Juno News - Trudeau’s Wokest Week (Ft. Andrew Lawton)

00:00:00.000 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashes a torrent of radical, extreme, woke, far-left policies this week.

00:00:07.400 It's been the wokest week in Canadian history, from gun bans to hard drug legalization to refusing to admit that the pandemic is over.

00:00:14.880 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.640 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in.

00:00:32.000 What an incredible week we are living through.

00:00:33.980 It's like every woke idea in Justin Trudeau's head is coming out in the form of public policy.

00:00:39.240 It's really wild just to keep up with all of the things that are going on.

00:00:42.120 And so to help us make sense of the world and to break down some of the more extreme policies that we are seeing is True North senior journalist, Andrew Lawton.

00:00:51.540 Andrew, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:53.720 Hey, good to be back. Thanks for having me on.

00:00:55.500 It's not pouring, well, I mean, it is still pouring rain where I am, but I'm not in the rain like last time I was on your show.

00:01:00.800 So we're moving in a drier direction.

00:01:03.360 That's right.

00:01:03.980 Well, we are, honestly, I couldn't believe the callousness of Justin Trudeau in introducing a gun ban like this just a week after the horrific news event down in Uvalde, Texas.

00:01:16.420 It seemed like the most sort of callous, calculated, just opportunistic, kind of icky thing I've seen in politics in a long time.

00:01:25.460 And, you know, maybe it's good policy, good politics because a lot of Canadians don't like guns.

00:01:30.460 We don't have the same sort of gun culture, certainly, that they have in Texas, but it just seemed so opportunistic.

00:01:36.340 And I'm surprised that more journalists aren't sort of calling him out on it.

00:01:40.180 So, Andrew, you are a gun enthusiast.

00:01:42.600 He produced a fantastic documentary, Assaulted Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners.

00:01:47.040 So you're sort of our resident gun nut around here, Andrew, and I'm hoping that you can help us understand what exactly Justin Trudeau announced.

00:01:54.880 He called it a freeze. It seemed more like a temporary ban to me.

00:01:58.580 So what is different and what is your reaction to it?

00:02:02.580 So what they're doing is actually saying that no more handguns, once this legislation passes, will be able to be purchased.

00:02:11.100 That's what they're going for.

00:02:12.560 And this is a bit of a contrast, a significant contrast from the big gun ban they did that kind of triggered Assaulted two years ago,

00:02:19.260 which actually overnight froze these things.

00:02:22.240 So there's quite a different change in tactics here.

00:02:25.820 But I think the point that you introduced a moment ago is the key one.

00:02:28.880 It's responding not to a Canadian problem.

00:02:31.520 There is no Canadian gun ownership problem that stems from law-abiding gun owners.

00:02:36.500 There's an American problem that Justin Trudeau wanted to piggyback onto.

00:02:39.940 Well, and it just seemed like such an, again, unbelievably callous.

00:02:46.140 I'm surprised that the media hasn't sort of jumped on it.

00:02:51.680 But, okay, so in the U.S., the concern is that, you know, young people, people who are mentally unstable,

00:02:59.360 aren't being properly screened, and they're able to go and buy, you know, machine guns or whatever you call them,

00:03:05.840 assault rifles or just heavy-duty rifles.

00:03:09.360 And that's a problem for many in the U.S.

00:03:13.140 Canada, we don't have the problem with mass shooting.

00:03:15.280 If anything, there is a problem, though, with handguns, with crime, mostly in urban centres in places like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal.

00:03:24.140 So I'm wondering, Andrew, do you think that this gun freeze or gun ban, temporary ban, will help address that issue at all?

00:03:32.580 No, it'll do the opposite.

00:03:34.120 Because when you look at the problems, I mean, the two big centres for this, Toronto and Surrey in British Columbia,

00:03:40.120 the problems are inner-city gang-related problems.

00:03:43.300 They're guns that are overwhelmingly illegally smuggled in from the U.S.

00:03:47.460 So there is a connection in that sense to the American gun ownership system.

00:03:51.820 But they're not coming from the lawful market in Canada.

00:03:54.860 So if you try to do what Justin Trudeau is doing in his own words, which is close off the legal handgun market in Canada,

00:04:01.260 it actually does nothing to deal with the firearms that are at the root of this gun crime.

