Juno News - June 11, 2019


Victoria councillor says military should pay for Remembrance Day ceremonies


Episode Stats


Length

3 minutes

Words per minute

162.94643

Word count

584

Sentence count

28

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ben Issett wants the government to foot the bill for Victoria s Remembrance Day observances. Why not have them on the 75th anniversary of D-Day? Why not on Canada Day? And why not on Remembrance itself?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's not uncommon to hear politicians on both the left and the right fight over which side
00:00:07.560 is most effectively and most adequately paying respect to veterans.
00:00:12.700 Well, now we have a new contest.
00:00:15.000 A Victoria City councillor who seems eager to take the prize
00:00:18.420 for being the most disrespectful to veterans in Canadian politics.
00:00:23.300 Yes, that councillor is Ben Isid,
00:00:25.620 who last week introduced a motion and debated a motion on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
00:00:33.440 The motion?
00:00:34.720 To try to get the government of Canada and the military
00:00:37.820 to foot the bill for Victoria's Remembrance Day observances.
00:00:42.440 Yes, he said that with billions and billions of dollars,
00:00:45.180 the Department of National Defence is better suited to pay for Remembrance Day ceremonies
00:00:50.080 in cities like Victoria.
00:00:52.360 This was in response to a debate that was actually about the cost of policing
00:00:56.400 the various events like Canada Day and, yes, Remembrance Day
00:01:00.720 that exist in Victoria and similarly in other cities around the country.
00:01:05.160 So there are a number of questions that are raised here.
00:01:08.180 Number one, what on earth is wrong with you?
00:01:11.840 Now, being anti-military and anti-veteran is not new for this particular councillor.
00:01:16.220 He previously argued against a potential bid from Victoria for the Invictus Games,
00:01:21.680 the Olympics, if you will, for wounded warriors,
00:01:24.520 because he says that allowing injured veterans to compete in a sporting event in Victoria
00:01:29.660 would be to support militarism.
00:01:33.020 You can't make this stuff up.
00:01:34.740 So as much as he wants to couch this as something about respecting taxpayers,
00:01:39.320 his words, it's actually about disrespecting veterans,
00:01:43.700 disrespecting the military,
00:01:45.520 and disrespecting the sacrifices that have been made by veterans.
00:01:49.060 And here's a newsflash for you.
00:01:50.660 Remembrance Day is not pro-war.
00:01:53.140 It's not pro-military.
00:01:54.760 In fact, it's quite anti-war.
00:01:56.740 It's about honouring and remembering the lives lost,
00:02:00.040 laid down for king and country by so many people in Canada
00:02:04.260 for the greater good,
00:02:05.760 because of a love of their country and their countrymen.
00:02:08.800 Remembrance Day is about honouring them,
00:02:11.480 not about celebrating or glorifying war.
00:02:14.220 Yet this old trope is basically for left-wingers in their pyjamas on the internet
00:02:19.860 that, oh, supporting Remembrance Day, wearing a poppy,
00:02:23.000 these are all things that glorify conflict and glorify killing,
00:02:26.540 when in actual fact, it could not be further from the truth.
00:02:29.960 But this is a man who holds public office,
00:02:32.200 a man who, despite his crusade against veterans,
00:02:35.040 continues to get re-elected to public office.
00:02:37.800 And even Lisa Helps, the mayor of Victoria who's so far left,
00:02:41.560 she wanted John A. MacDonald's statue taken away from City Hall,
00:02:45.400 voted against this.
00:02:46.880 Now, Ben Issett apologised, but only sort of.
00:02:49.720 He says he shouldn't have raised the discussion
00:02:51.780 on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
00:02:55.480 To which I say, why not?
00:02:57.160 If you're going to say to Canadians 0.83
00:02:58.820 that you do not care about the sacrifices of veterans,
00:03:02.040 why not double down?
00:03:03.360 Why not have it on D-Day? 0.88
00:03:04.500 Heck, why not raise the debate on Remembrance Day itself?
00:03:08.580 We as Canadians, we as freedom-loving Canadians,
00:03:11.780 owe our lives and our liberty to those men and women
00:03:15.500 who have served their country in the armed forces,
00:03:17.880 and in particular, those who laid down their lives.
00:03:20.980 The freedom to be a worthless twit on City Council,
00:03:23.900 a freedom that Councillor Ben Issett embraces on a day-to-day basis.
00:03:27.680 Well, he has the right to do that,
00:03:29.000 thanks to those whose honour and whose sacrifice he spits on.
00:03:33.360 For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.