean complying in a legal sense. I meant complying with this social expectation
00:12:49.920 that, you know, travel requires a mask. Like, when you can get packed like sardines onto
00:12:54.060 an airplane, I think it's safe to say that the mask is not going to be the determining
00:12:57.940 factor in whether you get sick or not. But the point that I brought up with this is that
00:13:03.520 when people are not complying, it's a sign that they are prepared to reclaim the 2019
00:13:10.560 normal. And parts of this are never coming back, and we know that. Parts of this are not
00:13:15.640 ever going to come back. But we need to reclaim as much of it as we can. And the point that I
00:13:22.500 was trying to bring up here when I said it was glorious was that it was great to see
00:13:26.840 people not living in fear. And I think most people agreed with this. The thing got like,
00:13:30.320 I don't know how many hundreds or thousands of likes and retweets and all of that. And
00:13:34.520 then at a certain point, the Twitter trolls started to respond and said, like, it's glorious 0.99
00:13:38.560 to celebrate killing people. And it just became as unhinged as some of the just most insane 0.99
00:13:44.840 rhetoric we hear about COVID. This idea that if you walk around an airport unmasked, you are
00:13:49.960 not just killing grandma, but you're killing everyone in sight. You're actually just a serial 0.91
00:13:53.400 killer. Every time you walk past a gate, you're just slaying five people just by breathing unmasked. 0.99
00:13:59.260 And that's the sort of unhinged rhetoric we're hearing around COVID. And these are the people
00:14:04.020 that are trying to keep us in a permanent state of fear and in a permanent state of panic. And some
00:14:08.860 of these are very well-educated, and I might even say well-intentioned people. They have many letters
00:14:13.600 after their names. They've got their MDs, their PhDs, their BSs. And I don't mean bachelors of sciences,
00:14:18.800 by the way. And they've got all of this. And at the end of the day, they're the ones that have been
00:14:24.500 in charge for much of the last two and a half years. They're the ones that have been in control.
00:14:30.080 They're the ones that have had the power. And I don't know if it's that they themselves are genuinely
00:14:34.840 living in fear. I think a lot of them are. Or if they alternatively are just along for the ride
00:14:42.020 and that they've enjoyed having this relevance and power and authority that they haven't really had
00:14:46.700 ever before. And that's why they keep foisting this stuff upon us. But when Trudeau says follow
00:14:54.100 the science, what he's saying is follow the scientist. He's saying two things. He's saying
00:14:59.700 follow the scientist. And he's also saying follow his science. Because as we know, I mean, there is,
00:15:04.860 I believe, a black and white unvarnished truth out there. And science is science. Science is not
00:15:10.660 subjective in theory. But in practice, different scientists are drawing different conclusions.
00:15:15.440 So when Teresa Tam, who's a very well-educated doctor, says, you know, we have to have mask
00:15:20.660 mandates. And then another doctor says, well, actually, I've looked at the evidence and say,
00:15:23.840 we don't have mask mandates. What is following the science entail? And it's people treating these
00:15:29.320 things as black and white that I think has been the source of such problems. So I believe we have
00:15:34.120 Rupa Subramania on the line now. I certainly hope I'm crossing the fingers. I'm crossing my legs. I don't
00:15:39.460 know if I can cross my toes. But if I could, I would do it. And we'll try this again. Rupa, thank you for
00:15:44.880 your persistence here. Let me try a different tack here in asking you about this. And I wonder
00:15:51.280 what it is that you really got out or how did you get this out of the court documents, by the way?
00:15:57.520 Because I think for a long time, people have been trying to get information from government
00:16:01.620 with access to information requests. The Health Canada has been saying, yeah, it's going to take
00:16:05.960 us, you know, 72 years to get through this. We're very busy. But you've actually got a lot of the
00:16:10.940 information from the government through this that people have wanted for quite a while.
00:16:14.280 Yeah, well, this is this is now in the public domain. Anybody can access these documents as I
00:16:18.880 did. It's, you know, you just go to the federal court, make a request as I did. And, and they'll
00:16:25.100 send you a link and you have these, the documents. So anybody really has access to them at this point.