00:04:07.080 And to be fair, there is stuff in this bill that goes after smuggling.

00:04:09.880 There is stuff in this bill that goes after the border and stiffer penalties.

00:04:13.580 I'd say not nearly enough.

00:04:14.960 And I'd say that the thing that he's really focusing on here, going after the law-abiding,

00:04:19.540 is entirely disconnected from where we do have an issue with guns in Canada.

00:04:24.200 And it's not from lawful licensed ownership, which has an insane amount of hurdles to go through.

00:04:29.900 And just, I mean, the government admitted this too.

00:04:32.160 There was a story in Reuters where a reporter had asked a government official,

00:04:36.680 do you think there's going to be this run on handguns because of this?

00:04:40.140 And the official said, no, no, no, because they're so regulated and hard to get.

00:04:43.140 We're not worried about that.

00:04:45.380 So if that's the case, then why?

00:04:46.940 I mean, why do you think he introduced this?

00:04:50.160 He doesn't like gun owners.

00:04:51.700 I mean, it's a group that's overwhelmingly conservative.

00:04:54.480 It's a small minority.

00:04:55.840 I think handgun owners in Canada are about, you know, 700,000 in number.

00:04:59.440 So it's an easy group to score political points off the backs of because people that don't understand guns,

00:05:05.580 that don't understand gun owners, that don't think you need to have that,

00:05:08.980 or that are confused about what the laws are, will say, oh, yeah, yeah, no one needs a handgun.

00:05:13.320 I support that.

00:05:14.260 So it costs him no votes and gains him a few.

00:05:17.620 It's interesting.

00:05:18.580 I want to play a clip for you because Justin Trudeau was asked about this question.

00:05:23.720 He was asked whether or not or why his gun ban seems to target lawful, law-abiding gun owners.

00:05:32.540 And I want to get your reaction to this clip.

00:05:35.300 What would your message be to firearms groups that are saying, you know,

00:05:38.500 the handgun ban continues to just target lawful gun owners?

00:05:42.120 And, you know, it's similar criticism to other gun legislation saying it's not going to target people that are breaking the law anyways.

00:05:47.540 I think people need to be careful about misinformation and disinformation in this.

00:05:51.480 We've explicitly and specifically not targeted law-abiding firearms owners

00:05:57.080 because those who currently own and operate handguns safely and store them safely

00:06:02.260 are not at all targeted by this legislation.

00:06:05.300 We're simply saying that we are freezing the market,

00:06:08.760 and in the future it will not be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns in Canada.

00:06:14.500 There have been too many tragedies.

00:06:16.060 Canadians need to see safer communities,

00:06:18.180 and this is a comprehensive, multi-step path towards that.

00:06:23.380 Yeah, I don't know how he's justifying saying that because it only targets the law-abiding.

00:06:28.900 Again, it doesn't target people that have no respect or regard for the licensing system,

00:06:33.480 people that haven't gone through the background checks and the regular compliance measures

00:06:37.640 and the storage rules, all of that.

00:06:39.160 It only targets the law-abiding.

00:06:41.200 But again, he's preying on misinformation here and on people that don't actually understand

00:06:45.860 how hard it is to get one of these things in Canada.

00:06:49.360 Well, it's interesting because if I was a reporter there, I would have asked a follow-up.

00:06:53.020 Okay, then who does it target?

00:06:54.640 Because we're talking about, like, I don't understand.

00:06:57.800 And then also that little dig that he does at the beginning,

00:06:59.780 and this has become like a tick for the prime minister.

00:07:02.680 It's like anytime he gets a question that has some kind of criticism built in,

00:07:06.820 he goes right to misinformation and disinformation.

00:07:09.980 I've heard him do this multiple times to journalists,

00:07:12.720 not just independent journalists, but legacy media journalists,

00:07:15.840 where he sort of accuses them of misinformation and disinformation.

00:07:19.680 And I know it's a little off topic because we're talking about guns,

00:07:21.860 but I have to get your comment on that.

00:07:23.380 What do you think of the prime minister kind of slipping that in

00:07:26.220 and then not even providing a clear answer?

00:07:28.220 Like, I really genuinely, honestly don't understand what he's talking about

00:07:31.700 when he says it's misinformation, disinformation,

00:07:33.880 to say that this bill only targets law-owning.

