Juno News - Yet another country is making vaccines mandatory

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.240 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:11.420 Coming up, another country mandates vaccination,

00:00:14.740 a new variant further delays reopening,

00:00:17.200 and a proposed measure to ban products from Xinjiang, China.

00:00:22.880 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.480 Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:34.580 The Andrew Lawton Show, Tuesday, November 30th, 2021.

00:00:38.860 The last day of November, I know,

00:00:41.460 which means that it's just, what, 31 days left until the end of the year.

00:00:45.540 And in 2022, we'll still be on the third year of the COVID era,

00:00:51.700 but nevertheless, feeling like a little bit of progress is perhaps coming.

00:00:55.020 Then again, maybe not. We have the Omicron virus,

00:00:59.040 the Omicron variant, the Omicron strain, whatever you want to call it.

00:01:02.800 The one that conveniently sidestepped new in the Greek alphabet

00:01:07.780 because the World Health Organization didn't want a

00:01:10.740 who's on first Abbott and Costello type situation of like

00:01:13.880 the new variant and the new variant and all that jazz.

00:01:16.880 And then they skipped the Xi variant,

00:01:20.920 Xi, because they didn't want to stigmatize a region.

00:01:26.080 That was what they said.

00:01:27.500 Conveniently, Xi is spelt the same way as Xi Jinping's last name,

00:01:33.600 the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi.

00:01:36.900 So they didn't want the Xi variant because,

00:01:39.900 well, I mean, every single COVID variant is a Xi variant.

00:01:43.180 So they didn't want to do that.

00:01:44.440 They didn't want to stigmatize the entire region.

00:01:46.880 So instead, what we're stuck with is the Omicron variant, 0.96

00:01:50.640 which, as has been pointed out, is an anagram of the word moronic. 0.85

00:01:54.860 So take from that what you will. 0.55

00:01:57.000 I actually love this.

00:01:58.260 The World Health Organization is showing its true colors here.

00:02:01.480 They're revealing quite candidly that their masters

00:02:04.300 are the Chinese Politburo and the rest of us just to have to get on board.

00:02:08.880 I mean, look, if the whole point of this is that we have to get through to Omega,

00:02:11.440 I'm OK skipping a couple of letters.

00:02:13.080 Maybe it'll actually get us to the end of the pandemic faster.

00:02:17.000 But my goodness, when I first saw that story, someone had tweeted about it that,

00:02:21.760 oh, you know, the WHO skipped over Xi, or Xi, rather.

00:02:26.320 And I was thinking, oh, that's too good to be.

00:02:28.220 I mean, surely they couldn't have done that.

00:02:30.280 And I went looking and I said, OK, there's the Lambda variant and the Mu variant. 0.69

00:02:34.600 And I couldn't find any record of a Xi variant or a Xi variant.

00:02:38.740 Now I'm calling it the Xi variant.

00:02:40.480 I couldn't find any record.

00:02:42.080 And then I'm, you know, looking.

00:02:43.460 And then finally, the WHO admitted.

00:02:45.220 And I'm like, see, this is the whole thing.

00:02:47.440 Satire is mirrored by reality.

00:02:50.100 Eventually, the two start to converge.

00:02:52.320 And that's where we are now.

00:02:54.120 So the Omicron variant is the new big thing.

00:02:58.060 And by the way, if the...

00:02:59.800 I said this in a radio interview this morning.

00:03:02.060 If the 14th letter or whatever number it is of the Greek alphabet were Trump,

00:03:07.920 I don't think they would skip it.

00:03:10.100 I think they would, like, say it's the most deadly one yet. 0.69

00:03:13.300 It's going to, you know, kill grandma. 0.99

00:03:15.000 It's going to kill your siblings. 0.99

00:03:16.160 It's going to shut down the whole world. 0.99

00:03:17.760 The Trump variant.

00:03:18.800 But no, but when it's the Xi variant and they know people are going to look at it

00:03:22.740 and see and read and say the Xi variant, it's, well, let's just skip that one.

00:03:27.940 No, no, no.

00:03:28.500 Let's just move right on to Omicron.

00:03:30.920 But let's talk a little bit about some of the pandemic craziness that is taking place here.

00:03:36.400 In Greece, the new policy coming out is that everyone over 60 must be vaccinated.

00:03:43.460 Every 60-plus Greek person must be vaccinated, according to an announcement by Greece's prime minister.

00:03:50.360 If you aren't vaccinated, you'll have to pay a €100 fine per month.

00:03:57.140 So you'll have to pay basically €1,200 a year for the duration of the vaccine mandate, for the duration of the pandemic.

00:04:04.180 But the government says it's not a penalty.

00:04:06.540 Oh, no, not a penalty in the least.

00:04:08.640 Not whatsoever.

00:04:09.620 However, the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said that it is a health fee.