00:16:31.600 And so I, you know, I went through them, you know, very methodically, I went through all of the
00:16:40.280 transcripts and the the affidavits, and I read read them quite thoroughly. I spent my birthday going
00:16:48.200 through these court documents. I'm not joking. I spent all day reading through them. But Andrew,
00:16:54.380 I mean, to your earlier question, you know, why did I want to write this? I think this is this is
00:16:59.760 one of the great, I think this kind of thing needed to be exposed. I mean, we were we were told all
00:17:05.120 along that, that this was about the science, we were that we're following the science, trust us,
00:17:11.180 we're following the science, we're constantly consulting experts, we're constantly reviewing
00:17:16.020 these mandates. And we're, you know, we're, we're doing all of this great stuff. But let's face it,
00:17:23.180 at the end of the day, what what comes out from these cross examinations is that there was no science,
00:17:29.700 this the secretive group that is within Transport Canada, doesn't have a single medical professional
00:17:35.400 on their in their in their in their team. The person who heads the team has a batch, has a bachelor's
00:17:42.020 degree in English literature. That's, that's her qualification. And, and so, you know, these are
00:17:48.420 people who concocted and designed the travel mandate, and which affected five, six million Canadians,
00:17:55.620 who couldn't even step on a train or a plane to go see their loved ones, you know, within Canada or
00:18:02.520 overseas. So, you know, I felt, you know, as we're reading through it, you know, I felt that this really
00:18:09.680 needed to be the story needed to be told. And that, you know, you know, the public has a right
00:18:16.580 to know. It's not just the five, six million Canadians who were affected by it, but it's all
00:18:21.340 of us. You know, when when the government says they're following the science, you really have to
00:18:26.060 really interrogate that more closely, you really have to, you know, start asking some serious
00:18:31.980 questions. Well, what is the science? Who are the experts you're consulting? How are these decisions
00:18:36.140 made? Why is it that when, when you ask for more information, you're, you're, you're, you're told,
00:18:42.580 it's, it's, it's cabinet confidence, and we can't reveal this. We can't tell you the process involved
00:18:49.700 that, that affected so many people, the lives of so many people. And so, you know, this is, this is why
00:18:57.960 I felt that this really needed to be told. And I'm glad that I was able to tell the story.
00:19:02.100 When you talk about this committee that had no one with a scientific background on it,
00:19:08.940 a lot of people would find that a little odd, because we know that there are medical advisors
00:19:13.660 around the government. I mean, Teresa Tam is one of the most notable examples of this. And
00:19:17.600 I've always been under the understanding that she was and her team at Public Health
00:19:21.440 Agency of Canada were involved in these mandates. So how do we know that it was coming from this body
00:19:27.540 that didn't have a scientific background or anyone on it with a scientific background?
00:19:32.620 Well, this comes through the cross-examinations, they were in charge of the travel mandate,
00:19:36.720 they, they designed the travel mandate. And if you read through the transcripts, you'll see that
00:19:42.980 Teresa Tam was not consulted on the travel mandates. PHAC wasn't consulted on the travel mandates.
00:19:50.040 In fact, you know, none of the top epidemiologists were consulted on the travel mandate, yet the travel
00:19:57.880 mandate was based on the science. And so why were there no, you know, serious medical professionals,
00:20:07.600 doctors, epidemiologists, infectious diseases specialists, why weren't they consulted on this?
00:20:12.120 And that's a, that's a big question. And that's very clear, that very clear in the cross-examination,
00:20:19.040 any, you know, and as I said, anybody can access these documents. I also want to, you know,
00:20:23.780 tell you a little bit about the two individuals who, who, you know, who were, you know, the two
00:20:30.460 applicants in the case, you know, it, it, it takes extraordinary courage to do what they did in,
00:20:37.380 you know, in challenging this and challenging what they felt was unjust. And, and, and, and,
00:20:44.900 you know, it's, it's a battle that they've been fighting for eight months. And, you know,
00:20:49.660 it really is a David versus Goliath battle here, you know, to just average Canadians decided to take
00:20:56.940 this upon themselves. And I also want to mention the lawyer, you know, he's only 30 years old.
00:21:02.620 And I, you know, if not for his cross-examination of the witnesses, we really wouldn't even have this
00:21:10.600 information. We, we wouldn't have what we have. So, you know, I just want to put it out there that
00:21:15.540 these three individuals have been incredibly amazing. And, and, you know, and I, you know,
00:21:20.280 people, you know, we owe a lot to, to them. Now, I understand there is also a challenge,
00:21:28.480 not I understand. I know there's a challenge coming up in the fall from Brian Peckford and
00:21:33.200 Maxime Bernier that the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is taking up against
00:21:37.180 the air travel vaccine mandate. Do you know, are these cases effectively the same? Are they,
00:21:42.820 are they going after the same thing and using the same arguments?
00:21:45.400 So I'm not familiar with the Peckford case. I can't speak to that. But as, as I understand,
00:21:53.480 four cases were being heard roughly at the same time, or at the same time, they were clubbed
00:21:59.500 together. They're all very similar. I believe the Peckford, you know, I, yeah, I, I can't really
00:22:05.460 speak to the Peckford case. I don't, I don't know anything about it really.