00:07:37.760 What's your take on the whole thing?

00:07:40.440 Well, it's his go-to, because he doesn't think there is any legitimate criticism of him.

00:07:44.300 So if someone is criticizing him or criticizing a policy of his,

00:07:48.100 he assumes they must be misinformed.

00:07:49.820 They must be the problem.

00:07:52.580 It's wild, though, especially given, you know,

00:07:54.660 the broader environment that we live in right now,

00:07:57.200 where we're told that the biggest threat to national security

00:08:00.240 is online radicalization and misinformation, disinformation.

00:08:03.960 There's, what, three different bills that the liberals have cooking up

00:08:07.160 that targets news organizations and free speech on the internet.

00:08:12.380 And, again, they go back to this misinformation, disinformation.

00:08:15.440 You have national security specialists using these buzzwords.

00:08:19.600 Andrew, I mean, why doesn't anyone call the prime minister on this?

00:08:23.460 Why don't journalists push back when they hear him

00:08:25.720 just say this kind of blathering nonsense?

00:08:28.660 I think a part of it is that they don't feel

00:08:32.620 they're ever going to be the target of the regulation.

00:08:35.020 They don't feel that the regulation of media is a bad thing.

00:08:38.220 In fact, it protects them because it prevents their competition there.

00:08:41.340 And I think there's a lot of short-sightedness

00:08:43.260 that's really at the root of this,

00:08:45.100 where they don't understand why,

00:08:48.480 or I shouldn't even say that, maybe they understand

00:08:50.420 and they just don't care about the broader implications of this policy,

00:08:53.840 about a world in which all media has to go through this government conduit,

00:08:57.700 because, as we know, and as True North has been talking about relentlessly,

00:09:01.360 that is the only sort of media environment

00:09:04.360 for those traditional legacy media types,

00:09:06.520 which is the government channel, government-funded,

00:09:08.860 and now government-approved.

00:09:10.660 Well, I mean, you saw Trudeau just sort of throw that out

00:09:14.140 at what I presume is a legacy media journalist there.

00:09:16.820 There's just so many levels of absurdity when Justin Trudeau talks,

00:09:20.720 and I think that that is one of the examples.

00:09:22.580 Well, that's not the only sort of big, shocking news story of the week.

00:09:26.460 Andrew, I want to ask you a bit about, on Monday,

00:09:29.680 there was a House of Commons vote on whether or not

00:09:32.380 Canada would be ready to lift the remaining COVID restrictions.

00:09:35.360 So many other places around the world have already done away with them,

00:09:38.780 and they've sort of learned to live with COVID,

00:09:40.240 and everybody's moved on.

00:09:41.900 In Canada, not so much.

00:09:45.000 The Liberals and the NDP joined together to vote against this motion.

00:09:50.360 So it was defeated by a count of 117 to 202.

00:09:55.560 So there was just one Liberal MP and one independent MP,

00:09:59.000 along with the Conservatives that voted for it.

00:10:01.300 So I wonder, what's your take on this?

00:10:03.640 Why is Canada dragging its heels when it comes to just moving on

00:10:06.700 and learning to live with COVID?

00:10:09.660 I don't know if I could answer the why,

00:10:12.620 except for to spite people, to spite the unvaccinated.

00:10:15.940 I mean, that seems to be the big thing that Justin Trudeau wants to do.

00:10:19.260 But let me tell you, it is literally just Canada.

00:10:21.860 When I flew to Zurich to cover the World Economic Forum conference last week,

00:10:27.000 the second people got off the plane,

00:10:28.980 you could tell who the Europeans were because they all like ripped off their masks 1.00

00:10:32.140 because they can walk around maskless in airports.

00:10:35.020 And on the way back, same thing.

00:10:37.240 Everyone's walking around, no vaccine passport in Switzerland, no masks, none of that.

00:10:42.100 You go through the airport, you're mask-free.

00:10:44.120 And then the second you get on the Air Canada plane,

00:10:46.420 because they're regulated by the government,

00:10:48.460 you've got to put your mask on.

00:10:49.880 And at one point, I was sort of reminded that I was coming home

00:10:52.880 when I saw a flight attendant wake up a guy who was sleeping

00:10:55.660 because his mask had slipped half a millimeter below his nose or something like that.