00:04:17.000 It is not a punishment.

00:04:18.180 I would say it's a health fee.

00:04:20.280 So what Greece is doing is they're putting in a vaccine mandate for seniors and claiming that it's not a penalty.

00:04:27.400 It's not a fine.

00:04:28.300 They're saying it's just like the unvaccinated tax.

00:04:31.440 And if you want the unvaccinated tax to go away, you have to get the vaccinated tax credit and just be vaccinated and then you won't have to pay the fee.

00:04:39.220 But, I mean, that is the great example of how the gaslighting is at work here.

00:04:44.320 They're trying to tell you we're not punishing you for your own health decisions.

00:04:48.500 We're just, it's a health fee.

00:04:50.020 That's all.

00:04:50.720 Pay for the health care system.

00:04:52.240 That's how we're going to do it.

00:04:53.140 That's how we're going to reduce capacity by getting you unvaccinated, unwashed masses to pony up 100 euros a month. 1.00

00:04:59.660 And we're going to put that.

00:05:00.920 Now, Greece is not a country historically that has been a good manager of its economy and of its fiscal situation.

00:05:07.460 So this may just be a novel way for the Greek government to try to collect a bit of money to, I don't know, avoid needing to be bailed out by Germany again.

00:05:15.540 Or it could just be they are doing what Turkmenistan and Austria have done in taking aim at the unvaccinated 0.89

00:05:22.100 and saying even further that they do not have rights.

00:05:25.400 Because what happens if you don't pay the fine?

00:05:28.720 That's the question.

00:05:29.580 If you don't pay the fine, in a lot of jurisdictions, you could end up in prison.

00:05:35.560 So even if they aren't saying we're throwing you in jail for not being vaccinated,

00:05:39.480 if that's what happens when you don't pay the fine,

00:05:41.440 I'm actually very satisfied with the interpretation of this,

00:05:45.080 that they are throwing you in jail if you are not getting vaccinated.

00:05:48.140 Again, I don't know if that's what the Greek situation is.

00:05:50.660 Because in Austria, there's one story here that came out that says the draft version of the law

00:05:56.200 will fine Austrians up to 7,200 euros.

00:06:00.580 7,200 euros.

00:06:02.140 And they are talking about whether they have to renew that every six months.

00:06:05.640 Because if you don't pay it or if you just aren't vaccinated and it doesn't make you get vaccinated,

00:06:10.540 do they get to fine you again in a few months' time for still not being vaccinated?

00:06:16.140 They haven't yet come out with the final tax.

00:06:18.500 But again, if you don't pay it, what happens?

00:06:22.440 What happens?

00:06:23.300 At least the Greeks are saying, well, theoretically, you could just keep paying the fine every month 1.00

00:06:27.640 and it won't escalate.

00:06:28.940 But if you don't pay, in Greece or in Austria, what happens?

00:06:33.840 And I made a prediction, which as you know, if you listen to the show a lot, I don't often do.

00:06:38.660 But I made a prediction when Austria put in its vaccine mandate.

00:06:41.820 I said, you're going to start to see now a bunch of different countries start to try this out.

00:06:46.780 Because that's how it happens.

00:06:48.700 Countries look around, they see what other leaders and other governments are able to get away with,

00:06:53.400 and they start doing it themselves.

00:06:55.680 And I joked that Austria was in the company of only one country in the world when it did this,

00:07:00.960 and that was Turkmenistan, which had the first vaccine mandate in the world implemented in July

00:07:06.400 by, I don't even know if I can say his name, but I'm going to try.

00:07:11.940 President Gurbenghuli Berdamukamadov.

00:07:15.680 I can do this.

00:07:16.900 I can do this.

00:07:18.160 President Gurbenghuli Berdamukamadov.

00:07:20.940 Yeah, so President Gurbenghuli, whatever it was, has said that COVID doesn't exist there.

00:07:27.520 That's his position, but he's now putting a vaccine mandate in effect.

00:07:31.920 The Turkmenistan strongman that is President Gurbenghuli Berdamukamadov.

00:07:36.540 Oh yeah, when I say it like that, it's not, I probably didn't get it right, but anyway.

00:07:40.480 Not that memorizing the Turkmenistan leader's name needs to be my top priority here.

00:07:44.940 Now, if there was a Berdamukamadov variant, you better believe that the World Health Organization 1.00

00:07:51.440 would probably not skip over that letter of the Greek alphabet, if that were one of them.

00:07:57.140 Turkmenistan has introduced a vaccine mandate.

00:08:00.020 Austria has introduced a vaccine mandate.

00:08:02.640 Greece is just dipping its toe in the Aegean Sea with a mini age-based vaccine mandate,

00:08:08.900 and you know that other countries are going to follow behind it.

00:08:13.020 You just know, and that was the whole thing.

