Juno News - February 20, 2020


What's it going to take to end these blockades？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

179.38571

Word Count

952

Sentence Count

48


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What's it going to take to bring these blockades, to bring this series of
00:00:09.240 escalating protests to an end? That is the question that so many Canadians have.
00:00:14.040 First Nations who want to see these projects built. That's the question they
00:00:17.580 have. Many legislators, many people who want to see action from law enforcement.
00:00:21.720 What will it take for the OPP to do their job and enforce those court
00:00:26.200 injunctions in Ontario against the via rail blockade? What will it take for Prime
00:00:30.460 Minister Justin Trudeau to act decisively and to also appropriately and honestly
00:00:36.040 represent what's happening right now across this country? A major escalation
00:00:41.680 taking place on Tuesday. I don't think it got the news that it deserved protesters
00:00:46.480 who, let's be honest, were not Wet'suwetwin members as most of these people are not.
00:00:50.860 They were eco-environmentalist protesters associated with the Extinction Rebellion
00:00:55.760 movement. They showed up outside BC NDP Premier John Horgan's home. Not outside
00:01:02.720 his office, not outside the BC legislature, which they already blockaded the week
00:01:06.920 before, outside his house. And were they protesting? No. They were there to arrest
00:01:13.580 him. And you say, hold on a second, Fury, you mean that they were there and they got
00:01:17.840 arrested? Well, yes, actually they were removed finally at the end, but no, they
00:01:21.380 were there to arrest John Horgan, to perform a citizen's arrest on him. Activists who
00:01:28.340 represent the views of, I don't know, 0.5% of the country wanted to arrest the
00:01:34.340 elected Premier of British Columbia. Seriously? Okay, that is not a citizen's
00:01:40.340 arrest. A citizen's arrest, whatever you think of these things and vigilantism and all that kind of stuff,
00:01:45.540 a citizen's arrest. You can legitimately call it that if you see, okay, this guy robbed a store and
00:01:50.740 now I'm gonna hold him down and detain him until the police get here. And, well, in this country,
00:01:55.380 this day and age, you'll probably get charged for doing that, for assaulting the guy, but still we
00:01:59.700 can validly call that a citizen's arrest. No, camping out outside John Horgan's house to attempt to
00:02:06.500 take him away. That's called a kidnapping. That would be kidnapping a Premier of Canada. Now,
00:02:14.500 I don't want to turn this into something more incendiary than it is, but we ought to face the
00:02:18.900 facts. That is what we've come to. That is what they are doing. Because if they did blockade the
00:02:23.140 legislature the week before and faced no real repercussions for that, why would they not up the
00:02:28.500 ante? It's like how we have people who are blockading the VIA rail lines, the CN rail lines in Belleville,
00:02:33.780 and it should be noted that these are First Nations people. They are self-described Mohawk warriors,
00:02:38.820 although the Grand Chief of the Mohawks did say this is not productive, we'd like this to be
00:02:43.620 wound down, so they do not even represent their own community, but they are First Nations people. They
00:02:48.420 did that blockade, and then afterwards, I guess because they've been able to do that with impunity,
00:02:54.340 related individuals blockaded the Thousand Islands Parkway border crossing. So we have a border crossing,
00:03:01.300 basically our own national sovereignty being violated here. The Canada border, the US border,
00:03:06.660 you couldn't get tourists, you can get people going back and forth to see relatives. Trade was
00:03:11.700 blocked in all of that, and all that law enforcement said was, well, we encourage people to go and pursue
00:03:17.060 another path to drive an hour this way or an hour that way to another border crossing. This is what it's
00:03:22.420 come to. So what do they do next? Because they've been able to do all of this with impunity, and they
00:03:29.300 haven't even had leadership like Justin Trudeau say, stop blockading this. This is wrong. This is
00:03:36.180 illegal. Trudeau just keeps talking about dialogue with First Nations as if these groups actually
00:03:41.300 represent First Nations communities adequately, as if they actually speak for the broader First
00:03:47.540 Nations constituency. We're seeing more and more First Nations voices step forward and say, no, they do
00:03:52.100 not. And it's very worrisome to see that you went from blockading the BC legislature and barring
00:03:57.620 Christy Freeland from getting into a Halifax building to attempting to kidnap John Horgan.
00:04:03.780 And I will not retract my words and my description of that, because that's basically what that is.
00:04:09.700 What happened if police did not show up to protect John Horgan's home? He has his own personal
00:04:14.740 sort of security, and there's provincial law enforcement, and thankfully this is one time
00:04:18.180 when they did do their job. But what happened if they were not there? Would they have actually
00:04:21.860 attempted to do the citizen's arrest of him? What would they have done if they'd gotten a hold of him?
00:04:26.340 Would it have just been a stunt for the cameras, or would they have taken him somewhere? These are
00:04:30.100 questions that need to be asked, and they're very valid ones, because it's where we are at right now.
00:04:35.060 And we see stuff like that happening, and we realize this is not just contempt for the law in
00:04:40.180 terms of, okay, don't step in front of this rail line. This is contempt for the safety and security and
00:04:45.780 autonomy of other individuals, and senior individuals too, like Christa Freeland and John Horgan.
00:04:52.420 Let us, of course, hope that this does not escalate. But I also, if I am one of these activist protesters
00:04:59.620 devising tactics, why wouldn't one escalate it, given the carte blanche that you have so far been
00:05:05.300 given? Worrying times that call for action, and let's hope that we see that soon.
00:05:10.420 Thank you.
00:05:12.420 Thank you.
00:05:14.420 Thank you.
00:05:16.420 Thank you.