00:11:00.500 So it is insane.

00:11:01.920 It's completely theatrical.

00:11:03.100 If you look at Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers,

00:11:06.400 they're selectively wearing masks depending on which meeting they're in

00:11:10.240 and which thing they're in.

00:11:11.380 And it's like, you can tell that they don't believe it anymore.

00:11:15.120 They aren't buying into it, but we all have to.

00:11:18.200 And the vaccine mandate for internal travel is insane.

00:11:21.560 There's a big legal challenge afoot right now against this.

00:11:24.820 And I don't think they want to give an inch.

00:11:26.600 I think the convoy embarrassed Justin Trudeau significantly.

00:11:30.740 And I don't think he wants to relent on anything that the people in that convoy wanted.

00:11:35.360 And maybe I'm drawing too many conclusions there.

00:11:37.940 But I think spite towards this people that Justin Trudeau holds in contempt,

00:11:42.280 which he feels are the only people asking for changes, is really what's motivating this.

00:11:47.540 Although the opposition is growing.

00:11:49.260 I mean, just this week, the WestJet CEO is on a plane in Europe and he tweeted out

00:11:53.620 how kind of almost giddily that, oh yeah, mask free in Europe.

00:11:57.820 And he didn't, you know, take aim at the government, but you could tell implicitly

00:12:01.140 he was saying, what is it that is different in Europe?

00:12:04.700 What is it that the science says here that it doesn't say in Canada or vice versa?

00:12:09.060 And WestJet's CEO also came out this week and said, we've got to get rid of the mandates.

00:12:13.220 They're killing tourism.

00:12:14.480 Now, my view is that they're just wrong.

00:12:16.640 I think the tourism implications of that may be a point of evidence in favor of dropping them.

00:12:21.720 But I think they're long gone.

00:12:23.200 If there was ever justification for them, there isn't now.

00:12:27.180 Well, a couple of things.

00:12:28.200 I think you're totally right about spite because we saw this non-binding motion put forth by the

00:12:33.140 Conservatives got voted down.

00:12:35.300 And then the next day, Trudeau announced that they were extending their restrictions, which

00:12:40.220 again, it's punitive, right?

00:12:41.540 It's telling people who are vaccinated that they can't, sorry, people who are not vaccinated

00:12:45.780 that they can't come to Canada, people who are unvaccinated, they can't leave Canada. 0.96

00:12:48.920 So it's punitive in nature.

00:12:51.920 Anecdotally as well, I have flown around a little bit and I noticed that every flight

00:12:56.280 I get on, the pilot comes on and sort of reluctantly apologizes and says, we know,

00:13:01.020 we know this policy is still in place.

00:13:03.160 We're sorry.

00:13:03.720 It's not up to us.

00:13:04.460 We're following Canadian federal regulations.

00:13:07.240 And you could just tell that everyone is sick of it.

00:13:09.140 One other story.

00:13:10.100 I was flying from Ottawa to Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago.

00:13:14.580 And as soon as we went over U.S. airspace, the pilot announced that you could take your

00:13:18.300 mask off.

00:13:19.280 And, you know, the pilot was excited to announce this, like, don't worry, you don't have to

00:13:23.540 wear it anymore.

00:13:24.380 I instantly took my mask off and then I looked around at it or nobody else did because I

00:13:28.940 realized it was all bureaucrats on the plane, either American or Canadian.

00:13:32.360 Yeah, going from one capital to another, that's a good, I feel bad.

00:13:35.880 I'm glad you survived that flight, to be honest.

00:13:38.320 And I don't even think the pilot was right, but you better believe I wouldn't be complaining

00:13:42.320 because, I mean, flights I've been on, they've kind of claimed, you know, Transport Canada

00:13:46.720 jurisdiction over the entire flight, even if only a bit of it's in Canada.

00:13:51.440 And I think this is the thing, people, but these measures everywhere else I find are decreasing

00:13:56.020 in compliance.

00:13:56.840 Like if you go around, even in some medical clinics right now in Ontario, masks are required,

00:14:01.700 but people generally aren't wearing them.

00:14:03.940 The airline industry, the aviation sector is like the one thing that the federal government

00:14:08.560 can control.

00:14:09.320 They can't control your neighborhood corner store.