00:22:09.940 Because this one that you've got, this one that you've covered has not gotten much media
00:22:13.820 attention. So far, no. The mainstream media has generally, has, has been very silent on
00:22:23.380 this. I'm not at all, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but, but, you know, I, I am a
00:22:29.540 little disappointed. I think this is huge. You know, and as I say, anybody can access these
00:22:34.480 documents and, you know, and, and, and, and find, you know, you know, and, and just verify
00:22:40.720 what, what I've, what I've done. It's, it's, it's not, not, not that hard. But, but yeah,
00:22:46.360 I'm just a bit disappointed that nobody in the mainstream media has really picked up on
00:22:50.240 this, or maybe they've seen it, but they may, perhaps they don't want to touch it. But that
00:22:54.340 would be a shame. I hope, I hope they're thinking on this changes because I think, I think this
00:22:58.820 needs a lot of mainstream attention as well. Are you optimistic that there will be a reckoning
00:23:07.000 on this, either in the short term or the medium term? Because I think accepting what you've
00:23:11.560 shared here, and I think what a lot of us have known and have been talking about before
00:23:15.440 your story to some extent, although without the, the basis for it that you've been able
00:23:19.620 to bring up here, it would, people would have to admit that they bought into what was effectively
00:23:24.680 a lie. And I don't think a lot of people want to admit to that.
00:23:27.780 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think, sorry, sorry, sorry, Angela. All my devices are ringing at
00:23:35.980 the same time. Sorry about that. I know this is a live show and.
00:23:41.300 No, you're popular. I think it's to be expected at this point.
00:23:44.220 I just have a lot of people calling me right now. I don't even know how to mute this. Sorry
00:23:49.420 about this. Um, um, uh, maybe it's Justin Trudeau. He doesn't like the, uh, the article.
00:23:57.620 So he wants to hash it out with you. Sorry about this, Andrew. I mean, yeah, no, I, I just,
00:24:01.340 you know, I have a mute signal and phone started ringing and I don't know how to mute it. Sorry
00:24:06.760 about that, but please repeat your question. This is so. Yeah. Do you think there's going
00:24:10.660 to be a reckoning on this, or do you think people will keep going with this charade?
00:24:14.920 Yeah. There, there has to be, there has to be a reckoning on this. There's got to be a reckoning
00:24:19.920 on this. Um, you cannot ignore, uh, you can't ignore this. You can't ignore this at all. Um,
00:24:26.100 this, this information is now out in the public domain and, uh, and, you know, we're, uh, people
00:24:31.920 are going to have to deal with it. I, I, I hope that there's some, um, um, you know, accountability.
00:24:37.520 I, I really, I really hope that that comes soon, um, uh, in whatever shape or form, but,
00:24:43.980 uh, you, you're, you can't ignore, you can't ignore, um, you know, what is out there. And,
00:24:50.040 uh, and I, and I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that there will be some kind of reckoning down
00:24:55.040 the road. What's the status of the case itself? I mean, obviously if they've gone through the
00:25:00.920 process of having the cross-examinations and the evidence and the depositions, do you know
00:25:05.380 when the actual trial is going to be? Uh, I think in September, they're, uh, hearing this,
00:25:10.560 um, um, uh, the, the, um, they're, they're hearing the damages motion, I believe. And,
00:25:17.260 uh, or the mootness motion, the attorney general has filed a mootness motion. So if that succeeds,
00:25:22.240 then the whole thing just ends right there. Uh, but, uh, if not, there's going to be a final
00:25:27.380 hearing in October. So the mootness, I'm glad you brought up the mootness motion because this is a
00:25:32.700 very sneaky thing that the government does and they do it in other cases as well, where they say,
00:25:36.780 well, the vaccine mandate has been lifted. So there's really no point in having this case and
00:25:41.680 it's, and it allows them to keep doing the same thing again and again and again. And I do hope
00:25:46.460 the judge understands that this is not something that you can just get away with here, that even
00:25:51.500 though you've lifted it for now, the fact that the government has said it could come back at any
00:25:55.740 point means this is not moot at all. Exactly. Uh, that there is a discrepancy there,
00:26:00.780 and I'm glad that you pointed that out. Uh, there is a discrepancy between what the attorney general
00:26:05.580 is saying in, in, in, when he says, yeah, you know, the mandates are now gone. So this, the case
00:26:12.300 is moot. Uh, but on the other hand, you have his cabinet colleagues saying, uh, that, uh, you know,
00:26:19.900 fully expect these mandates to return. If, uh, cases, uh, you know, are once again out of control
00:26:26.620 and our hospitals are under stress, we won't hesitate to bring them back. So there's a
00:26:31.420 discrepancy between, you know, what the attorney general is saying and what, um, uh, you know,
00:26:37.580 some of the ministers are saying. So, uh, it is very sneaky. I think it's a way for them to kind
00:26:43.020 of just quietly bury this. Uh, and so, you know, people forget about it and move on. The mandates are
00:26:48.380 gone for now at least. Um, and, uh, it is pretty sneaky, but, uh, you know, kudos to the lawyer,
00:26:54.540 um, for, um, you know, coming up with, uh, a way to, um, you know, keep this going.