00:08:14.780 And Greece is, I think, an example of that.

00:08:16.920 They're looking and saying, well, Austria's done this.

00:08:19.120 Austria did the world a favor, by the way.

00:08:21.380 Not because there's anything good about the policy, but they did something so restrictive

00:08:25.940 that if a country goes like 80% as restrictive, they look, by comparison, reasonable.

00:08:33.160 So Greece is trying to say that it's reasonable right now.

00:08:36.900 Now, we're only going after people who are 60 plus.

00:08:39.560 Yeah, it's just 100 euros a month.

00:08:41.120 People are going to look at that and say, well, at least it's not like the Austria situation.

00:08:45.560 And again, I go back to that clip I played from the Australian Chief Minister of the Northern

00:08:51.120 Territory last week that by saying this, I'm an anti-vaxxer because I oppose mandatory

00:08:56.840 vaccination.

00:08:58.120 Ergo, I'm an anti-vaxxer and no one should pay attention.

00:09:00.780 Well, I think, if anything, we need to see more people who are completely indifferent on

00:09:06.760 vaccination or pro-vaccination, whatever, that are saying, ah, but I'm against mandating

00:09:12.240 it because this is the new battleground.

00:09:15.340 And whenever you hear a new variant of concern like the Omicron variant that is going to come

00:09:21.460 and basically start us from zero again, it's giving government license to do more.

00:09:28.680 And remember, policy doesn't need to be effective for it to be embraced by government.

00:09:33.560 Just take a look at the travel restrictions that Canada and other countries put in when

00:09:38.960 the Omicron variant emerged from South Africa, courtesy of Botswana.

00:09:43.060 Canada, they do this, they impose this restriction on a number of countries.

00:09:50.440 And then the first case we detect in Canada came not from any of the countries that had

00:09:54.260 a travel restriction imposed, but instead from Nigeria, which wasn't on the list at all.

00:10:00.820 The whole point is that once you detect these things, the virus has already skipped over,

00:10:05.320 you know, a third of the way across the globe.

00:10:07.940 So it's not to say the travel restrictions don't work and can't work.

00:10:12.400 It's that in order for a travel restriction to work, it needs to be imposed early.

00:10:17.500 It needs to be ironclad. 0.64

00:10:20.460 And you basically need to be an island nation.

00:10:24.180 I mean, a travel restriction in Canada was never going to work because we have one of the

00:10:29.580 most integrated cross-border supply chains anywhere in the world between Canada and the

00:10:35.000 U.S. And the number of people who were exempt from quarantine, exempt from testing,

00:10:39.920 exempt from the travel ban because of cross-border trade was astronomical.

00:10:44.140 So it was never going to work.

00:10:45.720 You look at countries like Taiwan.

00:10:47.740 Yeah, they've been able to nip it in the bud, but you know how they've done it?

00:10:51.340 Because they're literally an island.

00:10:53.360 And because when you go in there, you're in the most restrictive quarantine imaginable.

00:10:57.880 There was that one story months ago of a guy who was in quarantine and he popped his

00:11:02.400 head out the door of his hotel room and he got fined for, I think it was like some astronomical

00:11:06.880 amount.

00:11:08.300 So a travel restriction makes politicians look like they're doing something when they know

00:11:15.200 that it's not actually going to have the result because by the time it's detected, Omicron's

00:11:19.940 already gone all the way around the world and we're almost at the next letter.

00:11:24.160 So the problem is that the, what they have left are domestic restrictions, things like

00:11:32.140 lockdowns, things like vaccine mandates, things like vaccine passports, a vaccine passport,

00:11:38.440 which by the way, was supposed to in Ontario and I think British Columbia be lifted in January.

00:11:43.520 Do you believe that it's going to be lifted in the next month and a half?

00:11:46.960 I don't.

00:11:47.400 All of these predictions and projections of when we'd reopen and drop the mask mandate,

00:11:54.240 drop the vaccine passport, all of that is completely fictitious.

00:11:58.100 I mean, these people couldn't predict modeling on cases.

00:12:01.220 So I don't predict, I don't think they can predict modeling on their own government's policies

00:12:06.300 even all that well, because again, they don't know what the landscape is going to look like.

00:12:11.580 And when you've got a new variant of concern being named every month or every six weeks,

00:12:16.820 we're not going to get to that point in January where politicians are saying,

00:12:20.740 okay, yeah, we're going to go back to normal.

00:12:22.680 All they're going to do is start heaping more and more restrictions on.

00:12:25.640 And that's what we're seeing now.

00:12:27.780 Places like Australia, and Australia is a great example because it's had for much of the last

00:12:32.600 two years among the most restrictive COVID measures anywhere in the developed world.

00:12:40.160 And Australia is now seeing that they're needing to ramp those up.