00:14:11.700 They can't control the grocery store.

00:14:13.440 They can't control all of these other spaces, but they can control air and rail travel.

00:14:18.560 And I think there is something to, I just want to make these people suffer and I want

00:14:22.980 to make these people hurt.

00:14:23.980 I think you're completely right.

00:14:26.760 And to speak to the science, our friend, Senator Denise Batter, she was in the Senate

00:14:31.220 the other day and she made an incredibly good point that really, you know, for all the times

00:14:36.680 that we hear from Justin Trudeau that this is based on science and we always have to follow

00:14:40.840 the science and we're the party of science.

00:14:43.500 Denise makes a great point about how there's nothing really scientific about this measure.

00:14:48.020 I'm going to play that clip for you, Andrew, and I'll get your reaction to it.

00:14:50.740 Senator Gould, according to a recent article, a UK public health agency report published

00:14:56.920 this month showed that after a second dose of Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccine, effectiveness

00:15:02.460 fell from 65 to 70 percent to as low as 15 percent by 25 weeks afterwards.

00:15:09.260 Most people in Canada received their second dose a year ago.

00:15:12.660 Yeah, and she's very right about that.

00:15:14.320 And I would also add that even booster doses, which were heralded as like the next frontier

00:15:19.480 in this, have been abysmal at protecting people against the latest variant, the Omicron variant.

00:15:25.900 I mean, the boosters, booster efficacy is pretty much non-existent, which is why people like

00:15:30.200 me that went, you know, for the first two years or I guess year and nine months of the pandemic

00:15:35.000 without really knowing that many people who had COVID, it quickly over the winter and even

00:15:40.480 in the last couple of months has become like everyone knows someone or multiple people that

00:15:45.100 have gotten it. And they're all fine, generally speaking. I don't know anyone that's had any

00:15:48.760 serious ailment from COVID in the last few months. But there is no justification for it. I mean,

00:15:55.480 we got vaccinated in large numbers. Vaccination hit its saturation point where no matter how many

00:16:01.720 mandates and restrictions there were, as many people got vaccinated as we're going to, at that

00:16:06.640 point, you have to just move on and say the people that thought the vaccines were affording

00:16:10.320 them protection. Got it. And everyone else didn't. They made their choices. Okay. We decided it was

00:16:15.860 safe enough to open restaurants. We've opened everything else. Why can people not get on a plane

00:16:20.500 in their own country? It's part of the thing I think, Andrew, and I'll let you react to this,

00:16:26.520 is that if they loosen the rules now, they're kind of admitting that they were wrong. I mean,

00:16:31.440 from Denise Batter's point, after 25 weeks, so we're talking half a year. For me, I got my second dose,

00:16:37.440 what, over a year ago in May. So a little over a year ago. That means for the last 30 weeks or so,

00:16:45.720 I have had less than 15% protection. I feel like the Trudeau government is just doubling down because

00:16:51.380 admitting that these policies don't work sort of undermines the case that they've been trying to

00:16:56.760 make for the last year. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think you're right about that. It

00:17:00.960 undermines it. And the thing is, by not releasing these things sooner, they've made it more difficult

00:17:07.260 because now there's never going to be that magic moment where, okay, one day it's unsafe, the next

00:17:12.520 day it's safe. There have been points in the past where you could really draw a line and say, okay,

00:17:17.400 you know, case counts are here or hospitalizations are here. But now that, I mean, it's so insignificant,

00:17:23.000 people have moved beyond this. We don't have a mass hospitalization crisis. We don't have

00:17:28.320 all of these things tripping public health alarm bells that were there, or people said were there

00:17:34.120 some months ago and certainly a year ago. So there isn't any moment now where the government

00:17:39.380 has even said, we will do it when this happens. We will lift the restrictions because there is no

00:17:44.480 metric now. When they're making things up as they go and not regarding science as being the basis of

00:17:50.620 policy here, there's no metric that can even justify it. So ultimately, whenever it happens,

00:17:55.300 it's going to be just on the whim of Justin Trudeau. What a crazy way to govern. And speaking of this,

00:18:02.040 I don't know that you and I necessarily see eye to eye when it comes to the issue of decriminalizing

00:18:06.140 drugs, Andrew, but I can't understand why a prime minister would sort of unilaterally announce that

00:18:12.380 one province out of 10, they're now legalizing drugs or decriminalizing hard drugs. We're talking

00:18:19.240 about hard drugs. We're talking about opioids, cocaine, ecstasy, MDMA. So as of January 31st,

00:18:27.980 2023, Canadians over the age of 18 will be legally able to possess 2.5 grams of these hard drugs.

