Juno News - December 01, 2021Yet another country is making vaccines mandatory
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Summary
Another country mandates vaccination, a new variant further delays reopening, and a proposed measure to ban products from Xinjiang, China. The Andrew Lawton Show starts on Nov. 30, 2021, right here on the True North Radio Show.
Transcript
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This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, another country mandates vaccination,
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and a proposed measure to ban products from Xinjiang, China.
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Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.
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The Andrew Lawton Show, Tuesday, November 30th, 2021.
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which means that it's just, what, 31 days left until the end of the year.
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And in 2022, we'll still be on the third year of the COVID era,
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but nevertheless, feeling like a little bit of progress is perhaps coming.
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Then again, maybe not. We have the Omicron virus,
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the Omicron variant, the Omicron strain, whatever you want to call it.
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The one that conveniently sidestepped new in the Greek alphabet
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because the World Health Organization didn't want a
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who's on first Abbott and Costello type situation of like
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the new variant and the new variant and all that jazz.
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Xi, because they didn't want to stigmatize a region.
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Conveniently, Xi is spelt the same way as Xi Jinping's last name,
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the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi.
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well, I mean, every single COVID variant is a Xi variant.
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They didn't want to stigmatize the entire region.
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So instead, what we're stuck with is the Omicron variant,
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which, as has been pointed out, is an anagram of the word moronic.
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The World Health Organization is showing its true colors here.
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They're revealing quite candidly that their masters
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are the Chinese Politburo and the rest of us just to have to get on board.
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I mean, look, if the whole point of this is that we have to get through to Omega,
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Maybe it'll actually get us to the end of the pandemic faster.
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But my goodness, when I first saw that story, someone had tweeted about it that,
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oh, you know, the WHO skipped over Xi, or Xi, rather.
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And I went looking and I said, OK, there's the Lambda variant and the Mu variant.
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And I couldn't find any record of a Xi variant or a Xi variant.
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If the 14th letter or whatever number it is of the Greek alphabet were Trump,
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I think they would, like, say it's the most deadly one yet.
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But no, but when it's the Xi variant and they know people are going to look at it
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and see and read and say the Xi variant, it's, well, let's just skip that one.
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But let's talk a little bit about some of the pandemic craziness that is taking place here.
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In Greece, the new policy coming out is that everyone over 60 must be vaccinated.
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Every 60-plus Greek person must be vaccinated, according to an announcement by Greece's prime minister.
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If you aren't vaccinated, you'll have to pay a €100 fine per month.
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So you'll have to pay basically €1,200 a year for the duration of the vaccine mandate, for the duration of the pandemic.
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However, the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said that it is a health fee.
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So what Greece is doing is they're putting in a vaccine mandate for seniors and claiming that it's not a penalty.
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They're saying it's just like the unvaccinated tax.
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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.
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But, I mean, that is the great example of how the gaslighting is at work here.
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They're trying to tell you we're not punishing you for your own health decisions.
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That's how we're going to reduce capacity by getting you unvaccinated, unwashed masses to pony up 100 euros a month.
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Now, Greece is not a country historically that has been a good manager of its economy and of its fiscal situation.
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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.
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Or it could just be they are doing what Turkmenistan and Austria have done in taking aim at the unvaccinated
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and saying even further that they do not have rights.
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Because what happens if you don't pay the fine?
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If you don't pay the fine, in a lot of jurisdictions, you could end up in prison.
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So even if they aren't saying we're throwing you in jail for not being vaccinated,
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if that's what happens when you don't pay the fine,
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I'm actually very satisfied with the interpretation of this,
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that they are throwing you in jail if you are not getting vaccinated.
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Again, I don't know if that's what the Greek situation is.
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Because in Austria, there's one story here that came out that says the draft version of the law
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And they are talking about whether they have to renew that every six months.
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Because if you don't pay it or if you just aren't vaccinated and it doesn't make you get vaccinated,
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do they get to fine you again in a few months' time for still not being vaccinated?
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At least the Greeks are saying, well, theoretically, you could just keep paying the fine every month
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But if you don't pay, in Greece or in Austria, what happens?
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And I made a prediction, which as you know, if you listen to the show a lot, I don't often do.
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But I made a prediction when Austria put in its vaccine mandate.
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I said, you're going to start to see now a bunch of different countries start to try this out.
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Countries look around, they see what other leaders and other governments are able to get away with,
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And I joked that Austria was in the company of only one country in the world when it did this,
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and that was Turkmenistan, which had the first vaccine mandate in the world implemented in July
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by, I don't even know if I can say his name, but I'm going to try.
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Yeah, so President Gurbenghuli, whatever it was, has said that COVID doesn't exist there.