00:12:46.820 They're trying to do more of the same.

00:12:50.360 And that's going to be what happens here.

00:12:52.340 The same measures that didn't protect us from all the stuff that the government says is so

00:12:56.580 dangerous right now is somehow the remedy or the solution to those things.

00:13:04.020 And again, it doesn't actually make sense, but this is what we're doing.

00:13:07.000 So we're going to see countries look at Austria and look at Greece and say, okay,

00:13:13.320 they've popped the cork on that.

00:13:16.160 That is now a legitimate tool we have at our disposal.

00:13:19.120 Let's take some version of it and make it ours.

00:13:21.660 And I can't say when or if Canada is going to mandate vaccination population wide,

00:13:25.920 but I am saying that there's going to be an increasing trend and push for this

00:13:29.560 if the pandemic goes on any longer,

00:13:32.100 which with this new variant being declared and some countries ratcheting up their restrictions,

00:13:36.540 we know is all but certain over the next couple of months.

00:13:40.300 And interestingly enough, this story was making the rounds over the weekend.

00:13:43.900 In Germany, the spectator has reported that euthanasia clinics are refusing unvaccinated customers.

00:13:52.500 So a note from the German Euthanasia Association, which was apparently a thing,

00:13:57.700 says that human closeness is a prerequisite and a breeding ground for coronavirus transmission.

00:14:03.740 So the 2G rule, which means you are either recovered,

00:14:07.840 so you have natural immunity or vaccinated,

00:14:10.080 applies in our association supplemented by situation-related measures,

00:14:15.020 such as quick tests before encounters in closed rooms.

00:14:19.000 Supplemented.

00:14:19.720 So it's not even enough to be vaccinated.

00:14:21.680 If you want to die, you have to be vaccinated against COVID.

00:14:27.380 And then you have to be tested on top of that.

00:14:30.340 They're trying to protect other people, I guess.

00:14:33.160 But the irony in this, that to be allowed to die,

00:14:37.620 you need to do all these measures that are being externally foisted on you to supposedly save your life.

00:14:44.660 I mean, again, if being unvaccinated is the death sentence that it is said to be,

00:14:49.300 then perhaps if you want to end your life, that's just the easy way to do it.

00:14:51.940 Today, I'm just not going to get vaccinated.

00:14:53.340 But no, you are not entitled to die in Germany if you have not been fully vaccinated.

00:14:59.120 Sometimes the jokes, I said in my newsletter yesterday,

00:15:01.660 sometimes the jokes write themselves and you can't really add all that much more onto these things.

00:15:07.360 But these vaccine mandates are having very real consequences.

00:15:10.440 And I know I talk about them generally in a bigger picture sense,

00:15:14.360 because I do believe in the big picture of civil liberties and personal choice

00:15:18.640 and the danger of where decisions like this from governments go.

00:15:22.860 But they also have very practical concerns as well.

00:15:26.640 And I notice that governments are starting to blink a bit.

00:15:30.380 So at first, it was these sweeping mandates that we're going to impose vaccine mandates

00:15:34.840 and you're going to lose your job if you don't get the job.

00:15:38.020 And now all of a sudden, a lot of employees are calling their bluff.

00:15:41.760 And I think that governments generally thought they were going to get near 100% compliance

00:15:47.120 when they started putting these measures.

00:15:49.120 But you've got Canada Post, just as a small example here, Canada Post in Lamont, Alberta.

00:15:54.340 Now, this is quite a small town, but it was temporarily closed the day the vaccine mandate took effect

00:16:01.060 because they didn't have staff.

00:16:03.740 They didn't have staff.

00:16:04.600 That was the belief that everyone in the community had.

00:16:06.620 That was the scuttlebutt around town that the vaccine mandate forced this particular community

00:16:11.380 to lose access to its postal service.

00:16:14.260 Alberta Health Services has 3,000 unvaccinated staff,

00:16:19.480 and they were getting closer and closer to the deadline.

00:16:23.180 And they've now had to extend the deadline and introduce rapid testing

00:16:28.060 because they cannot afford to get rid of 3,000 healthcare workers.

00:16:32.600 They can't.

00:16:33.120 They cannot afford.

00:16:34.200 No healthcare system can say we're in a pandemic,

00:16:36.480 but we can get rid of thousands and thousands of people.

00:16:39.820 And I've seen other hospital boards that are doing the same thing where they're staring down this deadline

00:16:45.480 and all of a sudden no one's getting pink slips, no one's losing their job

00:16:49.580 because they know that they can't afford to get rid of that many people.

00:16:54.500 And I've heard from a couple of people that have reached out that have said,

00:16:57.540 I'm fully vaccinated, but I'm not telling my employer that

00:17:00.840 because they're trying to show a bit of solidarity here and say,

00:17:04.060 yeah, I'm not playing ball with this.