00:18:34.320 And we're told that the purpose of this is to combat the rise in drug overdoses and this sort of

00:18:40.980 epidemic of opioid addiction and drug overdoses. Do you think decriminalization is the best way to help

00:18:48.800 people who are addicted to drugs?

00:18:50.100 Well, I think that you're asking a question there that I would say no to. But that doesn't mean I'm

00:18:57.520 not for decriminalization. And I'd say there are two things. Number one, I'm a libertarian. And when

00:19:03.060 you're talking about people that are doing things to themselves, however unhealthy or risky they are,

00:19:07.360 I think that they need to be able to make these decisions for themselves. But I say that recognizing

00:19:12.120 addiction is a disease. And despite the challenges that you see from drug addicts in a lot of

00:19:18.000 communities, especially in BC, I think this needs to be dealt with. I think when people who are using 0.51

00:19:23.200 drugs are breaking other laws, those other laws need to be enforced. And I think that's what a lot

00:19:28.540 of the activists don't really want to talk about. Because I do know that families are very much

00:19:34.420 affected by this. Businesses are affected by it. I see it in my city of London as well, which is

00:19:39.360 rapidly, I don't know if it's reaching BC level numbers, but it's certainly rapidly rising in drug use.

00:19:45.900 But I think there's another side of this, though, which is you look at the status quo,

00:19:50.240 has this helped? Has this worked? And some people may say no, and there's de facto decriminalization.

00:19:56.580 A lot of the times in BC and elsewhere, police are only going after those who have volumes where

00:20:02.440 they'd be trafficking anyway. So there's been effectively a decriminalization policy.

00:20:07.100 But even if that's the case, I'd look and I'd say that criminal prohibition has not stopped

00:20:11.480 all of these problems that we see in communities across the country, across North America. So if

00:20:17.900 there is some way that we could just take that criminal aspect out of the equation and make

00:20:24.320 treatment available and more widespread, I think that would be desirable. And I realize there are

00:20:29.340 a lot of ifs there, but I don't think that anyone can say that the situation we have today is a

00:20:34.100 resounding success for the prohibition model.

00:20:36.660 Well, I would take just the opposite position, because I grew up in Vancouver. And even in the

00:20:42.160 90s and the 2000s, drug use is rampant, right? Like people are using cocaine, people are using

00:20:48.440 ecstasy, people are using heroin. It's everywhere. And that was under a regime that, you know,

00:20:55.260 like you said, they look the other way. And so this whole idea that, like, to me, this signals from

00:21:01.140 the Trudeau government, like, we're just kind of throwing our hands up, and we're not going to

00:21:05.920 have a policing element at all. And I think the reality is that living in a city like that,

00:21:10.680 living in Vancouver, where drugs are everywhere, everybody uses drugs. And when I say drugs, I mean,

00:21:16.800 mostly marijuana, people smoke pot, or they take other kinds of, like, lighter drugs, I guess. But

00:21:22.780 then a lot of people do move into the heavier stuff, Andrew. And it's not like it's a personal,

00:21:28.500 internalized use, right? When you're using drugs, there's externalities. Go take a look at the

00:21:34.960 Lower East Side of Vancouver, and see sort of the, what I think is, is, I mean, it looks like a war

00:21:41.740 zone. There's just people with no, no dignity whatsoever. No one's taking care of them. There's

00:21:47.820 no, there's no care, there's no hope, you know, people are just indulging in the most sort of

00:21:53.580 self-destructive behavior possible. And now we have, we already have a situation where there's safe

00:21:58.480 injection sites, and where there's government enabling this kind of thing, where you can get your

00:22:01.980 drugs tested to make sure that they're not poisoned, or what have you. And now you have

00:22:07.200 the true government signaling, like, hey, we're going to take more steps to enable this, this sort

00:22:13.120 of incredibly destructive behavior. It's not just Vancouver, that it happens, the cities all over