00:27:00.540 Rupa Subramanya, my colleague at True North and host of the Rupa Subramanya show and also author
00:27:06.940 of this great piece at commonsense.news. Court documents revealed Canada's travel ban had no
00:27:12.140 scientific basis. Rupa, great work as always. And thanks very much for coming on today.
00:27:16.300 Rupa Subramanya Thanks so much, Andrew. And again, I apologize for the,
00:27:19.740 to you and to your audience for the, uh, audio issues and my phone ringing nonstop in the background.
00:27:25.180 I really, well, you're welcome back anytime. We won't hold it against you. Thanks very much,
00:27:28.700 Rupa. Uh, good to talk to you as always. I want to just to put the context here. I want people to hear
00:27:34.780 from Omar Al Ghabra, the language that the government uses when it comes to these mandates.
00:27:40.140 Take a, take a look. Vaccination is making it possible to keep us safe while we cautiously return
00:27:48.780 to doing the things that we love. And I would like to acknowledge that most Canadians have been doing
00:27:57.580 their part in helping combat, combating COVID-19 by getting vaccinated. And we are today following
00:28:06.300 up on our commitment prior to the election and a commitment that we've debated vigorously throughout
00:28:13.660 the election campaign. With rigorous travel requirements that include mandatory vaccine
00:28:19.580 measures, we are continuing to take action to help keep Canadians safe from COVID-19.
00:28:27.500 In the transportation sector, this means rules are in place requiring travelers to be vaccinated in
00:28:34.860 order to board planes, trains, or vessel as of October 30th. Starting tomorrow, passengers flying on domestic,
00:28:45.180 transporter, or international flights departing from Canada, and passengers on via rail and the
00:28:51.900 rocky mountaineer trains must be fully vaccinated in order to board.
00:28:57.340 So that is an older clip from right after the election, when they first unveiled it. And I
00:29:04.060 just noticed, by the way, that his, uh, his vest that they gave him says health and safety rep,
00:29:09.180 which I don't know why that amuses me, but it amuses me. So take from that, which you will. But
00:29:13.340 what he's doing there is telling us all that, oh, we're making good on a campaign commitment. This is
00:29:19.020 all business as usual. It's all fine. Don't worry about it. And again, the idea that this is about
00:29:25.820 safety, the idea that this is about safety, that's been the government's whole point. Even
00:29:30.620 I mean, the health and safety vest, this is what the government claims. And we know now that it
00:29:35.980 absolutely was not the case. I want to pivot and ever so slightly, I mean, we're still going to be
00:29:41.420 on this general realm of a vaccine mandates and the resistance thereof, because I want to talk about
00:29:46.940 the convoy. And a part of this admittedly is going to be a bit self-serving because I said in the post
00:29:52.140 here, and I said in a previous show, I'm going to do an ask me anything edition of the show,
00:29:56.460 but ask me anything about the convoy. And I'm going to just take your questions about the convoy,
00:30:00.860 about my new book, which is out. You can see it over my shoulder there, the freedom convoy,
00:30:04.860 the inside story of three weeks that shook the world. And by the way, I shouldn't say, I mean,
00:30:09.340 you all told me you wanted me to do this. So I'm just trying to give the people what they want,
00:30:12.940 as they say. But the reason I want to do this now is because there has been this weird sort of
00:30:18.620 revisionism that's been taking place about the convoy. Last night, I don't know if any of you
00:30:23.260 watched it. Everyone on Twitter was tagging me in it. There was Glenn McGregor of CTV did this thing
00:30:28.940 called a reporter's notebook, which I thought was going to be this like really melodramatic
00:30:35.500 revisionism of the convoy. And to Glenn's credit, it really wasn't. I mean, it was kind of just like a,
00:30:41.100 it's summer and no news is happening. So we're going to do a clip show. He walked around Ottawa
00:30:45.900 on Canada Day, and he talked about some of the things he covered. And then
00:30:49.660 really all that happened was they just played a bunch of clips from the convoy. So there wasn't
00:30:53.420 anything to get up in arms about. But I was very, I was very grateful to all the people on Twitter
00:30:57.580 that were like tagging Glenn saying, Oh, we don't need your reporter's notebook. Just buy Andrew
00:31:01.820 Lawton's book. And I'm like, yes, please, please buy my book. It's on Amazon. It's a bestseller.