00:17:05.980 I'm vaccinated.

00:17:06.600 I made that choice, but if that's the price of keeping my job,

00:17:10.520 I'm not going to show you the proof of such.

00:17:13.220 And that's inflating the numbers.

00:17:15.060 I mean, some of those 3,000 AHS people are, I'm sure, actually fully vaccinated.

00:17:21.080 You've got Biden administration in the U.S.,

00:17:23.980 which has delayed vaccine mandate penalties until 2022

00:17:27.900 and isn't taking action against federal workers until then, and maybe not even then.

00:17:33.320 I think a lot of these delays are just kind of governments

00:17:35.680 not wanting to admit they got it wrong.

00:17:38.680 But at the same time, they're trying to make it so that they can sort of wait it out

00:17:44.600 and hopefully the pandemic will be over before they have to live up to

00:17:48.840 what they've said they'll do to unvaccinated workers.

00:17:52.320 And it's not to say people haven't lost their jobs.

00:17:54.740 People have.

00:17:55.400 I know it's the case and I think it's wrong.

00:17:57.620 But on some of those later deadline places, those later deadline employers,

00:18:03.600 I'm noticing that there seems to be, again, I don't want to say that the people opposing

00:18:08.220 vaccine mandates have won, but there seems to be a bit of a reckoning that,

00:18:12.480 okay, maybe we misjudged our workforce here.

00:18:15.980 In the meantime, we've got to take a quick break.

00:18:17.980 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:18:20.960 Stay tuned.

00:18:21.420 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:18:35.420 I mentioned, of course, the World Health Organization deciding to capitulate to China

00:18:40.360 by skipping over the letters ZI in the Greek alphabet when naming variants.

00:18:45.600 Well, we also had this funny story where the Simpsons had an episode in which the Simpson

00:18:51.020 family went to Beijing and they visited Tiananmen Square and saw, as you can see on the screen

00:18:56.280 there, a sign that said nothing at all happened on that site in 1989.

00:19:03.460 And this episode conspicuously was absent from the offerings on Disney Plus in Hong Kong.

00:19:10.420 So The Simpsons was announced.

00:19:11.940 And if you were skipping through all the episodes from whatever season it was in 2005,

00:19:16.260 you'd say, oh, wow, I wonder what happens next.

00:19:18.220 Oh, I think it's that one where they go to China.

00:19:19.620 And then the episode wouldn't be there.

00:19:22.700 And Disney Plus has decided that appeasing China is more important than actually offering

00:19:28.300 the full slate of episodes from The Simpsons.

00:19:31.340 So I noted on Twitter that, you know, what are the letters ZI and The Simpsons have in common?

00:19:36.920 Both have been censored to appease Chairman Xi and the Chinese Politburo.

00:19:42.960 Now, I should say I'm not one of these totally bi-Canadian people.

00:19:46.660 I think buying Canadian is great, but what I mean by that is that I'm sympathetic that

00:19:50.920 not everyone can afford to buy Canadian-made things.

00:19:54.060 And I also realized that there are a lot of products that simply aren't made in Canada

00:19:58.120 because we are, in general, an import economy on a lot of the trinkets and gadgets that people

00:20:04.360 like to buy, that consumers like to buy.

00:20:06.300 But there's a difference between not buying Canadian-made things and buying Chinese-made

00:20:13.180 things.

00:20:13.640 There are, you know, depending on who you ask, 194 other countries you could choose from.

00:20:18.240 So this is why I found it interesting to spotlight this bill that was put forward in the Senate

00:20:23.180 by Senator Leo Houssakos, Bill C-204.

00:20:26.700 Now, this is not looking at just Chinese-made products.

00:20:29.680 It's identifying a problem that's very specific, which is products in China made by forced

00:20:35.360 labor, specifically in the Xinjiang region, where the genocide against the Uyghur Muslims

00:20:41.200 has taken place.

00:20:42.860 And what Senator Houssakos has proposed is a bill that would ban the import of anything

00:20:48.240 made in this region.

00:20:49.860 Anything, regardless of whether it was made by slave labor or not.

00:20:53.900 If it was from Xinjiang, you cannot import it to Canada.

00:20:57.240 Now, it's important to note, we do have a prohibition on products made by forced labor.

00:21:03.760 But that is not something that it seems like we've had tremendous success enforcing.

00:21:09.460 At least that's what all the reports about CBSA's track record on this.

00:21:12.540 This has been a huge issue, and I want to talk about it with the Senator who introduced

00:21:16.060 this bill to bar all imports from China's Xinjiang region, Conservative Senator Leo Houssakos,

00:21:22.520 who joins me now.

00:21:23.600 Senator, good to talk to you again.

00:21:24.820 Thanks for coming on today.

00:21:25.840 Thank you for having me on.