00:22:19.380 Canada, as you mentioned, even in, in little London, Ontario, but certainly Calgary, Vancouver,

00:22:24.940 Toronto, any big city, Edmonton, even, I've seen heavy, heavy drug use. And I just, I just can't

00:22:30.560 understand how taking a step towards allowing more people to use this to enter into this type

00:22:37.200 of lifestyle, like how that's going to help minimize drug addictions and minimize the harm

00:22:45.220 that comes from drugs. Well, I think you have to look at the motivation. And the question is,

00:22:49.780 are we trying to, and is this trying to normalize and endorse drug use? Or is it trying to reframe the

00:22:58.060 way that we try to get people off of drugs? And I'll be the first to admit, I know there are

00:23:02.200 activists out there that are completely okay with the normalization of after people that say, yes,

00:23:07.820 it's a legitimate life choice, not just it's your choice to make, but it's a legitimate thing that

00:23:12.140 we shouldn't get in the way of. And I have significant issues with so called safe supply

00:23:16.520 programs that try to say that, you know, we should be able to offer people a quote, unquote,

00:23:21.660 safe version of the street drug they're using, because this isn't working either. And I think that does go

00:23:27.040 down the road of normalizing. But if we are trying to get people off of drugs, and we're trying to get

00:23:32.520 people into the pipeline, and we have treatment available to them, the rationale that I do think

00:23:37.540 has some merit is that people shouldn't be afraid of getting arrested if they want to seek that. Now,

00:23:42.860 I would be completely okay with some stopgap, a measure that said, you have to go through treatment,

00:23:49.800 or you have to face charges for whatever the offense is, I think that would be a legitimate in 0.95

00:23:56.160 between. What I don't like is, and you and I probably agree on this is this idea that criminal

00:24:01.360 law is now like locality dependent, this thing that's supposed to be national, now changes depending

00:24:07.480 on where in the country you are, which is not supposed to be how criminal law is.

00:24:11.500 Well, I don't mind the idea that if you if you're found with heroin or drugs, heroin or cocaine or

00:24:16.940 something, you have the choice of going into treatment, or face charges. But but it seems like this,

00:24:21.440 this obsession with what they call small amounts, that that there's no there's no penalty whatsoever.

00:24:26.140 If you if you're caught with heroin, and you say, Oh, it's just for me, then it's like, Okay, go ahead,

00:24:31.020 have a great day, sir. But if you're not breaking any other law, what's the problem with that? If

00:24:35.420 you're not doing anything else illegal? Well, it's it's like the question is, Andrew, like, what kind

00:24:40.400 of society do you want? What kind of like world you want to live in where we as a society and our laws and

00:24:45.460 our political leaders say, you know, yeah, there's no meaning to life, there's no you have no dignity

00:24:50.600 to your body, you can go ahead and completely desecrate yourself. And you can you can take

00:24:55.640 heroin until you die. And this is just that's just another lifestyle choice, right? There's there's no

00:25:01.420 moral good or bad. And I think that when you get down that path, where you're saying to people,

00:25:06.220 go ahead, you know, you do your heroin and just keep to yourself. It's like, again, go spend some time

00:25:11.460 in in the Lower East Side of Vancouver, I lived in San Francisco for two years. It is a disgusting 0.61

00:25:17.960 hell hole of a place to watch people, the lack of dignity, watching people defecate on the streets, 0.99

00:25:24.760 watching people sleeping, watching people chewing off their fingernails, watching people struggling

00:25:29.560 through the addiction, the horrible addictions that come along with drugs. And then of course,

00:25:34.700 we know when they when they run out of drugs, and they want their next kick, what do they do?

00:25:38.740 They go out and rob people, they go out and rob stores, they break they smash windows, they

00:25:42.980 they destroy the city. And again, go to go to Lucy that if I Laurie's side of Vancouver, go to 1.00

00:25:48.600 the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, and you will see hell on earth, right? And so it's like,

00:25:54.880 again, what's the problem? It's other people, it's it's it's their life, they can destroy it all

00:25:59.200 they want. It's like, at some point, you have to ask what kind of community do you want to live in?