00:31:06.300 And I will say actually on that note, it was the number one nonfiction book on amazon.ca last week.
00:31:12.460 It has been for three weeks in a row, the number one Toronto star bestseller. And it has been for
00:31:19.580 three weeks in a row, the number one Globe and Mail bestseller. And I share this partially to gloat,
00:31:26.300 not entirely to gloat. I share it with you to explain why I'm a wee bit perplexed that there has
00:31:32.940 been zero, zero mainstream media attention about this book. And I'll say zero with an asterisk,
00:31:40.140 because it depends on how you frame mainstream media. I've done a couple of radio interviews,
00:31:44.940 one on Sirius XM Canada talks with Dalia Kurtz, who's fantastic. And that was, I guess, sort of
00:31:51.660 mainstream adjacent. I did a talk radio interview out in Saskatchewan. But all of the interviews I've
00:31:56.940 done have been podcast and alternative media, which I'm happy to do. I love podcasts. I love independent
00:32:02.460 media. And I am thrilled that this book has become a bestseller without needing the mainstream media.
00:32:08.700 So the gatekeepers of the media have not needed to cover this for it to do well. But I'm still very,
00:32:16.300 very disappointed. And I don't say that for my own self-interest, but I'm disappointed
00:32:22.540 as someone who values truth. And as someone who values the marketplace of ideas, and as someone who
00:32:29.260 values debate, that there has been this gatekeeper effect that has been allowed to take hold, not just
00:32:35.980 by the media, but also by Indigo. I don't even remember if I talked about it on the show in much
00:32:40.380 detail. But a couple of weeks ago, there was that National Post article that acknowledged that Indigo
00:32:45.420 has basically said, we do not want this book on our shelves. We have a deep knowledge of our customer,
00:32:52.540 and they don't think that the book should be on their shelves. They think it's more important to have
00:32:56.860 the extra couple of dildos on aisle four, than to have a book about Convoy. Private company,
00:33:01.660 they have the right to do it. That's absolutely their prerogative. Jen Gerson,
00:33:05.980 who is the co-founder of The Line, she had a piece that I thought was quite fair about this called
00:33:10.700 A2 Bookstore. And she talked about, you know, of course, bringing Julius Caesar into a modern context,
00:33:17.500 how Indigo has gone all in on being a lifestyle brand rather than a bookstore. And if that's the way
00:33:23.180 that Indigo can assure its survival, okay, fine. Indigo, have fun. Sell your candles, sell your blankets,
00:33:29.020 sell your sex toys, and keep your books in a back corner with the dust on them. And if someone wants
00:33:33.660 one, you have to go, oh yeah, I think we sell. I think I saw a book here. One second. I think we
00:33:37.740 have books somewhere. Carl, where are the books? Oh yeah, they're just, you go down back the aisle,
00:33:42.460 you go under the pillows, you go through the archway, and then at the very back, they have a few
00:33:46.300 on a little display case there. And that's Indigo's problem. That's Indigo's decision. If the customers
00:33:52.060 want it, fine. Interestingly enough, the hashtag boycott Indigo was trending, and I had nothing to
00:33:59.740 do with it, but the hashtag boycott Indigo was trending on Twitter when that story came out.
00:34:04.620 And then interestingly enough, a week later in Financial Post, there was this like glowing story
00:34:10.140 about Indigo's embrace of lifestyle brands and consumer trends and all of this without mentioning
00:34:16.060 any of the controversy. I'm like, there's a PR person that has earned their take by getting that
00:34:20.620 story planted in the newspaper. But the reason I bring all of this up, and I realize that I am
00:34:27.660 inherently talking about myself and my own book here, but I've been very clear since I started
00:34:32.940 writing this that I want this story told by more people. I want more perspectives. I would love it if
00:34:37.900 someone on the left wrote a book with their perspective on this, because I think that's the way
00:34:42.220 you unlock truth. I mean, that was John Stuart Mill's idea that the marketplace of ideas is critical
00:34:47.900 because it's by me saying my piece and you're saying your piece that we either a determine if
00:34:52.700 one of us is right or alternatively unlock a truth that maybe lies between our two positions.