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That's his position, but he's now putting a vaccine mandate in effect.
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The Turkmenistan strongman that is President Gurbenghuli Berdamukamadov.
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Oh yeah, when I say it like that, it's not, I probably didn't get it right, but anyway.
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Not that memorizing the Turkmenistan leader's name needs to be my top priority here.
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Now, if there was a Berdamukamadov variant, you better believe that the World Health Organization
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would probably not skip over that letter of the Greek alphabet, if that were one of them.
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Greece is just dipping its toe in the Aegean Sea with a mini age-based vaccine mandate,
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and you know that other countries are going to follow behind it.
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They're looking and saying, well, Austria's done this.
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Not because there's anything good about the policy, but they did something so restrictive
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that if a country goes like 80% as restrictive, they look, by comparison, reasonable.
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So Greece is trying to say that it's reasonable right now.
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Now, we're only going after people who are 60 plus.
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People are going to look at that and say, well, at least it's not like the Austria situation.
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And again, I go back to that clip I played from the Australian Chief Minister of the Northern
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Territory last week that by saying this, I'm an anti-vaxxer because I oppose mandatory
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Ergo, I'm an anti-vaxxer and no one should pay attention.
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Well, I think, if anything, we need to see more people who are completely indifferent on
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vaccination or pro-vaccination, whatever, that are saying, ah, but I'm against mandating
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And whenever you hear a new variant of concern like the Omicron variant that is going to come
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and basically start us from zero again, it's giving government license to do more.
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And remember, policy doesn't need to be effective for it to be embraced by government.
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Just take a look at the travel restrictions that Canada and other countries put in when
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the Omicron variant emerged from South Africa, courtesy of Botswana.
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Canada, they do this, they impose this restriction on a number of countries.
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And then the first case we detect in Canada came not from any of the countries that had
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a travel restriction imposed, but instead from Nigeria, which wasn't on the list at all.
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The whole point is that once you detect these things, the virus has already skipped over,
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So it's not to say the travel restrictions don't work and can't work.
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It's that in order for a travel restriction to work, it needs to be imposed early.
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I mean, a travel restriction in Canada was never going to work because we have one of the
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most integrated cross-border supply chains anywhere in the world between Canada and the
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U.S. And the number of people who were exempt from quarantine, exempt from testing,
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exempt from the travel ban because of cross-border trade was astronomical.
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Yeah, they've been able to nip it in the bud, but you know how they've done it?
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And because when you go in there, you're in the most restrictive quarantine imaginable.
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There was that one story months ago of a guy who was in quarantine and he popped his
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head out the door of his hotel room and he got fined for, I think it was like some astronomical
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So a travel restriction makes politicians look like they're doing something when they know
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that it's not actually going to have the result because by the time it's detected, Omicron's
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already gone all the way around the world and we're almost at the next letter.
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So the problem is that the, what they have left are domestic restrictions, things like
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lockdowns, things like vaccine mandates, things like vaccine passports, a vaccine passport,
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which by the way, was supposed to in Ontario and I think British Columbia be lifted in January.
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Do you believe that it's going to be lifted in the next month and a half?
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All of these predictions and projections of when we'd reopen and drop the mask mandate,
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drop the vaccine passport, all of that is completely fictitious.
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I mean, these people couldn't predict modeling on cases.
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So I don't predict, I don't think they can predict modeling on their own government's policies
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even all that well, because again, they don't know what the landscape is going to look like.
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And when you've got a new variant of concern being named every month or every six weeks,
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we're not going to get to that point in January where politicians are saying,
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All they're going to do is start heaping more and more restrictions on.
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Places like Australia, and Australia is a great example because it's had for much of the last
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two years among the most restrictive COVID measures anywhere in the developed world.
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And Australia is now seeing that they're needing to ramp those up.
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The same measures that didn't protect us from all the stuff that the government says is so
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dangerous right now is somehow the remedy or the solution to those things.
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And again, it doesn't actually make sense, but this is what we're doing.
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So we're going to see countries look at Austria and look at Greece and say, okay,
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That is now a legitimate tool we have at our disposal.
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Let's take some version of it and make it ours.
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And I can't say when or if Canada is going to mandate vaccination population wide,
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but I am saying that there's going to be an increasing trend and push for this
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which with this new variant being declared and some countries ratcheting up their restrictions,
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we know is all but certain over the next couple of months.
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And interestingly enough, this story was making the rounds over the weekend.
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In Germany, the spectator has reported that euthanasia clinics are refusing unvaccinated customers.
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So a note from the German Euthanasia Association, which was apparently a thing,
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says that human closeness is a prerequisite and a breeding ground for coronavirus transmission.