00:26:02.680 What kind of country do you want to live? What kind of place do you want your kids growing up in? And

00:26:05.520 to me, I've seen that. And it's not something that I would advocate for anybody. I mean, I feel

00:26:10.420 sorry for I feel sympathy for people who are down that lifestyle. But I think that the reason that

00:26:14.940 they go down that path is because they have no other option. There's no one there to help them. A

00:26:18.500 lot of times they have mental health issues. And I think that there's a lot better ways to actually

00:26:23.420 help those people and stop them from using drugs than to say, okay, well, it's just for your

00:26:27.740 personal use. So go have it have a good day, sir. That that would be my that that's where I stand.

00:26:31.880 Yeah. And again, I don't think this is a legitimate life choice. The question is,

00:26:36.960 do I trust government to be the arbiter of what your life should look like? And the answer is a

00:26:42.380 resounding no, because I don't think and I know it's a bit of a straw man. But I don't think we

00:26:46.340 want a world where the government is the one that decides the appropriate level of risk for for other

00:26:51.200 activities people partake in, whatever they are. I realize drugs destroy families, I realize drugs

00:26:56.540 destroy communities. And interestingly enough, you mentioned San Francisco, I had heard about all of that

00:27:01.700 with like the human excrement on the streets. I just didn't know how true it was like literally

00:27:06.220 my first time and my only time in San Francisco. Like I walk out the door of my hotel, which is very

00:27:11.680 nice hotel. And there it is on the side of the sidewalk. So very much a real thing. I just don't

00:27:17.780 think that criminalization is the path to do it. I think you have private charity groups, you have a

00:27:23.640 lot of advocacy groups that are working on this, that I think should and could be doing a lot more on

00:27:28.700 this to get people off of drugs. I just don't think the prohibition model has worked. And I think that

00:27:33.840 what we have now is a reflection of that. I mean, I think that that could be the case when you look

00:27:40.100 at something like marijuana, and you could say, okay, if someone's using marijuana, the only person

00:27:44.460 that they're really impacting is themselves. But when you're talking about these other drugs,

00:27:48.100 I mean, it's so clear that there's externalities, because you're not living, you know, if these people

00:27:52.400 could take drugs and just be in like a complete, you know, sorry, they could be in a room with like,

00:27:58.820 like padded walls or something like that, then it's like, okay, I guess go nuts. But the reality

00:28:02.880 is that they do them out on the street. And there's all kinds of runoffs. And to me, again, this is like

00:28:09.220 peak woke Trudeau pushing the most sort of whatever the trendiest leftist cause of the day is. And I think

00:28:17.720 I think it's just completely the wrong, the wrong choice. Andrew, I want to ask you one more one

00:28:22.580 more question. Maybe we can end on a on a note that we actually agree on. Another thing that

00:28:27.140 happened this week is that the liberals push for the end of debate on the Online News Act. This is

00:28:32.480 Bill C-18, which would determine who is a qualified journalist and who is not a qualified journalist.

00:28:39.440 So I'm wondering, what's your take on the liberals doing this this week as well?

00:28:44.640 Yeah, I don't know if I made the cut yet. Maybe we'll have to wait for a little while to

00:28:47.380 figure out if I'm on the approved list. Generally speaking, this government's record would suggest

00:28:51.180 no. You know, it's funny because the great the main criticism about C-18 is that it's government

00:28:56.860 control over the internet and government control over speech. And there's a particular poetry

00:29:02.220 in government shortening debate and cutting short debate on a bill whose primary criticism is closing

00:29:08.700 off the marketplace of ideas. So all I have to say is, you know, at least they haven't lost their sense

00:29:13.500 of humor. A sense of irony there. All right, Andrew. Well, thanks so much for joining the show. It's

00:29:18.340 always great to hear your perspectives, opinions. And thanks for all the great reporting you do for

00:29:22.200 True North. Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for giving me a place to do it. All right. That's

00:29:25.960 Sandra Lawton. I'm Candice Malcolm. And this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:29:28.860 Bye.

00:29:29.640 Bye.

00:29:36.940 Bye.

00:29:45.560 Bye.

00:29:46.760 Bye.

00:29:50.960 Bye.

00:29:51.900 Bye.

00:29:51.940 Bye.

00:29:56.240 Bye.

00:29:56.840 Bye.

00:29:57.400 Bye.

00:29:57.640 Bye.

Juno News - June 02, 2022

Trudeau’s Wokest Week (Ft. Andrew Lawton)

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