00:21:27.900 Now, we already have, as I understand it, a specific prohibition on goods made with forced

00:21:33.660 labor, which is obviously one of the big challenges in that region, in particular in China.

00:21:39.220 Why is this measure needed on top of that, in your view?

00:21:43.040 Well, we do currently, as you rightfully point out, we do have in the law books a law to deal

00:21:48.200 with this kind of issue with slave labor.

00:21:50.200 Unfortunately, it hasn't worked.

00:21:51.560 We've seen over more than a year now that the bill has been in the books that CBSA and

00:21:56.720 Customs Canada has had a very hard time making determinations of what products are coming in

00:22:01.800 that have been manufactured using slave labor.

00:22:04.580 And I think it's time that Canada stops with the tokenisms, and I think it's time that the Trudeau

00:22:10.800 government gets its head out of the sand.

00:22:12.400 And we take steps and measures against China for a variety of reasons.

00:22:16.880 China, as we know right now, is the most egregious violator of human rights around the world.

00:22:23.220 We know for a fact that they have absolutely no respect for human rights, democracy, freedom.

00:22:28.120 They're trampling on that freedom in Hong Kong.

00:22:30.640 They have no respect for international rule of law.

00:22:33.100 We saw that, how willingly they are to engage in hostage diplomacy.

00:22:37.240 And ultimately, I want to reiterate for the viewers that at the end of the day, the House

00:22:42.060 of Commons passed a motion calling what's happening to the Uyghur people and then changing

00:22:46.620 as a genocide.

00:22:48.020 The Senate of Canada passed the motion calling on the Trudeau government to implement Magnitsky

00:22:53.360 sanctions against officials in the Beijing regime.

00:22:56.960 And Trudeau continues to refuse and drag his feet.

00:22:59.780 So I think S-4, which is the number of my bill in the Senate, is a bill that amends the

00:23:06.760 tariff act.

00:23:08.120 It makes it all-encompassing.

00:23:09.980 Any product that's manufactured or comes into Canada through Xinjiang is going to be not

00:23:16.320 acceptable, will be turned around, and it will be an unequivocal message that genocide

00:23:21.000 and slave labor will not be tolerated by the Canadian people and the Canadian government.

00:23:26.320 One of the challenges here, and I'm sympathetic to companies that want to do the right thing

00:23:32.280 but can't be entirely aware of every stage of their supply chain when you get to subcontractors

00:23:38.020 and sub-subcontractors and all of that.

00:23:40.500 So it strikes me that your approach would make it a lot easier for it to be enforced both

00:23:45.140 by CBSA, but also for companies that are doing business with this part of the world.

00:23:50.300 100%.

00:23:50.900 Every single corporation right now that's doing business and changing, they know full well.

00:23:56.320 what's going on to the Uyghur minority in that region.

00:23:59.800 There's a genocide going on.

00:24:02.920 The Beijing regime is completely intolerant of all religious groups in China.

00:24:09.240 And every group and any corporation that does business there, we know full well they're doing

00:24:13.860 business because they're putting profits ahead of human rights.

00:24:17.060 And I've said this before and I'll say it again.

00:24:18.580 There is nothing more fundamental to Canadians than democracy, freedom and defense of human rights.

00:24:25.180 That's who we are.

00:24:26.120 That's our identity.

00:24:27.440 Every single Canadian that's been drawn to this country, immigrants and children of immigrants,

00:24:32.100 and we are all here either through immigration or our children of immigrants.

00:24:38.120 We've come here because of our values, because of freedom, because of our democracy, because of human rights.

00:24:43.780 And if Canadians right now aren't willing to defend them in exchange for a few cheaper products,

00:24:48.620 or because some corporations want to bypass Canadian labor standards, Canadian environmental standards,

00:24:54.940 intellectual property standards, in order to make profits, we should make it clear that the day of reckoning for China is now 0.71

00:25:02.780 and that we will not tolerate it.

00:25:04.740 And if China wants to continue to benefit from our wealthy middle class market,

00:25:09.020 they have to align themselves to our rules, our regulations and our values.

00:25:14.980 Conservatives have always been the party of free trade.

00:25:17.840 And I know that free trade in its truest sense requires free actors on both sides of the transaction.

00:25:23.360 But there are products being made in China that are not the products of slave labor.

00:25:29.660 So why should those products be closed off to the Canadian market if that's where a company is getting its supplies from?

00:25:36.720 Well, my bill is particularly zeroing in on Xinjiang because we know there's a genocide going on over there.

00:25:43.080 But I've always said in the past, we need to reevaluate all our trade relationship with China

00:25:47.500 because at the end of the day, we see how they trample on democracy in Hong Kong.

00:25:51.500 We see how they're belligerent towards our friend and ally in India, how they're trampling upon freedom in Taiwan.