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So the 2G rule, which means you are either recovered,
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applies in our association supplemented by situation-related measures,
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such as quick tests before encounters in closed rooms.
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If you want to die, you have to be vaccinated against COVID.
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They're trying to protect other people, I guess.
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But the irony in this, that to be allowed to die,
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you need to do all these measures that are being externally foisted on you to supposedly save your life.
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I mean, again, if being unvaccinated is the death sentence that it is said to be,
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then perhaps if you want to end your life, that's just the easy way to do it.
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But no, you are not entitled to die in Germany if you have not been fully vaccinated.
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Sometimes the jokes, I said in my newsletter yesterday,
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sometimes the jokes write themselves and you can't really add all that much more onto these things.
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But these vaccine mandates are having very real consequences.
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And I know I talk about them generally in a bigger picture sense,
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because I do believe in the big picture of civil liberties and personal choice
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and the danger of where decisions like this from governments go.
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But they also have very practical concerns as well.
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And I notice that governments are starting to blink a bit.
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So at first, it was these sweeping mandates that we're going to impose vaccine mandates
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and you're going to lose your job if you don't get the job.
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And now all of a sudden, a lot of employees are calling their bluff.
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And I think that governments generally thought they were going to get near 100% compliance
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But you've got Canada Post, just as a small example here, Canada Post in Lamont, Alberta.
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Now, this is quite a small town, but it was temporarily closed the day the vaccine mandate took effect
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That was the belief that everyone in the community had.
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That was the scuttlebutt around town that the vaccine mandate forced this particular community
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Alberta Health Services has 3,000 unvaccinated staff,
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and they were getting closer and closer to the deadline.
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And they've now had to extend the deadline and introduce rapid testing
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because they cannot afford to get rid of 3,000 healthcare workers.
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No healthcare system can say we're in a pandemic,
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but we can get rid of thousands and thousands of people.
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And I've seen other hospital boards that are doing the same thing where they're staring down this deadline
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and all of a sudden no one's getting pink slips, no one's losing their job
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because they know that they can't afford to get rid of that many people.
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And I've heard from a couple of people that have reached out that have said,
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I'm fully vaccinated, but I'm not telling my employer that
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because they're trying to show a bit of solidarity here and say,
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I made that choice, but if that's the price of keeping my job,
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I mean, some of those 3,000 AHS people are, I'm sure, actually fully vaccinated.
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which has delayed vaccine mandate penalties until 2022
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and isn't taking action against federal workers until then, and maybe not even then.
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I think a lot of these delays are just kind of governments
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But at the same time, they're trying to make it so that they can sort of wait it out
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and hopefully the pandemic will be over before they have to live up to
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what they've said they'll do to unvaccinated workers.
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And it's not to say people haven't lost their jobs.
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But on some of those later deadline places, those later deadline employers,
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I'm noticing that there seems to be, again, I don't want to say that the people opposing
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vaccine mandates have won, but there seems to be a bit of a reckoning that,
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In the meantime, we've got to take a quick break.
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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I mentioned, of course, the World Health Organization deciding to capitulate to China
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by skipping over the letters ZI in the Greek alphabet when naming variants.
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Well, we also had this funny story where the Simpsons had an episode in which the Simpson
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family went to Beijing and they visited Tiananmen Square and saw, as you can see on the screen
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there, a sign that said nothing at all happened on that site in 1989.
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And this episode conspicuously was absent from the offerings on Disney Plus in Hong Kong.
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And if you were skipping through all the episodes from whatever season it was in 2005,
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you'd say, oh, wow, I wonder what happens next.
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Oh, I think it's that one where they go to China.
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And Disney Plus has decided that appeasing China is more important than actually offering
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So I noted on Twitter that, you know, what are the letters ZI and The Simpsons have in common?
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Both have been censored to appease Chairman Xi and the Chinese Politburo.
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Now, I should say I'm not one of these totally bi-Canadian people.
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I think buying Canadian is great, but what I mean by that is that I'm sympathetic that
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not everyone can afford to buy Canadian-made things.
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And I also realized that there are a lot of products that simply aren't made in Canada
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because we are, in general, an import economy on a lot of the trinkets and gadgets that people
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But there's a difference between not buying Canadian-made things and buying Chinese-made
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There are, you know, depending on who you ask, 194 other countries you could choose from.
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So this is why I found it interesting to spotlight this bill that was put forward in the Senate
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Now, this is not looking at just Chinese-made products.
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It's identifying a problem that's very specific, which is products in China made by forced
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labor, specifically in the Xinjiang region, where the genocide against the Uyghur Muslims
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And what Senator Houssakos has proposed is a bill that would ban the import of anything
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Anything, regardless of whether it was made by slave labor or not.