00:34:59.900 And it's shameful, absolutely shameful that the mainstream media is so terrified of entertaining a 0.98
00:35:08.060 perspective that is not even sycophantic to the convoy, a perspective that is sympathetic
00:35:13.900 to the convoy, and strives to understand these people, and strives to talk about what happened,
00:35:18.700 that the media is so terrified of that perspective that they will not pay any attention whatsoever
00:35:26.140 to this book. And interestingly enough, some of them have gone out of their way to not. And I'm taking
00:35:31.900 your questions, by the way, I'm getting a little ranty here, but if you have any questions, post them in
00:35:35.500 the comments, and I will get to several of them before the show ends. But I'll give you one example
00:35:41.900 of how, and I won't name names, because believe it or not, I actually try to take the high road,
00:35:46.780 even when other people don't. There was an interview that someone alerted me to that I heard,
00:35:51.980 I think it was last week at some point, maybe two weeks ago. And it was the day or two after the
00:35:57.660 National Post story about Indigo came out. And there was a Bell Media journalist who did an interview on air
00:36:06.140 with another journalist who is more from the left, very fair, very reasonable interview with me. Sorry,
00:36:12.940 let me I'll back up. She interviewed someone who interviewed me. And the interview that I had done with
00:36:18.860 this person was a very fair and reasonable interview. But she interviewed this person about me, and about my book.
00:36:27.580 And it was a weird, it was a very weird interview, because in the interview, she's like, you know what,
00:36:33.500 and so why did Andrew write this? And so what is Andrew doing about this? And what is what did Andrew
00:36:37.660 do in about this? And the other journalist at a certain point to his credit said, you know, I find
00:36:42.940 it interesting that the mainstream media hasn't really had any interest in this. And even here's a
00:36:48.380 great example of this, you're asking me about his book instead of having him on. And immediately,
00:36:52.540 she like just pivoted it. She basically just changed the topic to something entirely unrelated
00:36:57.340 to the convoy and to the book. And I never like to judge people too harshly, because I don't know,
00:37:03.900 maybe it was just a slow day and the segment was thrown together at the last minute or whatever.
00:37:08.700 Maybe I'm too generous. But it was like the epitome of bending over backwards to avoid talking to me
00:37:16.060 about my book, which means to avoid. If you are in Ontario, you know exactly what just happened right
00:37:23.660 now, because it happened to you too, and probably terrified you like it did me, we just got an amber
00:37:28.220 alert. So unfortunately, because we're not on television, the amber alert didn't actually
00:37:32.620 interrupt the show. So you still have to look at me. But I wish the very best to the person who has been
00:37:37.900 identified in this amber, amber alert, but never live. Okay, we're just not gonna do it live anymore.
00:37:43.980 We're doing like the anti Bill O'Reilly thing. Oh, we're never doing it live. No, no, no,
00:37:47.340 we're not doing it live. But the challenge we have here is that all of the people,
00:37:53.500 all of the people who say, yes, you know, I want the truth. And I want to be the guardian of the
00:37:58.860 truth are saying we don't want that truth. I mean, just take a look at Indigo as a Canadian
00:38:04.780 company, they say, well, yeah, we want to tell Canadian stories. And I'm like, hey,
00:38:08.060 Canadian storyteller here. And if you look at some of the I not that I spend much time on the Indigo
00:38:13.340 website, especially now, but a lot of the books they're promoting are not Canadian books. And
00:38:17.180 again, they have to go with what consumers want. If you look at the Canadian bestseller list, a lot
00:38:21.420 of the books on there are not by Canadian authors. And it's interesting, the same government that says,
00:38:27.580 oh, we need to focus on Canadian stories and Canadian content. Where's my, you know,
00:38:33.020 Governor General Award, right? I'm not holding my breath. But you know what, someone nominate me for
00:38:37.580 a Governor General Award. That's what will really celebrate this Canadian story. That is the the
00:38:42.300 Freedom Convoy. This is an Ask Me Anything edition of the show about the convoy, about the book. If you
00:38:48.140 want to go into vaccine mandates, you certainly can as well. Murray says, who gave you the interview in
00:38:54.540 Saskatchewan? Gormley. Yes. And John Gormley. I have been on a show many times over the years, but not
00:39:00.060 in a great many years. So I love talking to John Gormley. He did a great job. Chris writes,
00:39:06.220 I was always under the impression that Indigo was for the books, wasn't it? I think it used to be.
00:39:11.340 And I think when it was called Chapters, it was a bit more for the books. And now
00:39:15.980 they still have some chapters locations, but I think most of them have flipped to Indigo.