00:25:59.740 It's a regime right now that has absolutely shown time and time again, their only value is pursuit of profit

00:26:06.540 and with complete disregard to the values of freedom and human rights.

00:26:11.340 So I think, again, the democratic world and democracy, funny enough, Andrew, has never been in a more precarious position than it is in 2021.

00:26:20.940 And in a lot of G7 and G20 countries, we take for granted the fact that we have certain freedoms that come along with our capitalist system.

00:26:29.500 But capitalism only genuinely works when it's accompanied by free enterprise.

00:26:33.740 And you're absolutely right. Conservatives were free traders and I'm a free trader, but free trade has to be done with a partner where you have common values.

00:26:41.620 You're aligned in terms of your judicial system, your trading laws, your human rights approach to human rights, labor laws, like I said earlier, environmental laws, intellectual property protection.

00:26:54.740 These are all things that the Chinese communist regime disregards.

00:26:59.860 I know in the United States, there is an approach where you have a reverse onus in that if you can prove that the products you're importing are not the products of slave labor,

00:27:08.940 now setting aside the challenges and proving a negative, then you'd be able to skirt past a prohibition.

00:27:14.920 Why not carve an exemption like that into your bill?

00:27:17.160 Because at the end of the day, it's just another loophole that clever organizations and corporations in China find a way to get around. 0.54

00:27:26.040 We know what's going on in Shenzhen. Our parliament has called that out.

00:27:30.740 Parliaments around the world have called that genocide what it is.

00:27:34.340 And there are certain governments that are always trying to be cued by half by allowing certain loopholes in order to appease certain corporations and certain pursuits of profit.

00:27:43.340 So, like I said, for Canadians, that shouldn't be acceptable. It shouldn't be good enough. 1.00

00:27:49.360 How do we get Canadians, and I think this is Canadian business and also Canadian consumers,

00:27:54.700 off of this reliance that we seem to have on cheap Chinese-made products?

00:27:59.280 And I mean, it's a challenge because a lot of Canadians who are themselves dealing with economic hardship

00:28:03.900 will gravitate towards products that are less expensive.

00:28:07.320 The result is that we have this self-fulfilling prophecy of a reliance on these cheap goods in China, 0.73

00:28:12.940 which, as you've noted, do not have a reliable supply chain to them.

00:28:17.460 Well, there's a few things we can do.

00:28:19.460 Number one, there's other developing economic markets in the world that would love to have some of the lower-paying jobs 0.93

00:28:25.920 that are currently the benefit of the Chinese regime and the Chinese economy.

00:28:31.820 And I also believe fundamentally that our G7 countries and G20 countries and our democracies around the world

00:28:37.780 have to find ways to become more competitive, to cut through bureaucratic red tape, to lower taxes,

00:28:44.500 to start creating manufacturing and creating jobs back in our countries,

00:28:50.060 which is something we haven't done over the last 20 years.

00:28:52.640 And of course, when we go back to doing that, we'll inject action into our economy.

00:28:59.640 When we bring immigrants to our countries, we'll give them jobs. 1.00

00:29:03.720 There's many ways to do it.

00:29:05.380 But right now, we've become very complacent.

00:29:08.540 We've become very reliant on cheap products that come in from China.

00:29:12.480 It's one thing about a product being competitive within a free market economy.

00:29:17.080 It's a whole other thing when you're using slave labor.

00:29:19.640 And I don't think in the 21st century, allowing any economic system, any totalitarian regime around the world

00:29:28.660 to use slavery in 2021, it's unbelievable that it's happening in this day and age.

00:29:35.580 And like I said, Canadians and all of us from the West have to take our heads out of the sand

00:29:40.420 and take a stand and take a stand with our wallets when we go to the stores

00:29:44.720 and you're buying your Nike product or your H&M product or you're buying any clothing, apparel.

00:29:52.580 Ask the questions.

00:29:53.740 Where is it from?

00:29:55.000 Who's made this?

00:29:56.460 It takes only a few seconds to get to the bottom of this,

00:29:59.380 but you're taking a stand for humanity when you do that.

00:30:02.960 Well, and I should note here, the Canadian government is not necessarily immune from this problem,

00:30:07.460 as I'm sure you and those watching are aware, Canadian government chose Lululemon

00:30:12.380 as being the official clothing supplier for Team Canada for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

00:30:17.380 And just last week, the Globe and Mail reported that Lululemon is on a watch list

00:30:22.180 for a brand that could be using products, specifically cotton, that was coming from forced labor.

00:30:27.180 So you're right how insidious this is in all of these different areas of enterprise

00:30:31.340 and, you know, right back to Canada.

00:30:33.840 Look, we have over the last few decades as a government and as a people,

00:30:38.800 because of our reliance on cheap goods, we've accepted and tolerated and turned a blind eye

00:30:44.640 to behavior that is just the most egregious and inexcusable.