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If it was from Xinjiang, you cannot import it to Canada.
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Now, it's important to note, we do have a prohibition on products made by forced labor.
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But that is not something that it seems like we've had tremendous success enforcing.
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At least that's what all the reports about CBSA's track record on this.
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This has been a huge issue, and I want to talk about it with the Senator who introduced
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this bill to bar all imports from China's Xinjiang region, Conservative Senator Leo Houssakos,
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Now, we already have, as I understand it, a specific prohibition on goods made with forced
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labor, which is obviously one of the big challenges in that region, in particular in China.
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Why is this measure needed on top of that, in your view?
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Well, we do currently, as you rightfully point out, we do have in the law books a law to deal
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We've seen over more than a year now that the bill has been in the books that CBSA and
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Customs Canada has had a very hard time making determinations of what products are coming in
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And I think it's time that Canada stops with the tokenisms, and I think it's time that the Trudeau
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And we take steps and measures against China for a variety of reasons.
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China, as we know right now, is the most egregious violator of human rights around the world.
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We know for a fact that they have absolutely no respect for human rights, democracy, freedom.
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They're trampling on that freedom in Hong Kong.
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They have no respect for international rule of law.
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We saw that, how willingly they are to engage in hostage diplomacy.
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And ultimately, I want to reiterate for the viewers that at the end of the day, the House
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of Commons passed a motion calling what's happening to the Uyghur people and then changing
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The Senate of Canada passed the motion calling on the Trudeau government to implement Magnitsky
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sanctions against officials in the Beijing regime.
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And Trudeau continues to refuse and drag his feet.
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So I think S-4, which is the number of my bill in the Senate, is a bill that amends the
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Any product that's manufactured or comes into Canada through Xinjiang is going to be not
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acceptable, will be turned around, and it will be an unequivocal message that genocide
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and slave labor will not be tolerated by the Canadian people and the Canadian government.
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One of the challenges here, and I'm sympathetic to companies that want to do the right thing
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but can't be entirely aware of every stage of their supply chain when you get to subcontractors
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So it strikes me that your approach would make it a lot easier for it to be enforced both
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by CBSA, but also for companies that are doing business with this part of the world.
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Every single corporation right now that's doing business and changing, they know full well.
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what's going on to the Uyghur minority in that region.
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The Beijing regime is completely intolerant of all religious groups in China.
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And every group and any corporation that does business there, we know full well they're doing
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business because they're putting profits ahead of human rights.
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And I've said this before and I'll say it again.
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There is nothing more fundamental to Canadians than democracy, freedom and defense of human rights.
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Every single Canadian that's been drawn to this country, immigrants and children of immigrants,
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and we are all here either through immigration or our children of immigrants.
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We've come here because of our values, because of freedom, because of our democracy, because of human rights.
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And if Canadians right now aren't willing to defend them in exchange for a few cheaper products,
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or because some corporations want to bypass Canadian labor standards, Canadian environmental standards,
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intellectual property standards, in order to make profits, we should make it clear that the day of reckoning for China is now
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And if China wants to continue to benefit from our wealthy middle class market,
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they have to align themselves to our rules, our regulations and our values.
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Conservatives have always been the party of free trade.
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And I know that free trade in its truest sense requires free actors on both sides of the transaction.
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But there are products being made in China that are not the products of slave labor.
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So why should those products be closed off to the Canadian market if that's where a company is getting its supplies from?
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Well, my bill is particularly zeroing in on Xinjiang because we know there's a genocide going on over there.
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But I've always said in the past, we need to reevaluate all our trade relationship with China
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because at the end of the day, we see how they trample on democracy in Hong Kong.
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We see how they're belligerent towards our friend and ally in India, how they're trampling upon freedom in Taiwan.
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It's a regime right now that has absolutely shown time and time again, their only value is pursuit of profit
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and with complete disregard to the values of freedom and human rights.
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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.
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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.
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But capitalism only genuinely works when it's accompanied by free enterprise.
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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.
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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.
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These are all things that the Chinese communist regime disregards.
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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.
00:28:19.460
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
00:29:08.540
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.
00:29:56.460
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
00:30:33.840
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
00:31:11.120
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
00:31:25.680
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.
00:32:10.900
The Trudeau government, as I said earlier on, they keep dragging their feet.
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.
00:32:27.280
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.
00:32:49.520
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.
00:33:07.660
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
00:33:57.440
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.
00:34:12.820
And you'll be happy to know, and perhaps not all that surprised, Huawei is not a sponsor of the Andrew
00:34:18.340
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.
00:34:32.980
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
00:34:52.980
With that, we've got to wrap things up for today.
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We'll be back in a couple days' time with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show
00:35:02.000
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:35:04.780
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