00:39:19.980 And Indigo is, again, it's a lifestyle brand. It's, I mean, the whole point is that Indigo is the,
00:39:25.180 I mean, if you watch that movie with Tom Hanks, you've got mail. Indigo is Tom Hanks. Like,
00:39:31.660 there was that one line of if we don't get them with our books, we'll get them with our
00:39:34.780 mochaccinos or cappuccinos. Or I haven't watched the movie in like 25 years or whenever it came
00:39:39.740 out, but like Indigo is the Tom Hanks character. They're the villains in the like story of book
00:39:44.700 sales. And the great irony is that they're not even selling books. So it's like they're galvanizing
00:39:49.340 independent bookstores. And the real flip there is that they're not even using their power and
00:39:54.460 footprint to sell books. They're using it to sell other things. So I hope there's a resurgence of
00:39:59.580 the independent bookstore. There is a question here. Why do left wing people call the convoy
00:40:07.180 truckers? But like TR, this doesn't work well for audio, but TRU KKKERS. There was nothing KKK
00:40:14.380 about the convoy at all. That's from Alexander. Now I hadn't seen that until you shared it with me,
00:40:19.100 but it doesn't surprise me. The one that I see a lot more of is the freedom convoy. It's, you know,
00:40:25.500 F-R-E-E-D-U-M-B, which is, you know, ever so clever or something. And, but again, it's people
00:40:32.300 that don't understand who these people are. And Justin Trudeau did this. I mean, Justin Trudeau
00:40:39.820 unleashed on these people, the derision and vulgarity and crassness and crudeness by calling
00:40:46.940 this a fringe minority with unacceptable views. So I don't normally think it's fair to blame politicians
00:40:53.260 for what Canadians do. But in this particular case, Justin Trudeau gave people moral license
00:40:58.140 to look down on these people, to otherize them and to not listen to their concerns and to not hear
00:41:03.020 them out. And one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I believed, and I still believe,
00:41:08.940 that even if you oppose the convoy, you need to understand what it was about. I want to just,
00:41:15.900 before I move on to more of your questions, play this clip from Paul Champ. Paul Champ, who is the
00:41:21.580 lawyer representing the proposed class action against the convoy that got the injunction against
00:41:27.420 horn honking. Take a, take a listen. And so if you came downtown, it was like
00:41:33.900 some kind of dystopian nightmare, the thunderous hum. You could be blocks and blocks away,
00:41:41.580 like on the other side of the Queensway and you could still hear it. And as you get closer,
00:41:45.260 it would just get louder and louder. And then if you're in the, in the heart of the red zone or the
00:41:48.780 horn zone, um, I'll tell you, and I've got the medical experts on retainer now to tell me,
00:41:54.220 uh, you are at very high risk of, of experiencing permanent, uh, hearing damage and harm.
00:42:01.900 Dystopian nightmare, dystopian nightmare. Now I have not read as much fiction as some
00:42:09.980 other people. I I'm prepared to see that point, but when I think of a dystopia,
00:42:13.660 you know, I I've actually never read a dystopic novel or seen a dystopic film
00:42:20.300 that has a bouncy castle in it. I I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I, again, I I'm not as learned
00:42:26.060 as some other people out there, but I, I have never heard of a dystopia with a bouncy castle.
00:42:30.780 I've never heard I, there was a dystopia once with a pig roast, but I've never heard of a dystopia
00:42:34.860 with an inflatable hot tub. I've never heard of a dystopia with people linking their arms and singing,
00:42:41.100 we are the world. Although in fairness, if they kept singing, we are the world over and over,
00:42:45.580 that might cross into dystopia. But there are a lot of things about the convoy that don't quite
00:42:50.620 fit this, uh, dystopic hellhole narrative that we're, we're getting from lawyer Paul Champ, who is,
00:42:57.740 again, he's, he's literally the man, uh, overseeing the lawsuit against the convoy, the proposed class
00:43:03.020 action, which interestingly enough, and I talk about this in my book, every single organizer that I
00:43:09.180 spoke to that I asked about this said that they, it was actually hilarious, said that they secretly
00:43:16.220 liked the injunction. They secretly liked when the court said, you can't honk your horns anymore,
00:43:20.220 because everyone, believe it or not, was fed up with the horn honking. So the idea that this was
00:43:24.620 like a menace just to the people of Ottawa is perhaps true, but it was a menace to everyone.
00:43:28.980 And it was done within the first few days because after that injunction, the horn honking did stop.