00:30:48.840 And we have to start asking ourselves the three or 4% of our trading activity with China,

00:30:56.640 is it worth really compromising our values and who we are as a people?

00:31:02.400 You know, Canadians, hundreds of thousands gave up their lives in a successive number of wars

00:31:08.580 fighting for democracy and freedom.

00:31:11.120 People that came to this country in the 40s and 50s and 60s,

00:31:14.600 and to this date, they're fleeing oppression and hardships around the world

00:31:19.180 and authoritarian regimes, and they're coming to Canada and they embrace our passport

00:31:23.440 and flag and our way of life.

00:31:25.680 But yet on the back end, we're dealing with, like I said, the most brutal regime

00:31:30.580 who has no value for human life, no respect for the standards that we hold so dear,

00:31:37.660 and yet we continue to pursue that relationship.

00:31:40.340 And at the end of the day, we've got to look in the mirror and ask ourselves,

00:31:43.260 are we going to continue to engage in this hypocrisy?

00:31:46.780 I know you've got to get your bill through the Senate first,

00:31:49.800 and the House of Commons will have the chance to weigh in as well,

00:31:52.580 but any early indications how other parties are going to respond to this?

00:31:56.900 I would assume that this is something that should cross party lines,

00:32:00.280 although we know from that motion on condemning the genocide against Uyghurs

00:32:04.420 that the Liberal Cabinet was very much not interested in making that condemnation.

00:32:09.420 There's no doubt.

00:32:10.900 The Trudeau government, as I said earlier on, they keep dragging their feet.

00:32:15.200 They keep being in contempt of Parliament.

00:32:18.340 At the end of the day, the House of Commons, as I mentioned,

00:32:21.160 has called upon the government to recognize the genocide.

00:32:23.940 They refuse.

00:32:24.880 We've asked for Magnitsky sanctions. 0.53

00:32:26.640 They refuse.

00:32:27.280 So they seem to constantly kowtow to this Chinese regime.

00:32:33.100 They seem to condemn publicly in terms of using words certain behavior that's inexcusable.

00:32:40.020 But when it comes to backing it up with action, it never seems to equate the language.

00:32:45.840 It's business as usual.

00:32:47.700 It's trade delegations as usual.

00:32:49.520 We've seen instances where senior Liberals, including a former Prime Minister

00:32:54.620 and senior Liberal Cabinet Ministers, come out and actually encourage this government

00:32:59.300 during the two Michaels crisis to engage in hostage diplomacy, something never seen before.

00:33:05.820 And that's another concern of mine.

00:33:07.660 We've seen how the Chinese regime, using various organizations and corporations and agents,

00:33:14.860 they have infiltrated various institutions and all aspects of our governance, our academic

00:33:21.240 institutions, the business milieu, and you see it on a daily basis.

00:33:25.800 So Canadians, not only have they become addicted to cheap products from China, but we've also

00:33:30.940 have seen various industries, including many in the media, that have been addicted to money

00:33:37.220 that the Chinese regime has been pouring into this country through foundations and academic

00:33:42.880 chairs and plain out advertising when Huawei sponsors Hockey Night in Canada.

00:33:49.240 These are, this is another form of influence on a huge, on our, on our media platforms and

00:33:55.240 then communication platforms in this country.

00:33:57.440 And we have to remember all these dollars coming in from all these type of fronts for the communist

00:34:04.140 authoritarian regime are money that they've made off the back of people.

00:34:09.060 Very well said.

00:34:12.820 And you'll be happy to know, and perhaps not all that surprised, Huawei is not a sponsor of the Andrew

00:34:17.160 Lawton Show or True Norris.

00:34:18.340 So we're good there, but I think your point is very well taken.

00:34:21.500 And in the absence of action, we have some action coming from you, Senator, in Bill S-204.

00:34:28.100 Senator Leo Houssakos, thank you so much for joining me.

00:34:30.360 It's good to talk to you.

00:34:31.480 Anytime, Andrew.

00:34:32.240 Thank you so much.

00:34:32.980 Again, some things just should be too obvious, but with the whole Disney story and even the

00:34:38.540 WHO and the Greek alphabet, I mean, these little things, they speak to a general capitulation

00:34:44.060 and appeasement with regard to China that is not doing anyone well, and it's certainly not

00:34:48.660 doing democracy well.

00:34:50.120 So thanks again to Senator Leo Houssakos.

00:34:52.980 With that, we've got to wrap things up for today.

00:34:55.300 We'll be back in a couple days' time with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show

00:34:59.160 here on True Norris.

00:35:00.520 Thank you, God bless, and good day.

00:35:02.000 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:35:04.780 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - December 01, 2021

Yet another country is making vaccines mandatory

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