00:43:33.920 And it was a few isolated examples and it was quickly tamped down upon. Linda says, do they sell
00:43:39.760 your book at Kohl's bookstore? No. And this is the problem, Linda, because Kohl's is owned by
00:43:45.280 Chapters Indigo, which has decided that it is against carrying my book on store shelves. So they,
00:43:52.080 they sell it on the Indigo website and they sell it on the Amazon website and they sell it at
00:43:57.040 Sutherland house books.com, which is my publisher. But I don't actually know what bookstores,
00:44:03.040 if any, have it on store shelves. There might be some independent ones that have it, but the
00:44:08.160 biggest bookseller in Canada, as far as brick and mortar store, Chapters Indigo Kohl's said, nope,
00:44:14.560 we don't like the cut of your jib. We do not want the convoy customers in our store. They don't really 0.96
00:44:20.000 fit in here. They're not really our type of people. So you can just, you can just buy it online.
00:44:24.800 You can buy it online and look, it's a bestseller sales or sales, but I want more perspectives.
00:44:31.360 And I want bookstores to understand that they are like libraries. The, I mean, libraries are carrying
00:44:36.640 my book, which I mean, I don't know what I think about that. You can get it for free,
00:44:39.680 but you can't buy it. So I don't know, take from that what you will. But the whole point of this is
00:44:45.440 that bookstores and Indigo's own philosophy historically was about being this gateway to
00:44:51.520 knowledge. And it's interesting now that they're putting my book at the same category as mine
00:44:56.080 comp, which is, yeah, we don't, we don't want it on the shelf. So again, their choice, but I can call
00:45:02.160 it out as the wrong choice. And I don't say that as the author. I say that as a customer. I say that
00:45:06.160 as a consumer. And a lot of the people emailing Indigo have said something very similar.
00:45:11.600 We got a message here from Debbie. She says, class action re mask and travel mandates. Why do you
00:45:17.600 suppose CBC not covering that story as well? I think the media will cover some of these cases
00:45:23.200 when they get to trial. To be honest, I think there have been so many legal challenges that a lot of
00:45:28.320 media don't necessarily know where to start on them and they haven't been following all of them and
00:45:33.680 all of that. But I think there is a point to the realities that we were talking about with Rupa earlier
00:45:40.400 and that a lot of people don't want to acknowledge that they were hoodwinked. And a lot of people don't
00:45:45.200 want to acknowledge that they bought into something which simply isn't true. And that is this idea
00:45:51.360 that it was politics and not science driving the mandates that we clung to as though it was
00:45:57.280 scientific gospel and that some people still are and that the government has threatened and just
00:46:02.000 dangled above us as possibly coming back in the fall. And I have very, very little optimism left that
00:46:08.400 the government won't do exactly that. We get a surge of cases in the fall and all of a sudden we're right
00:46:14.560 back into where we were six months ago. Mask mandates everywhere, vaccine mandates, vaccine
00:46:19.440 passports in some form. And you know, there are some places that I don't think will do it. I mean,
00:46:24.240 if Danielle Smith becomes the premier of Alberta, I certainly would guarantee you that Alberta is not
00:46:28.720 going to go down that road. But we forget how much authority the federal government has. I mean,
00:46:33.440 right now, unvaccinated people have been unable to book air travel because they were banned from it and
00:46:39.280 now they're all doing it. I mean, what happens if people are booking trips and then the government just
00:46:43.360 bring back the mandate and says, oh, yep, the vaccinated can't fly anymore. Is this a normal 0.53
00:46:48.240 way for a society to function? Absolutely not. But it's become normal in Canada. We've got to end
00:46:54.400 things there. My thanks to all of you for tuning in to the program today. If you want to read the book
00:47:00.000 for yourself, you can get it at Amazon. It's called The Freedom Convoy, the inside story of three weeks
00:47:05.280 that shook the world. And like I said, it's not just a recap. It is a book that advances new information
00:47:10.720 about the convoy. And I'm so honored by all of you that have reached out and sent me your pictures
00:47:15.760 with the book. If you have more of those, tweet them out and I'll retweet you if you post a picture
00:47:19.520 of my book and let me know what you think about it. But thank you truly because I know, and I said
00:47:24.800 this a few weeks ago, it pained a Toronto star and a Globe and Mail book editor a great deal to have
00:47:29.760 to type in the title of my book in the number one spot. And I would like them to have to keep that
00:47:34.000 discomfort up for just a few more weeks. So we'll talk to you soon, folks. This is The Andrew Lawton
00:47:38.400 Show on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to The Andrew
00:47:44.720 Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:48:04.000 New START Hazel Home.
00:48:08.720 New START
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00:48:12.600 New mug
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00:48:21.840 Do
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00:48:33.180 Thank you.
00:49:03.180 Thank you.